A Day after holidays | Diary of a Teach For India Fellow | My TFI Journey | My TFI Ahmedabad experience | Building Student Leaders | Design For Change

I boarded an evening flight to Ahmedabad as I had to attend school the next morning. I entered the school with a big smile on my face and was brimming with vitality and energy, so eager to transfer that zeal to my kids. I was just about to climb the stairs leading up to my classroom when Raj(name changed) stopped me from going any further and started to tell me with a sad face what had happened in the classroom. At first I was in disbelief, so I continued my ascent and went inside the class. No sooner had I entered than I began to get an extremely obnoxious and foul smell from the room. Manthan was actually right, there was a dead cat covered with flies lying rotting near the blackboard. The putrid smell was burning my nose and it was just getting impossible even to move further inside the classroom. God knows how some of the kids managed to get in to keep their bags inside.

I was definitely not expecting anything remotely close to this. It was not a very hopeful and  promising start of the day for my children and I too felt shocked and a little helpless. I decided that I wouldn't be taking my class in that room as I knew that the smell wouldn't leave the room no matter how diligently we cleaned the floor or sprayed room fresheners in every corner of the room. I got to know that no classroom was vacant in the school, so there was no choice of relocating to another room. Then I thought of taking the kids to the nearby park as the weather was also pleasant and in this way their learning also wouldn't be affected. Just when I was about to take my kids to the park, I got to know that my co-fellow was not well and wouldn't be attending the school that day. It meant that I had to combine my class with his. It gave me a sense of relief and happiness that my kids would get a classroom to study in and that they could make friends with the children in the other class. I believe it's also similar to giving exposure to the kids that we talk about all the time. Learning with new peers and in a totally new setting definitely opens up and widens the mind of a child.
This experience was unique for me as it taught me how to remain poised and calm in overwhelming situations and how to deal with such challenges with equanimity. The beginning of the day wasn't that great but it later turned out to be a fruitful day of good learning for so many 4th graders. I was really proud of myself for what I had done that day. I'm looking forward to many more unique experiences as I go along in my fellowship journey. I am ready to take on any challenge head on but I sincerely hope that this kind of unfortunate incident doesn't repeat itself in the future. :)

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