The Realization | Diary of a Teach For India Fellow | My TFI Journey | My TFI Ahmedabad experience | Building Student Leaders | Design For Change
Being a teacher is a thing of immense responsibility. I have realized now how important it is for a teacher to be mentally prepared to perform with the best of abilities and to keep on doing it everyday with consistency. Teaching is a very noble profession and I can say with some confidence that it's not very easy and it's not everyone's cup of tea.
As a student, I never understood the pains of a teacher and the countless hours of planning that goes into each lecture. Besides planning, teachers are also required to manage the class effectively so that significant learning happens in the classroom. Setting up and consistently following classroom structures and laying down rules and procedures for students to follow are some of the other important responsibilities of an educator. Obviously these rules and structures are more important for teachers teaching elementary kids as little ones are more inclined towards disrupting the class on a regular basis. Well, before I joined Teach For India, I was not aware about any of these hardships faced by educators.
Presently, I am a fourth grade teacher in a low income school in Ahmedabad and I am responsible for changing the life course of 25 little ones who come from very humble households. Whenever I enter my classroom, I sort of become an actor. I am prepared to do just about anything in the classroom to make my kids learn new skills and to make them laugh and smile. Sometimes I dance in front of them and sometimes I sing for them. Many times I turn into a story teller, an orator, a writer, a coder as well as a painter. There are those hard times when I have to be the judge and decide which performance was the best. Well, some roles are more difficult to play than others but I revel in each of them. Although I am just acting but I really feel deeply connected to my soul when I am doing it for my children. Yes they giggle and laugh at me, sometimes making me feel like a clown but what matters is that they learn something new with each act of mine.
Reflecting back and digging deeper into the question of why I joined the movement, I found a very simple answer. I want to make the kids curious, curious to learn new skills, curious to explore anything new, curious to ask any question and curious enough to never settle for the norm and challenge everything that is thrown to them. I believe that this curiosity would enable them to dream big and my task is to help them turn these dreams into reality. It is easier said than done and it would require tons of patience from my part as bringing any sort of change in children takes time. I really do hope that this change will happen and my kids are going to fly high and shine brightly. I may not be there physically to witness this change but it is gratifying to believe that it will happen one day and that I would be playing a small but decisive role to make that happen.
As a student, I never understood the pains of a teacher and the countless hours of planning that goes into each lecture. Besides planning, teachers are also required to manage the class effectively so that significant learning happens in the classroom. Setting up and consistently following classroom structures and laying down rules and procedures for students to follow are some of the other important responsibilities of an educator. Obviously these rules and structures are more important for teachers teaching elementary kids as little ones are more inclined towards disrupting the class on a regular basis. Well, before I joined Teach For India, I was not aware about any of these hardships faced by educators.
Presently, I am a fourth grade teacher in a low income school in Ahmedabad and I am responsible for changing the life course of 25 little ones who come from very humble households. Whenever I enter my classroom, I sort of become an actor. I am prepared to do just about anything in the classroom to make my kids learn new skills and to make them laugh and smile. Sometimes I dance in front of them and sometimes I sing for them. Many times I turn into a story teller, an orator, a writer, a coder as well as a painter. There are those hard times when I have to be the judge and decide which performance was the best. Well, some roles are more difficult to play than others but I revel in each of them. Although I am just acting but I really feel deeply connected to my soul when I am doing it for my children. Yes they giggle and laugh at me, sometimes making me feel like a clown but what matters is that they learn something new with each act of mine.
Reflecting back and digging deeper into the question of why I joined the movement, I found a very simple answer. I want to make the kids curious, curious to learn new skills, curious to explore anything new, curious to ask any question and curious enough to never settle for the norm and challenge everything that is thrown to them. I believe that this curiosity would enable them to dream big and my task is to help them turn these dreams into reality. It is easier said than done and it would require tons of patience from my part as bringing any sort of change in children takes time. I really do hope that this change will happen and my kids are going to fly high and shine brightly. I may not be there physically to witness this change but it is gratifying to believe that it will happen one day and that I would be playing a small but decisive role to make that happen.
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