Bored Beyond Belief !!

Onboard flight – 9W2306, 7th June 2008.

I was never destined to be a teacher trainer. It happened by chance. A sweet twist of fate, an unwished destiny. In fact I feel I have hardly made choices in my life. Things have just happened and I chose to go with the flow.

The reason I did B.Com (H) – Vinnie did it and it seemed the obvious route for a commerce student
B.Ed – 2 months vacation and fewer working hours
M.Com- Something to study while I started with my first job, and a masters degree looked yumm
M.Ed – Next obvious degree.
M.Phil – To get promoted
and so on…

I ve never been like the kind of teachers that I had. I broke the mould from the very beginning, which often made the people around me feel that I wasn’t cut for the job. I mingled with my students. I refused to follow the trend of dictating notes. I treated them as adults and they too had the right to raise voice.

Getting to teach the most feared subject (Philosophy in Education) really helped me figure out a way to teach like the teachers I admired back in college and yet bring in the qualities I so wanted them to have aswell.

Initially it was a great pain. Required a lot of homework and preparation on my part. Gradually I made my way and drew analogies from movies to explain the content and broke the content in flowcharts to make it more comprehendible. End result- Students loved my class, the subject and I derived some strange thrill out of the whole ordeal.

There is nothing more satisfying than coming out of a class where your students feel a “Wow” on the way the concept was explained and you feel great that you’ve somehow made a difference to their lives.

Yesterday was my last day at work. And probably the last time I went in a class to train teachers to be. I used the same teaching aids that I had prepared when I was a teacher trainee. And now they finally rest in peace in the dustbin after their fruitful service of 5 years.

Can’t say about my students, but I feel truly delighted by this journey.

I have been studying continuously (and appearing for exams) for the past 22 years continuously.

Ever since I got out of school, I have hardly studied before appearing for the exam. Be it the CETs or the final examinations. I just didnt study well. Just a day or two of studying. Infact for more than 2 courses I just opened the books a day before the exam (I am not boasting about it, cos I aint proud of it). And each time the results appeared, I breathed a sigh of relief for having cleared it, and would think how much better it would have been had i studied. The typical thought of:

Agar bina padhe itne marks aa gaye agar padh leti to kitne achhe aate marks

And then I would almost quietly promise myself that it wont be repeated since now I know what its like. But yet again, the exam times come, I dont open the books throughout the year, and then start studying 12 hours before the exam.

And this coming from a person who is doing specialisation in the field of Education…. Not done !!

Friday was the farewell for the first batch of students I taught. And I am definately keeping my fingers crossed for their performance

This one year has taught me more than what I had learnt in the 3 years of my job. The urge to perform like the teachers I looked up to only made me realise the amount of hardwork that went in making each lecture memorable. It wasnt just about going in there, standing and dictating notes. It was more. It was about striking a chord with each child. Letting them speak. Even if that didnt make sense. Atleast they started thinking, even if it was in the wrong direction. Cos I would eventually steer them to where they are supposed to reach.

It taught me to be patient. A lot more. They say, In this profession you cant survive if you arent patient. I remember my sister and dad used to test my patience many a times and I always lost. I still do many a times. I remember whenever I got irritated on the silly questions asked by my sister, she just reminded me of how I would tackle the same had it been asked from my student. And yeah somewhere it hit. My students asked wierd questions, some which even made me think “what!!, you are still stuck there??“. But, I had to stop where I was to bring clarity to their thought.

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Yes I am. And here is why.

Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.
I teach them to write and then I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in math.
I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.
I make my students stand to pay allegiance to their Flag, to their country.
Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

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Ours is a secular nation with a highly demanding value system. There are certain norms and ethics set for each role a human plays in our society. How well does one perform these roles and duties become the judgmental factors about his/her personality.

Teacher too, since time immemorial, has been expected to perform his/her duties in a given set pattern. In the past, the teacher was of utmost importance in the society. The students blindly followed their teachers and their teachings. Teachers too felt responsible for their task of creating good human beings out of their students who came raw and naive to them for education. They made sure that they developed the intellectual and social aspects of their personality equally. People wished to become teachers because of the respect they earned in the society.

Talking of the times today, how many out of our present generations wish to take up this profession? If the first word striking your minds is ‘none’ then it’s a serious issue of concern!

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Introduction:

“A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame”.

In India, education has always been viewed as a moral and teaching has been valued for its transformative impact on learners. Transformative, because it transforms the learner as well as the teacher in a deep, mysterious and abiding manner. A teacher’s work requires mastery over a body of knowledge to be taught as well as the development of personal knowledge about what is worth teaching and which ways are relatively more effective. The pre-service teacher education programme formally teaches them the technique of teaching. But most of what experienced teachers learn about teaching, is learnt on-the-job, by making sense of one’s day to day experiences. And it needs to be constantly restructured in the light of subsequent experiences.

For a school, the most important asset is its teaching force. And, the most important investment a school management, administrators, and parents can make in a school system is to ensure that teachers continue to learn. Continuous, high-quality professional development of teachers is essential not only for a school, but also for the nation’s goal of high standards of learning for every child.

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Today I was attending an International Seminar organised by Indian association of Teacher Education and Commonwealth of learning on the topic ” E-Learning in Teacher Education” at my alma mater Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi. Now even though the topic seems relevant, but the content of the papers presented there was anywhere but close to the theme per se.

Rather than focussing on the strategies to incorporate ICT in teacher education, the presenters lost focus and started the debate on its need. The whole talk about application of technology in education has no meaning if we are still questioning its very existence and importance. I think its high time we get out of the debate of whether to have or not have technology incorporation in education in India. We have come way ahead of that menial debate. Its time to focus on its application and the ways we can make the best out of the opportunities available rather than to sit and scrutanise whether its beneficial or not.

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“We must act now – we cannot wait for everything to be right – for bandwidth to increase and technology penetration to increase in schools. Many things in life can wait. But the child cannot. Now is the time when his bones are being formed, his blood is being made and his mind is being shaped. His name is not tomorrow. It is today”

- Argentinean writer Gabriella Marcell

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become, within a very short time, one of the basic building blocks of modern society. Many countries now regard understanding ICT and mastering the basic skills and concepts of ICT as part of the core of education, alongside reading, writing and numeracy. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) considers ICT a tool for developing countries to progress and leapfrog to the developed world. India during the last decade has also embarked on ICT for development in rather big way and sought to transform India into what has been termed as “Knowledge Superpower”.

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Lately I have been involved in a project of training of teachers working with underprivileged children. Each training workshop lasts for 2 days and usually has teachers coming in for training from 1-2 NGOs of NCR.

Today was one such training workshop involving around 31 teachers from one NGO only. They had in their written confirmation sent a list of 56 teachers, which was shortened yesterday to 45 and eventually only 31 arrived. And we were not informed about any of these changes at all ! I wont start cribbing about the waste of resources ( food etc.) as there is more to gulp.

The training schedule was 11.00 am- 3.00 pm. The participants reported to our institute at 11.45 am, despite the reporting time being 10.45 am.So what, they were just an hour late ! I shouldnt even start off about the height of our displeasure because of their attitude. The icing on the cake was that one of them was even carrying a todder in arm for the training.
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Ever since I made an entry in the field of Teaching, I have always aspired to be a kind of teacher who shall be remembered for her teaching, for being a friend, a guide and more of a co-learner.

I happened to read a letter that a teacher of St.Stephens college has written to her students. All that I could gather when I read her letter is that apart from being concerned about the various issues related to the college, she is truly madly and deeply in love with her profession of Teaching. And its not everyday that you come across such great teachers.

I sincerely hope to make my place and leave a mark for myself ,for my students to look back, smile and remember fondly