I AM A TEACHER....FEEDBACK !!

I am a teacher ! I am a human being too ! In traditional Indian household,  by and large teachers and  police men get same respect. If any child behaves badly they are told they would be handed over to the policemen or a complaint shall be lodged with the teacher. By and large children develop a sort of negative feeling towards these professions. Imagine in a class of thirty odd students everyone's future goal is to become a doctor, engineer, software expert, scientist even Non Resident Indian but no one wants to become a teacher.That is the level of social respect attached to this profession.

Despite this there are some very pleasant moments when the students past as well as present along with their parents or close family members interact with you on a one to one basis.

Take my own case, after choosing to accept my job in Coimbatore, I travelled from my native place to seek the blessings of my teacher Ganga. She was my role model as she used to be a strict but  affectionate teacher who showed great deal of empathy to under privileged and downtrodden in the class. At the same time she as well made each one of us very comfortable in her class and wherever we went along with us.

Our meeting took place in her home in a very posh area near sector seventeen in Chandigarh. As her husband was a senior administrator in the government she had that quarters allocated to their family. She could sense that I would be intimidated by such a grandiose set up. So I was welcomed extra warmly and made comfortable. She went through my appointment letter which I offered voluntarily to show her. She was happy which I could see from her facial reaction as there were frequent smiles. Then she offered me a valuable suggestion. She advised me to make the class room teaching from being monologue to dialogue. She also advised me to be a seeker of feedback frequently !! After she wished me well, I took leave of her fully satisfied.

Coimbatore, despite an alien environment for a Punjabi girl like me became a cake walk with Ganga Teachers blessing. I made it a point to talk to as many students as possible in English and Hindi. In that process picking up Tamil words !

Tina was one such student who was the darling student in my class 4 standard. The other day there was some discussion of local food and children's preference etc. Most of the boys and girls started telling Idli, Dosa, Uppuma, Parotha, Poori etc. as their favourite food. When the turn of Tina came she told " Bholi". I was not aware of that dish. I asked Tina to describe the dish. All that I could learn from her was that it was a sweet dish and flat like " roti" in shape. I could not persuade her to elaborate the same further. I left it like that and left as the class for that day ended.

Three days latter, I was sitting in the staff room correcting some assignments. I saw a shadow and Tina was standing near the door. She came to me and handed over a foil roll. She told me that she had asked her mother to prepare Bholi for me. There was a small note from her mother Mrs. Shantha narrating that Tina always narrated all that transpired in the class and she requested me to accept the snacks Bholi. There was another page the method of preparation.

Who told that teaching is a dull monotonous profession. With good students like Tina everyday is an interesting experience !!

I AM A TEACHER..... ADDICTION TO ELECTRONIC GADGETS

This is the age of electronics !! World has shrunk on account of world wide web ! We have I Phone, Android phone, I Pad, Tablet, smart phone and what not to keep everyone glued on to the screen. We wake up looking at the screen and doze off staring the same. There are households where parents, grand parents are glued to TV / Laptop screens and children are glued to their cell phones or I pad . There is a common joke that to make the family to assemble for a Pooja (prayer) or lunch or dinner the best mode of action is to stop the Wi-Fi immediately.

As a teacher, I always have an issue with children who are heavily addicted to the Screen. By and large all of them suffer from serious attention deficiency disorder !! As the screen shots on every electronic gadgets including TV change so fast may be a fraction of a second. This happens all too fast for any of us to even understand and react. Whereas, whatever is written on a black board  or modern white boards which adorn the class rooms or books which are expected to be read by the students are static images. They will change their form, shape, design only when someone puts in efforts to understand and assimilate to move further.

This frustrates the child and they become bored with the assigned work in class room, while doing home work. This makes progress of cognitive skills to get stunted  resulting in poor class room participation, lower academic scores and what not.

Children who are stuck to their play stations and who fail to show up in the play ground have obese physique. Due to non participation in games they have poor interpersonal skills as well as lower team spirit. They are bound to become loners as they grow up in life. Their ability to comprehend and appreciate art and culture too becomes a question mark !

Last week we had a departmental meeting. One of the suggestion was to go for various WhatsApp groups in each class for assigning home work, house activities, art & cultural activities. As the idea came from the computer science teacher every one was growing over board and agreeing to the same in order to avoid too much writing work in students diaries. I put my foot down and told those present that a teacher was expected to write in the diary and parents are expected to check the diary. I also pointed out that rather than weaning the students away from cell phones WhatsApp groups would encourage them to use more cell phones.

Principal understood my point and shot down the suggestion. Don't you agree with me !!!

Please keep all these gadgets away from your children. Let them read books, play real physical games and meet one another in person not through smart phones !!

I AM A TEACHER....WALK THE TALK !!

" Parents are the first Teachers and Teachers are the first parents ! " Thus goes an old saying ! How true it is !

I often get to meet parents who have issues with school timings, attendance, health issues of their wards, domestic issues,  marks & grade on a few tests or project, as if their ward's life depends on that eternally and what not. All issues have direct or indirect effect on the students and their performance in school. This directly has a bearing on their wards long term performance. All issues can be solved by mutual discussion. But generally this is not the case. Parents choose to compare and try to make every thing a bitterly fought out battle. This naturally puts every teacher off.

Take the typical case of Pink's mom who has issues with Chintu's mom as both of them are in the same kitty and party circle. They have ego issues which they try to bring and project the same on their children. Whenever we have parents teachers association ( PTA) meeting Pinky's mom would not be satisfied with seeing Pinky's progress card, project works, school works etc. She would want to see all of that of Chintu. When objected she would accuse the whole teacher fraternity of partiality, nepotism, favouritism and what not ! During one of the PTA we had to seek the intervention of the Principal who had to show her place firmly but politely !

Another serious matter is parents telling lies to save their wards. Many a time they oversleep due to late night parties, gambling sessions or some issues at home. On account of that the children would miss school. Next day we would get letter declaring the death of grand mother or grand father or beloved pet. Rupal once brought a note from her father stating that she missed her class as her pet parrot had died. I just forwarded the note to Principal's office.

I took time to meet Rupal during lunch break. I told her that I felt very for her pet's death. She did not react and kept staring at the floor. I told her to not to neglect her food and keep going ahead with her lunch. Then casually I asked her whether I could visit her home during weekend to see the parrot's photos. Rupal burst into tears and told me not to do so. She also told me that she had no pets at home. Her parents had gone for some party the previous night and returned home late. They did not get up early to prepare Rupal for school as the servant maid too was absent that day.

The letter of excuse was a blatant lie to cover up !!!

I AM A TEACHER....RESPECT FOR ELDERS !!

" Children are reflection of parents " can anyone deny this ! Children have very impressionable minds. Their minds absorb both good and bad with ease and reflect the same at their own convenience whenever they want. As I told you earlier, I have children come and talk to me during the class as well as during lunch breaks. Sometime Parents Teacher meetings too give me a chance to interact with the whole family. I cherish these interactions as I feel them as the icing on the cake of my profession which is very noble !

Kumaresh was one such boy who happened to be in my second standard class. A prankster who chose to sit in the back benches. He was naughty to the core. To control him was a nightmare. He was always up with some prank or the other. In a class of 35 students with even six to rows were needed to accommodate the entire strength. Good or bad Kumaresh used to be in the last bench of any line. I talked to their class teacher Kamala who taught them English. She also had the same feeling as in one of her class Kumaresh was found to make cat calls which was beyond anyone's imagination.

As an International school, caning and other physical punishments were big NO NO in our school. So with Kamala's tacit approval, I moved Kumaresh to the first row. Thus most of the class questions were directed at him. This put him into alert mode all the time though, he always failed to answer. But over a period of time he started paying attention to the class activities. With Kamala's help, I started checking his class as well as homework note books routinely.

It was found that most of the pages were either left blank or had unwanted doodle in them scribbled without any aim or motto. I took this up with Kamala and started writing on the Diary which Kumaresh was expected to show his parents. That too were never checked by parents or corrected. Then I took the matter up with Principal. As advised by him Kumaresh parents were called for a meeting.

Meanwhile, one day Kamala came to see me in between the classes and told me that she wanted to talk to me alone. We took time out and met in the canteen. I was told that Kumaresh's mother had called and she was abusive during the telephonic conversation. She also told me that I was being referred by their family in their household as "Hindi Wali" a form of derogatory reference especially about someone speaking Hindi language. I told Kamala to ignore that and asked her when they would visit the Principal. For that Kamala told me that they were avoiding the meeting.

But the visit to meet the Principal could not be dodged more than a week. On a Friday the whole family of Kumaresh were in school. His mother decked up in Kanjeevaram saree and heavy perfume was present. She was looking more like a walking jewellery shop. Kumaresh's father was there following her behind. He was also seen wearing thick bracelet, a few chains, ring in every finger and his safari suit buttons were left open intentionally probably revealing his broad chest and thick hair on that.

I was in my class and could not avoid watching them from a distance on account of the heavy and eddy perfumes. Kumaresh was looking jittery as he would be called to the Principal's office. As anticipated a few minutes later there was a slip brought in by the peon asking me and Kamala to attend the meeting in the Principal's office. Kamala was in the staff room so she had seen the slip as she had initialled on that.

I marched to the Principal's office and proactively taken Kumaresh with me. I reassured him not to worry and cry.  I asked him to wait outside the principal's office. As I entered the office Kamala was already there seated. I greeted the parents with Namasthe and sat there in one end of the table. The initial conversation was in English for my benefit as I did not understand Tamil. Then the talk moved in Tamil despite frequent interruptions by the Principal to speak in English. Then Kumaresh's mother started in Tamil and repeatedly stated Hindi Wali twice. I got up and told the Principal that I neither get to understand anything spoken in Tamil nor get to contribute. I wanted to be excused from the meeting.

The Principal told me to wait for a minute and asked to me usher in Kumaresh. Kumaresh walked in reluctantly. He was asked by The Principal what was the issue and why was he making mischief in the classes. Kumaresh said that he had no issues and stated that after moving to the front bench he was enjoying the classes and school better. He was asked to leave and The Principal told the parents to keep their mouth shut and listen to her advice.

The Principal told in very strong manner that they could keep their political ideology at home. But should not play a bad influence on the child's psychology. As they were referring to a teacher
as  " Hindi Wali" the child lost respect for the teacher and started misbehaving in the class. Once the teacher reached out to the student there is a drastic change in his behaviour and he was trying to become a better student. But the political ideology of parents, hatred for a language at home was not giving encouraging signal resulting in disturbances in the child's mind !!

Words big or small, good or bad have great influence in Child's mind. Let us inculcate respect, affect and empathy in them !!

   

I AM A TEACHER.....NUTRITIOUS SNACKS / MEALS !!

I am a teacher ! It is not destiny that brought me to this profession. I am genuinely interested in Children and their welfare. Therefore, when I got a chance after a M.A in Hindi to teach in a school in Tamil Nadu to be precise Coimbatore  I jumped at that opportunity. I hail from Punjab and used to live in a place near Himachal Pradesh. That area is supposed to be most beautiful and known as Shivalik Range on account of the mountainous terrain ! To move from that beautiful place to Coimbatore was a tough decision. I was many a time having second thought. But situation at
home and bleak chances of getting a good teaching job in my home town made me to grab this opportunity !

Here I am in an INTERNATIONAL school. In India anything and everything with a tag...NEW, IMPROVED and INTERNATIONAL sells. Be it Shampoo, Snacks or Biscuits. School is no different. But our school is indeed a international one with students from all over the world staying in a hostel of world class. The environment is maintained well with good manicured lawns, kitchen gardens, flower beds, shrubs which are periodically trimmed and pruned to make them appeal to every visitor's eyes. Probably one of the few educational institutions campuses which can boast of such a variety of trees apart from usual banana coconut trees which are native to Coimbatore.

I have been assigned to teach Hindi language from class one to five. Thus, I do not have any assigned class exclusively for me. So I move from class to the other every fifty minutes. I teach tiny tots to fairly grown up students of approximately twelve to thirteen years age. As this is a Co-educational school, I have both boys and girls in my classes. Though we have residential hostel facility mostly nearly 60% of our students are day scholars. They get picked up dropped by the school buses.

As a language teacher, you get to communicate with students very intimately and as people's rather pupil's person I get better chances to interact with students. In our school I have been assigned art activities. I train the students in Dramas and one act plays. Last Children's day my drama titled CHACHA NEHRU was an instant hit with all parents and students alike.

One of the duty assigned to me was to supervise children especially day scholars dining hall. They all get lunch break from 12 noon to 12.30 PM. Later for 30 minutes they get to visit library or meet any teachers in case of any doubt to clarify in the staff room. Therefore children tend to rush their lunch time and want to leave the food without eating the same fully, make the areas messy, try to snatch each other's lunch if they find anything interesting in other's lunch box. As a responsible teacher caring for the child's nutritional need as well as welfare I advise them to bring local snacks like Idli, Dosa, Parothas, Roti, Sambar Rice, Dall Rice etc. But I find most of the children bringing in their lunch box Bread & Jam, Extruded Heavily Flavored of a popular international brand, potato chips in pouches which has nothing but a few gram of chips and plenty of Nitrogen gas, left over cakes from birthday parties. I have no problem with any of these items. But the issue is all these sugary substances like cakes, jam etc.when fallen on the floor attract lot of flies. Our janitors have a nightmare latter.

Children without proper nutrition get later tired and fail to focus in class rooms. Another issue is mothers who are advising their children to take food from hostel as they are busy or preoccupied with other work like visiting gym, arranging kitty party at home at the neglect of their wards. Children come and confide in me as they can not cope up with hostel food when they are routinely used to domestic food.

So if you are sending your children to school please pack them nice power packed lunch full of nutrition. Your all other works can wait. Your child's future and health is in your hand !!

                                               I as a teacher have more to share    .......To be concluded ....

FAREWELL....

"Life is a series of meetings and partings!"

WOW what a philosophical statement ! But to live by this is too difficult. After all, one's emotion takes its toll. We all at times, get too attached to a place, people, life style & living conditions. Therefore moving out becomes all too difficult. Life has to go on and we certainly need to move on !

Farewell meetings are one way of making these partings less painful. It is a time to catch up and make any amends, if one wants to make for any errors committed, repair any damages committed to the way we have dealt with something or someone and to move on! One also gets to know the strength of the bondage one has formed over the years.

As someone, who has always believed in moving in and out of jobs, I have had the fortune of attending to many farewells. Farewells hosted by directors, managers, various departments and intimate friends. In some places the occasion would be used by colleagues to indulge in all and sundry food & drinks which one may not even like to see, leave alone tasting. Thus in one such farewell for me, I was forced to eat only fruits and drink some juice.Whereas my hosts had the fortune of starting with avian soup, followed by crab, shrimp, chicken, mutton and ended with beef.... accompanied by liberal dosage of drinks.

All at the cost of company money claiming that the party was for me to farewell elsewhere !

Recently, I had an unique farewell, hosted by my colleagues in Madagascar. In all, I had spent with them about twenty eight months. I had the fortune of recruiting, training and grooming most of them in their present job. Thus my bonding with them was unique. Despite a sever language
handicap , I could reach out to them because of the sincerity of my approach and fair dealing with one and all.

My departure, though planned and organised well by me was not informed to one & all down the line. It was kept as a closely guarded secret. Nearly a week before my departure, I had put up a notice announcing my departure as well as thanking everyone of them including union leaders, committee members and others. This came as a shock to most of them. The notice was put in Malagasy, French as well as English courtesy google translation !!

Whatever surplus to be disposed off, like plastic containers (which could be used as lunch boxes, a proud possession of most of the Malagasy workers), mugs, woolen clothing were handed over to a few of the workers. All other clothing, sweaters, caps, shoes, were also distributed to our gardeners, house maids and others. We wanted to travel lean, mean and hungry !

Two days before my departure, I saw committee members of my workers walking around with a bucket collecting money. A usual sight as the money used to be given out for any funeral expenses etc. As a token of involvement with them, I used to drop a few small notes in the bucket, probably only Indian doing out this among the dozen in our company.  This time around they did not come to me.I thought the Malagasy people have decided not approach me, as I was leaving them shortly !

The day before my departure, I was told by the HR head to be available around 3.30 PM in my office. By then my wife had come in the morning and took a round in the factory along with me in different sections to bid good bye to most of the staff as she knew many of them. When some of these girls become pregnant and want to eat something tangy like mango pickle, lemon rind, tamarind etc. they used to visit her without informing me. She always had ready pickles in our store room. Apart from sparing some, she would give them a few bananas and chocolates !!!

On the penultimate day by 3.30 PM when the production was going on in full swing and the Production Manager was under tremendous pressure to avert any disturbance to production, most of the workers joined in the packing hall. The Managing Director was called. In his presence glory of mine was told in Malagasy. The same was translated by one of the staff to my understanding !

I was immensely happy that a simple gesture on mine to greet each one in Malagasy by saying "Salama" was noticed and appreciated as an unique quality of mine. This would help me to do M.B.W ( Management By Walking around) and assess the situation of the work spot first hand !

A big memento was handed over to me highlighting Madagascar's mineral wealth with specimen pieces and past Kingdoms ! This was made possible by the contribution of every single worker who had placed four or five rupees per person. This now finds a proud place in the display shelf of my drawing room.

It was my turn to acknowledge and thank them.I thanked them for their co-operation, courtesy, contribution. I also requested them to be vigilant on keeping quality of the products.

I had a unique quality of being strict and tough on disciplinary issues. This non compromising nature  had hurt someone who was upset and not in talking term with me. Though the same would matter little to me on leaving Madagascar, I was not prepared to leave on that acrimonious note as I was always appreciative of her good contribution to work. I also wanted an harmonious departure by being good to everyone in the end.

I had a thank you note, greetings card for that person and the same were handed over to her in the presence of  all workers and management ! Every one became jubilant and happy on that gesture of mine! They all clapped  so loudly, In the end all is well that ends well !

I was glad that I had won the hearts of all the workers, staff, supervisors, Managers and Directors !!

ROLE OF ONE'S PLACE OF BIRTH & DOMICILE !!!

Does one's intelligence get affected by his / her place of Birth & Domicile ? Call me clannish, parochial and what not, but I firmly believe that the place of one’s birth, growing up, location of domicile all have great influence on his / her intelligence! Though I may not have necessary statistical data, analysis of variance to study and prove my hypothesis. But I firmly believe in this assumption.

It is not uncommon in Southern India, to hear commonly people talking about the higher level of intelligence of those who hail from the districts irrigated by rivers like Krishna, Godavari, Cauvery and Tamirabharani. It is a well known fact that civilization of human beings evolved and nurtured along the banks of perennial rivers.  All river valley civilizations whether it is Nile in Egypt, Sind river in India & Pakistan they nurtured great river valley civilizations. In the same manner Krishna, Godavari and Cauvery nurtured civilizations in South India.

These delta regions proved to be the cradle for arts, culture, science and what not! Fortunately, I had the opportunity to live as well as travel in this delta for a long time. After that I, have confidence to conclude, without an iota of doubt that one’s intelligence certainly gets affected by his / her place of birth and area of domicile.

There used to be a folk tale in Thirunelveli district. Kattabomman who was a king in the district wanted to build a palace. He wanted to choose a suitable place. He was going in the forest along with his hunting dogs which were chasing one hare. At a particular place the hare stopped. Turned back and stared at the ferocious chasing dogs. It stood to its ground. Kattabomman was impressed with what was happening in front of him. He chose that particular spot as his palace ground and constructed his palace. He was undefeatable by the British against whom he waged a war. He fell to them because of the betrayal of his brother. His palace can be found in a village known by the name Panchalamkurichi.

This story proves the point that a location and its soil have much more to offer in terms of valor as much as it has to offer in terms of intelligence.

If you travel along the river Cauvery or Tambrabarani in Tamil Nadu or along the river Krishna or Godavari in Andhra Pradesh you will encounter villages which have consistently produced some of the best brains in terms of academic achievements, artists, writers, philosophers, scholars and even industrialists. Some of the leading Industrial houses in Tamil Nadu like TVS, India Cements, Royal Enfield, Dinathanthi, Saravana Stores etc. all have their humble beginnings from the banks of the river Tambrabarani. It is not a tall claim to say that Godavari and Krishna banks in Andhra gave birth to many stalwarts in the field of arts and culture.

Though a vegetarian, I had the bad experience of shopping for vegetables in Talatamaty, Antananarivo markets in Madaascar regularly during my stay in Madaascar.  It was a common scene to find birds like Chicken and ducks getting slaughtered on the road side by vendors. The birds used to be allowed to stand without getting tied up or tied to one another. The birds would be so docile and waiting for their end without even fluttering their wings.

When we used to live in Malawi, we used to keep the frozen sachet of milk to get thawed.  There were days, when I had seen a cat sitting on the rocking chair relaxing. As soon as it saw me in the morning, it used to escape via the kitchen window which inadvertently was left in open condition. Not a single day it had attempted to touch or spill the milk from the sachet left for thawing.

I used to extrapolate and wonder what would have been the fate of the pack if it was an Indian cat!!

There are towns in India associated with tricky and naughty individuals who are known for their criticism, sarcasam & caustic commnets...probably because of the water they drink, air they breathe make them to inherit these traits!!

Let us choose our place of domicile with great care as we have no role to play in the place of birth  !!!