Challenges. Questions. Tiring commutes. Crushing crowds in trains and buses. Sweat. Headache. Fever. Noise. Pollution. Ankle deep sewage water. Hunger. Insomnia. Austerity. Constant struggle with myself and the outside world. Euphoria one day. Dejection the next. Pat in the back one day. Biting the dust the next. Still, I come to School to see your smiles. To see your eyes light up at my sight. To see you running down the stairs to call me when I have not reached School by 12 30. To see you start using words in English; words that slowly string together into sentences. To see the pride in your faces when you get the answers right. To see that confidence taking shape. I don’t need to look anywhere else for one. YOU are my Yellow Hat.

Sleep at 3.Enter test paper data. Correct test papers. Reach home at 10 PM after being in a overcrowded bus/train for 1 hour. Buy food to eat later in the room. Enjoy the few minutes of silence while having a post-school tea. Retreat into the Tea Shop Cave. Teach/laugh/jump/act/put up a hand puppet show/skit/deal with staff/Principal/rains/non stop high decibel noise/open manholes/wandering cows – for 5 hours. Eat Parle G for lunch. Drink tea for lunch.Rush to School to be on time.Drenched in Sweat.Dead tired.Catch the train, switch to bus/auto to School.Carry one backpack and another bag full of teaching aids, stationery, charts. Brave the merciless elements. Eat vada pav for breakfast cum lunch. Wake up with pain in every bone and muscle because of insomnia. Go to Sleep at 3 AM.

Teaching is austerity.

In a few hours of rain, the roads to my School were flooded.

Last week, due to heavy rains, some of the classrooms were flooded. When I and Kishan walked around, we found gaping holes in the asbestos roof (soon, these classes will be shifted to the building that has concrete roof). On one of these days, some 25 kids from another 2nd grade division were sent to my class for the day. Apart from managing the initial hour of chaos, what becomes difficult is sending these kids back to their original classrooms in the following days. These children see a marked difference between their classroom and ours, they enjoy being in our class and the fact that every minute, there is something going on – teaching, games, videos or coloring, whereas in their classes downstairs, they are in the class mostly due to the fear of the cane. The hardest part on the following days is to tell these reluctant kids to go back to their classrooms. I feel sad to see the disappointment in their faces. But, I have no option unless the Principal transfers some of them to my classroom.

On one of those days, two girls from the other division were so happy in the classroom that during the lunch break, they came to me with a big smile. “Bhaiya, we want to give you this cake (in Hindi)” and handed me this packet that looked like some brownish powder. These children often come with a rupee or two as pocket/lunch money and they buy these cake crumbs or cake left overs from nearby shops. Sometimes, this is their lunch. So, I said no and told them to eat it and I’d take a little. But, they insisted that I take the entire packet since they had eaten kichdi rice already. I relented and brought the packet back home and quickly forgot about it. That night, I was working till 1:30 and suddenly I felt very hungry. While rummaging through my backpack, I saw this cake packet! In no time I ate it and thanked the kids who had given it to me with so much affection.

Next day, as expected, they were sitting in my class when I reached School. Not wanting to disappoint them, I told how yummy the cake was. While I was explaining to the parents why they should take their kids to the other classroom, these girls quietly got up and went to their class on their own. 😦

Follow up to this article.

Today, the kids were so excited to color these cute children templates for beautifying their classroom. The kids are always excited about anything related to coloring. So, I use it to my advantage 🙂 You want to do coloring? Then, you better follow class rules and listen to Bhaiya. That’s why it is a good idea to do drawing and coloring in the afternoon when their energy levels go down.

Among the many other cute things, one that I found interesting was this: while handing out the sheets, I gave some girl templates to boys and almost immediately the boys would say “Bhaiya, this is a girl” and would expect me to give them a boy template whereas the girls would just take what I give them and start coloring 🙂 So, I tell the boys “Boy or girl, you can make it equally colorful!”

Humility is one of the Teach For India Core Values.

Trinad api suneechena taror iva sahishnuna

amaaneena maanadena keertaneeya sadaa harih

“One should think oneself to be more humble than the blade of grass, more tolerant than the tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige, and ready to offer all respect to others. In such a state of mind one can chant the Holy Name of the Lord constantly.”

Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in Sikshashtakam

In this verse, trina = grass, neech = low, suneech = really low 🙂 taru = tree, sahish = tolerating, amaaneena = not expecting respect/prestige keertana = chanting/singing sadaa= always (I love finding the root of words and also seeing similarities in word meanings between the languages I know!)

I have always loved this verse and have started appreciating it even more after coming to Teach For India. I have learnt to be more humble, more accepting of differences and diversity, learnt to offer respect to people, their views, opinions and ideas more than before. Though I have had these values in varying levels (mostly acquired from my Mother and from other life experiences), I am discovering a new level of humility, integrity, Empathy, sense of possibility, resourcefulness, teamwork, critical thinking and reflection at Teach For India. Starting from Shaheen, the people at TFI, the children in Summer School and now, the children in my class, all teach me the core values every day.

Getting kids to the front of the class has been a challenge in my class. They are very shy and by the time they get up and come to the front of the class, we have already spent some time. So, how do I get children eager to come there and face the class to read something or talk about something, in English?

A spur-of-the-moment idea has turned out to be a big hit in my class. I drew a smiley with a chalk, called it the Magic Smiley. When I call the kid to the front of the class, he/she has to stand away from the smiley and jump into it and suddenly he/she gets “English Power” 🙂 We built so much hype and drama around this (like how you get sudden power when you acquire that ‘magic potion’ in videogames) that the kids love to do it now.

But, the funny thing is, today, when I came back to class after the lunch break, some kids had drawn many Magic Smileys on the floor and were jumping into it 🙂 So, Bhaiya had to tell them that only Bhaiya’s Magic Smiley will work because of a special chalk 😛

What I learnt is: Build hype and drama around every little thing you give them or ask them to do. Even if you are handing out test question papers, homework papers, give it first to kids who are following classrules. Making this a big deal will make kids want it badly that they will follow class rules.

One idea for a drawing/arts class. I enlarged these cute drawings from our TFI One Team book and cut them out. Coming Saturday, each kid will get one cut out and they get to color these as per their wish. Then, we will stick it throughout the class wall next to each other in a line so that it will look like they are all holding hands 🙂 I am excited about how it is going to turn out !

Have you felt the thrill of coming up with a neat idea and you just can’t wait to see it happen? This is one ! I am waiting for Saturday to see what the kids come up with 🙂

Kids names are written on ice cream sticks. Rather than the Teacher choosing the name just like that, these sticks are shuffled and one stick is picked randomly and the kid whose name is on the stick will answer the question.

The first day when I pulled out this can, I could see those lovely eyes widen and jaws drop in the class 🙂 There was a collective “ahhh” and they exhibited the rule “Track” perfectly, by tracking the can (and not Bhaiya!) wherever I went inside the room 🙂

Five minutes before class started, I was handing out small chits of paper on which my name and phone number were written. I gave it out to the parents and requested their name and numbers in return so that I could talk to them regularly about the children. That’s when I noticed this person who stood close to my class but hadn’t taken the chit. When I offered one, he said something that really touched me. “Sir, my kid does not study in your class but I have to tell you that I have been observing your teaching the last few days and feel happy. आप के ऊपर बहुत उम्मीद हैं I ये बच्चे हमारा भविष्य हैं और इनका पढाई आपके हाथ में   (Seeing your class, I have great hope in you. These children are our future and their education is in your hands). We put our children in Municipal schools because we have no option. I hear that teachers are running away from Municipal schools, but you have come here and teach our children. Thank you”

In reply I thanked him and told that we are fellows from the Teach For India movement and there are many like me in Mumbai and Pune’s municipal schools. Just because these children are in these schools should not mean that they are left behind and get less chances and opportunities in life than their counterparts in wealthy schools.

After a few minutes of talk, he left and I went back into my class with a lump in my throat.

While teaching Phonics to kids, and showing them this song, I found that many were not pronouncing it properly because their attention was always on the video and not really on the phonics sound. So, I asked them to close their eyes and say the alphabets. Still, many kids were just moving their mouth and not saying it correctly, especially the middle and back benchers. So, after they closed the eyes, I started walking around the class with the laptop and observed their lip movement and pronunciation from close. This worked very well because the kids realised that I am moving around and could sit close to them and observe. I also told them that whoever I observe to be making a sincere effort in pronouncing the alphabets will get a surprise. While their eyes were closed, I pasted stickers on their hands and they were so thrilled !