About two months ago, a paranoid mother called me up to say
that she needed my help. She needed me to teach her daughter. She was sure that
the kid would not pass her final exams and wanted me to teach her English.
I did not know how I would be of any help. I mean yes I can
teach her English but then that doesn't mean that I can assure her mother that her daughter will pass the examination. I did not know her level of intelligence and how
much hard work she could put in. And with just a month to go, I was a little
sceptical about taking her up. However, since we were sort of related, I agreed
to teach her and help her as much as I could.
The kid was not as unruly as her mother had portrayed her to be.
She was a talkative soul and a little
bit fidgety. She loved to ask questions about anything and everything she saw
in my room and had an uncommon interest for old coins. No doubt we connected
soon enough. Being a children lover, it wasn't much of a task for me to get
her to like me. Once that was done, I knew she would listen to me.
We worked hard, her and me for one whole month. She is an
obedient child and listened to everything I asked her to do. Many things she
did not like, but she would do it because I demanded of her. Like writing with a fountain pen and writing neatly. Making her
understand the prose and poetry was not much of a task. She was a fast learner
there. She grasped the text pretty soon and did not have much trouble answering
questions from them. Grammar was her weakness and the worst thing was she was
scared of it. So I knew I had to overcome a big hurdle there. I had to get the
fear out of her.
Slowly and steadily she started getting a grasp of the
prepositions and the adverbs and the conjunctions (She was actually good with the
conjunctions.). We had a hard time trying to understand the tenses. No matter
what I did, she failed to differentiate between the present tense, the present
perfect and the present perfect continuous. I scolded her, I drew tables for
her. I made her repeat after me. But whenever I stopped, she would look at me
blankly, and just could not understand the difference. After repeated tries for about forty-five minutes, we were like in a trance. I was going on saying
the same thing and she would just repeat after me. I stopped halfway, to give
it one last try, and I was surprised that even though she was tired and
frustrated, she could finally differentiate between the tenses. She had not realised
that I had stopped and went on on her own. When she saw me smiling, she
understood that she had done what had seemed impossible about an hour ago. All
her frustrations and tiredness vanished and even though she had tears in her
eyes, her tear stained face lit up with a smile, and that was the most
priceless smile ever.
I felt the warmth of it and realised the joy of giving. The
wonderful feeling which comes with the realisation that I have done something
for someone. I could make her understand something she feared to explore, and
she was thankful for that. I knew I have touched her heart, when she said, “The
tenses don’t seem that difficult any more.” What more can I ask for?
Just a day before her exams, I had given her a revision
test, and she faired quite well. When I
told her that she should keep studying like this, she very innocently said, “Oh
I haven’t studied at all. I just remembered what you have taught earlier and answering
this test seemed very easy.” I knew then I had hit the right chords.
My added gift was that her mother had developed a faith in
me, and believed that only I could make her daughter study and make her do
well. Quite an achievement no? I know,
this faith would demand a lot of hard work on my part, but then when it comes
with these small added perks of love and thankfulness from the kid, I am
willing to put in my 100 percent.
Teaching as I have understood requires a lot of commitment
and patience. May be even more than parenting. When we are parenting a child,
we mostly tend to do it carefully because that thing out there is our blood and
flesh. So a bit of commitment comes out of that I guess. But then again we have
parents like these, so I won’t comment much. Teaching requires a bit of extra
care may be because we are signing up for someone else’s child. Someone who is
just starting to know us. We are taking that child’s responsibility and promising
her parents that we would take care of her studies. Making a child love us,
attach to us and listen to us, requires a lot of patience and hard work. The
child needs to see that we as teachers really care for her and then the rest
won’t be much difficult. Most important is that we should learn to love the kid
first.
A teacher leaves a strong impression on her students and
hence being a teacher calls for changing or at least controlling a lot of our
own habits. Smoking in front of a student leaves a bad impression of us on that
child. Children pick up bad habits very soon. If the teacher picks her nose while she is
teaching, they will start doing the same. If the teacher is cluttered with her
notes and books, the child will pick that up. If the teacher keeps checking her
phone while teaching, the child will learn that paying attention to one thing
at a time is not really important. So when we take up teaching, it is not only
the particular subject that we are taking the responsibility for. We are taking
up the responsibility of the child’s overall development; as a better human
being.
Rest assured if you can reach out to the child, there is no
other job as satisfying as this one I guess. As a teacher of mine, who has been
teaching for the last thirty three years keeps telling me, “It is a job where
you are the boss and you don’t have to call anyone ‘Sir’. Everyone calls you ‘Sir’.”
I am sure after all the hard work that a teacher needs to put in; s/he deserves
to enjoy that privilege. I have just started, and since I am quite enjoying
this profession, I hope to touch some more lives and do something for some
souls. Leave a small mark may be after I am gone. That is the hope which keeps
me motivated and going, and of course that priceless smile. Something I will remember
for a long long time to come. I hope to get many more such smiles down the
years.
