Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Teaching assignment

Teaching, what a fantastic job it is? Enter the room, take the attendance, open the book and ask one of the boys to stand up and read the whole passage. That's all :) Isn't it? Hee hee hee, yah for few teachers it is! Teaching was an activity that I always wanted to do but never wanted it to adopt it as profession. Why not as a profession? As all are aware teaching does not guarantee good money, as some of the other more lucrative jobs, and above to this, I hated 90% of my teachers who ever taught me.

Why did I hate those teachers? Not because they had big tummies, nor because they used to spit like some physics teacher in MAIN HUN NA, But I hated them because they never took their responsibilities seriously. Or worse, they never realized, they are carrying a responsibility. Whenever I look back at my small success I always feel there are some holes that remained open in past and till now I am trying to fill those.

I got the opportunity to take up my first teaching assignment on November 29 in Hope school. Before starting, I had mix feelings - of excitement and tension. It was fear, not of the kids, but of a challenge and a responsibility. The question that were thrilling my conscience was, Will I be able to do my best in the time provided? Will It be possible to convey my knowledge to the kids?Will I be able to do justice to the trust which was shown in me? To add to the woes,I was not well prepared as I had to prepare for the event too.

Before I could take my lecture I had to prepare for a exam and had to revise the whole chapter. Here as soon as I started studying, words started dancing in-front of me. Here, I could realise the fear of Ishan Avasthi(Taare Zameen Par). It did not take me long to realize what it takes to become a Teacher? It is not, like , a IT professional will wake up some day, and will revolutionize the educational way(I thought the same). A teacher has huge responsibility to make children understand the various facet of subject. Without showing their frustration they have to keep repeating the same things again and again. Responsibility, that was assigned to me was little more complicated. For children, English was the bottleneck and in reverse i was not able to decode the script of children who had stronger vocabulary of kannada than Hindi and English. I kicked off my lecture with the discussion on parallel rays. I was far better than what i had thought, I was able to do my best. I was able to to give them the examples. My hands were able to bring light from sun, this hand was able to stop and reflect those light rays. Everything was going smoothly. But for kids it was not as easy as i had estimated. I had to repeat one thing for 5-6 times. Even after that they seemed confused in the examples and definitions. For whole one hour i struggled with them to make them understand very basic concepts of light. I am not sure if they still got hold of that untouchable and unexplainable phenomenon, called LIGHT.

I realized that the job of a teacher is not that easy. He can not go according to the guy who is intelligent or dull. He has to keep all in sync. He has to be creative, quick, Sarvgyani(Knowledgeable), patient, strict, friendly, interactive and responsive. Wow, god, have you taught me these many adjectives for a teacher in a single day.

PS: Thanks to Kunal, he gave the final touch to the blog...