Whenever someone asked me about kids, I would tell them that
I hate kids. Even the thought of being left alone to play with a kid or to take an
infant in my arms was torture. Friends always watched me walk away or shift back
and hide behind someone, when there were kids around. There were cute little
babies and people running towards them swearing their life over who will get to
be the first one to hold the infant, and then there was me, walking in the
opposite direction or standing there staring, wondering what was SO amazing
about children and hating the fact that once, even I was, a kid. I always found them either too disruptive or nagging and I
stayed away, but, recently my whole life just turned around.
I completed my graduation in Media and Communication and
then I suddenly decided one day to switch gears and applied for something no
one in my family thought I would. Surprisingly, I even got through.
I am now am a fellow at an organization called Teach
for India - an organization that helps underprivileged children have the kind of education all children deserve. I teach a classroom, with not 10 or 20 or 30 children but 74
of them. I spend about half of my day with them and the rest half thinking
about them.
For the first few days after I got through and was going to
go through my training I wondered… WHY did I choose this?
After teaching in the classroom, my questions have changed. These days I asked myself… WHY was
I so repulsed by the thought of being with children before this?
Every day, I learn something from these children, that a lot
of adults have failed to be examples of.
Each kid has so much to himself and herself. So many dreams
and aspirations, so many stories and so much potential.
I’ve been teaching a class of 4th graders who may
not know as much as they should but carry the same or bigger dreams that
children in otherwise privileged schools do and as far as I have seen, a LOT
more strength and potential within them.
Up
here is the picture of Sameer from my class. Sameer due
to some unfortunate events in his life missed his entire 3rd
grade of school. Sameer finds it difficult to speak in English to an extent
that sometimes he struggles to remember letter sounds or to put letters together to form words.
Sometimes he finds it difficult to understand other subjects because the mode
of instruction is English. HOWEVER, Sameer, NEVER gives up. He comes to school
EVERY SINGLE DAY, he sits through each class and tries to listen whether he
understands or not. He comes to me almost everyday and asks something in Hindi,
and in a minute I exclaim, “Sameer... English?” And instead of giving up, he runs back, thinks, asks around and then comes back to me to
say the same thing in English. I see him learning more everyday and I see the
eagerness he has in himself to come to school no matter what!
When Sameer joined in this new class after one year of not
being in school, he was clueless. I can almost surely say that he hated being
with 73 others who he knew had studied the previous year and got along so well.
Initially, he fought with everyone in class and everyone complained. He felt
left out, but he slowly tried finding his place. Today, in just about a month’s
time, I’ve seen a change in Sameer, that makes me have faith in him and myself every
day. I’ve seen him grow.
Even after a horrible and exhausting day at school, I
go back to prepare harder for the next
day, because I know that the kids need me and I need the kids.
I see myself providing them with knowledge that I have and I
see them giving me strength that they have.
I clearly remember how after an extremely exhausting last
week I came back home to realize that there were THREE full days of holidays lined in front of me. I was delighted at the thought of having a little time to rest
and enough time to plan for next week.
The next day in the morning, Sameer’s
mother called, she said “Madam, aaj school nahi hai na, maine sameer ko bola ki
aaj chutti hai, par wo sun nahi raha, keh raha hai, school jana zaroori hai!
Tab se keh raha hai didi se phone karke bolo ki aap mujhe school nahi bhej rahe
ho, mujhe school jaana hai…”
(Madam, there is no school today, right? I have been telling
sameer that there is no school today but he is saying it is very important to
go to school. He has been telling me that I am not letting him go to school and
that I should call and tell you that I am the one stopping him from going to
school, because he is very eager to come…”
It struck me hard. On bad days, I just remember Sameer and so many others like him in my class. I remember his eagerness, his willingness
to learn and his never give up attitude and I push myself to work harder. It is because of children like him that I get up every day and go to school not to do a job but to strive to make a change.
