As the months of April-may approach, one of the happiest communities will be the teacher-student community in India. Most of the schools and educational set ups go on a long summer holiday, after an year long academic work of teaching-learning. I am sure, every kid would be eagerly waiting to close the books and forget the word – ‘study’. In fact, as I was recently talking to one of my student’s mother, I learnt how this little girl is gearing up for a party the day right after her exams – she and her friends are sweating it all out having rounds of rehearsals of dances, songs and dramas for the party! In any conventional school, although March is marked with a lot of hectic cumulative assessment/evaluation work for the teachers, the only motivating piece of cheese for them is the two months long vacation that they will be looking forward to!
With this mood around, as I was closing my academic year last week, taking the last few classes and wishing all the kids the very best for their assessments in their schools, I was in tears along with my kids many a times. One obvious reason is of course the fact that I am going to be missing them for the next few months. But, what made this all the more difficult was the possibility of I not taking any more classes for these kids at all. With a notion that I will be able to contribute at a bigger scale and solve some of the pressing problems for the community, I am planning to study further. Although this is being planned for my good to scale up and spread my wings, it is making it very difficult at times to leave what I have been doing for almost five years, trying to build a system of math learning and getting children to experience Math like never before. I don’t know if I should settle contented with what I am doing, or aspire to do more. Or should this aspiration compulsorily get tied up with pursuing higher education? Is there any other way of contributing and making a difference to the community? As of now, the only option that is coming to my mind is to study further, stand out and have meaningful initiatives that make a difference to the learners-teachers across the world. After all, there is another addition to why I am doing this – I need to join my beloved husband who has been away studying for almost 8 months. It is definitely going to be a very joyful moment for both of us to catch up after such a long time. Yet, I not getting to teach the kids, not being an active part of teaching-learning space for at least a couple of years is something I am forced to come to terms with! Truly, I had never felt this mixed.
tomeanmeans 