Teach-for-India

Couple of hours back I opened my student tracker, just sat back and started mulling over how each of my kids have changed over the past few months. As I went through the list reading each of the kids names, images of the kid kept flashing in and out of my mind and most of them, so turned out to be of those moments when they were being ecstatic or really happy. This made me wonder how we as humans tend to capture/remember only the positives or the cheerful part in our relationships. But as a teacher, am I not failing my kids in not noticing their negative behaviour and working to get them back to their normal self? Am I doing justice to them by not stopping what I’m doing and not taking that extra time to pay attention to that minuscule behavioral change? How many times have I swept a behavioral change under the blanket and continued with my class/session? How many times have I ’neglected’ a kid in the rush to finish off a topic/objective? ...

Yesterday was one of those real interesting days. Couple of friends and I had been to the Korlai fort and were heading back from Alibag late in the evening. Seated in the rear of the bus, I’m not really sure how this conversation/debate ensued. For about an hour or so the six of us had a heated conversation on various policies, practices, ideologies and biases. Probably one of the best ever deliberations since my Infy days. In introspection, it kind of gave me some food for thought on how I’d like to proceed with the rest of my fellowship or for the next two years. ...

As I take one last gulp of hot tea from a roadside stall, Ronnie wickedly smiles and brings his hand forward with a congratulatory gesture. He just says - ‘One month’ and grins wildly! I wink back, pay for the tea and walk back towards the school gate. As we quickly make our way through the puddles and pits in the slight Pune drizzle, my mind wanders out in search of those small moments that I could call ‘achievements’ of the month thats been from my one month of teachers life. Sadly I get to recollect just a couple of them. And then it looms on me again how important it is to appreciate minuscule milestones in this journey - Something which I’ve been working hard on ever since the summer school. ...

It’s been close to two months that I’ve been with TFI. 1 week of induction, 4 weeks of summer school and 2 weeks of Placement school. There’s quite a lot that’s been weaving around here. I initially had planned to document most that’s been happening right from the first day but failed miserably. The ‘induction’ wave just swept me off the coast and kept me in the waters for close to a month. The rigorous schedule during the institute and other things took priority and I just couldn’t fit in time to sit back and write what’s been brewing out here. Things slowly seem to have fallen in place now and I’ve decided to be a bit more regular on my site. ...

I’ve always wanted to wake up in the morning and find the day ahead unpredictable. I wanted to think on my toes and look for a challenging day ahead that would need me to take decisions on the fly. I wanted to have a slice of ‘adventure’ every day in my life. Over time I realised its more promising to trust your gut instinct than anything else. I personally feel relying on ‘gut instinct’ is not just doing things impulsively but It’s more about taking decisions on the fly which inherently is strengthened over time based on your past experiences through a subconscious thought process. A year and a half back I signed off my ‘one year in IT’ post with this statement- ‘Probably I’ll be doing something starkly different next year or for all you know still be eluded by the mirage of recognition all the way lamenting ‘C’est la Vie ‘ and keep moving.’ Little did I realise what was concocting. I should have seen this coming way back then. Three months from now I’ll be making a paradigm shift in my career and what else do I attribute this to but for one of Rohan Kini’s tweet! ...