To my students…with love!!!

“To teach is to learn twice – Joseph Joubert”


I remember filling up my B.Ed form on a very dramatic note “Teaching and me. No way. I don’t want to be a teacher” .Through out my life till then I had never imagined myself as a teacher. Yet everyone around me convinced me how teaching is the most suitable job for an Army officer’s wife. I remember sitting in my B.Ed classes and wondering “Do I belong here. Is this what I want to do?” Well the course got over and I waited for two long years to finally apply for a job and to my surprise even got it at Army School, Ahmedabad.

I can never forget that first day when I stood in a classroom. So many pairs of eyes staring at me, judging my each move, weighing my each word. I had a very difficult task at hand, not only I was going to teach children of VIII,IX,X but I was going to teach them a subject which they hate unanimously – Social Studies !!! Can’t forget my disappointment when I asked how may of you like social studies and only two or three students raised their hands in response in each class. I would be lying if I say I enjoyed right from the word Go but yes slowly I started looking forward to my classes, to every new morning. I realized what great influence teachers are on these young minds, sometimes more than their own parents. I realized how a teacher and make or break a child’s interest in a particular subject. I realized that a profession that I always regarded as unglamorous, casual, boring and unchallenging is actually the most dynamic, testing and exciting.

I started connecting to my students, started loving them, started feeling pain and joy for them…I stretched the limits of my subject outside the purview of textbooks and helped them realize that social studies is not just about long difficult answers, innumerable history dates, difficult political concepts or strange geographical terms…it is much more than that, it’s a subject that’s most close to our everyday life. I remember lecturing my each class when I didn’t find many of them present for Independence Day celebrations because it was important for them to realize that the only relation they have with freedom movement is not that they have to read a history chapter about it, that when they wish they get all their rights they also have to be ready for corresponding duties.

Honestly I always wanted to be a civil servant as I thought that’s the only way I can bring change to this country but how wrong I was. I think teachers are the real reformers of a nation. Years after years relentlessly with their poor pay packages, they strive to develop human resources for a nation. They do not wear a uniform, carry a gun or stand on borders but with that small piece of chalk they write destiny of a country and I feel this act is the greatest act of patriotism. Teaching is a profession where you don’t wait for annual performance appraisals, your performance is rated everyday by your students and they give you a thumb up only when this performance is honest, unadulterated. Though I confessed I never wanted to be a teacher, I now say very proudly that there can be nothing more satisfying than seeing that shine in the eyes of your children when you stand in a class and take a lecture. There can be nothing more sweet than those sweet good mornings with which they welcome you everyday. There can be nothing more fulfilling than the feeling of being a teacher…and this expression of my feelings is for all my students….with love!!!