A month of Planning

Yep...its been a long time now since I have written something in the virtual world. It is 14 July and precisely a month back I started out in a venture of mine. I have joined this organization called Teach for India which is operating to reduce the inequity in the field of education. Well anyways the last one month has been absolutely amazing for me and I have been exposed to the different facets of life. I have interacted with a number of people from different backgrounds ranging from history, psychology, teachers, law, doctors, media etc…and last but not the least guys like me…the omnipresent engineers :P. The last one month has been absolutely thrilling and exciting be it the washing the cars to earn money on the very first day, going out into the community to ‘connect’ and by far the most exciting prospect has been going into the classroom and doing the real job of teaching.
Being introduced to the concepts of ‘Teaching As Leadership’ (TAL), backward planning, countless number of lesson plans and not to forget the community visits that we had. The last month was essentially for us to get acquainted with the role of a teacher and what a teacher’s responsibilities are both inside and beyond the classroom. Also we had plenty of training sessions by the faculty from Teach for America and Teach First. We also had a few leadership forums where we met APJ Abdul Kalam aka ‘Rocket Man’, Gyan CEO of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and is currently working on the impact of poverty alleviation issues at MIT and Kiran Sethi W/O Geet Sethi and the founder of the Riverside School. We also had a one on one session with Anu Aga former chairperson of Thermax and currently a member of the National Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Apart from this we had plenty of sessions where we were asked to reflect and ponder over each and every activity that we performed and what we had missed out in life and we ought to have done. It is almost like a realization and most of these mind games still do continue. The good thing about these reflection sessions is that they help one analyze things in a reasonably quick time and hence one is able to incorporate changes asap. The one thing that I have learnt here so far is that everyone is vulnerable and if one fails, it isn’t a bad thing. One can either mope around or get up, dust himself and say “OK, fella…I ain’t gonna allow that to happen once again” and work doubly harder than what he did before.
Weeks have been hectic with the lesson plans and chart preparation taking most of our time. However there have also been times of joy be it the smile on the kids faces at summer school or the night outs at Lemon Tree. Either way there has been a lot that I have learnt in the past month that I am looking at incorporating in my personal life. The have been questions pertaining to social issues that have arisen that I shall address in my later posts and try getting a sound reasoning. I shall also try going in depth with regard to my teaching and learning during summer school. Finally I would like to just to say on record “My respect for teachers especially primary teachers has increased manifold”. One has no idea as to what they go through unless you are in their shoes.