My Teacher, My Inspiration!
My Teacher, My Inspiration!
Ms. Divya Shetty has been teaching from the past 3 years. She currently works with The Orbis School, Mundhwa, as a Science teacher. She earlier worked as a Speech and Drama Teacher in VIBGYOR High, Magarpatta. Ms. Divya is also into storytelling and many other ventures related to performing arts.Students may not remember what you taught them,
But they will always remember how you made them feel!
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Maya Angelou
I was a complete misfit in school. A believer among realists, the circular peg in square holes. Brought up in a convent school, there were rules and norms for everything. I was lost in keeping pace. Didn’t have the wisdom to judge nor the agility to get out of sticky spots. In short, I was labelled the black sheep of the class. The “out-standing” one… literally!
I remember I shifted my school in the 5th grade. It was announced on the intercom that there will be a holiday for the school the next day. Silly me, I treated that as white nose, alongside the sound of the fan and an occasional pencil dropping. I turned up at school the next day… That’s when my teacher dropped me all the way home. I know what you are thinking, “That isn’t safe!” probably… But in this world where people are bad and treat each other with suspicion before a decent hello, was this person who actually did this sweet gesture for me. Something that my naïve mind still remembers afresh.
Sir Tellicherry, a middle-aged man, brilliant at math, but an even better storyteller. I looked upto him as a rockstar. I remember I never saw him walking by himself, he was always surrounded by the hustle of happy children chattering about. I was disinterested in most classes but waited for his class. He occasionally told us stories, but when he did, he built an atmosphere teleporting me to a different world altogether. A world where a T-Rex would trot alongside an egg shaped time machine, where a cursed monkey-paw would fulfil wishes but with the most blood curdling consequences, the memories fill me. He played the drums as the children sang about , absolute cacophony… but it is the happiest I have seen anyone.
I was yelled at every day by teachers for not completing my work, being messy, notorious (but I wasn’t really… probably something about my face that sent their tempers racing to the roof). There was a man who wasn’t mean to me, he was patient, kind and diligent. He never made me feel less about myself. Call me hypersensitive, but if you notice carefully enough, you will see, there may be many more in the class you teach, misunderstood, failing miserably at defending themselves, categorized. Sometimes all these kids need is a little tenderness and patience. It goes a long way, trust me… its lasted a decade and a half since and I don’t think good deeds a teacher does for you will ever fade in the memory.
I never got a chance to tell my teacher how he unknowingly changed my life. I went back to school but he had retired by then.
Today I am a teacher, simply because I wanted to be THAT teacher for someone, who my teachers never were for me… except one of course. It’s the struggling children, I believe, that make the greatest teachers. People like Sir Tellicherry are placed at the pedestal to achieve this goal.
You all can be that rockstar to a trembling, not so brave child. A small act of kindness sets a ripple in the ocean.
The planet doesn’t need more “successful people.”
The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.
