I
always wondered, what keeps people motivated to work? Is it money, fame, recognition, ambition? How
do people leave jobs that give tangible rewards and take up tasks that seems
almost impossible, hopeless, and difficult? All my questions were answered
instantly, when Mr. Nipun Mehta, founder of ServiceSpace said, “If you are
connected to humanity, if you form a circle of love, you won’t need money, fame
or recognition”. Think about it.
When
after 5 weeks of training, I entered my classroom in a Government school, I was
more than surprised to see good infrastructure. I had nothing to complain about
with regards to the demographics of my school. But this is a very small
percentage of the actual scenario. I know fellows working in dingy classrooms,
no fans, no windows, 60 students sitting in a small classroom all crammed up,
classrooms with tin roofs which rattle and leak during monsoons etc. All the
bright, young professionals, who have left their AC offices, for some who have relocated
this is a huge change. But they choose to be the part of a movement, a movement
that with the utmost convictions says, ‘one day all children will attain an
excellent education’.
All
this is fine. All this is what we were prepared for when we committed to
dedicate two years to this movement. What comes as a shock is, when we enter a
grade 6 classroom and realize only 20% of the kids can speak in English and 50%
of the class can understand basic instructions in English. We are here to
bridge the gap. To bring our kids to their grade levels, and here we start from
the scratch. Not only do we struggle with math, fluency, comprehension,
writing, but we also struggle with empowering them to understand and speak in
English. But we don’t give up. We promise to give our 100% and do whatever it
takes to empower these kids.
What
comes next is what we fellows face on a daily basis. Instructional hours: on an
average, schools in India are for 5 hours. Out of which a lot of time goes by
in settling, recess, morning assembly, virtual class etc. Apart from this,
there are a lot of last minute changes to the time-table and our plans. Some
days the craft teacher wants an hour with the kids, on the other days the
Marathi teacher is rushing with her portion. There are days when the principal
calls for a meeting, and on the others the school is celebrating Eid, Holi or
Diwali. We are struggling every hour. We have kids from various levels in our
classrooms and so it is not uncommon to take on these groups
separately to help resolve the differentiation which involves extra class,
differentiated plans and constant permissions from the school officials to let
us use the classrooms apart from the school hours. In some cases, fellows also
resort to teaching in open spaces around the schools.
What still keeps us going? One fine day,
Safialam comes and fills my empty water bottle with the water that is in his
water bottle. When I asked him why is he doing so? He replies, “Didi, you talk
all day, you never complain when you have a sore throat, isn’t it our
responsibility to take care of you like you take care of us”. We easily term
these kids ‘poor’ or ‘underprivileged’ , ever wondered how do they manage to
make you smile every single day with so little to give. 