An island of learning

Some of my friends snigger at me when I tell them that I loved my school. But I did and no sniggering stops me from emphasizing that fact. :) As I think of it—it was mostly because of my teachers--simple but dedicated—who ensured that we were taught with enthusiasm.

I honestly liked everything about my school—my teachers, the tests and exams, the extracurricular competitions, sports week and morning assembly…all of it.

Come to think of it--even the textbooks I used were old—handed down from my sister who was a year ahead of me. I remember repairing the books since they had dog-eared pages, some books were torn, pages in the middle had come loose, and there was plenty of scribbling and underlining done in all of them.

It actually surprises me now that I willingly and lovingly used those textbooks. In fact, I remember the cold winter afternoons when I would sit on the wooden floor with a cup of tea, wrapped in a sweater and a muffler and cover them with used white calendars because the textbook covers were usually torn and lost. I would write the name of the subject and my name with a marker.

I did not have access to any fancy educational material apart from those textbooks but the effort with which my teachers taught me with whatever little they had gave me access to a whole wide world. I remember one teacher in particular who taught the class what an island was. He filled a shallow plate with water and placed a slab of stone covered with moss and told us that that patch of “land” was an island and corrected us when we pronounced island with an “s”. That’s when I learned about silent letters.

They always insisted that each of us will in our own way become “great” someday. I may not have become ‘that great someone’ I wanted to, but it’s because of my teachers that I today value education and the life that comes with it.

So with my old textbooks, some motivated teachers, and lots of encouragement, I learned well, and more importantly with enthusiasm and enjoyment. What really made the difference for me was that I always had good, committed teachers who could enthuse me and get me to focus on learning in every class.

I am convinced that without a teacher to help you relate to your lessons and to the textbooks, even the keenest child would find her enthusiasm wavering. And that a good teacher can turn even dull textbooks into precious learning resources. And this is the reason for our sense of urgency regarding this severe shortage of teachers in our schools today, and our desire to do something about it.