“In learning you will teach, and in
teaching you will learn.”
― Phil Collins
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Yesterday was an unique day. It was the first day of our CAS activity
wherein we were to tutor the toddlers who were not as fortunate as we are.
Their parents worked as labours at a nearby construction site and they could
merely afford the most basic of all schools.
Ms. Vijayalaxmi, our CAS Coordinator, therefore suggested that we take up this challenge to teach the
most elementary yet vital lessons of their lives. It sure was going to be a
service activity but as I could anticipate, a very challenging one.
It is a long term activity and it is going to continue for this academic year.
Since, the place where they lived had inadequate resources
for us to teach them, we convinced their care-takers to allow them to come to
our school and experience the IB learning environment. We made all the
arrangements for them in the elementary section of our school and made sure
they were comfortable. I along with my activity in charge Ms. Shaila Jain, noted down the names and ages of all the
children who were going to come. Then, I arranged them age wise and grouped
them with my classmates. In doing so, I realised how big this problem was! Here
I only had a handful of children who were deprived of proper education, but out
there in the world, there must be more of them. The number must be in millions!
I was looking forward to help these kids learn but now, that I had learned about
its global significance I became more
committed to it. In fact, I have also
decided that I’ll teach anyone and everyone
who I find deprived of the right to education. Even though my contribution would
be negligible on the global scale but at least it would be something.
Well, we welcomed them with
small paper-cup flowers my classmates Shradha and Rucha had made. Although they
were too young to understand what welcoming meant, they did like the flowers. I very
happy to see that! We took them to their
classroom and had a general conversation with them. I was so perplexed to see that
many of them couldn’t even speak their mother-tongue (Marathi)! I just sat next
to them, thinking of a way to explain myself to them. After repeated attempts
to interact with them, in all languages I knew, I could only get some of them
spelling their names.
After some time, as they got familiar to me, they told me
about their families, hobbies, likes and dislikes. It was amusing to see how sharp minded these
little geniuses were and how they thought of the world around them. But unfortunately
soon after that, our session time ended and they had to return. All that day I
was thinking about them and was eager to meet them next week. It was a
fantastic beginning and I am sure the next session would be more exhilarating.
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