First day in school…Again

18^th June 2012. That was my first day in school…yet again. Confused? In 2012 I decided to work with a NGO called Teach for India. After a month long arduous training I was all set to be a teacher in a municipality school.  I was excited about the year, but was eager for my first day as a teacher.

Choosing to join Teach for India right after my Bachelors was perhaps the most important (and equally difficult) decision I made. The reasons; my parents were completely against it for their good reasons. Being the obedient child I was nervous to go against them but was also obstinate about changing my decision. Finally after a month long arguments and persuasions I struck a deal with my father. I would work with TFI for a year and then go ahead with my Master’s. (This was the glitch) I was proud that I did not hurt or offend them and would also get a chance of exploring something cool and different.  So after all such little big odds I stood there in Pujya Kasturba Gandhi School as a fourth standard teacher. Equipped with charts and games I headed to school on that rainy morning. Excited and anxious. I wished for a perfect first day.

I remember my weird first moments in the classroom, when a student entered the class, I tripped. Thankfully I caught the bench near me which saved me from falling. That was not a start I had hoped for.  Quickly coming back to my senses I welcomed the kid with a smiling face. He obviously wanted to laugh out loud. But seeing my expectant face he repressed him chuckle and only smiled. Without saying a word he kept his bag on the bench and ran out to meet his friends and almost certainly tell them about the comical incidence that happened in class.  This only left me worse off.

How different was this school from the one I had been to.  We had colourful walls and “unbroken doors”. Here the scene was slightly different. I did see colour on the wall but the designs were made by the water seeping from upstairs. My classroom had no electricity but had a 39 inches Sony LED. It contained 24 benches for my unknown 48 students and a broken door which made a cracky noise when pushed.

The school officially was to begin at 7.15 am. It was almost 7.45 am and the bell hadn’t rung. And worse I had only one student in my class. And he too hadn’t returned. Checking with the other teachers in the school, I found out that mine was not the only classroom children hadn’t turned up. How contrasting this was? My “first days” in my school ‘St Felix High School’ were the best days. Filled with excitement; a new bag, new books, a new classroom and teacher and the most important of all a new partner and sitting arrangement.  How was I to make a sitting arrangement without children in my classroom?  My thoughts were interrupted by “Didi may we come in”. Oh what joy! There was a bunch of eight kids waiting at the door asking for permission to enter the classroom. I let them in and asked them to sit on whichever bench they wanted too. Most of them occupied the first two benches in each row. Kids I thought to myself. These two benches were the least occupied benches in my college. And I began.

Sixteen eager eyes and ears looking at me and hearing intently to what I was saying. I almost forgot the “dialogues/speech” I had prepared for my first day. Startled in the beginning, I managed to pull it through finally. Just out of college I was now  on the other side of the classroom and this was definitely not easy.

With that thought in mind I started my day in school. Telling the kids about me, getting to know them, games and fun followed.  Eventually as the day progressed the kids began to get comfortable with me. The kids liked one of the games I planned and disliked two. This was followed by an art session which turned out to be decent. They told me about the movies they saw, the actors and cartoons they liked and the places they visited in the summer. That’s when I saw the similarity through the difference. Was the kid any different from “the ten year old me” mimicking Madhuri Dixit? Does the place where you are born make that big a difference? It definitely makes you the person you are, improves or deteriorates your value system, decides your social and economics standard. But does it change your desire to be loved and to love, to have fun, to laugh with your friends or to cry? Will a black skinned person feel hurt differently from a white skinned one when his( her) trust is broken? Or will the pain of losing a loved one for a Muslim be any different from a Hindu or a Parsi or a Sikh? On my first day in PKGEMS I understood wherever you are, whatever social and economic standing you have in the society your desires and aspirations will always be the same. That is what makes us humans.

A few hours later at 10.30am the bell rang (this one exactly on time). And my imperfectly perfect first day at school was over.