My first year as a teacher

I didn't realize it was this hard being a teacher. Especially if you care how your students perform. Tear-your-hair-out, don't-have-time-for-friends-or-family, stay-up-late-at-night, forget-weekends hard.

Let's face it. I don't like kids. But I like people and these kids are growing up to be the future of this country, this world. And I have expectations from the future. I want to see responsible adults who make a difference to our currently falling apart nation. I think I have certain strengths that I want younger kids to learn and emulate so they can use them when they grow up. Teaching is one way to do this and so, on December 2012, I saw myself creating my first lesson plan as part of Teach For India's Assessment Center (AC). The AC is the last of TFI's recruitment stages where we have to do a 5 minute sample lesson and a 1.5 hr interview, along with some standardized tests on Maths and English. I still remember a lesson given by a girl on grammar. She was teaching nouns with the help of an amazingly creative sketch of a town called Noun Town. I remember being aghast when she did not make it to the interview round.

So it was a huge high when I learned that I had gotten through. Especially since only around 7 - 11% of all applicants are recruited.

The Good

1. Institute

By far the most impressive phase I experienced in TFI. This is what my schedule looked like:

- Wake up at 5 am

- Brush, shower, etc. (in a hostel so there is waiting time involved coz of limited washrooms)

- Breakfast at 6 am

- Buses leave the FLAME campus at 6:10 am sharp (they'd leave without us if we didn't make it on time!)

- Reach summer school at 7 am

- Pre-school activities to wake us and pump us up!

- School from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm

- Back in the bus at 12:40 pm

- Reach FLAME at 1:30 pm

- Lunch

- Training sessions start at 2:30 pm (some people actually found time to shower again in this time...I never could figure out how)

- Training continues till 8:30 pm

- Complete pre-work for the next day at school - including taking photocopies, making charts, etc. This took forever - some people used to go to sleep at 1:30 am almost daily!

- Wake up at 5 am.

Our students at summer school in Pune

As you can see, the doggies enjoyed our training sessions too!

It was the tightest schedule I've ever been on. And to do this 6 weeks in a row, except for Sundays was very strenuous. But it got us all serious about the task at hand - that of bridging the gap of educational inequity in India.

2. Learning to be patient

Since I have always been a good student all my life (even if I didn't study at all, I'd still pass with at least 50%), I had a hard time dealing with lower order kids. Things that just made sense to me as a kid doesn't seem to pass through the heads of many young children. Dealing with them was and is very tough. Oh and the grammar just kills me! When you hear your teachers speak in English all the time, how do you not pick it up? But well, it takes time, constant correction and then you see just an iota of change. What can you do? These kids have no other English influences in their lives. Nor do they have educated parents to help them with anything they do in school. While there are many occasions where I've lost my mind, I'm far more patient than I used to be.

Grammar lessons, anyone?

3. Time Management

With Spacebar and TFI going side by side, I have had no rest. But somehow, everything has been manageable. I don't think my school team has any complaints (guys, if you do, now's the chance to tell me!). Teaching, trainings, school admin work, client deadlines, employee feedback - I think I've managed to do it all. And I'm now confident that I'm gonna be rocking at Spacebar once TFI is over. If I was able to do so much without giving my 100% to Spacebar, I know I will be able to achieve so much more when I'm able to give more time to my venture.

4. Friends

The school team has been mostly cohesive and helpful and I know we're gonna be friends for long after TFI is over. Maria, my co-teacher, Mallika, the leader of the pack, and Khyati, the only truly enthusiastic TFI types (she really improves the enthusiasm average in the school team)! And even though she's not part of the school team, the awesome Pallavi has always been there - right from institute as my thoughtful roomie (who convinced me to fold my blanket by talking about its surface area) till the end of the year (with 30 gifts for my 30th birthday). Awwwwww. 

Happiness!

5. Last but nowhere close to the least, the kids

When you see a growth in learning levels, skills and maturity in the kids you teach, it leaves you fulfilled. They pick up so much from you, and there's so much you can learn from them too. For instance, remembering things. It amazes me to see how they remember who in class didn't do their Maths homework yesterday. How they achieve this while forgetting the answers to their textbook questions is really weird!

Happy Birthday in school

And they can really make you feel special. Cards, letters, gifts. It makes you realize how much you mean to them and how they think that you make a difference to their lives.

The Bad

1. School management

The school is utterly mismanaged. And when you've worked at a professional organization all your life, it gets you super mad! Tomorrow is a holiday, day after is a puja, timings have been changed, exams will start at 1 o clock, no 11 o clock, no 8 o clock! Everything is last minute.

2. Accountability at TFI

Because TFI asks us all to be "leaders", we all have to deal with our problems ourselves and there is little or no help at an organizational level. This also means that we have to deal with the unprofessional school management at an individual level, which can become extremely trying. We also had a fellow leave mid-year and TFI did absolutely nothing about it to make our lives easier. The fellow who left got far more support than the fellows who stayed on - which is so unfair. Nobody was accountable for this and eventually, we had to bear the brunt of it for the rest of the year by managing more classrooms that we could efficiently handle.

3. Lack of time

Even though I have been able to manage my time, it has only been because I've had to prioritize stuff. That means that I have had to cut down on socializing. My friends and family have been complaining, but I know they'll wait another year for me :)

All in all...

It's been a good year. One full of learning and experiences. Of learning a lot about how schools work and how they extort. It's something I would want to do something about someday. Not as a teacher, but an education entrepreneur. For now, there's one more year of studying to do.