Week 2 at TFI (Teach For India) was more killing than week 1! we were thrown into our classrooms with about 20-25 kids each. These kids have their summer vacations going on in their actual schools and are here for remedial sort of lessons but we handle everythn lik we would in a proper school. Believe me its not easy. To give you an idea of hw my typical day goes....I wake up at 5.30 am! I get ready n have breakfast...the bus leaves the hostel for school at 6.30 am and if you miss it you have to go on ur own....n since the hostel is on the outskirts of the city its impossible to get an auto!
We get to school at 7.30 and set up our classrooms...take attendance..have an assembly....teach 5 periods in a day(2 math and 3 english)...since we have teams of 4 ppl each we generally teach max 2 lessons....school ends at 12 and the bus leaves at 12.05pm.....we gt to the hostel at 1pm, have lunch and head for training at 2 pm....training ends at arnd 5 and then we make lesson plans....split wht objectives we will teach the next day....plan techniques....make charts...correct class assignments.....oh incase i dint tel u im teaching class 2!! this goes on till 12 am and in between we find time to have dinner, wash clothes, get xeroxs of assignments for the kids, print stuff.....etc.
I generally slp at arnd 1am every night!! so now i hope everyone will understand y havnt i found time to gt back to u.....
Believe me when i say all this not only physically n mentally draining but also emotionally draining!! i must have broken down 3 times last week.....n sobbed lik mad!! most of my kids dont understand english....they are unable to comprehend words or even read them.....i have failed bigtime in teaching the objectives i had set last week....they dint understand simple stuff.....n i felt dejected every single day wen school ended n i lined them up fr going home.........bt then everyday wen i step out of school some kid or the other shouts Ritika didi and waves me bye as i get on the bus and that makes me realise y am i here....n tht no matter how many times i fail i want to kp coming back for these kids.....i love my class!!
my successes of this week are very different from things i achieved in school, college n at work......my biggest success was wen a girl named saaniya who dint talk the first two days in class and was shy wen asked anythn, put up her hand the third day to answer and did a question on the board on the fifth day.....my other 'wow" moment was wen a lil boy named Jai in my class dint say a single english line the whole week and spoke in Hindi and Marathi purposely to trouble me and yesterday wen he was leaving for home he said " My father has come to take me"!
I felt overwhelmed when lil Harshada of my class stood in front of the class and spelled the word 'computer' and im amazed at how her eyes follow me wherever i am in the classroom.....i dont know how many of u will find this silly n how many can connect with it...but believe me no one can love you as unconditionally as these kids!
I mite be livin on yellow dal n rice fr every meal....there mite b lack of cold drinking water....its a pain to wash ur clothes.....i mite b failing at my lesson goals and unable to take the stress....but honestly its all worth it!!!
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