Back To School!

In a couple of days, our children will be back in school, beginning a new school year. I can almost hear the sigh of relief from many harried mothers!

Talking of school days, one cannot avoid talking about teachers. They play such an important role in our lives. The way they teach, their love of the subject - all these influence our attitude towards the subjects we study.

In this context, I remember some wonderful teachers I have had in school and college ( and some unsavoury ones, too!) Dear rolypoly Mrs. Samson, with her infectious smile and love for English who made us laugh so much while we read "The Pickwick Papers"; who led us through the nuances of Shakespeare and imparted a love for English literature. I think it was her influence that led me to major in the subject later. Our Geography teacher, Snehaprabha, was good, but we were more interested in the fact that she had eloped with her drummer husband against the wishes of her rich parents. Quite filmy! Physics and Chemistry I don't remember much, probably because I could not relate to the teachers. But the worst was Math. Miss Asuntha was a dragon, and must have received our curses on a daily basis. With maturity, I know today that she must have been a very unhappy woman, for only someone very unhappy can make others so unhappy.

School is not entirely a golden period in our lives, although we would like to think so. While working with middle-school children, my friends and I realised that children go through so much - academic pressure, labelling and bullying, being accepted (or not) by the groups in class, rejection and loneliness. Each child we worked with had problems. It was left to us - a group of volunteers from outside- to interact and work with the children while the teachers just did their "job" and went away.

I know they have a lot of work, and today teaching is just a profession, not a calling. But if more and more teachers were involved in the lives of their students, things can change in our schools. I recently read an article by Gloria Estefan. She talks of how difficult it was for her, as an immigrant from Cuba, to learn English and fit into school. Her struggle to master the language and to achieve, were helped by her first standard teacher Dorothy Collins, who did not just teach her a language, but helped her find her voice.How wonderful if we could each have a Mrs.Collins in our lives...