Page 6 - Teachers of India Stories

Sadaf Rizvi (English department)
Podar International School (CIE), Kalyan

o start with I should say, that this lockdown
has tremendously increased my decision taking
Tand multitasking capabilities as far as teaching
is concerned. Being a teacher and while mentoring my
students, I have keenly observed, that I have so many
tasks to handle. I always thought that I was novice
when it came to handling software or any new comput-
er application, but this current situation has mould-
ed or rather transformed me into a multi-dimensional teacher. I can prepare my
lessons plans, take the lectures effectively, handle all the queries and solve them on
time; I can prepare myself for next day’s lessons likewise. Salute to all the teachers
working round the clock.
Keeping all these things in mind, I have even realised the restlessness amongst
students and their parents. For an instance, whenever there is a power cut in my
region, or if there is any internet stability issue, many of my students and their par-
ents do not show any sort of compassion at all. I am not being pessimistic; neverthe-
less, I always have expected some
empathy from their part, which unfortunately was missing.They too were help-
less and new to this scenario.
On the other hand, I always feel great to have a deep conversation with any of
the parents of my students. This deep conversation involves the progress of stu-
dent, his overall performance, his behavior towards teachers and other classmates
so on and so forth. Apart from this, I also see to it that a parent is really worried
about his / her child. I have been as a teacher for more than 8 years now, and I have
encountered many parents and their explanations or justifications regarding their
children’s progress.
Quite recently, due to pandemic,interaction between me and my students’ parents
have changed. I must say, I have tried talking to the parents and their children’s ac-
tivities. Being a teacher, I have always been concerned about the students’ learning
capability and their interest toward any activities. Pandemic has had a lot of change
in this interaction where parents are now able to spend some quality time with their
children. The complaints they would have initially are turned to appreciation these
days. I feel that, the parents have actually started recognising the cognitive efficien-
cies of their children in not only from the mental perspectives, but also from their
practical activities’ perspective. I realised this when I got engaged into a conver-
sation with a mother of one of my students, where she has explained every bit of
information chronologically. She has even admitted that the student’s father has
started taking the interest in his studies and other extracurricular activities such as
drawing, sports, yoga etc. I must say that I am really glad to know the proactive in-
volvement of the parents in their children’s activities and also in their studies. They
have started understanding the emotional needs of a child and positively saying,
this pandemic situation has rendered a great amount of emotional attachment for
their children.