Communication Skills
A Grateful Heart, Day 27
I retired from one College, and I am very grateful that I was instantly invited to teach in another. They had heard of me from students, and colleagues, and even the supervisor of my College, the principal, and the administrative body told me. They didn’t need to interview me, they said.
So I am back where I belong, in the classroom, and both my saree and I, get a welcome outing, after the long summer vacation.
The course is a 30-hour Certificate course called Effective English Usage. It is a value-added course and the students are from different streams. They are all girls, all ambitious, all responsive and I design my syllabus based on what they want in life.
I don’t know what they have got out of it so far. But what I have got out of it is something money cannot buy. If you have ever been in a classroom with Humanities students, most, or all of them female, you know what I mean. These women will open up and acknowledge you only if they feel comfortable with you. It takes time and a lot of patience, but there is a smile that is visible on their faces when they accept you and don’t consider you an interloper.
When I see that smile, I feel like pumping my fist in the air, and going ‘Yesssss!’, but I don’t because that would detract from my decorous, contained, disciplined sari-clad image. I have seen alarm on the faces of students when they feel I am behaving out of character, especially the character of the persona they have created for me.
The topic I had selected for discussion was ‘Why Girls Should Learn to be Independent.’
I could gauge how important that subject was to them by the pains they took to write up what they wished to express. I had encouraged them to include personal details and what a mass of pain those details reflected. In the 19 years of their existence, some of these kids have gone through hell and back…and come out stronger.
One spoke of a beloved brother who no longer visits, owing to a misunderstanding that he did not want to resolve.
And another broke down when she remembered a childhood friend who had committed suicide because of the wrangling over her dowry.
I feel proud and privileged that I am with these strong, beautiful women, who have so much to offer me that it is both humbling and elevating.
Life is good.
This is a response to the prompt ‘A Grateful Heart’, chosen by Ravyne Hawke, for her publication, ‘Promptly Written.’ This is day 27: I have three more days to go. Will I run out of matter? No. Will I run out of steam? Perhaps. Thank you for continuing to cheer and encourage me, for the past 26 days. If I manage to stay the course for the next three days, it will be your victory, not mine. Thank you. Stay lit.
