Teaching

I never thought of myself as a teacher. The main reason probably comes from my insecurity, what would I do if I can’t answer my students questions?! But also, I don’t ooze self-confidence or respect, so teenagers would basically eat me. However, when I decided to volunteer in India, I thought I might try something out of my comfort zone, something that doesn’t require particular skills or strong spirit (like working in a hospital) or strong muscles (like building something). Teaching seemed a good option. Also, having lived in London for almost 4 years, I speak English quite well and I felt I could be helpful during English classes.

Here, I help the English teacher in his classes. We usually split the class in two groups and I help the students with a better level of English (who can, therefore, understand me when I speak, with no need of translation). Although I am not a teacher and this is my first experience of teaching, I find it highly rewarding. I feel so happy when a child understands what I’m trying to explain or gives the right answer! Also, I feel I learn something new every day. Be it a new word or concept, or be it how to handle a student or a situation in class, every day is a new piece of knowledge.

I never really thought of it, but the teacher role is extremely important and, in the right situation, it can be very rewarding. Unfortunately, teachers are not well treated in my country: it takes a long time to get a full time position and the salary is pretty low. This affects their performance at school. I think that this is a big problem because teachers, just like our parents, forge our lives. Therefore, they should be happy of their job and not frustrated. If you think about it, I’m sure each of us had at least one teacher who inspired us at school and made us improve a lot or made us choose a particular career.

For me, my Science teacher at high school showed us what a lab is and what kind of work a researcher does.. and bam! That was it, after working in a lab for one day with my classroom, I knew what I wanted to do at university! I’m still in contact with my teacher and it’s great to see that, despite the numberless problems of her job, she still loves teaching and keeps inspiring many students. Also, my Math teacher at elementary school taught me the basic Math that I still use every day and my Old Greek teacher taught me amazing stories from the Greek mythology that I still remember.

Being a teacher in the school where I’m volunteering is highly challenging. The students are often undisciplined because they know no rules at home. However, they often experience violence and lack of love in their family, so they need a friendly and loving environment in the school. Also, they are drop outs, which means that not only they dropped (or never went to) normal school, but also there is the risk that they might drop this school as well, should they find it boring or unsuitable for them. I once reproached a student because he was disturbing the class and I felt so afraid that he might not come back to school because of the way I treated him! Luckily he is still there.

So a teacher here has to mix teaching with discipline, fun and love. I think it must be really hard to know what kind of person to be in the class: maybe a student needs to be reproached in order to work well, while another was beaten at home and so just needs a hug, and another one watched TV all night and so needs some sleep, etc. etc. As I said, teaching here is challenging on the daily basis but if you think of it at a more general level, what a teacher is doing here is amazing: they’re not only offering education to the children, but they also give them opportunities for their future and a loving environment. Basically, they’re giving them back the life that any child deserves since he/she was born.

Picture kindly provided from Friends of SISP Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Friends.of.SISP?ref=br_tf