Epiphanies, Teaching at Sai Bal Sanskar School by Sameera Khurana, Gr 11

Mahatma Gandhi famously said: The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. I truly understood the meaning of these words when I got the opportunity to teach students at Sai Bal Sansar, a school in the Agahpur District of Noida.

Who would have ever thought that just five kilometers away from our school, was a completely different model of learning. As we made our way through the not-so developed rural setting, we started counting our blessings and privileges. The school building wasn’t very spacious or developed either – but we all realized the constraints we were working with. But then again, you don’t need huge technology-equipped classrooms to educate or to be educated. All you need is a thirst for knowledge, which our students possessed immensely.

We were divided into four different groups, who worked with students of different age groups. Our main goal was to give them a break from their monotonous school routine and have an interactive and educative session, and making learning fun! Each of us chose different grammar topics such as verbs, prepositions, and adjectives etc. We meticulously prepared lesson plans with icebreakers, worksheets, games and videos. To our surprise, the students were way beyond the intellectual level we had predicted and our lesson plans required a little bit of tweaking on the final day.

I think it was a transformative experience for the students as well as for us, for we saw what lies beyond our sphere of learning and were able to impart knowledge to children who truly appreciated the value of it. It was a heart-warming experience to watch the students sing along with our videos, respond to our activities and timidly try out the things we had planned for them. Towards the end, there was a glitter in their eyes when one of our classmates brought a box full of chocolates and sweets for them!

Teaching in a rural setting was way different from teaching students in our own school. I felt that the students were more comfortable in their environment, as opposed to in our school, where we are the ones inside our comfort zones. These two hours at Sai Bal Sansar has opened our eyes for so many future prospects for these students: be it workshops or more educative sessions like these.