I was asked to teach Junior KG children and I looked forward to it. I still remembered my Junior KG days. There used to be lots of story-telling sessions, free hand painting, cutting and pasting, dancing and singing. I hoped to add puppetry and drama to my sessions with the children.
Finding Happiness in a Hot Classroom
The class assigned to me was 18 feet by 18 feet, with huge windows. Though four Rallifans whirred monotonously, I could feel the sweat begin to flow freely from my brow.
The children — 30 of them — were seated in 15 double-seater desk-benches. These were divided into two rows facing the blackboard. Their bags lay beneath their feet – stamped, crushed and defeated. The blackboard was on the right corner fixed on the wall. The children sitting on the left rows found it difficult to see the blackboard.
For some strange reason I was the third teacher assigned to this class. The children seemed fine and that was reason enough for me to stick on and share a bit of my childhood with them. I didn’t want to upset their routine. Since it was the first day, I took the roll call, chatted with the children and asked them what they did every day. They were an eager lot and from the ensuing din I understood that they had prayers, attendance, exercises and studies — necessarily in that order. They seemed to enjoy exercises the most.
So we uttered the short prayer and stood up for the exercises. An enthusiastic child volunteered to teach me. What she showed me were the routine drill exercises.
Hands up, down, to the sides, touch your toes.
All of this was done four times standing between the benches and desks of the single-piece double-seaters which allowed very little leg space.
All right! I jumped on to the nearest desk and turned all the fans toward the children. Next, I asked them to come up to the front of the class where there was some space. Twenty of them came forward, and eight more joined us as our exercises began. The two, who were left, took two weeks to join us — but that was fine by me.
I think I took them by surprise. Instead of the monotonous drill they did sandwiched between the desk-benches, here they were in an open space having a whale of a time. We began with ‘wave your hands over your head’ and went on to ‘clap your hands’, ‘stamp your feet’, ‘shake your bottoms and your hips’, ‘throw your head back and laugh aloud,’ among other things. It took me five minutes to get the majority of the class to be at ease with me. The others, I knew, would follow suit.
By the end of week two, these children were able to identify parts of the body, left from right, up from down, differentiate between shake and wave, stamp and jump — and all this without cramming from books.
They were still sweaty and hot in the small classroom, but now they seemed happier. We sang some songs, chatted a lot, ate our snacks, and drew on the slates. By then it was time to go home.
As they waited for the private van operators to fetch them, one child got up and asked me my name. The brief introduction in the morning by the headmistress must have bounced off their tensed minds. By afternoon, they were eager to know my name.
As the last child headed out into the crowded corridor, I could hear excited discussions about the new things they had learnt that day. That’s a good beginning, I thought to myself.
