Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

expt 1 - my teachers

spent 2 hours presenting to a bunch of teachers who will be graduating this year as part of our new recruitment process.

zeenat, one of the students, said that she became a teacher because of couple of her teachers who really made a significant difference in her life. it struck me as such a powerful reason. it so much is in sync with the 'be the change' philosophy.

during the presentation i made several points on the importance of a teacher and the varied roles they play in the life of the child. i felt that i did a fairly decent job of getting them to look at being a teacher in new light.

on the way back, zeenat's statement stuck onto me like a persistent itch.

while in office making the report, my thoughts went back to my teachers. so many people who taught me so much. i never even once contacted them in 16 years since i graduated.
went to the website, and a sudden surge of memories from those times. scratched hard and got down 15 names. i nailed almost the entire lot, i am sure.

wrote a long email thanking them and all the staff of the school.

felt really happy.

it is so nice to say 'thank you'. (reminder to self - please do more often)

5 comments:

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

nice one. did you find specific things to say about each of them or was it a generic thank you?

Vanessa said...

On the flip side of it, a wrong move by a teacher can leave a young mind with unwanted phobias. I remember my Maths teacher slapping me coz i was talking during her class. (Was venting up some one else's anger on me i guess). She also added that i was useless, would never reach anywhere in life etc. No doubt, I started hating her and my maths grades started falling. I still have this notion that i am no good at Maths.
I can definitely not thank her for that, can I?

csm said...

kbpm - generic thank you but stating why i am thanking the lot. the tough part was remembering the names. i dredged up 4 more names (restless night) from the recesses of my memory. and sent another thank you today to them.

j - the impact could be either way, which i why the teacher is so important. the challenge in this case is to still still find something positive to thank her for. forgiveness is another brilliant feeling.

Vanessa said...

Ah well, i don't really hold a grudge, its been years. Just that the topic reminded me of this incident.
And anyway, being poor at Maths doesn't matter much anymore.

Serious Lounger said...

hmm, went to my school's website - can identify a cumulative of 10 teachers i think from the 45-50 odd that would have taught me in the 14 years of schooling.. such have times changed..