Finding yourself

Howsoever disputable Gandhiji’s ideals might be for the modern society, this adage of his holds great sense per se, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

Indeed, there is no better feeling that comes when you help someone. I felt the same quite recently when I volunteered to teach kids in a rural government school, ZPHS to be precise, during my office hours. My colleague Lalitha and I are going to take a one hour class every week on Tuesday for 6 weeks. We will teach English to ten kids of 7th standard. We have already taken one of such classes with amazing response from the students and learning a great deal ourselves.

Just so that you know the condition of the school; there is no electricity, mere 6 rooms for all higher secondary classes, abysmal teacher-to-student ratio, one unkempt toilet, an undersized playground and the biggest incentive for the kids to come to school is not education but the Mid-day Meal Scheme which provides them free food during Lunch. Sometimes, the teachers are absent and most of the times, the students themselves. With this dearth of infrastructure and meager motivation among teachers and students both, there certainly is a need for a movement in rural areas which can flex people’s attention towards education.

Nevertheless, even after so many shortcomings, the kids study with alacrity. Their spirit is commendable and enthusiasm contagious, which really helped us when we started with the teaching session. However, their foundation in English is too weak which makes it difficult for them to understand a language whose rules even the pundits are not sure about. Speaking tongue-in-cheek, English has ironically got more exceptions than rules! Another hurdle to overcome while teaching them is the language barrier. Students’ mother tongue is Telugu and north-Indians know the least of the language. To overcome this, Telugu speaking employees are paired up with non-Telugu speaking employees so that the kids can be taught with least possible glitches. Although we had some innovative plans in mind but one hour was over before we could implement them. One student did win a chocolate, but we have to encourage others too to partake proactively in the activities along with the theory sessions.

Pooja, Aruna, Mounika, Shashi, Badri, Shankar, Anjanayelu, Ramu, Uday Kumar are the kids Lalitha and I are responsible to teach. Initially we spent some time in knowing them as we felt it was necessary to engage them in the process. The kids remain interested if you make them feel that they are all being focused upon and that’s where the teacher-to-student ratio is so important. The lesser the number of students per teacher, the greater is the individual attention paid. We taught them the three articles, a, an and the, of English. After some teaching, we gave them practice exercises, helped them solve it and discussed the doubts. Since there were just 8 students for us, we could touch every kid and solve queries individually. 

Kids from urban areas learn quickly as they have better assistance and facilities. Most of them speak English as soon as they finish a year in School and sometimes even earlier as their families realize the importance of the language. Kids in rural areas are devoid of such support. Mostly, their families are not literate enough and want their children to help them in the fields or other such professions. So they have to give up school. Sometimes financial constraints prevent children to get higher education while sometimes there are family responsibilities to be borne. Reasons can be many; we have to ruminate over them and come up with strategies to mitigate those and make education rewarding.

Somehow, we have to turn the tables around. We have to make them understand the significance of education whether it be moral, spiritual, vocational or bookish. As when people are educated they possess much better skills to help themselves and the nation. They not only understand their rights and duties better but can use them when and where necessary, thus less prone to exploitation and working for the betterment of the society. Proper training and education can help increase a nation's productivity.

I write this article hoping that the educated community will understand the acute problem of illiteracy in the country and contribute for the education of the illiterate mass. This way, just from a small scale, you could not just be a helping hand in the country’s growth but can move a step ahead in ‘finding’ yourself.