My first teaching experience

By Prakhar Rastogi

August 5, 2023

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Teaching has always been a passion for me. I don't know much about my early stages in life, but the most recent one, that i can remember is when we had this opportunity to visit a primary government school in the village as a part of a NSS program in my college. The full form of it is "National Service Scheme". we have given many opportunities to interact directly with villagers and to the people who are really from a very rural area. But among all, i loved teaching those little kids in that primary school i mentioned. I started with a very little introduction of myself, because i was surrounded with my friends and teachers, so i was feeling little bit shy. But the questions I asked, was really awesome, i never have expected this from me. Some questions are: " Why do starts twinkle at night? Why is the colour of sky is blue? When water is colourless, then why ocean looks blue? and, why is the colour of sun appears reddish or orange, during sunset and sunrise?" I asked these questions one by one, but in Hindi, just wanted to make them feel comfortable. The kids looked so surprised and were really thinking. And, when i was asking questions, then my friends and some other students from my college said that why are you asking so tough questions? But, I wasn't really showing off, no, I just wanted some answers, if they answered, then I would be happy to further explain them, but if they didn't answer, then I just sparked some curiosity in them. Some tried to answer, but not coreectly, and it hadn't mattered at that moment, beacuse i was just expecting from them to answer anything. One thing i also want to mention is that, while asking questions and interacting with them, i was giving much attention to the last row of students, as we call them backbenchers. I think, that i was so convinced of my thought of participation in class, that i only focused on backbenchers. some students who were just staying quiet and were not talking with other students and were not looking interested in what was happening right now, i looked for those students and for all the time, i only tried to talk with them and just to make them feel comfortable. This has sparked a curiosity inside of me for teaching. I thought, that i can interact with students very easily. As of right now, we haven’t made any second visit to that school, but i really miss that interaction and teaching. Anyways, here comes the sun.

Few days ago, i just decided to go to a nearby school in my village maner. I came here for a holiday after the end of 4th semester. My friend, Aman whom i really admire a lot, said that when he visited his home for a holiday after the end of his graduation, then he started to teach in a school, for 1 month and for free, of course, who will give us money, neither he got nor me, as we don't have previous experience in it. But i liked his idea, and i was thinking and thinking and i finally applied to a school in my village. Initially, I applied to a primary school "uddan", where they have up to class 7th students, i told the principle that i want to teach them any subject for 1 month, as i have to continue my college after that. But the principal ma'am paused for a while and said that, only for 1 month is a very short duration and little kids if they will get connected to me then they will miss me, and i though that maybe she is right. And she declined my offer. I honestly felt very sad, because while we were there, i listened to the voice of little children singing in chorus. so, that got me sad. I thought that if this is the case, then i will not get any opportunity in any school. But, my elder cousin, Amit helped me in finding a good school, by talking to a teacher whom he knew. So i got the ticket to teach in APS, i always thought it as AWS. The full name is "Aryabhatta Public School". And this was the very first school in my life, where i was teaching for full time, i.e., taking all the 6 periods. I thought of teaching science to them, but only up to class 8th. My very first moment, when principal ma'am told to a staff to take him to class 7th. And i was given a marker, and we left. To be honest, i felt very nervous and confused of what i will speak to them, because i was expecting some junior classes. But as we entered the hall, some students and teachers started looking at me with curiosity , i guess. And that increased the nervousness of me. I was hesitating. But as we went to the end of the hall, we entered to class 7th and all the students stood up to say "Good morning sir" in chorus, and i really sounded very melodious. Now, for a new teacher everyone, was paying all their attention at me. I taught science and the chapter i covered was " Food and Nutrition”. I taught with all my energy and heart. when the period was over, i got the feedback of students by asking myself and they said they really enjoyed it. That 1st day, i only took classes on that hall, so there was definitely not 9 th and 10th students. I also made a friend there who was my colleague there "Rahul" and is now my good friend, it was also his 1st day at school too. Whenever i got some free time, i used to talk with him about his teaching experience of today and i really learned a lot. At the 2nd day, principal ma’am told me to take English Classes, and ONLY spoken English classes. And, i felt very frustrated, because i am never interested in learning Grammer, let alone teaching the students. I thought for a while that whether to continue or not, but i was so connected with the students that i thought, that let's try this. So, every day at evening, i used to went to the shop of my elder brother Amit, that i mentioned before and asked him about what to teach the next day. He used to share with me some English topics to cover, like self-introduction, interview questions, etc. Sometimes i tried to watch the videos of spoken English and i always started to feel boredom and slept. I really didn't enjoy it. And giving introduction for me first in the class, was itself more challenging. But i really got inspired by the students when i asked them to come one by one to give their self-introduction. Many children said that their father is a sailor, truck-driver or rickshaw-puller and i started to feel like that how much our parents’ care about us. But after few days, i stopped teaching boring spoken English, as i started to notice that principal ma'am never really bothered to know what i was teaching. so i started teaching science again , and even taught English stories which i always enjoy and Hindi and GK. My style of teaching was like i really wanted interaction in class, i wanted everyone to be participated in the class. Most of my art of teaching was impacted by my teachers, especially sandhya ma'am who taught me English in my High School.

so previously only i was reading each line loud enough so that every student can hear it, and then breaking it down into simple lines. But, then i got very tired and my throat started to pain. So, i asked students to read each paragraph, one by one, by coming in front of the class and i only explained them. I tried to set the bar high for them, by challenging them to read as fast as i can and accurately, I tried this with class 9th and they really enjoyed it and everyone was showing their power to speak as fast. To get the attention of all students, I tried this trick of speaking something wrong about the topic, and waited for someone to point out. If they all just said yes, then i use to point it out myself and asked them to be attentive. This way they started to listen to me very carefully, but not until i started to be little strict by just holding a stick. I am never believe in the education which forces someone to study by using stick or punishment. No, I always believe that real education can only be acquired by interest and love for the subject and this also applies for Maths. Oh! I forgot to mention that from the 2nd day, i taught to all the classes from std. 5th to 10th, covering all the 6 periods. I thought, that teaching in class 9th and 10th would be difficult, but it was exactly opposite. I got so much connected with 9th and 10th that i wanted to only teach them. I don’t know why , maybe because i was teaching them about computers and how internet works and about OAuth and Blockchain. And i also shared my blog website with them. Class 9th was very small class, only approx., 20-25 students. And i really enjoyed teaching them about understanding early symptoms of cancer. I was waiting for the perfect moment in class 8th about teaching "Universe and space" chapter, and when i got this opportunity, i started to cover all sorts of topic like "Time-machine, parallel-universe, Big-Bang, Wormhole, blackhole, aliens, etc" completely out of the scope of the chapter. In the excitement to speak about all these, i was jumping over from one topic to another without finishing one. And then students started to complain, that everything is just going above their head, as i was covering too many topics at once. But that was just a small glimpse, of how we can improve our teaching style by the feedback, and i also came to know of myself that i am still interested in Astronomy as my old self. 🧑‍🚀🚀 One strange, pattern, i noticed is that, in every class, the number of girls were less than the boys and as i moved to higher classes, so like from 8th to 10th, the no. of girls started to decline below 20 . Especially, in class 10th only 7-8 girls were there in respect to 20-22 boys. It even mentioned it to them and got no satisfactory answer. So, girls’ education must be given a priority. While i was there at the office at the school, i got to listen to parents who was coming to collect the marksheet of their children. Those whose fees are not paid were not given the marksheet, as is common is every school and some parents explained that due to some issues they can't pay fee right now. And i started to think of me, that how much privilege that i have given to study at a private university in another city . I think that if you have this privilege then please, make good use of it, and don’t take these for granted. "What some do not value, other's die for having it". After school, as i came to home, i got so tired and energy less that i barely even studied programming. When i was taking spoken classes then i had to prepare myself for the next day and i completely left my programming. So, after sometime i started getting confused about either continuing the school or resign it. After few days some teachers whose period was going empty because of their holiday, and whose period i was taking, they came back and I thought that now i must go, so i left it. Some memorable moments from there are: 1) at the assembly time, when students passing by me said "good-morning sir" to me , is started to feel very happy from inside. And 2nd is, the chocolates and toffies that i received from student on their birthday, i shared them with my papa, Amma and myself, and we really enjoyed it, thought of it as a result for my hard-work, haha. so, that's all, for today . Thank you for reading.