The joy of teaching

Have been going to a voluntary coaching class engaged in providing free tuitions to children who basically cannot afford the paid services. This voluntary organization is being run by an old gentleman. He has managed to get a room at the backside of the local temple. He tells me that there are a few more people coming and taking tuitions for students (mostly class 9, some class 10) in various subjects. I try to teach English. The funny (and nice) part is that the students do not understand Hindi and I do not understand Kannada. So our progress in English has been good.

Teaching generally is considered a dull job but it does challenge you to think creatively. Getting your thoughts and ideas across to a group in a language that everybody understands is hard enough, having to do it in a language uncommon between you and the group is laborious, requires patience but is funny most of the time. I just spend 2 hours every Sunday interacting with the kids but that is something I look forward to every week.

Sometimes I teach Mathematics as well. Once I started teaching them how to take square-roots. Half through demostrating the process to take square-root of 2, I realized I had forgot the process! I made some excuses to look at their text books and understood where I was going wrong. I then explained the process to the students. I hoped that the students did not realize that I actually did not remember the process to take square roots. But I have feeling they realized it.

Anyway, they did come the next week and have been coming. And I do try to be better prepared in what I venture to teach now.