Learning Lessons From The One's I Teach

My days could not be much brighter than this, this phase of my life is not Pursuit of Happyness but it is indeed Happiness surrounding me. I could not thank God enough for giving me this phase and I with Him, would also like to thank His most lovely creation- kids.
The moment I enter the class I can see all tiredness rushing out of me and a new zeal fills up my body. I am greeted cheerfully by all and then I start with my regular activity with select kids. By now I have interacted with most of them and have assessed where they stand in terms of their studies. It feels good to know that most of them are good learners and are fairing pretty well. With a few of them, we are working hard and possibly we'll get through. These kids have highly influenced me with their way of living. How I almost forgot that I was a kid once and with time I have grown up into an adult and forgotten almost all the good qualities I was blessed with. There is this kid Ravi to whom I was teaching the other day to read, the sentence was "Malhar is a watchmen" and when I told him what watchmen meant, he said almost flawlessly, "my father is a watchmen", for a moment I was not able to think whether to be happy about his perfect sentence structuring or disappointed by what I just learned. That explains his wearing the same worn out dress each day in school. Mom-dad, I seek your forgiveness here, for the kind of rebellious kid I used to be. I now realize the worth of every effort that you have put in to bring me where I stand today.
The next incident was when two smart kids of our class kept on with their diwali assessment even on a saturday which was meant for enjoyment. I could not resist but ask them why were they not enjoying with class and hell bent to finish whatever work they have in the class itself, and they almost expressed a unison concern of not being able to do homework at home due to space restraints and big family. Ohhh God you have filled me up to my neck.
I am realizing a lot of things which I'll just sum up in few lines:
1) As kids we were never afraid to fall, get up and get going again. What about now, why do we fear even the minor hiccups in our lives.
2) We used to fight and almost on the same day or the very next moment be friends, forgetting everything in a flash. And now we breed hatred in our hearts over the most trivial issues, not being able to let go.
3) How we used to enjoy even the smallest of our happy moments with great elan and now we are not even sure of what could make us happy or don't value a moment of happiness, we yearn for something long lasting.
There is a lot more that I can't express in words.. see it in their faces(below) and try to bring alive the kid in you.

Taare Zameen Par.. A New Day In My Life

Today I finally started off with my first day of TFI volunteer, at a proper school in Pune. Got up early and by 7.30 I was in action.. I reached this school at a calm place surrounded by greenery but this green was not managed, it covered half of what the school termed as a playing ground. Some kids here had broken slippers, some had no uniforms and some even had no pencils to write.. My own school days flashed in my mind and down from memory lane I remembered how I used to throw tantrums about the kind of pencil box, lunch box, bag I wanted to carry at school. These kids can't afford the tantrums. I lost and broke hundreds of bottles in school and every time got a new Milton one but they carry with them not to be reused cold-drink bottles. I was there till 10 and had to leave then for my regular office.. I so wished to stay there, it feels like an unfinished business.
The fellows Kaushik and Swati are doing an excellent job there. I had four weak ones, lagging from the rest of the class due to their need of extra attention. Gaurav, Sumit, Dutta and Lalit the kids whom I handled separate from the class today for 2 hours. Of which the three Gaurav, Sumit and Dutta had the enthusiasm of doing things and they responded very well, these weak pupils they are good just had to be guided in a right way and that's what I'll try to do but Lalit lacked the fervor, a real special case who needs a little more attention. The fellows are correct they can't manage time for a few of them, when they have a class of 60 to handle. I wish I can settle in with a approach where I could attract these kids to books rather then make it a compulsion for them. Why I say so is because with kids attraction works (lol it works with everyone), so I just want to attract them towards something good and soon. I don't have a magic wand in my hand to do that but I have a will. God, please help me.