Blog 2 - My favorite teacher



Mrs. Uma Saibaba, my English teacher will always remain my most favorite teacher for this lifetime. Her lessons in the classroom were obviously very engaging and wonderful, but it was her nature that I was fan of. She was a gentle teacher, soft-spoken and very patient with our class. No matter how unruly we were, I have never seen her speak a harsh word or raise her hand on anyone. After parents, teachers are the biggest influence on a child and from her I also learnt humility. She identified the fact that I loved reading books and would always be happy to discuss with me what books I was reading, exchange some of her books with mine, discuss different stories and authors.

Once, deeply influenced by the TV show ‘Small wonder’, I went and asked her why we do not have book review in our class. In ‘Small wonder’, the kids Jamie, Harriet and Vicky (the robot) had to read a book each and come and present the book to their class. Although on the show the kids were unhappy about it, I was most excited with the concept. Imagine if 40 kids read 40 books, you would know 40 different stories in one school term! That was much faster than I could read at that age!
Any other teacher would have dismissed me and my idea, but Mrs. Uma Saibaba was on board, although it was not part of the syllabus or even the Indian schooling system to have a book review. I remember when she announced everyone must do the book review, most kids groaned at the idea. Being the enthusiastic bookworm that I was, obviously I volunteered to go first. I had received a book from my uncle in California, called “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” and it blew my mind away the first time I read it. I am not sure if the book had already released in India same time as the US, but most of the class did not know of the book yet. Anyway, in a week’s time I presented the book and so did few others, but I think the book review concept did not take off as the number of volunteers dwindled as weeks went by and there were exams to worry about.

I remember once the librarian telling me that there was a limit to the number of books a student could borrow and so I started skipping lunch to sit in the library and read as many books as I could. Mrs. Uma Saibaba noticed that and spoke to the librarian and got me permission to borrow as many books as I wanted on the condition that I would never skip lunch again 😊

She trained me for every competition and radio show I was part of, throughout my schooling. I was given the opportunity to be the compere of few school shows and her inputs boosted my confidence as a public speaker. Being her student was a large part of the happy days of my childhood. Thank you, ma’am!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog 1 - My cycle(s)

The 1990s always remind me of a fun time of my childhood. An integral part of my childhood was my BSA champ cycle, a peculiar looking little cycle for kids below 5 th or 6 th standard: it had a long, narrow, mostly white colored seat and a long metal inverted-U shape rod for back support. I think it also came with a set of “ wheels ” , which were these small wheels that could be fixed to either side of the cycle, helping the rider achieve balance and preventing a learner from falling off. As the kid slowly learnt to balance and ride the cycle independent of the wheels, his/her confidence improved drastically. Unfortunately, I do not remember the day we bought the BSA champ or who bought it (must have been my parents). My grandfather ’ s employee, Prasad anna, a draftsman, lived in a portion in our house and was the person who first taught me how to ride my BSA champ cycle. I remember telling him not to let go of me, as he held firmly the U-rod at the back of the cycle and ask
Read more

Blog 16 - School elections

If you have been reading my other posts and feeling jealous that I went to an awesome school, you are going to get further jealous! In addition to all the fun extracurricular activities, our school also had elections! Yes, you read that right! We had elections every year to select the School pupil leader or the SPL, assistant SPL (ASPL), the treasurer and the cultural secretary (this was a coveted position that most contestants were after). The ASPL would step in if the SPL was absent or if there were many tasks to do. I think the treasurer managed the funds of the student union. Usually, it was a commerce student that was selected for this post. The cultural secretary, people thought had a fun job, as he/ she was in-charge of the interschool ‘culturals’, where we would go to other schools and vice-versa to participate in various, fiercely battled competitions. But the reality was that the cultural secretary was often running around trying to get everything done while being in the
Read more

Blog 17 – Lost and Found

When I was around 8 years old, my mother and I went to the famous Ranganathan street in T. Nagar for Diwali shopping. Chennai residents will know how crowded this street usually is and festival times are even worse. However, what brings so many to this street is the wide range of shops it has, where one could buy everything including electronics, kitchen vessels, toys, flowers and clothes. When we reached the street, my mother told me to hold her hand tight or I would get lost in the crowd. I held her hand firmly and we walked into the street, and made our way to one shop after another, getting the items on our list. Generally, my mother would plan our outings in the non-peak time of the day, which was usually between 11 am-3 pm, when the crowd would be minimal. On this particular day, we were delayed, and it was past 5 pm when we got out of our final shop. As soon as we exited the shop, the massive sea of people flowing into the street pushed me away from my mother, who also d
Read more