I was inspired to become a teacher by my grandfather, who was a principal at the primary school where I studied. After completing my Bachelor of Education [B.Ed], I started teaching at a private college in 2009. From 2009, I also started coaching at my home, where I didn’t charge any fees from the girls and only took fees from those who could afford it. I used to teach children who were pursuing their Bachelor of Arts.
Today, some of my coaching students are serving in the army, railways, or working as teachers in schools. The Uttar Pradesh government announced recruitment for primary school teachers, and I was selected in 2015. I joined the Ladhupur Primary School in Pilibhit. When I arrived at this school, there was a shortage of blackboards. Initially, I bought a whiteboard with my own money.
This was the first school in Pilibhit where a smart classroom was created with community cooperation. However, on the day of its inauguration, I received an order to transfer to the primary school in Sitapur, so the entire program had to be changed to a farewell ceremony. They used to call me by the name of Master Ji from Sitapur.
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Sitapur is also my home district, so in October 2021, I joined the primary school in Sahjapur village. With the help of the headmaster, I tried to revive this school. When we started teaching, parents started coming to the school. Then I told them to give me two months, and if there is no improvement in their children, they can come to me. The village is a bit prosperous, and I saw that many parents were getting their children’s names removed from our school and getting them admitted to private schools.
I had to do something to win the trust of the parents. So, from the beginning, I took out time and prepared these children for the entrance exam of the Navodaya School’s sixth class. Then I started a trend called “Tell a Story” in which children also tell stories, and I also tell them stories.
Then I adopted a new idea called “Magical Bag”. I keep a bag in which I keep items related to the topic I teach. For example, if I teach a science lesson, I keep leaves, flowers, soil, etc. in it. The interesting thing is that when the children open the bag, they get to know what topic we are going to learn today. To teach them the alphabet, I used to play hopscotch with them, and they would jump according to the letters they had written. Then when we read the newspaper, I would give them an old article and turn on the stop-watch, and ask them to read it. This increased their reading speed, and if they didn’t know a word, they would ask me by pointing at it. Children started liking all these activities and would go back home and tell their parents. After a few days, the number of children also increased, even those who went to private schools started enrolling with us.
We have a girl named Sonal Verma who can name all the districts of Uttar Pradesh in 33 seconds. When you ask the children for their names, they will say, “My name is Jal. I am used for drinking. My chemical formula is H2O. I am found in ponds and rivers.”
Similarly, some children are named Chlorine and some are named Chlorophyll. In this way, the children quickly develop an understanding of science. The district magistrate [DM] of Sitapur ordered me to run an election awareness campaign. In this process, I organised a mehndi [henna making] competition, slogan competition, and then formed a child booth army in all the schools of Sitapur, in which the children requested their parents to vote.
On January 25, 2022, I was honoured by the then DM for this campaign. Due to my new experiments, I was given a place in the Inspiration magazine of the Basic Education Department in 2021 and 2022. On February 4, 2023, I was honored by the Director of School Education in Lucknow, Vijay Anand.
As Abhishek Shukla told Gaon Connection’s intern Danish Iqbal.
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