Terror gets an award!!

Around ten years of teaching has not even started making me a teacher with expected qualities. Every year I am humbled by the gifts from children, from little things packed in gift wrappers to the sweetest smile that they pass. I consider myself too small for these big gifts but value them high as they are reflections of their unpolluted minds.

More than the gifts, I value the twinkling in their eyes, wondering what my reaction will be. But truly speaking everything was received with much gratitude and love.

An ordinary teacher in an ordinary school is always unseen and unheard and unrecognised. There is no scope of promotions or awards or rewards. People say that we never grow in our profession. But a teacher's growth is counted not by the steps she climbs up, but by the steps she walks with her students. Without experienced teachers from class 1 to 12, there is no school or education possible. It is not a job, it is rather a mission.

Whatever it is, life brings its own surprises. I never ever could dream of any reward as a teacher than the innocent love that I enjoy in my classrooms and campus. But my student thought differently. She fixed an appointment to meet me, she asked for 15 minutes to be with me and she came in her casual dress and specs and a bag on her shoulder. She had passed out of school, yet she looked so much a part of the school.

She sat in front of me and told me the reason for her coming. 'I want to thank you ma'am.' She meant all the words she said and they brought tears of gratitude to my eyes. We shared some time in the French room where she attended my class for 5 academic years.

Finally she opened her bag and took out a long packet, evidently a gift, and stretched it to me. She let me open it. As she waited with her curious eyes to see my response, I took out slowly something with a metal base and a long stem, with a crystal at the top. Truly I loved it. As I thanked her, she further explained. 'It is not a gift ma'am. It's an award.' True, it really looked like one. It was one.

After lifting it up like a winner, I kept it back in the box. 'Have you ever got an award before, ma'am?'

I sat amazed at her thoughtfulness. 'It is on behalf of all your students ma'am'. I had no words to respond. She said it all.

There is no gift more valuable than a kid's smile and no award greater than the recognition from a kid. That is why I stand before the kids for judgment and that's why when they tell me innocently that they call me 'Terror' I take it with a smile.

I confessed to my student 'I don't think that my personality suits an ideal teacher.' Her reply came fast 'you were too strict when you had to be, but kind when needed.'

Anyway I continue my journey as a teacher with another year's batch flown out of my class with flying colours. Instead of damaging, if I have added one feather to your wide wings, that is the best reward that I will ever have as a teacher.