To Ma'am With Love(and Admiration)

Yesterday evening was the Spring Program at my daughter's preschool and all the kids in her class were dressed up in bright and colorful spring dresses, looking oh-so-cute. Under the watchful eyes of their two teachers, they sang a few rhymes, danced to a couple of them and ended the program with a flourish, with a curtsy and a 'flying' kiss. The proud parents(of who I was one, ofcourse) were all looking on proudly, grinning, videotaping(remember the scene in Sixth Sense where the start of the school play sees all parents lifting their video cameras in unison? Shyamalan was right on the mark!) and snapping pictures.

Even as I was watching the li'l ones belt out those rhymes, I couldn't help being amazed at what their two teachers had achieved. It is soooo difficult getting a 3 1/2 yr old to do anything organized. I mean, it takes a whole lot of patience to get a single photo of my daughter the way I want it. But here were not 1 but 24 kids in that age group, standing in a circle, singing rhymes on cue and twirling around to the music with their partners. These are kids who rush to their parents on seeing them at the end of the day but not one of them as much as waved to their parents while the program was going on.

Not to take anything away from the kids themselves but I wholeheartedly admire what the teachers have done(and continue doing on a daily basis) - instilling discipline, teaching positive values, educating.... the list goes on. Any time my daughter comes home and shows off something new(like when she read a 3-letter word the other day), I am amazed at how the teachers managed to teach her the concept. When we think about it, its what the teachers are doing today that's going to be shaping the inhabitants of the world(and hence, the world itself) tomorrow. Gosh thats a lot of pressure!

Maybe because I spent more years with the same set of teachers in school(PSBB, K.K.Nagar), I remember them much better than my teachers in college.

- The English teacher who laid the foundation for my love of the language to this day with her wonderful command over it

- the Maths teacher was a very sweet lady but earned our class' collective ire one day by poattu koduthufying(some guys in our class were imitating other teachers at her urging and she revealed that to those teachers, landing us in big trouble)

- the Biology teacher who enjoyed the class as much as we did(her class was filled with excursions and field trips under the guise of 'specimen collecting' and she was the main reason I took the class though I hated dissections and knew I would never ever become a doctor!)

- the Physics and Chemistry teachers who were very brainy but equally serious and had a knack for simplifying even complex concepts(of which there were quite a few in both subjects)

- the Tamil teacher and her innovative methods of teaching(she made sure we understood the underlying meaning of a pazhamozhi by making us perform short plays that illustrated their meaning).

To these - and all my other - teachers I just want to say "Thank You". And to all teachers out there, a heartfelt "I really admire what you are doing".