because ‘God forbid we actually have to learn!’ Being a child of a
teacher, my ability to perceive the already topsy-turvy world is a tad
bit distorted so forgive me for today, I wish to speak of the impact a
child has on a teacher.
Even during the current
pandemic, I see my sister wake up with groggy eyes, wary to take up
yet another online class while my mother wakes up nonetheless because
she’s worried that her students with learning difficulties will relapse.
While we wait for vacations to start and curse our teachers for
burdening us with homework, their answers are seldom in the form of
all-nighters and red ink ticks on the very same assignments. I’ve always
wanted to ask her why she chooses to do this when she isn’t even being
paid for all the extra hours, but it was only yesterday, after 15 years
of teaching, when I finally got the riposte written all the same in
laughs and giggles. I was sitting in my room when I heard a squeal of
excitement from her office and I almost got up to ask if everything was
fine but it was at that very moment when she entered my room, hair
brazen and happy tears streaming down her face, and she said to me ‘Omar
could answer what 5 plus 7 was today!’. I’ve seen my mom be happy on
several occasions, yet, none of them can compare to the sheer pride in
her eyes yesterday..
Written by Vriddhi Khattar September 5th, 2020
Vriddhi Khattar is now working as a consultant in UK after completing her BSC in PPE (Philosophy, politics and economics) from Warwick University.
This inspirational article was written during Covid 19 on teachers day and it served as a motivational boost during those depressing times. It holds a special place in my heart as it captures the moment when we had an academic breakthrough and learned during online classes and his Inclusion head’s constant hard work that Omar has a strength in numbers and he loves math. Despite the challenges covid 19 taught us so much.
