Glimpses!

[This post was originally written in 2001. During those practice teaching days, I had a diary in which I used to pen down my daily sob stories and all the varied stuff that used to come to my mind. This time when I was at home I rediscovered that diary and the original post. Made a few cosmetic changes and there you go,...]

A flight of stairs is an interesting sight. I was sitting in the lobby of a Primary School awaiting my turn. I had just completed my final sessions of practice teaching and a post-mortem was going to follow. Not a very pleasant frame of mind I should say coz when I use the word ‘post-mortem’ I mean it. So picture me sitting there feeling like a gladiator being thrown to the lions [okay make that a female version of a gladiator, whatever!] In short, I was feeling condemned. Anyone of you who have done practice teaching here would know how exactly I felt. Good place to see teaching and learning in practice.

So, picture me sitting there, lost in gloomy forebodings. If I may be permitted to use a hyperbole, lines from Ode to Dejection were playing around in my mind. Suddenly there was this deluge. A swarm of small boys blitzed down the stairs on their way for lunch. The accompanying acoustics and the dynamics of their movement jolted me out of my intimations of mortality and I was hooked.

One took the easy way down. He slid down the banister with faint concern to life and limb. Few others took the hint and followed suit till a stentorian warning from a teacher discouraged them. One came down on an imaginary chariot, encouraging his imaginary horses to gallop faster. Another budding singer timed his descent to the hallowed school prayer, which he sang aloud with energy and gusto. Didn’t care a bit about the wrong timing though.

Another came down, whistling like a train, leading a coach of boys behind. One would-be philosopher came down, lost in thoughts and consequently stuck to the wrong route till a friend took the initiative to direct him onto the right path.

The best, of course, was the chap who decided that the world had no choice but to listen to his wailing. He made his way straight down the stairs, crying all the while. He walked up to me with tear stained eyes and demanded ‘Where is my Mamma? I want her!’ I was left clueless. The whole idea of the post-mortem was ejected as a mind that used to dwell on Eliot and Yeats and theories of criticism suddenly started racing furiously in searching the answer to the eternal question – HOW TO MAKE KIDS STOP CRYING? Maybe we got some short term solutions along the way. But convincing solutions? No. My idols offered no way out and all the theories of psychology and behaviour that I had studiously learnt as a part of the paper on Educational Psychology had not prepared me for this kind of an eventuality.

I had a brainwave. I dived into my bag and retrieved a chocolate. A chocolate that was supposed to be all mine after the ‘post-mortem.’ The reaction/response time was instant. Three things happened in an order that I couldn’t quite figure out. The wailing stopped, the chocolate disappeared from my hand and the kid ran away.

Truly glimpses!