“There is no teacher equal to mother and there’s nothing more contagious than the dignity of a father.”― Amit Ray
Devlekhaa’s greetings appeared on my social media post. Many years ago, she was a student of mine. My inquiry revealed that she was doing well and pursuing her higher education abroad. She sounded strong and confident, just like her mother Iraavatii.
My first words were, ‘Congratulations on doing well, all credit to your mother who helped you do well.
She answered, Thank you ma’am, but we lost her last year during the Covid’
I was thrown back to Iraavatii’s serenity and acceptance of life, and I saw many more faces of the young students and their parents. I kept musing about life…so short yet so long…
I have worked as a school teacher for many years. In every place that I worked, I found one thing that students did not appreciate much was the Parent Teacher Meeting (PTM). I do not remember my parents visiting my school, they had great trust in my teachers. Occasionally, they would visit the school to watch our performance during the sports day or at the annual gathering. There were very few of these.
As a teacher, I had parent-teacher meetings at least twice a year. There would be great preparations for each of these. The report cards and the test papers were filed and organised well ahead of time. Some of the students took up the role of decorating the blackboard and the photo boards. Few others would welcome the parents and a few others would collect their comments and sign the report cards. In addition, they would organize it in the cupboards, allowing me to speak with the parents. There would be a feeling of a community fair in the hustle and bustle.
The PTM was in many ways advantageous. Whenever the students’ noise and naughtiness went beyond my control, I would say, ‘the next week when your parents come, I will inform them about your misbehaviour and progress, be sure I won’t be considerate.
The students would immediately plead, ‘Please Ma’am, do not say such things, otherwise I will be punished more severely. Then, each of them would tell me about the beatings they had received after a Parent Teacher Meeting. Each student was the best in his own way. They would play and exercise, participate in events, talk emphatically, help other students, enjoy a lesson well taught and of course learn their lessons wholeheartedly. But they were all evaluated on the basis of their written tests and the marks they scored.
I would strive to add a positive note to every student’s work since writing, memorizing, and presenting were just one-sided pictures of education for me. The parents would arrive on time. They would be eager to know about the progress of their children. We would give them their seats and each one would speak a lot. It was as if they were reassured I would take care of their ward in any weather conditions.
At one of the schools where I worked, I taught the same class of students for almost five years. I saw the children grow, and the parents mellow. The students learnt to overcome their fears of the PTM. The parents learned to make time for the other parents and talk to them. The mothers of the students visited the school most often to note the progress. During the PTM, they would go through the answer papers. They would advise their wards and later talk to me. The fathers were the busy kind who would just flip through the report cards, sign them, and go back in a jiffy.
The most difficult times in a student’s life were when something traumatic occurred. Once I asked the students to bring a magnet to the school to study the laws of magnetism. Those were the days when the school was getting established. We would perform some science experiments in the classroom. One of the students had brought a pair of egg-shaped playing magnets. The students hurled it high and then held them. They continued playing during their free time. The magnets fell down and a tiny piece from the magnet went stinging into the eyes of a boy. He rubbed his eye hard unknowingly and the next day we learned that his eye had gotten badly hurt.
There were unfortunate incidents that occurred despite all the mindfulness. Once, a fourth-grade student grew violent and flung a stone at another small child in anger, leaving the child writhing in pain. The school was a place where they learned lessons of adaptability and compassion. The students would pool money to buy a gift for those who didn’t have enough. They would bring food for those children who had lost their mothers. There were students who had lost their parents during their schooling. It was painful but when they would come back sad and disheartened, the other students would cheer them up and slowly bring them out of their grief.
As the years went by, I knew a lot more about the parents. Some of the parents had long stories for me in addition to their queries. I would smile at them as these PTMs had gradually turned into a family meeting. I knew about fathers posted out, mothers’ health issues, their progress in doing something special and many more.
Amongst these parents who visited me, there was a very fair parent named Iraavatii whose daughter Devlekhaa had a normal wheatish complexion. The first time I met Iraavatii, I found her to be uncomplaining and quiet. She stood away from everyone. I did not get a lot of time to talk to her. She was almost the last that morning, I handed her daughter’s report card. She smiled and took the report card as she walked to occupy the last seat. Iraavatii and Devlekhaa read the answer sheets together. They chatted like friends and later they walked up to me to return the signed report card and the files. As everyone had left, I could notice Iravatii keenly. She seemed inflicted by leukoderma, her skin was evenly pale pink in colour with very few brown patches. Her hair was dyed black but she carried an elegance around her. She was calm and stoical and spoke about her daughter lovingly.
She would drive her daughter every day to school and pick her up in the afternoon. I often saw her talking to her daughter with loving words. I felt she was a homemaker. As the child grew, Iraavatii grew familiar with me and would talk about the daughter but never about herself.
One of the days when she seemed a bit tired and weak.
I said, ‘You should have asked Devlekhaa’s father to collect the report card.
She said, ‘He left us ma’am when he came to know about my skin disease.
I kept looking at her for the first time in those numerous years. I said,’ then do you manage Devlekhaa on your own?
She nodded giving a withered smile.
Thereafter there was a greater concern for Devlekhaa but she wasn’t the studious kind. She was fun-loving and sometimes fell into the wrong company. One such time the teachers penalised her and called Iraavatii. She tried to convince Devlekhaa about the right things in life but nothing works until there’s an epiphany of revelation. Iraavatii desired to be the best, and it was also a challenge to demonstrate that she could raise her daughter in the best possible manner. Time flew and Devlekhaa grew, there were lesser complaints and she cleared her tenth standard to go ahead with her higher education. I lost touch with her and Iraavatii. I never saw them during my walks or shopping sprees. I felt they must have moved to a new place. I never knew how she dealt with people and whether she worked to earn a livelihood but the social media message helped me understand that she had raised her daughter to be independent and self-sufficient.
“Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead’― Kamand Kojouri
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