This is a special on Teachers Day.
This is the story of a teacher in Tamil Nadu, Annapurna Mohan, a Class 3 English teacher at a school in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram town. She has given her classroom a very modern look with an interactive smart board, English books, comfortable furniture. This school comes under the Panchayat Union Primary School (PUPS).
When the government did not come forward to send extra funds, Annapurna Mohan sold off some of her jewellery to make the classroom modern, similar to what one can have in urban area. She believed that why there should be this divide and the rural school not get all the modern facilities.
On the recent suicide by a girl Anita, who fought against the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in Supreme Court she has this to say, "Apart from NEET, dirty politics and politicians, What is the use of 12 years of education if it doesn't even give self confidence to a student? Is life based only on marks? From where should the change start from? Education system or politicians or policies or society or parents or teachers or pitiable innocent children?
The loving teacher feels this is what her students deserve and also tries to implement interactive measures to make her lessons more interesting. She started converting each lesson into short skits, which would then be re-enacted by her students. She later uploaded her students’ performances on Facebook that garnered enough support and praises.
“I uploaded a video of a skit on my Facebook, and a teacher saw that and sent a money order of Rs 10 for the student in the video. That student was excited upon getting the money order. And then that student started doing well after being appreciated,” she added.
With the help of social media, soon her good work spread across borders and many teachers across the world started helping her. So, to give a digital makeover to her classroom, she did it all on her own in just three days! “I decided to do it by myself because I did not want to burden anyone. Doing it myself also helped to get it done more efficiently, as I did not have to rely on anyone else,” explains Annapurna.
With inputs from The Indian Express.....
