I decided to become a teacher in 1994
As per the Church scripture Mosiah:2:17: ”When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God”. So, since my school age, my mind was set to serve the people with my gifted talents and skills. As a result, when I was studying my final year B.Sc., degree course during 1994-1995, I decided to help the poor and underprivileged students of our town by teaching Mathematics, Science, and English free of cost in my small tile-roofed home. When I conveyed to my father about my desire to begin teaching, he was glad and appreciated my decision of becoming a teacher. Moreover, he offered me one of the rooms in our home to begin my classes. He also encouraged me and initially offered me a little financial help to print 200 handbills to advertise my classes around our town. I went around the slum areas of our town such as Rajajipuram, Krishnampalayam, Karungalpalayam, Vairapalayam, Marapalam, and Manickampalayam, etc., street by street and door by the door all by myself to advertise my free classes and to enroll students to teach. As a result, six students from the 6th and 7th grades joined my private coaching. Having those six students, I began my very first lesson on 2nd July 1994 in my tiny tile-roofed home. Most of the students who joined my coaching were from slum areas and economically poor family backgrounds who were studying in Government schools and unable to get the necessary things for their education. Besides that, their poverty backgrounds also meant that they lacked self-confidence and moral support. Some of them had been forced to drop out of school and were devoid of education opportunities. The rest of them were child laborers who were working with their parents for daily wages. Their parents were coolies or doing labor work such as building construction or in textiles or street cleaners or making slippers and some were scavengers. To begin the class, first of all, I made homemade blackboard paint by myself by crushing nicely the Datura stramonium plant leaves which were available in the pushes near my home and mixed it with charcoal powder and water and created blackboard paint, and painted 3’ x 2’ space of the room’s wall with this paint and made a rectangular blackboard on the wall. I used our home’s mats on the floor for students to sit on. With these minimum facilities, I started my class in my small tile-roofed home. When it rained and the weak roof leaked out, I placed buckets among the students to catch the drops of rainwater and continued teaching lessons. As I was not afforded to buy teaching aids and geometrical apparatus such as set-squares, rulers, compasses, protractors and etc., for my classes at first, I improvised and created them by myself out of wooden blocks and cardboard. I drew the sketch of those materials on the white sheets and cut those with scissors, and pasted them on the cardboard so that they might exactly look like real geometrical apparatus. I used my waste shirt clothes as a duster to clean up the blackboard. When the electric power went out, as it regularly did, we trimmed a small hurricane lamp filled with kerosene and dipped threads, and set to work learning Mathematics, Science, and English. As inspiring as it was to see the students learn, we were still outgrowing the humble surroundings of my home. Not only did I help my students academically but also in their future careers. Although we didn’t fit into my small home, I didn’t have enough money to rent an appropriate facility. I continued teaching students at my home in the evening hours while being a final-year college student. As my college was five kilometers away from my home, I always walked to the college and saved the bus fare to buy chalk pieces to use for my tuition classes. Moreover, I used a part of leftover handbills that were used to advertise my tuition classes, to write college Math notes on the backside blank pages. I collected a bunch of left-over handbills and used monthly calendar papers from our home, bound them as a notebook, and used the back-side blank pages of the notebook to write down my college Math. In due course, many government school students from slum areas joined my coaching. But as my tiny home was not spacious to accommodate many students, I faced difficulty in running my classes in my small home. Since my father was the only income-earning person in my family and he had to take care of his six children, he was unable to help me financially and so renting an additional building was beyond our means. Moreover, I had no more income source then. I needed to get a part-time job to rent the space to continue teaching my group of students. So I applied for a part-time job at Siddhartha Matriculation Higher Secondary School, a private school in our town. Knowing about the free service that I was rendering to the poor students, the correspondent of the school Mrs. Jayabharathi (Mobile number & WhatsApp: +91-9865212020) offered me a part-time teaching job in her school to teach 10th graders Mathematics in the early morning hours from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. before normal school hours. I started teaching in the school and started earning money. Very soon I found a room in our town and named it Isaac Coaching Centre with my father’s name in order to honor my father and his inspiration that started my teaching there.
This is the hand-bill that I printed to advertise my coaching center
The income from my part-time job was Rs.400 from school in the year 1994. Out of 400 rupees, I spent 200 rupees on the Tuition center rent and 100 rupees on getting stationaries for my students, and the remaining 100 rupees to get the teaching aids and books for my classes. I took my father as a role model and applied all of his helping ideas in my classes. I did exactly the same thing that my father did when I was in the 7th grade. My policy is to provide free coaching to poor and underprivileged students and collect the nominal fees from the afforded students. In due course, out of 25 students, 30% of the students in my coaching center were able to pay me the tuition fees and so I collected the fees from them and utilized it to help the rest of the poor students in my class by getting them notebooks, stationeries and basic necessities for their education. I also asked the 30% of students to bring their unused clothes and notebooks to my tuition class to distribute to the poor students of my class. With the income, I earned from school and limited collected fees from my students, I was able to pay the Coaching Centre rent and help all the poor students in my class. With my effective teaching, all my students started scoring high grades on the exams. My rented Coaching Center was 20X10 feet compact room in which I had painted a blackboard on the wall. As I had to teach morning and evening regularly in my tuition center, I had to use lots of white chalk to write on the blackboard. In due course, I was affected by a dust allergy and had to take treatment from the hospital. The cause for my dust allergy was inhaling of the dust coming out of chalks during the writing and rubbing on the blackboard. The doctor advised me to stop teaching for some months, but I didn’t like to stop teaching but managed myself and avoided using blackboard and chalk. Very soon I bought a whiteboard for my classes and continued teaching with a whiteboard and marker. After taking a three-month course of medications I recovered from the dust allergy.
Moreover, simultaneously I taught some students in their homes as home tuition to earn some more money to spend on my college course. Meanwhile, I completed the B.Sc., degree course in 1996 and became a full-time teacher in the same school where I was working as a part-time teacher.
I encountered a lot of challenges while I was teaching in India.
1994 to 2014
While I was working as a part-time and full-time Mathematics teacher at Siddhartha Matriculation Higher Secondary School, I faced lots of challenges in school and with my students.
I had hundreds of north-Indian students at Siddhartha Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Erode from 1996 to 2014. As our town Erode is a business-oriented town, there were many north Indians in our school, especially from the states of Rajasthan, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, who used to settle down in our state Tamilnadu. But they failed to give importance to their girl children’s education and so many girls dropped out of school and early marriages were so common among them. I intended to stop this practice among those people. So, I used to meet their parents very frequently and insisted them not to get their children married when they are so young. I also emphasized to them the importance of girls’ education. Because of my hard efforts, 95% of girl-students early marriages were stopped and they all got a basic education.
There exists caste discrimination among the people of our state Tamilnadu and it impacts students as well. There are many controversies among the people because of this caste difference. I took the initiative to eradicate this caste discrimination and caste difference among the students so that it might impact the community later. So I decided to educate my students in my classes on this issue. Being a Mathematics teacher at Siddhartha Matriculation Higher Secondary School, I hardly got time to talk to my students about social issues. So I took some extra hours after school hours to talk and educate my students in these aspects. There were students from different caste backgrounds. I taught all my students to have unity among themselves irrespective of caste, race, and religion. Moreover, I taught my students about national integration. I taught them that we are all human beings in the sight of God and so we should not differentiate people by their caste, race, and religion. I emphasized that caste discrimination is a great disease and should be completely eradicated. So I encouraged all my students to get along among themselves without any caste differences. I also conducted many events that led my students to develop their unity. Moreover, I taught my students about unity in diversity. I taught my students that religion is a personal belief of every single person in the world and we should not fight or make controversies among each other because of religion. For this, I have conducted lots of awareness activities for our students that led them to live a caste-free life. As a result, all of my students were getting along with themselves without any caste difference, and they developed unity among themselves. To an extent, I was able to make a 100% caste-free environment within our Siddhartha school during my employment period. That was one of the great successes I feel I achieved at Siddhartha School. But I wouldn’t say that 100% caste discrimination has been eradicated in our whole state and our country. Still, 30% to 40% of caste discrimination is existing in our country. If I win the Global Teacher Prize 2023, I will pay more attention to this serious issue and try my best to eradicate this caste discrimination in our country.
There also exist religious differences among the people of our state Tamilnadu and it impacted our school students as well. To eradicate this problem, I encouraged the “Sarvodaya Prayer”, a common prayer for all religious students of our school. We conducted “Sarvodaya Prayer‘ every Monday morning during the school assembly. I made all teachers along with their students participate in that program. We offered three ways of worship such as Hinduism, Christianity, and Muslims. Teachers took turns reading the passages from the respective scriptures and singing the three religion’s devotional songs together with students. The program agenda is as follows：
Hinduism worship:
We used to read a passage from Bhagavath Geetha which is Hinduism scripture and sing a Hinduism devotional song. We usually sang the very popular Indian devotional song “Ragupathy Ragava Raja Ram……”
Christianity worship:
We used to read a passage from the Holy Bible and sing a Christian devotional song.
Muslim worship:
We used to read a passage from the Quran and sing a Muslim devotional song.
The purpose of this prayer program is to make unity in diversity among students. India is a secular country where all religions are equally supported. In all 28 states and 8 Union territories of India, people speak different languages, have different cultures, and belong to different religions as well. Yet being divided by religion, culture, and language, they all belong to one nation. In order to make students realize this truth, this program was conducted.
The other challenge that I faced was some girl students in our town whom I taught attempted suicide when they failed the exams. Those who lacked self-confidence and moral support usually attempted suicide. To prevent these kinds of suicide attempts, I provided them with valuable counseling and support through morals and scriptures. I taught them about how important and valuable a human’s soul is in God’s creation! Moreover, I provided them with many tips on how to pay more attention to their studies and how to achieve life goals in order to become a successful woman in life.
With all experience I gained in my Tuition Centre, I taught school students effectively and diligently with dedication. There is an ancient saying by the Chinese Philosopher Confucius about the importance of learning from experience. He wrote ” I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand “. I always follow this quote in my teaching. I don’t teach students subjects only from textbooks, but also, I teach them by doing. I always teach students with many strategies such as using hands-on equations, Blended learning, activity-based teaching, game-based teaching, PBL (Project Based Learning), inclusive education, and real-world applications. I teach with games, puzzles, activities, projects, and as well. I conducted Math exhibitions every year in order to bring out the students’ hidden skills. I use lots of teaching aids to teach subjects. My students always enjoy my lessons as they are very interested in my effective teaching.
Not only did I teach students Mathematics but also taught them how to become good children to their parents, how to become good students to their teachers, how to become good human beings in society, how to become good citizens of their country, and many more life etiquettes. I taught all my students many life morals and life skills in order to make them multi-skilled global citizens. I trained them with 21st-century skills as well. Because of my teaching, students were motivated and inspired and were able to score high grades in the examinations and became completely behavioral-changed students with high moral values. As a result of my teaching, the school got 100% results in 10th-grade final examinations, and students scored district-level ranks in Mathematics for which the Academic Council of Matriculation Schools, Erode District, Tamilnadu honored me with “The Certificate of Honor” for the years 1998 and 2000. And the school got the “100% result achievement award” from the same Academic Council of Matriculation schools.
I am receiving the ”Certificate of Honor” from one of the officials of the Education Department of Erode District for producing District Level ranks in the 10th standard Mathematics public examination held in April 1997.
I am receiving the ”Certificate of Honor” that was conferred to Siddhartha School for producing 100% results in the 10th standard public examination held in April 1997. In this photo, I am receiving the “Certificate of Honor” on behalf of our school from one of the officials of the Education Department of Erode District.
This is the “Certificate of Honor” conferred to me for the second time in a row, by the Academic Council of Matriculation Schools, Erode District on 2nd August 2000 for producing District Level ranks in the 10th standard Mathematics public examination held in April 2000.
By seeing my achievements in producing 100% results and the district-level ranks in the 10th-grade final examination, I was promoted to teach 11th and 12th grades in the following years. I achieved 100% results in the 12th-grade final examination also continuously for five years. For that, our school also got 100% result achievement awards.
As most of the students that I taught in the Siddhartha school and my coaching center scored 100% in marks in Maths, I was called by the students by the pet name ”Centum Deva”.( A teacher who makes students score 100%). I really became very popular in our town by this name students called. So in due course, many parents brought their children into my coaching center in order to make their children score 100% marks in Math. On realizing my growth in teaching, I decided to broaden my service to more underprivileged poor students of our town those who had no opportunities to pursue basic education. So I decided to render my service to the students of our town by teaching online through local Television channels.