The Teacher's Test

Some food for thought...

When I was a student myself, I used to think that teachers were strict evaluators. Being a teacher now I am at the mercy of my student-evaluators during my teaching demo!

My first ever experience in teaching children in a classroom environment was a rewarding experience. I had the opportunity to teach the poem - The road not taken by Robert Frost!

"The Road Not Taken" was fun to teach. It gave room for creativity in the class. A lively imaginative and romantic poem like this is a treat for any teacher or student. Poems are so relate-able! It lures the readers to reflect upon life and draw from their own experiences. You also get to be more sensitive to things around you. It is a nice poem to teach to children as they can easily connect with it.

Everyone faces difficult choices in their life and it is human nature to be not satisfied with one choice. We humans have this insatiable hunger for more. We are unable to turn our back completely on any possibility. In life you can only choose one possibility. You cannot travel two roads at a time. Life is short and very rarely you get a second chance. There are many twists and turns in life. Can you really turn back the clock? You can hardly return to where you started. Choice is inevitable but we shouldn't regret the choice we have made. We should be happy and contented with it. Because any choice we make in life will make a difference in our future. We never know what our choice will mean until we have lived the experience. So there is no need to regret and be sad about it. Why do we lose our head over it?

Children too have to make some crucial decisions in life. My students told me they had to choose between boarding and day school, select the right course for higher studies and to decide something as simple as the perfect destination for holidays. These choices they were able to make either independently or with some help from elders.


I thought teaching English in a school would be piece of cake! I was used to taking private tuitions for children, where I taught them on one to one basis. Where- as in school I had to teach many children at once. I had to make sure each child understood by giving them chance to reciprocate their opinion about what they had learnt and perhaps give some of their own extra inputs about it. But making each individual child comprehend, respond and react to what is being taught is not an easy job! Some children are outspoken, some are shy and some are indifferent! You have to give them some space of their own and be patient to receive feedback from them. But I managed to make them exchange some insightful thoughts with me! They were free in opening their heart and feelings to me. This is what, is the greatest incentive for any teacher.