The same story a different perspective

Fiona Vaz

Ten years ago, I walked into a classroom for the first time, as a teacher to 45 pupils. I was quite aware that these children would change my life. I was also determined to change theirs. At that time, I was part of a teaching fellowship, which aimed to place teachers in schools that served children who belonged to economically disadvantaged backgrounds. My goal was to increase their literacy, improve their English speaking abilities and instill in them some values. I wanted to instill values in them not because I thought they had none, but because I thought that is what good teachers do. They teach children not only how to say something, but what to say and think why they would like to say what they want to say and how their words might affect others. The same thought applied to learning other subjects too. There had to be a larger purpose to why we were studying what we were.

I thought I did well because my co-teachers were supportive and encouraged me with most of my plans. I was mindful of my actions and thought deeply about most of my decisions. A year into teaching in class, and in the middle of the fellowship, my co-teachers and I conducted a book drive and built a library for our students. More than a few thousand books were collected as part of the book donation drive and our students had enough books to read. Encouraged by the response to the book drive and because I had returned from visiting some high performing schools in the United States, I decided to set a goal for my class. I urged our students to read 200 books in a year. The goal was audacious and most of us, including me, were skeptical of whether, our students would be able to read those many books. They were nine years old and had just begun reading a few months ago, and I wondered if they would be able to reach the enormously big goal. All of us were in for a surprise when just about 70 days later, four boys, had reached the goal, and done what seemed until then, impossible. We had designed a strict system to track if the students read those many books often asking them questions about the stories, as a test, when they returned their books in exchange for new ones. There was nothing to doubt. The four boys had done what seemed impossible and slowly, we saw other students who followed suit. Until today, I know that till the end, it was these boys who continued to read and outdid themselves every term. While, as their teacher I struggled to read a book or two, my class had averaged 173. The four boys had read about 600 books as the more they read, the better they got. Today, all four of them, are enrolled in top colleges of Mumbai and are on their path of success.

This story has been celebrated, rightly, in many ways. Our students were covered by a newspaper, blogs and by books. Until today, I get asked about it, sometimes as inspiration and at other times, with some skepticism. It is one of the biggest achievements of my teaching life. Like I said, it has been 10 years. My students are on their own path and I am on a different path.

Last year, I decided to pursue a Masters in Education and Gender. I wrote about my students reading 200 books as an achievement on both my application forms – admission as well as scholarship. I got both. It is only now, when it feels like nothing more can be said about that feat, while I am looking at gender and education, working on my thesis that I have been able to re-examine that achievement and assess the actual impact I made and how the children really changed me.

A few weeks ago, I conducted interviews of a few girl students as part of my thesis. I asked them to describe their schooling experience and their future plans and I was overjoyed to find how well my girls had progressed and how they are continuing to wade through the challenges that life throws at them. And through these interviews, for the first time, in 10 years, I saw, that among the four who were the highest readers in my fourth grade classroom, there was not a single girl.

The girls I interviewed didn’t tell me why they never figured among the top four readers. They did not make any excuse. But they did share with me how they returned home and took care of their siblings or helped out with household chores. This made me see, how little time they had, outside of school, for their curricular activities. The boys led difficult lives too. I know that one of them washed cars and had to queue up to fill water early in the morning. But perhaps because of the way the tracking system was designed and because of how families, indeed, treat their daughters differently as compared to their sons, a girl did not read 200 books in 70 days.

The interviews with some of the girls, those I taught and those I didn’t, helped me reflect more deeply on my role as a teacher in sustaining gendered hierarchies within the classroom. Was I truly aware of the gender inequalities that existed in my students’ lives? Was I aware that some of them knew that their parents viewed them as a burden and reminded them of their imminent marriage? What kind of a psychological and emotional burden does it create when the girls constantly feel they are unwanted? Did I know that some of the girls were told that their education did not really have much value because they were going to get married anyway and was I attuned to gendered content in their textbooks and the ways in which classroom discussions took place? I was not aware and it took me three students and 10 years to see it.

Today, as I write my dissertation and prepare to return to India and continue my work as an educator, I cannot ignore the daily struggles of our girls. It might be because of my academic programme and the research that I have been able to become more sensitized, but it is in my girls trusting me and sharing their stories with me that I have been able to see what I didn’t see. This is probably the value I unknowingly instilled in them: to tell their stories, to make them heard, for the sake of countless others.

The author has been an educator for a decade, working in various capacities in the development sector. She is currently pursuing her M.A. in Education and Gender in University College London. She can be reached at fiona.vaz@gmail.com.