FIRST 3 MONTHS OF FELLOWSHIP EXPERIENCE AT TEACH FOR NEPAL

Ambi Rai

The Teach For Nepal Fellowship begins with new hope for two years in the Month of Baisakh at Shree Ganesh Secondary School, simpani, Lamjung. The journey started with a normal introduction and lots of love and respect from students and teachers and principal of the school. I went there with full energy, dedication and a great commitment for the change. The initial days were for the admission of old and new students where I learned to persuade the guardians to admit their children in school. We had to make a good relationship with students first, so that it will be easy to teach them and make them understand in their own language. Because I have done my schooling from a government school, so I can imagine the condition of most of the students. I met and interacted with my students with loads of eagerness to learn but unfortunately, they are academically poor. In the first month, our class was not going regular because of admission process and all. There were several things that made our day very special and on the other hand so many problems and challenge. One day when I was not feeling well and there were students at my place after school. I didn’t want to teach them that day. I was getting irritated by everyone’s small activity. So my co-fellow taught them on behalf of me as well. When they were learning and making sounds and noises, instead of getting irritated I want to be there with them. I realized that I can’t get irritated by them but love to watch them studying and getting involved in different activities. So can’t stop myself from moving towards them and ended up to teaching them. I was so shocked of this kind of transformation. After a long self-reflection, I realize that I am changing and prioritizing my students than my mood and irritation. “Be the change that we wish to see in the world”, implementing in my fellowship. These three months of fellowship was full of determination, opportunities and challenges. We had to face many more problems at different levels, but most interesting part was every problem were showing us and directing towards a better path and direction. Change is very tough process, but it is possible. Change is like butterfly struggling hard to come out of cocoon. Change causes instabilities and tremors while getting established. One of the great learning from these three months of fellowship is that I became aware that there is every society filled with abundant of resource. We need to mobilize resources in the right and effective way. Most of the time we look society from negative attitude and curse society that it is worst, and it can't be changed, but everySociety is changing slowly or rapidly. We must accept the fact that even Rome was not built in a day. So, my sincere recommendation to other fellows is that has patience, be committed and firm. And be friendly to make students comfort but not a friend, you must draw a line of limitation as well.

There were various problems in government school like Classroom management, Student's absenteeism, Student's involvement/ participation, groups/caste discrimination, Rote memorization/study, Numerical (physics) Lesson plan execution/implementation and content deliver etc. We can make changes and be the change maker despite of traditional mind set up of few people, lack of resources and some other difficulties. Make students your strength. Ask for help whenever is needed, we all are in the continuous learning process. There may be many more academically poor students in every class and even some having cognitive disability, but it doesn't mean that they can't compete with students having sound knowledge. To improve the academic understanding of students, we need to teach them in their desired way which can motivate and engage them. They will never actively participate in learning process if their concerns are not addressed. So, before you teach, try to understand students' psychology, behavior, problems, interests and their desired way of learning, enhance their motivation by different story, and bridge the gap between students and teachers. Students learn more through story, game and role play. They will not listen and learn if you teach them in boring way of lecture method.