My Experience
Paromita Roy, Resource Person
“Fear ceases, and then alone comes perfect happiness and perfect love.”
– Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Vol 2, pg 415)
There are certain things in life that you can never anticipate no matter how much you try. One such thing, I now feel, is a resource person’s first school visit. Before I had actually been exposed to this experience, I had heard a lot about it from lots of different people. Sometimes they were general accounts while on other occasions I had heard people describe the procedures in detail, explaining about what to do and what not to do and also, what to expect. But, none of it was enough.
Manjira ma’am had sent the above words by Swami Vivekananda in the morning. I had read the message while in the metro on my way to the ashram. Through the whole journey I was trying very hard to think what “perfect happiness” could possibly mean. I thought for a long time and then finally asked her directly what it meant. Was it satisfaction? Was it contentment? I was truly perplexed. How can happiness be qualified as perfect? Does perfect happiness exist? If yes, how does it feel to be perfectly happy? Had I ever experienced it, unconsciously perhaps? Maybe, I had. Maybe in the course of my humble life, I had experienced a glorious moment of perfect happiness but I couldn’t remember anything. Is it possible to forget a moment of perfect happiness? It was all extremely difficult to understand.
Thus, as evident, I entered the ashram with a million questions running through my mind all of which I forgot the moment I saw Dharmendra sir, because I suddenly remembered that today I was to accompany him and Shatarupa on a school visit.
To be absolutely honest, I was beyond excited. I had been looking forward to this day and it was finally here. We left around 10:30 am and reached in approximately 10 minutes. Five years had passed since I had entered the premises of a school, hence the little things like the tennis court or the drawings in the vice principal’s room or the names of the classrooms (Tranquility, Versatility etc) all felt oddly comforting to notice. When we actually started attending the classes, I got a better idea about how the course was being received both by the students and the teachers/facilitators in charge.
I understand that what ACP is attempting to achieve is not possible until the teachers accept the program as their own. It is important that they view it as a medium to not only encourage the students in their class to think independently, act with discretion and recognize their own potential but also see it as an opportunity to get to know their own students better and bridge the existing distance between them. I saw that happening, while Dharmendra sir took over the class. On seeing the students answering in a perfunctory manner, he simply asked the kids, why they were being shown these slides and why they were being asked to take this class. Initially, some of them started by elaborating the benefits of ACP at which point sir asked them to share a personal experience where they had seen a change in themselves. Most of the children were quiet then. Some of them tried to answer in a manner which they felt would be “correct” and “appropriate” so sir related the question to the incident of raising one’s hand in class during a lesson. He asked them why is it that they were reluctant to raise their hand, what is it that they were afraid of. In a matter of seconds, something happened where somehow the students started loosening up. It was almost like sir had managed to convince them that he was not their teacher or some sort of an outsider but a dear friend who was concerned about them. After which the class was full of fun, every child was eager to raise his hand, to talk, to be heard. The class had completely transformed and the energy was magical. We observed a few more classes and every time Dharmendra sir or Shatarupa took the class the response was the same. Even I who was reluctant to conduct a module due to my ineptitude in Hindi couldn’t contain myself and I had to get up and talk to the children, ask them questions, encourage their answers. When I saw them having so much fun, I genuinely started to enjoy myself as well.
The school teachers are trying. Some more than others and I am hopeful that they will become addicted to the happy responses that their own students conveyed today and that alone will motivate them to try harder, with more patience and sincerity to extract more such responses. In the end, whatever happens, I feel it is most important that the students laugh a lot while attending these class, especially since everything else that they may be exposed to might in some way or the other appear to them tedious and burdensome. I hope that this course at least does not become tedious and burdensome.
Since morning it had been a very hot day. Very hot and stuffy with no dark clouds or mistiness but somehow just as the students were starting to have fun and let lose, nature too responded, giving way to an unexpected heavy rain that lasted a good 20 minutes. In some ways, watching the unrestrained responses of the students and the unrestrained downpour, I was once again taken back to my questions about perfect happiness. I won’t profess to now understand what it exactly means but I believe I did catch a glimpse of it this afternoon.
Tag:Experience, Growth