When Annapurna Mohan, 23, walked into a dilapidated building of Panchayat Union Primary School in Kandhadu village near Marakkanam in Villupuram district in 2004, she was appalled with the conditions in the school. Daughter of a doctor in Tindivanam, she was still recovering from the shock of having a missed an MBBS seat by half a mark.
But soon, she was moved by the children’s love towards her. She was determined to reciprocate this love by transforming the school. She pledged her jewellery and raised ₹2 lakh to convert a derelict classroom into a sophisticated smart class. “They liked me so much that they wanted to touch me. I told them that only if they bathe before coming to school, they will be allowed to touch me. They did. Over the time, I began to understand the environment from where the children come and slowly was attracted by the students’ behaviour. It is their love that has kept me going till date.”
“After my dream to pursue medicine was derailed by 0.5 marks, I completed teacher’s training and was posted immediately to this school. I disliked the school environment and wanted to quit. I was not comfortable when I joined the school. I felt I did not fit in this place,” she says. Her disappointment in pursuing medicine did not stop her from the passion to study further. While working in the school, she completed BCA, MBA, MA (English), M. Sc (Maths), and B.Ed in the past 10 years. “I was planning to quit this job after completing my MBA. When it was time to take a call, I decided to continue to teach in the government school,” she says.
Something enticed her to stay back and work for more than a decade and spend her hard earned money to set up an ICT classroom, providing the best teaching methodology to the children in a government school.
Attending a training session for government teachers on basics of phonetics, she began to think of new methods to teach English.
“I prepared a CD with more than 10,000 slides, categorising each word into eight parts of speech with my voice recorded to make it easier for the children to learn sound of each word. I have called it ‘Fear Free English’. The students can even play the CD themselves and learn. This is to train the students in British accent,” she says.
Daily battle
Every day she travels 30 km carrying four bags with four tabs, abacus and two laptops for her classroom.
“It is not safe to leave valuable things in this building. We lost at least four ceiling fans in this classroom and we do not know who took them. I decided to carry all the four bags. Since it was difficult to bring them in a bus, I bought a used car to carry them to work,” she says.
Her classroom stands apart from that of the other crumbling rooms with the room decorated with English alphabet and words written on tiny mango-shaped charts. While rectangular charts with words written on them decorate the wall of this classroom, the students’ favourite cartoon character Dora and friends stare from the wall where the black board is fixed. Until the last academic year, she was teaching only Class 3 students. “I was worried as the students did not have continuity in learning English through this methodology after Class 3.” But soon, she was asked to teach English for 173 children from Class 1 to 5.
Rising expenditure
It has not been smooth sailing for Ms. Mohan. Her colleagues and even senior government officials are expecting her to convert the government school into a smart school. Though she received ₹1 lakh from sponsors, she had to pledge another gold chain recently to build a temporary compound wall, buy furniture and set up a stage to welcome 110 teachers from other schools in Marakkanam block.
“My senior officers requested me to arrange to welcome teachers from other government schools to see the classroom. I am expected to spend my money. How can I refuse? I am doing it with the hope that other teachers will be inspired to do so. I have a loan of at least ₹ 7 lakh in Teacher's Society,” she says.
School principal S. Premalatha said that she had sought help of the government to convert all the rooms into smart classrooms.
