Going Down Memory Lane-Ms.Radhika Surendran

Looking back, I recall my dreams, aspirations and plans for making my classes interesting to those little ones entrusted in my care as I walked into the office of Inventure Academy on the 16th of may, 2005. I was glad to be part of the founding team as the school shared the same ideas on education as I did.

For years, I had been working on progressive education helping students discover concepts and have the joy of learning. After our orientation and innumerable meetings of various committees, we got to planning for our classes. I was all excited as this was the part I liked the most….. action at its best. I began planning; I made sure that I used various methods to bring about learning. I had a lot of group work in my plans. I was all excited to implement it in my class.

Finally, the day arrived to meet our students at the “Explore programme” that was held in a farm. Can you guess how many students I had in my class? I am sure you can’t…… Well, after all the planning for great group work that would help discover a concept, I had just one student in my class. Forget about group work, I didn’t even have a pair to do an activity. I was disappointed, it was more like tuition…. It was a one on one teaching where my great dreams of group work wouldn’t be successful. Soon, I pulled myself together and decided Sanjali and I would be a great pair and will discover concepts together. She was the most wonderful and dainty angel that I had ever had as a student. I restructured my plans and after one week of regular school together I had Srinand being part of my class. Srinand had just moved in from the U.S. He was a voracious reader and extremely well behaved. It was a dream ….. I had two angels in my class now. The three of us had a good time learning through activities, expressing views and reorganizing our thoughts after having heard the perspectives of each other in our little group.

Off, I went on a holiday in October and returned to find another charming student in my class. Arshaan always had a charming smile and the four of us had a wonderful time discovering concepts together. The kids never considered me their teacher but as part of the class. Whenever any one asked them what the strength of the class was, they always said “four”. We called ourselves “The team”. Towards the later half of the academic year, Abhinav walked in as a student of the class….. He called himself a foodie. He was patient and quick to learn. We were very excited to have another member in our team. Well, I should agree when people say that patience pays off. It did pay off for me. We closed with four students in my class and of course me as part of the grade 4 team.

I taught the same class the following year and guess how many students I had? Well, I had fourteen charming, bright and interested kids. Well, I also had some really naughty ones as well but what is a class without them. Can be very daunting at times but looking back it was good fun…. All the arguments, fights, disagreements….. was another interesting way of learning. I was happy that I could now use so many different methods in the class. The following year I taught a different class. They too were a very interesting class with different interests and were fun to work with. The batch of 2007-08 was a class that was expressive about their feelings to their teacher and fellow classmates that made it a family and home.

I enjoyed being part of the lives of the students I taught at Inventure and was extremely sad to let them go at the end of the year. One might laugh….. if I reveled my little secret. I always cried when I keyed in the year end reports of my students as I couldn’t bear the thought of separation from my students. It was like a mother who felt extremely sad to part from her brood. I secretly hoped that I will be their teacher next year as well.

Life moves on….. I get to interact with wonderful kids each year. Although this year….. I don’t teach a particular class, I am interacting with almost every class and learning more about the needs of different age groups making me a better teacher and an individual. I have the students to thank for…… I have learnt a lot from them.


Radhika Surendran
Educator,Primary School