Tutoring Tales

Growing up in Canadian classrooms, I became accustomed to a certain amount of mischief and an average amount of respect for teachers within the academic environment. In Varanasi I have been filling in as a pseudo-teacher at Tulsi Kunj, and it has produced some mini school/culture revelations for me. Small things like saying Namaste when coming or going, asking permission to leave or enter a classroom, and insisting that I get the best chair in our closet-like tutoring room all demonstrate the significant amount of respect I have been receiving from my students. However, now that I've been tutoring for over a month, I think my Canadian upbringing has infiltrated the tutoring group. I realized how slack I had let my class become last week when a thought crossed my mind about how useful it would be to have a bouncer standing outside to deal with the surplus of kids who want in. I can picture the conversations the students would be having outside in a roped line: “Yeah, this is Kelly Anne didi’s class. It’s the best. She’s oblivious to the rules, we can do whatever we want!”

For anyone reading this who has ever babysat, this situation is akin to the time when you babysat for the family you didn’t really know. Meeting the parents was fine, and the kids seemed nice, very polite. But you're unfamiliar with the household, and when the parents leave, your mind starts to lose track of the list of rules you were given at the start of the evening. All of a sudden it’s 10:30 p.m., the kids' faces are covered with orange popsicle, they’re giggling uncontrollably after their 6^th can of Coke, there's crayon on the walls and a weird smell coming from the bathroom. You’re in a Catch-22, because you’re praying for someone to arrive who can control the raucous bunch, but you don’t want the parents to show up and observe your complete failure.

Analogy aside, I have not completely failed as a tutor. Really. Flexing my algebraic muscles has been a dream for a former math nerd like myself—and one of these days, I’ll let the kids win when we compete in word problem races. Maybe.