When was the LAST TIME you did something for the First Time?

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When was the LAST TIME you did something for the First Time?

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?“, goes the tagline of a TV advertisement. If you were to pose this question to the teachers of GPS (or to our students for that matter), I am sure the answer will be a resounding “Oh, just a minute back !”


It is indeed amazing how one minute before break , you may have had a noisy bunch of teenagers going over the moon over a video clipping that showed  the use of robots in manufacturing fast cars, and just the next minute, when the bell rings, to have first graders pull you down to your heels to admire the rhythmic movement of a snail that came a-visiting on the passageway.
The variety of tasks done at school could range from as mundane as filling up documents to as exotic as planning an SMS system for students, from correcting papers to designing a whole new mail merge system for reports, from lesson planning to frantically writing dialogues to make an O Henry story into a skit for assembly. At GPS, there is indeed never a moment to just exist, there is only a nano second to evolve.

After being a corporate person all my life, I have found coming back to teaching at school a cathartic experience. The school system with its emphasis on mentoring forces you to move from being a teacher to a facilitator and from a Ms Know-It-All to Ms Learn-from-ALL kind of person. The students with their constant curiosity and restlessness change the dynamics of being an adult and encourage the child inside me to bloom. Being at school has enriched me to take the time out to see young minds at work and see how much a kind word at the right time can help. Every day at GPS also brings to light the paradigm shift that is taking place among parents. From a totally marks focused approach of earlier times, parents that I have had the privilege to interact with have given feedback that is both forthright and constructive. Indeed I find that parent-teacher relationships have evolved into a teamwork centred around the need of the child.


Yet all of these experiences fail in comparison to the joy that teaching at GPS gives me. The freedom to explore new avenues, the ease of availability of technology to impart new teaching techniques and the constant push to innovate and make each moment with a student a rewarding experience sets GPS apart. I, for one, am awed by the sheer bandwidth of knowledge that I get from both my colleagues and students every day that I am here.
At GPS, even students learn early on that constant change is the new normal. For them conducting a full-fledged assembly inspite of it being an exam day is considered normal, being asked to come on stage and say an impromptu vote of thanks is normal, suggesting ideas to the management and getting down to implementing them is also normal. Yes, the beauty of getting an education at GPS is that long after you have forgotten what was on chapter 5 , page 12 of your Science textbook in grade 7, you will always remember the values that got drilled into you. To speak up for what is right, to stand up for the weak and to always remember that your character is defined not by wealth or stature of your parents in the society, but by who you are and what you do when nobody is watching.
And that for me defines the essence of being a GPSite. So, you ask, when was the last time I did something for the first time? I just wrote this article, didn’t I?