A new lesson everyday

After the final exams the kids had a fortnight off before they started school again. I usually view holidays with trepidation but this time was secretly rubbing my hands in glee because I enrolled them for the annual VBS[Vacation Bible School] at Church. Which meant that they would be out of my hair for 3-4 hours everyday for 7 days.

What is it they say about best-laid plans of mice and men……

It all started when I was standing & talking with my friend in church. A mature member of the church interrupts our very important conversation.

Yes important. We were talking about world peace.

Seriously we were.

Anyways you can’t prove we were not.

Now the nice-looking aunty requests my friend to step in as a VBS teacher since they were facing a shortage. As soon as I heard the topic of conversation my gut instincts screamed at me to "get out of there Nancy....just get the heck out of there before...". My friend like I expected cried off because she was a working woman & the timings clashed. I in the meantime was trying to merge into the solid church wall behind me.

Why????

Because these two were blocking the exit.

When the heavy and suggestive silence became too much I peeked to see 2 pairs of eyes staring expectantly for an answer to a question I'm prepared to swear I didn’t hear. That was it. Before I knew it I was signed up as Junior teacher for the VBS.

I was not pleased. All that free time I dreamed of putting into good use evaporated into thin air ;-(. Teaching kids was the last thing I wanted to do in my ‘free’ time. If I wanted to do that I would have joined as teacher in some school long back and earned big moneys.

I spent the rest of the day kicking myself for not saying NO plain and straight out.

What is the big deal you ask????

"Very big deal" I defend myself.

To begin with I don’t like kids.

Nope, not even my own.

I love them, my kids I mean but ‘like’….I'm still not so sure.

It was always like that. Even during my teenage years I used to keep away from them. Anyways it was mutual, they didn’t like me too…the kids I mean. If any of them even accidently looked at me I’d contort my face into a grotesque mask and scare the freaking daylights out of them. Their mothers would frantically scan the vicinity to see what rendered their sunny kid into a blubbering mess.

I still do that[once in a while though] to reassure myself I haven’t lost my touch.

Coming back to my original problem, I finally came to the conclusion that there was nothing I could do but grin and bear it. And it was just for a week anyway.

The only silver lining……my kids were so thrilled about it.  So excited that it was ridiculous. Naina was building castles in the air. Like she was pretending that she was already in my class and I had made her the monitor of the class.

Huh….

“Naina, it doesn’t work that way, when they find out we belong to one family they’ll put you in another class.” said I, trying to let her down gently.

“But Mama they won’t find out because we have different surnames[well she has her father’s name and I have mine]” said Naina looking at me very hopefully.

On the first day of the VBS Naina’s dreams crashed. Not only was she not in my class she was not even in my section ie. Juniors. She was grouped under Primary. She was inconsolable. I pacified her in the limited time I had[I too had to reach my class right] & waved her off with another kid in relief. And Nikita was in the Intermediate Group.

Thank goodness both my kids were not anywhere in the nearest vicinity. I don’t think I could have concentrated on my work with these two trying to catch my eye every 2 minutes. As it is I was so jittery about taking classes after a long time.

I reluctantly make my way to the Juniors group leader who assigned me Section 13.

No. 13

Wonderful, now all I needed was a black cat to cross my path.

I found a tiny group of 4 patiently waiting for me when I reached my section.

Eh, just four kids???

I mugged up all that stuff in Lesson 1 to teach 4 kids???

Introduced myself and asked them their names. Made small talk. I taught the 1^st lesson really well; with lots of cunning examples and touching stories. Infact I drilled it into their heads so well that I doubt they are going to forget it anywhere in the near future. The lesson for the day was ‘Obey your parents’. Vested interests u see. I was also hoping that somewhere on the other side my kids were also taught the same by like-minded individuals.


As the evening progessed I realised I didn't have to do much. If I asked 1 question the 4 kids together had 40 things to tell me. So it was ok. And they were sweet kids. Seriously they really were. I mean they were irritating and all that but since I already had experience handling my two I was ok. Let's not forget that I was also on my best behaviour.

I cautiously declared day 1 a success.

But ofcourse all the way home Naina was acting like I gave her up for adoption or something. Huge accusing eyes followed me around for the next 24 hours. Luckily for me her teacher was a teenager who turned out to be a fun person to hang out with so she magnanimously decided to forgive me after 2 days. Drama Queen I tell u.

The next day's lesson was about Forgiveness. There were 8 students[a bunch of 8-10yr olds] in my class that day. One kid was in my class by mistake. I decided to forgive him. 8 was a decent number and I needed him to make me look good.

The next day was about Sharing; I got all of them to bring a coloured imprint of their hand on chart paper which I stapled around a decorated paper-plate[denotes sharing, get it??]. After lessons & games we all shared the donuts, samosas and mini pizzas we brought from home.

Then Humility, Faithfulness....and so on it went. All too soon it was the 7^th & the final day.  There were no classes on the final day; every class put up a play or a song or whatever they could usually with a message. Juniors group was large….there were atleast 150 kids if not more. And we were given just 20 minutes to perform whatever we wanted on stage.

We decided to go with a Malayalam song and a small play enacting it. The song was about a small injured sparrow seeking shelter from the rain. The banyan tree, the mango tree and the palm tree refused to give shelter. Finally the banana tree welcomes her into his shade. Then there is a storm and all the bad trees are destroyed but the humble banana tree survives. Good wins over bad kind of story.

Considering the fact that we started practicing only the 6^th day and ALL the 150 kids took part I thought we did a decent job. We managed to fit in around 50 kids on the stage…….around 5 kids held main parts, the rest were all trees, shrubs and flowers. The remaining 100 kids stood just below the stage and sang the song. What do I say??? It played out awesome. We felt a bit like frauds accepting all the compliments which were pouring in;-D

It was time to say good-bye. All my kids were really very sad that it was ending. Making me wonder if they lead boring lives or what. And I felt guilty that I was glad it was ending. I mean I was sad too but it was too much work. Once I decided to go ahead with it I had thrown my heart and soul into it but my h&s wouldn’t have been able to handle the strain if it went on much longer. 

I hugged them all and sent them off with loving & encouraging words. One of the boys stayed back to talk. Remember the little boy I told you who was in my class by mistake. The one I decided to forgive. Yes that one.

His name is Milan. He said something like this “Actually maam I came to your class by mistake. My papa showed me the correct class the next day but I didn’t want to go there. I loved your class very much and wanted to be here. You are the best VBS teacher I ever had”. He didn’t look old enough to have attended more than 2 years of VBS. But seriously, he said all that.

Ask Naina, she was there when he said it. She puffed out her chest in pride and beamed, like as if he was complimenting her.

And me I’m weird I tell you because I’m actually considering doing this next year too.

Aaah well, I'm hoping good sense will prevail sooner than later.