The Job Story - 5

The government office opens for the public at 10:00 AM. We started the first class at 9:00 AM. Outside the office, it would be very quite at 9:00 AM. The scene would change dramatically at 10:00 AM when the area would be bustling with activity. It was amazing that within one hour the whole place would be transformed.

I would pick up the morning newspaper from Churchgate station and walk toward Old Custom house passing Flora Fountain and Fort. The newspaper was my timepass during the first lecture from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. It was one-way traffic in terms of pedestrian. Sea of people would be moving toward the Fort and other office areas. Most of them were government and bank employees. In the evening, the sea would move in the opposite direction.

The first day I walked in the computer lab, I was surprised to see the classes had started. Then I looked at the clock and realized that I was late. I went through the first day’s curriculum. My colleague and I had decided that we would be going at the same pace. We would start and end with the same topic so that the students do not complain of one class going faster than the other. We learnt later that it was difficult to keep pace with each other. However it was necessary that we finished before exams of each module. The date of the exams were fixed.

After the first class ended, students for the second batch started coming in. To avoid any problem, we decided that students would be using the same machines throughout the course. The students started coming in one by one. Looking at them I felt like looking at small children at their first day in school, scared and curious. That is when I realized that my class only had women in the batch. I looked back at my colleague. He was smiling mischievously at me. I could smell trouble here. The women were in the age of 26-50. Right from being just-married to having children who were just married.

The first class was tensed. I was teaching such a big class for the first time and with almost 100% women students. I am not indicating women are bad students but I had hardly interacted with the fairer sex until now. I was never a favorite with girls until then. Actually I hardly knew any girls until then. I said “until then” because at the end of the three months, a lot changed. What if I could call all of them kaki (aunty). We were taught to show respect to elders and address them as “Kaka” (uncle) and “kaki” (Aunty). In the class, I was not sure how to address them.

If you are a Maharahstrian, you would know that you use the last name more than the person’s first name. So if I wanted a paper from Amit Deshpande it would go like;

“Arre Deshpande, paper de re” (Deshpande please give paper)

The Maharahstrian take more pride in the village they come from and the last name is a subject of pride. A Maharahstrian will always ask another Maharahstrian the name of his village. So I called everybody with their last name adding a “madam” or a “sir” after the name. That way I respected the elder and still work with them as students.

After the first class, it was an easy ride in terms of teaching. I taught them in their language and the way I understood without being too technical. I tried to relate and give example from real life. Sometimes the example was a little stupid.

For example I had to explain “Rename” command. Now as most of my students were women and most of them were married women I told them that the rename command is renaming the file with a new name the same way when they get married, their name change but they remain the same person.

My colleague advised me not to use that example because some of the women could get offended by the comment. Although I never used the comment but that day the women understood what rename meant. I could see that on their faces. My colleague thought otherwise.

After half a month, we had another faculty who would take the last class as I came quite early and left quite late because of the last batch.

Some of my students were quite bright. The sole man in my class was not so bright but he did ok. Some of my students were not so bright and I had to teach according to everybody. The ‘no-so-bright’ students would never ask questions and I had to ask them again if they understood. Some of them just gave up and some of them did not care at all. After a couple of exams, I understood the best, the good the OK and the worst students.

Its said that there is a child in each one of us and I saw that practically. They would be terrified of using the computer. Try teaching a 50 years woman to double click and you would understand what I mean. Using the keyboard is quite easy as it is same like the typewriter but using the mouse is a different ball game altogether. (We used trackball mouse those days)

They just couldn’t figure out the difference between single click and double click. They would be so stressed during double clicks. They would be tensed and their body would be stiff. It took some time for them to learn and master the double click. I could not rush them; neither could I shout at them like small children. Although they were students, they were well past their age in learning a complex subject like computers.

A computer for them was a mystery box. They were in awe of it. They were scared of it. They thought one wrong key and everything would just explode. They would get frustrated when some functions did not work. You shout at them and the whole computer course could just become mandatory and uninteresting.

I was left with only 20 students while my colleague from morning handled 40 students in two batch. Another colleague in the evening handled 15 students. Some of the students dropped from the course.

I developed my own style and it worked just fine.

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To Be Continued…………..

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4