40 years of Employment Gratitude Series Part 8-- The Primary School

 

I started my schooling at a very small school – the medium was my Mother Tongue and all seemed good till the summer holidays began as I moved from my 2nd standard to 3rd standard.  On day 2 of the vacation , our house had a visitor. I was intrigued by the visitor as she was very fair complexioned and wore what I would call "Western Wear" and just did not fit in to the regular visitors we had to our home !   

As the visitor and my father discussed, I became aware that the visitor was my English language tutor and the intent was to prepare me to join an English language medium school for standard 3. The Tuition would be daily from 9:30 or so for an hour and half.  I was horrified and terrified ! 

I just could not take this … I had to find ways to escape . There were not too many options – As soon as I sighted Mrs Julian at the entrance of our street, I would hide myself somewhere in the house. We used to play “Police Thief“game and so there were spots in the house where we could just stay hidden and be unnoticed .. This could be behind the well of the house or climbing on to the sunshades of the ground floor or behind the thick shrubs of the Banana Plant .  And I thought Mrs Julian will disappear. Not to be. My father easily found me out and put me before Mrs Julian. I just hated to learn a new language …. So the summer vacations went with these classes , Mrs Julian was very regular ,  kind and patient and put up with my tantrums through the tuition periods and helped me to learn this new language ! 

Finally, the vacation got over and I joined the new English medium school . My transition turned out to be not that difficult in terms managing the medium of learning  .  It was more tough to deal with other schoolmates who spoke English in a very different accent .  

 The surprise was that Mrs Julian was the Class teacher of standard 3 and again took care to ensure I settled in to the new school very easily.   Thanks goes to Mrs Julian for teaching me English 😊. And to my father who made the switch at the right time and also by hiring a tutor to help to me manage the big change ( One instance to thank him among so many )

Wait for my Middle School Atrocities blog !

Comments

Niranjana Ramesh said…
Very funny.Not sure of the teachers name.Happy to read.
4:40 AM
Anonymous said…
Very funny and nice narrative Sri!
5:41 AM
Anonymous said…
Father’s are real life heroes or role models
9:09 AM
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