By Kshama Shetty
One of the bigger influences in my life is the language I speak – Kannada. During high school, I spent my Sunday afternoons teaching little kids how to speak the language. I was lucky however and I was able to have a transition into this position. When I first started freshman year, I was a helper to one of the teachers. It was a fun position, since all I did was find and print relevant coloring sheets and then help students one-on-one when they were doing individual work – little did I know how it was preparing me to teach a class of my own. It was during this time I got to know all the students and their parents. I was able to get a scale of where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses were but I also got to hear random stories the kids told me.
A year and a half later, I learned that due to an increase in students, they were creating an additional class and asked if I would want to teach this new class. I immediately jumped up at the offer and that’s when I really began teaching. At first, I had my doubts. I was unsure of my own abilities at speaking the language, let alone teaching it to someone else. I was scared of one of the kids showing their parents what they learned – only to have it be that I taught it wrong. Whenever we had a new student, due to their young age – they always tended to be very scared to be alone and therefore one of their parents would sit with them in the class. I always dreaded this since I was scared that the parent was judging me for what I taught, how I taught, etc. However, as time went on – I was able to learn from these fears. I made sure to prepare beforehand, that it was okay to check Google Translate to make sure I was teaching properly, and that I had heard positive reception from the parents and therefore shouldn’t be afraid of what a new parent would think.
Outside of teaching however, there were different challenges. Every class was expected to perform something at the annual Diwali show hosted by our committee. For me, since my class consisted of kids 3 – 8 years old, making up a dance for them was the best way to go. Class time became 30 minutes for the weekly lesson and 30 minutes to practice for the Diwali show. There were always challenges, whether it be that the kids couldn’t remember the step they had just learned or the fact the kids were tired after 10 minutes and wanted to play a game instead. However, after a few motivators like snacks and stickers – everything came together for the actual Diwali show.
Looking back, teaching Kannada classes was one of the most impactful things from high school. I was able to develop leadership skills, master my Kannada, and I grew closer with the kids and their parents outside of class.