Independence Day! Why So Serious?

As the country prepares to celebrate its 72nd Independence Day, I thought of taking a break from the regular. Of course you love to be filled with all the patriotic fervour on this day, the songs, the speeches, the paaramparik veshbhoosha et all but I decided to do it a little differently. 

Once we were through with the traditional celebrations, I decided to walk into the class and ask my students, what independence means to them. Senior kids as they are, they came up with the serious topics and changes they would like to see but suddenly, the child in me surfaced and I asked them to forget being politically correct for once and just be really honest. One simple cue, and the floodgates opened! 

They came up with such cute responses.....

One said, "Ma'am, I would like to have the independence to sleep and wake up at any time I want."

The other said, "Ma'am I'd like to have the independence to eat anything anytime."

Another said, "Ma'am, I want independence from my mom's incessant nagging. She keeps telling me to do this and that. It just drives me crazy."

One more said, "Wish we didn't have to study at all. Independence from books would be the best."

At this there was cheering in the entire class. Kids will be kids. They are sweet, innocent, honest, uninhibited and always up for a conversation so that they can miss studies :-D 

Even we were like that once, weren't we? I clearly remember, Ms. Kumari, our Geography teacher. She was a wonderful teacher, who had a wide knowledge on a lot many subjects. We just loved her classes as the books would definitely take a backseat once you hinted at a question and she would rally into a long descriptive answer sharing her life experiences and contributing so much to our learning when we actually thought that we had successfully managed to deviate her attention. 

Such are our teachers, they teach us so much even when we don't realise that we are being taught. 

So dear students, in case you think you had your share of independence by distracting the teacher, beware! She's still managing to teach you some serious life lesson which you will realise once you grow up :-D

Happy Independence Day kids!