“I gave a half-an-hour trial class to a pre-schooler and she started running all over the place,” says a Gurugram-based teacher, and another teacher adds, “Apne aap ko unmute aur camera off kar lete hain.” These ‘goof-ups’ have become an inevitable part and parcel of a teacher’s life in the pandemic, as online classes have become a crucial medium to be able to interact with their students. This Teacher’s Day, we bring you some funny
anecdotes from the other side, quite literally. Read on, and laugh your heart out...
“Once, this student of grade six was clearly not interested in studying on one particular day. His mother had forced him to attend the class, and a few minutes into the class he said ‘Ma’am, very poor internet connection’ and ‘Ma’am, I can’t hear you’. But, I could hear him, and even the movie playing in the background,” recalls Natasha Rawal, a Hindi language teacher.
Jigyasa Juneja, a Gurugram-based teacher who has been conducting online classes for children in the age group of four to five, says, “Since they are too young, they notice tiniest of things like, ‘Ma’am aaj pretty lag rahe ho, aapne nayi dress daali hai’. Often they run away, unmute the mic, and even switch off their camera. Aadha time toh isko theek karwane me nikal jaata hai. And, If I forget to change the meeting password, they remind me to do it! During the class, they start inviting each other for play dates at their place. Cutest bit is when they invite me home saying, ‘Ma’am, coronavirus ki wajah se hum school nhi jaa rahe toh aap apne mumma-papa ke sath aa sakte ho mere ghar mask laga kar.”
{{/usCountry}}Jigyasa Juneja, a Gurugram-based teacher who has been conducting online classes for children in the age group of four to five, says, “Since they are too young, they notice tiniest of things like, ‘Ma’am aaj pretty lag rahe ho, aapne nayi dress daali hai’. Often they run away, unmute the mic, and even switch off their camera. Aadha time toh isko theek karwane me nikal jaata hai. And, If I forget to change the meeting password, they remind me to do it! During the class, they start inviting each other for play dates at their place. Cutest bit is when they invite me home saying, ‘Ma’am, coronavirus ki wajah se hum school nhi jaa rahe toh aap apne mumma-papa ke sath aa sakte ho mere ghar mask laga kar.”
{{/usCountry}}Nitima Arora, an English language teacher, shares, “Every day is a roller-coaster ride! Once, we had to divide kids in two groups for facilitating teaching and one student told me, ‘You’ve done something very wrong ma’am. You can’t put me in group A, because my blood group is B+,” she laughs, adding, “Once the kids were engrossed in a calculation and the mic was on so we could hear a lady yelling at a man (supposedly her husband), about the clothes lying all over the place, and the husband was explaining hard. We pretended we didn’t hear anything.”
Meenakshi Agrawal, a teacher, shares, “Once when a class was going on, a standard 4 girl pinned her screen and started doing her hair in different styles, even pouted, oblivious to the fact that the whole class of 20 kids is
watching her! She could not hear the instructions as she had removed her earphones to do her hair, and forgot that the camera was still on!”
“Once during an online classes, a student’s brother, a toddler, walked in front of the camera straight out of shower, and wasn’t dressed. The kid didn’t realise that the ongoing class was live. The situation was brought under control by his elder brother who immediately turned off his camera, as soon as he realised why everyone on the screen had started giggling. But, by then it had already created a ruckus in the class with everyone rolling away in laughter,” says a teacher on condition of anonymity.
Author tweets @Nainaaora8
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