When you haven't slept in on a Saturday, yet you're found cheerfully talking to people or walking with a skip in your step, clearly something out of the ordinary has happened.Only this time, the 'something' that had happened involved a certain group of middle school kids who had made my day worthwhile.
The students at Olcott Memorial High School were energetic to say the least. When we (we meaning a group of ten students from KCG College of Technology along with their mentor Mr.Dorai) reached the school, there were karate classes going on. They assembled and sat down at the call of Mr.Ram (co-founder of NGO Deepam). That was when we addressed them and got the preliminary introductions out of the way. By then, I could see future police officers, engineers and doctors looking at us from the group of about 50 students who were assembled.
Those few minutes of interaction were sufficient for us to know that we wouldn't be able to handle such a group all at once; so we split up and took a section each.I was part of the group handling the students of class 7B. As per plan, we had 7 tablets including 6 iPads and a Samsung tablet. I cannot tell which one of us was most surprised when the kids looked at the tablet and exclaimed, ''oh its just an iPad ...!'' Simultaneously we were showing the other group some educational videos. We translated the videos for the benefit of those who didn't understand them and had a small question answer session which was a lot of fun...
We then had a common drawing competition in which the kids participated with a lot of enthusiasm..We didn't give them any particular topic so we could see a lot of variety from dragons to families , you name it. When we finished distributing the prizes to the winners, it was time to go. That was the most memorable part of the day because we could see how attached the children had become to us. They were practically ordering us to come back the following week and we were not allowed to refuse..
After spending some more time talking to the kids we left for lunch...It was an amazing session we had with the children and it stayed with us through the day. All of us felt so happy and satisfied which we rarely get to be given our daily routine.The smiles on their faces ,the pressing requests(or rather orders) to come again, the relationships we built that day and the joy we brought to them was a lovely feeling in our minds that we would remember forever...
Those few minutes of interaction were sufficient for us to know that we wouldn't be able to handle such a group all at once; so we split up and took a section each.I was part of the group handling the students of class 7B. As per plan, we had 7 tablets including 6 iPads and a Samsung tablet. I cannot tell which one of us was most surprised when the kids looked at the tablet and exclaimed, ''oh its just an iPad ...!'' Simultaneously we were showing the other group some educational videos. We translated the videos for the benefit of those who didn't understand them and had a small question answer session which was a lot of fun...
We then had a common drawing competition in which the kids participated with a lot of enthusiasm..We didn't give them any particular topic so we could see a lot of variety from dragons to families , you name it. When we finished distributing the prizes to the winners, it was time to go. That was the most memorable part of the day because we could see how attached the children had become to us. They were practically ordering us to come back the following week and we were not allowed to refuse..
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