The New Student
“Jenny, you need to unlearn for this role”, Ms Bruce said to her after she had finished her demonstration. “The audience is a different age group”, she added. It was valuable feedback and Jenny knew it was coming.
Jenny was there to interview for the role of a teacher, a role she had given no thought to over the years. People had told her a number of times, as a young girl, that she would make a good teacher but she never wanted to be one.
She had behind her, a number of years in a corporate set up, in varied roles. Ironically, the last few had been in training and quality, which she had enjoyed and realised that she was good at it. She had catered to an adult audience. It was a different ball game all together.
As she left for home, there was a riot in her head. “Would I be able to shoulder the responsibilities in this new role?” Jenny thought. She knew it would be a challenge because she was thin on patience. Her predicament was that she was allergic to books, contrary to the fact that she was a voracious reader of all books non-academic!
As a student she had been bright to grasp what the teachers taught her but could never sit down to revise. She was an epitome of a ‘let down’, because she had thrown caution to the wind and not bothered to give it her best shot. This was her modus since she had started middle school, after having topped her school in class 4.
“How do I go about this? It is like going back to school! I hope I can get over my allergy!” Jenny kept drilling it in. She didn’t want to let the opportunity go by, because having been in the roles of quality and training managers, she knew she could make a difference with her ability to explain well – like Aamir Khan in ‘3 Idiots’! It was her nemesis that she was going to befriend!
Jenny realised she was new to this role, regardless of the number of years she had been working. She felt a chill going down her spine thinking about how it would be for her on the first day she would step into a classroom. “Oh god, what have I gotten myself into!” Jenny said to herself.
Routines were not here thing and she knew this was going to be a venture for her to settle into. She was going to do it for herself, to learn this new conundrum. Bracing herself at the wheel, as she drove home, she knew it was the beginning of a new lease on her otherwise mundane life.
As she plonked herself on the sofa, after reaching home, Jenny drifted to the classroom she was going to step into in the following week. Jenny felt like a new student in the class and knew she was going to do just fine.
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