My journey with evidyaloka began as a precious gift given to me by GOD. In April 2014 I had to leave my formal teaching career ( which I was enjoying for past 21 years ) due to a very bad ligament tear and shoulder fracture in my right hand. For almost one year I had to undergo rigorous physiotherapy routine. During that time I always used to think, “ Will I be able to teach the children again ?” One day when I was searching on the net for volunteer teacher’s job I found www.evidyaloka.org. I went through the site, read about the vision of evidyaloka, watched the video by Mr Venkat Sriraman. I liked the concept and idea of teaching rural children sitting at home. I wanted to contribute to this noble work but had inhibitions as I had never taught online before. I was willing to teach in spite of my disability as I was not able to write on the blackboard. My husband and son motivated me and bought wacom pen tab, trained me to write using that. They also taught me how to share the screen to show the videos or written matter to the other person on Skype.In May 2015 I logged into evidyaloka, and rest was assured to me.
They
provided me the link to download e- book and I started teaching
science to class 6th in Jharkhand centre at Chengabassa village. During
my introductory class I could connect with the children instantly, felt
the same energy as I used to have in formal teaching. I got a platform
from where I could bring positive changes in the lives of rural
children. My overall experience was wonderful with evidyaloka. its very
well organised and just like a normal school they have teacher’s time
table ,holidays are informed well in advance, centre coordinators are
always available to communicate between school and volunteer teacher.
Class assistants are also trained to give respect to the volunteer
teacher and they assist volunteer teacher on ground. I m very happy that
I completed the essential lessons given by evidyaloka in time along
with activities and revision, made the question paper and did
invigilation too ( everything ONLINE ). Teaching rural children gave me
immense satisfaction and they kept me motivated to introduce new
teaching methods in online teaching by showing inquisitiveness.I had a
very satisfying and wonderful experience with evidyaloka. Children’s
score card itself shows their willingness to learn. My students of class
6th Chengarbassa village are very very special to me and I enjoyed
teaching and guiding them. Bonding was so strong that they never wanted
me to end the skype session.
In the end I can say that evidyaloka is
on its way of achieving its goal of educating rural children in India.
The vision to take along rural sector by educating rural children and
providing them best teachers has taken shape into reality and truly
enlightening their lives . I feel proud to be an evidyalokan teacher.