YFS - The introduction, the induction

Continuing with the previous post...

Reached the venue with a few minutes to spare. There were about 60-70 people already waiting in the reception area. No one was too clear what the others were waiting for. "Teach India?" at the entrance, replied by a nod from who ever heard the question, led to the new joiners walking in a forming their own huddle. Just then someone walked up to me with a big bright Hello. It was a guy from the tech team that we worked with. Its always a good thing to sight a familiar face amongst a crowd of aliens :)
The crowd started walking up the stairs nearby and we followed them, chatting about how how and why we each found time to get involved in these activities, how we were in career paths that were so different than what we initially wanted and what more we wanted to do in life.
Software Engineers are just over-rated. In Bangalore, throw a stone, it'll either hit a dog or a software engineer. Hm... that comes from a highly motivated techie who is appearing for CAT this Nov and is currently interested in acturial valuation :)

The volunteers from YFS gave an hour long presentation about their activities. I had read about most part of this on their website and so, thought the time could've been used in a better way. The interesting part came later on with the Q&A session.
What is it that we were required to do? Were we to act as substitute teachers or was this going to be similar to tuition?
Teach India is not just about Teaching, but is about Educating. The targeted children were already attending schools. They needed more than just teachers. They needed a mentor, a coach, a guide, a counsellor. That was the role we were required to play. Help the children out with their studies, counsel them on problems they faced, identify their talents and mentor them to become better individuals. Teaching would have been easy... but shaping someone's life - that is a one big responsibility.

At the end of the presentation, we were each handed out forms to fill in - our qualifications, spoken languages, chosen language of interaction, activities that we were interested in/good at, which we were willing to teach. Collating this information, the group will get back to the volunteers in November with details of where, when and what's to be done.

Walked out of the session, having made a few new friends - a home maker from Kerala who'd recently moved and was new to Bangalore, an engineering student who had time to spare and was willing to help and another home maker who was already involved in various social activities and loved to teach.

Now to wait for more!
Forget about teaching, this is going to be one hell of a learning experience :)