The entrance of our Malesemau Paathshala School is a spot that gives you a panoramic view of the entire school. I love this spot. It gives you a clear idea of what is happening in each class, and also an overview of what is happening in all our schools. But one particular class that always draws me at Malesemau is our oldest ‘Blossom’ students.
As I stepped into their class yet again, this time, I was shockingly surprised. I saw what you can see in the picture above. I saw a triangle on the whiteboard, and my first impression was, “Oh! Geometry!” which implied that I was thinking of basic geometry in the back of my mind. But when I carefully read the step-wise solution on the left, I realised it wasn’t basic geometry but TRIGONOMETRY. To help understand, geometry is a superset of trigonometry, whereas trigonometry is a subset of geometry, which means that our kids were not learning simple math, but their level had gone higher in mathematics.
I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought perhaps it was a special class introducing the topic or something else that was more believable. Likewise, I had to be sure before I allowed myself to be happy and excited. So, I did the obvious. I asked our Math teacher, Arun Sir, present in the class, “Are they learning trigonometry?”. He smiled and nodded his head in agreement. It was that moment when my jaw dropped. My feelings were let loose, and a big smile took over my face. I was filled with excitement and joy, and I couldn’t stop myself from appreciating the students for coming this far. I stood at the back of the class and took turns staring at the whiteboard, our kids, and Arun Sir. Honestly, I was speechless. I'm sure the look on my face was funny. Later, I noticed myself excitedly telling everyone what I had seen in class. It was a proud moment for me.
Growing up, I wasn’t great at math, and neither understood nor did well in the subject. However, one topic I somehow had a good understanding of was trigonometry - another small reason why I was thrilled about this observation. When I saw the kids learning trigonometry, it wasn’t just about the level that they had reached. I felt the way I did because they had taken small steps over a long time to be here. If at all you could see in my head, the imagery looked like six kids walking on a bridge from one end to the other. I am sure this journey was long and rough for them. The kids had to fight continuous discrimination, discouragement, negative thoughts, family pressures, early expectations and their own desires to be where they are today. And the credit goes to them.
But when the imagery popped into my head, “six kids walking on a bridge from one end to the other, " I was not reminded of our Vision or Mission, but of our tagline -
A BRIDGE TO PROGRESS.
At JP, we often remind our staff of our vision and frequently remind ourselves of our mission. But at that moment, I realised we had stopped talking about who we are as an organisation - A Bridge. If you look up the definition of a bridge, it is something like this - ‘A bridge is a structure which is built over some physical obstacle, and its purpose is to provide crossing over that obstacle’. I mentioned some obstacles earlier that the kids face regularly. However, notice carefully how the definition is not complete without stating the purpose of the structure. The purpose is to help people cross over, and in our context, help them cross over towards success.
Your purpose can be thought of as your reason for being and defines the contribution you want to make to the world. But what if you start to fail in fulfilling your purpose? Look around yourself, and you’ll find plenty who are living life without a purpose and are oblivious to the reason for their existence. But certainly, there is discouragement when facing failure and also when you see no progress. But what I saw the other day in that classroom was neither stagnation nor failure - it was progress. I admit that we as a bridge might be weak and sometimes lazy or perhaps inconsistent. But we at JP are in the process of fulfilling our purpose.
You may ask, “How can learning trigonometry make kids successful? There is so much more to learn, right? This is just grade 10 mathematics, and it’ll take them nowhere”. If you have this question, ask us one more - if a bridge takes you from point A to point B, then why does ‘progress’ sound like a destination in the tagline (bridge TO progress) even though progress is always an ongoing process?
At all of our schools, we encourage our kids to learn and keep learning. We are on our way to turning our kids into self-learners and learning lifelong. It is true that trigonometry is grade 10 mathematics, but for us, it is a significant reflection of progress. One thing is for sure: JP is a long bridge. Once you step on it and commit to walk, the journey will be long, perhaps never-ending, but full of progress on the way, so the second question is the answer to the first.
Another interesting characteristic about this bridge is that once you start walking on it, you cannot go back to who you were before. You could be a beneficiary, staff member, or any other kind of stakeholder. The purpose and the experience start changing you, transforming you from the inside, and this stays with you forever.
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