“You have to dream before your dreams can be a reality” –
Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam
On a typically wet Bangalore day, in the middle of July,
almost eight years back, I was sitting anxiously in the air-conditioned ‘AV
room’ – waiting for my FIRST DAY (!!!!) as a ‘PYP Teacher’ to begin. I was told
I will be attending a ‘Teaching and Learning in the PYP’ workshop but little
did I know that it will be such a jaw-dropping experience! I was not only
amazed by the PYP pedagogy, but also by the confidence and charisma with which
the facilitators delivered the workshop. That evening, I reached back home and a
prompt reply to my mum’s question “How was your first day at work?” was “Mum, I
WANT TO BE A WORKSHOP LEADER!!”
Ever since, like bull’s eye, my DREAM was to be able to
facilitate an IB Workshop. I did spend my first couple of years just trying to
comprehend what the programme was all about and I was extremely fortunate to be
guided in the right direction by the likes of Monita Sen and Gayatri Bhasin.
Subsequently, I was blessed to work at schools that provided an environment where
I could construct my own meaning of the PYP. All the heads of the junior school
at the Aga Khan Academy, Hyderabad: Diana Smith, Rima Singh and now Sreelatha
Kumar, along with all my peers, were highly motivating and inspirational. Thank
you, everyone!!!
Finally, they day I awaited the most arrived last year
(and ironically, it was yet again the first day of an academic year!!) when I
received an email from the IBO with the subject headline: “Invitation for
Workshop Leader and School Visiting Team Member Training”. By the time I
finished reading that email, I had already re-lived all those seven years since
that mid-July-morning!! I can’t recall the number of times I might have read it
– unable to believe that it was really happening – IT WAS REALLY HAPPENING!!!
Three in-school workshops, two regional, and two or three more
in the pipeline; sometimes I still pinch myself to believe that my dream is no more a dream - It is reality.
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