Bombay Central Teacher Training Session - Sarthak Dalal
The recent teacher training session at Bombay Central
was a very humbling and eye-opening experience for me. It was the first teacher
training session I participated in as a volunteer with Toybank. I was a little
nervous before it began. Throughout the session, I was learning ways to
effectively communicate and lead people who I cannot directly speak with
because of a language barrier (note that I am a Junior in High School living in
the US – volunteering with Toybank India). I appreciate the teachers who give
their whole lives to educate the special needs children and ensure that they
lead a relatively successful life. Watching them do their work touched my
heart. We first started off by setting up the toys and the posters and
projector for the power point presentation. This required me to walk around the
school multiple times to get the necessary materials from one room to another.
As I was moving the objects, I noticed the poor conditions that the students
went to school in, but also noticed their happiness and joy with what they had.
They were grateful for whatever little they had, and this reminded me to always
be grateful in my life. Helping to educate these teachers on Toybank was a very
touching experience because I knew that we were educating people who would use
our principles and toys to better the lives of many underprivileged children.
The teachers seemed very interested by our presentation and by the end were
more than eager to learn how to play with the games and teach their children.
It’s always satisfying to know that our message and ideas of helping
underprivileged children are spreading to other people who will implement them
to better these children’s lives.
After we set everything up we waited for the teachers
and kids to come in and then we started the presentation. As I was listening, I
found the presentation very in-depth and convincing, as the presenters
discussed Toybank’s message, goals, impact etc. The presenters gave an
overall description of the organization. Once it was over, we had 30 minutes of
play time with the teachers and special needs kids where we teach them how to
play with the games and toys that we provided. The teachers learned with ease,
but it was much harder with the kids. At first, it was difficult and nearly
impossible to play and teach the kids but as time progressed I learned and
could do a somewhat better job.
It was difficult as I didn’t know how to handle
some situations, or how they would understand the games. I showed them, by
first doing it myself and then after a while, they slowly seemed to get it
little by little. I failed in teaching them the games, but I feel that if given
more time to interact, they would have learned much more and would have
completed the full game. I truly felt sorry for the special needs kids as they
came from non-affluent background and therefore did not get the proper therapy
and care they deserve. I did whatever I could to help them. Time flew fast and
soon it was 3’o’clock and time to clean up. Quickly, we put everything away,
took our group photo, said our goodbyes and left.
- Sarthak Dalal, July 2017
(A Happy Toybanker!)
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