If you are reading this, it means that I have finally pulled
myself away from all of that important and necessary napping, reading and movie
watching long enough to write. Over the last few months, we have all been
hearing quite a bit about teacher’s day and therefore have been getting really excited.
This day is all about celebrating teachers and what they do, and while we had
to break it to our students that in America we did not celebrate this or
Student’s Day, we could not wait to participate. Therefore many schools
including St. Andre and Holy Cross, celebrated by having programs run by the
students and dedicated to the teachers. For about two weeks prior, many of the teachers
in our school tried to catch a glimpse of students practicing their dances or
were found discussing what they would wear for the big day.
When Teacher’s Day finally came, we dressed to the nines,
wearing local dress with cameras in hand and smiles on our faces…although Sarah
and I have yet to perfect walking in Saris or Pasahras which made getting to
the bus quite a struggle. At school,
many of us teachers took pictures/selfies while the students prepared. With a
short pinning ceremony, we all paraded into the assembly square with the
students cheering loudly for all of us (I think I know what it feel like to be
a celebrity now).
We knew it was going to be a great program when KG1 to class
3 students came out and did a dance to Barbie Girl by Aqua followed by some of
the other young students doing a fashion show. While there were some periods of
confusion along with some class 1 models crying, everyone still looked very
fly. After that there was a variety of
dances and performances. Most of them were traditional Indian dances while some
had a little western flare to them. Some class 11 and 12 girls who are from
Arunachal put on a great performance representing their home state. There were
a few Hindi dances that could have been taken straight from Bollywood and
during one memorable Kokborok performance, one of the class 9 boys came out
dressed as a very believable girl and fit in perfectly with the rest of his
female classmates during a partner dance.
In the middle of the program the teachers got brought to the
stage and had balloons tied to our feet. The goal was to pop everyone else’s
balloon and keep yours full of air. While I expected to be great at this, I was
very disappointed to find that I remained in the game for close to 7 seconds.
After the winners were declared, teachers received gifts of mugs along with
matching fabric (we are all getting teachers uniforms…pictures to follow when
we get them).
And of course the day ended in an on stage dance party.
All told the program was really wonderful and it’s always
very cool to see your students in a different light and showing off talents
that might not be seen at school and its even cooler to see students who may
not show interest in school, show so much joy and excitement up on stage. While
I did not get to see the Holy Cross College Teachers Day, it sounds as though
there was a lot of fantastic dancing and singing to be had there too!