Disability no hurdle for this teacher

Kulwant Singh,a Class X student,says,“Villagers are generally weak in English but it has become very interesting now with Gupta Sir teaching us every chapter through AV aids. Even in the slides,the pictures used are those of school students with their names”.

Rajbir Singh,another Class X student,said,“Parts of speech was the first digital lesson plan I saw on a projector and later I understood more about volcanoes,mountains,global warming etc,all through information communication techniques used by our teacher.”

All this has been made possible by a physically disabled English and social sciences teacher,Vijay Gupta,who does not find disability a hurdle in his teaching techniques. Gupta has 60 per cent disability in his right leg. With his personal efforts,he has got digital lesson plans made of almost all chapters of English and Social Science from classes VI to X. And he keeps adding innovative methods everyday.

This was why Microsoft chose him for the ‘innovative teachers leadership award’ last year,in which 80,000 teachers participated and only six were chosen from India to be sent to Brazil to learn advanced techniques in teaching skills. In Brazil,350 teachers had come from 60 different countries. Gupta,this year also,got the state award for ‘best teacher’ from the government and has been chosen as master trainer by the board to inspire other teachers for improvising teaching skills through IT.

Gupta,who joined this school in 2001,said,“I was discouraged in the beginning when I used to see blank faces in my class,even after best explanation of the topic in English or even social sciences. Internet was not very popular at that time,so I used to make flex sheets of a few topics at my own expense,so as to make teaching more interactive. I used to give small handouts to students to make learning easy and it started working out bit by bit.” But in 2003,he started making use of Internet,audio visual slides (prepared by him) and the lessons were taught through a projector. Gupta said,“I myself did a course in Regional Institute,Chandigarh about pronunciation in early 2000,so that I could correct village students in a better way.”

Gupta said,“When students were not giving good enough results by teaching clearer. Gupta said,“Time has changed and we also have to follow the new pattern,so as to make our students smart.” Principal Varyam Singh also appreciates his efforts,as he says,“Students wait for Vijay Gupta’s class. And our students are showing good results. So what else do we want?”