Throughout our lives, we all have a number of defining moments. It could be a lesson from our early life or something we learned from experience. Defining moments have a significant impact and they develop and shape the person we are.
My defining moments have been subtle, but profound; as the one I have related below.
In the third grade, I was one of the back benchers in my class. Science, math could not hold my attention. As Sister Conrad, my Science Teacher droned on about the number of bones in the human body, I could scarcely keep my eyes from closing. I knew something had to be done! I looked around for a solution. It came in the shape of an Enid Blyton book. It was lying on the top shelf of our class library cupboard. At that moment even an old, tattered book looked more interesting than the labeled skeleton structure drawn on the board. I started reading. …page 1, 2, 3, and on I went. I did not get caught by Sister Conrad, but I sure was caught hook, line and sinker by the reading bug!!
I soon became a voracious reader, reading everything and anything I could get my hands on. When most kids my age were talking about the movies, out playing hop scotch, or aping the 70’s Rock and Roll singers, I had my face buried in a book. I would pick a book, climb up a tree in our backyard; hidden by the thick bushes, and be lost in a world of stories, legends and poems.
So, as a teacher, I encouraged children to read, read and read! And I read along with them!! When students feel the spell cast by books, the corridors are hallowed. There is something special here that one would not dream of disturbing!
Yes, such moments have been crystallized in my mind as truly defining moments. These times have defined who I was and later came to be; that I choose to be a teacher; that I am, even at this stage, a learner.
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