“Do not sleep. …….Work
hard….
In 24 hours, study
14 or 16 hours.
No Television! No
newspapers,
no sports, no games!
Just study, study,
study”
M. Chairman,
Today I want to
take you to
an impoverished
section of the city of Patna
in South East Asia (India)
and tell you about
a teacher…..
a student…..
and…… two.. schools.
Now I have never
been to India
but I pass along
the description
as seen through
the eyes of Stephanie Nolan
who is a foreign
correspondent
who now lives in
India
where she writes
for the Globe and Mail.
We all know how
important are….teachers.
Our TEACHER today is Mr. Kumar, Anand
and he is a 39 year
old mathematics teacher
in the city of Patna, India.
Mr. Kumar has done
an interesting thing:
he has started a
very successful program there
in his own SCHOOL (that’s our first school today)
which is called
….Super 30…within his own school.
The purpose of the
Super 30 program
to get smart ….but
very economically poor….. young students
into the prestigious
….. but expensive…. IIT,
the Indian Institute
of Technology,
(that’s our
second SCHOOL today, the IIT)
In the usual scheme
of things
these impoverished
pupils
could never hope
to attend the IIT.
However Mr. Kumar
has his own ideas
on that subject.
The name of our STUDENT
today
is Dhar…..Dharampal
Yadav
and he is 18 years
old, and his family is very poor.
This is a photo
of Dhar, in his home.
He is an example
of someone who usually
would NOT be a candidate for the IIT….
due to his poverty.
The IIT is
is an engineering
college in India
with 16 campuses
across the country
getting 500,000 applications from Indian students
for admission each
year.
Of these the IIT
accepts 8000
which makes it more
difficult to get into
than Harvard , or
Oxford universities.
There is a big demand
these days
for engineering
graduates in India,
and there is a shortage
of schools
So the IIT schools
have become very exclusive.
Poor people normally
need not apply.
But the exciting
thing is that our student, Dhar,
against all odds
has won admission to the IIT this year, 2011
And just how did
he do that?
Well partly through his own hard work,
and partly, due
to good fortune
as he was lucky
enough to fall under the tutelage
of Mr.Anand Kumar.
Here is a photo
of Mr. Kumar, at work,
in front of his
class, at the blackboard,
chalk in hand, slashing
out mathematical formulae
According to the
writers’ description
at the particular
moment when this photo is taken
the teacher is actually
yelling with excitement
over ….quadratic
equations.
And as a subtitle there is another kind of equation written
here:
“Passion +
Drive – money = a chance to change your life.”
That is Mr. Kumar’s
Credo: (repeat)
And so to that end,
Mr. K is part teacher…..and
part motiviational speaker.
And here is a photo
of Mr. Kumar’s students
in their classroom
in Patna.
taking notes and paying close attention to their teacher..
There must be about
100 students in this photo
of about 150 who
attend the Kumar school.
Why would Mr. Kumar do this?
Why would he bother
to encourage
impoverished students
in the slums of a big city in India?
One reason is that
he has not forgotten
his own background.
He was from a poor
family.
His father was a
clerk in the post office
But as a pupil young Anand was brilliant in mathematics
and his genius was
noticed in his public school.
He got accepted
at attend Cambridge University in England in 1994.
But, he never got
there.
His father died
suddenly,
so Anand stayed
home instead,
pedalled around
the city on his bicycle
selling food made by his mother,
to support his family.
However he began
working
for a math professor
at the Patna University,
and before long
the two of them were publishing papers
in international math journals.
Mr. Kumar also began
tutoring poor children
and in 2002, 9 years
ago,
he started his own
school.
Most families were
able to pay the modest fees
that Mr. Kumar initially charged all of his students,
but one day one
of his brightest students came forward
to ask if he could pay the fees in installments.
This was a little
unusual, and
when Mr. Kumar looked into this further
he found the student
had virtually nothing,
he worked as a servant
at night,
slept in a stairwell,
and studied when he could.
And it was then
Anand resolved
to find 30 bright
students like this Stairwell Student
who were penniless…..
and he subsidized
these students
with fees from the
others
and this allowed him to run
the Super 30 program
and break even.
Stephanie Nolan
describes Mr.K teaching
in an old shed
in a very poor part
of the city…
in other words a
slum
The heat and humidity are stifling.
The students sit
on rough wood benches.
The teacher wears a microphone,
but he hardly needs
it.
He gets very excited about mathematics
and in his motivational
sermons.
he preaches to the
students
“Your backgrounds
do not matter,
You are smart enough
for any test,
All you need to do is work hard,
and to believe that
you CAN do it.”
He expects total
commitment:
“Do not sleep. …….Work hard….
In 24 hours, study
for 14 or 16 hours.
No Television! No
newspapers,
no sports, no games!
Just study, study,
study”
And it seems to work.
Mr. Kumar teaches
his preparatory course to these teenagers
for seven months
each year.
The results are
pretty amazing.
The Super 30 has
been running for 8 years
and in 3 of those years,
all 30 made the
IIT admissions cut…
a 100% success rate.
This year, 2011,
26 of the 30,
including our student,
Dhar Yadav
got admitted to
the IIT.
By comparison
none of the so called
elite ….IIT
entrance coaching schools
anywhere in India can match this success.
In conclusion,
although I have
never met this teacher,
I am grateful to
Ms. Nolan for writing
her description
of Mr. Kumar.
I salute him, and
his students,
and indeed, dedicated
teachers,
not just in India,
but everywhere.
M. Chairman
