“To teach is to touch life for a lifetime”. Teaching is my passion. As I go back into my memory lane, I remember teaching students as early as twelve. Bringing home a few younger friends of mine and using a brown door in the living room as a black board, I helped my friends finish their class assignments and enjoyed reprimanding them for either talking in class or spacing out. A few grades higher, and my teachers asked me to peer teach math concepts.

As the first teacher to my younger siblings enabling them to be the best students in their classes, has always been appreciated. This is the story of my passion in teaching which later blossomed into a strong ambition to touch the lives of many young people and make a difference in their lives.

My first  teaching career in the real sense  of the word started in the beautiful country of Taiwan. The city of Kaohsiung welcomed a young couple who was on their path to fulfil their dreams and ambitions. Gopal, my husband and myself lived in Kaohsiung for 6 years where my teaching skills were honed under the leadership of a great administrator. A young and ambitious teacher in the greener pastures and a well visibly defined destination  was a perfect way to begin my professional journey.

More opportunities to teach unfolded as I moved to Mainland China after six memorable years in Kaohsiung.  Shenzhen, a city across from Hong Kong, became my next home. Shekou International School founded for expatriates residing in the beautiful gardens of Jingshan villas offered me the next adventure.

At this juncture, I might add that in addition to teaching the expatriate children coming from 20 different nationalities, I had become the ‘ first teacher’ to my own child. My son was three and a half years old. Teaching him along side other students of the school was a joy that had no parallel.

Blossoming and growing in my chosen field, I embarked upon several professional development courses attending workshops and seminars in cities across Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing. My quest for learning also took me to Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Min in Vietnam. Mingling with other teachers and listening to the keynote speakers provided the right atmosphere for me to learn and grow.

The need to specialise  in an area urged me to take up ESL  or English for Second Language Learners. Online course, Onsite course, participation in workshops only added  and expanded my horizons in  teaching giving me an in-depth information and knowledge on how learners across different cultures and nationalities learned. I learned the different grammatical structures, the styles in writing, the attitudes of the learners, and the varied approaches. This significantly changed my own methodology, and my attitudes . I realised that although I was a very patient teacher and understood my students,  I needed to do more research on their learning styles.

‘One Size Does not Fit All’, a teaching style that I first came across after attending Howard Gardener’s workshop in Hyderabad, India, gave me the opportunity to apply differentiated learning techniques for my students. Having learned its importance, I adopted methods such as goal setting, recording and reporting, and regular parent-teacher feedback sessions; while challenging, are incredibly rewarding at the same time time.

Working efficiently between my demanding career, my three children, and a CEO husband required that I organised my lifestyle. Everything from cooking for the family, to play dates for my children, to family outings, to house parties, to grocery shopping required meticulous planning. My study looked more like a classroom to the extent that one day my older son complained that he was coming from one school to another!

Passionate and patient, creative and clever, diligent and honest are the adjectives of a framework that adorns the personality of Meera Padki

Working with cross cultural  faculty and  students spanning from more than 40 nationalities for the last 30 years, I have learned that writing is the most beautiful skill among all the skills of English which must be complemented by reading, making it the hardest! Being developmental in nature, writing takes a lot of patience and effort to master a desirable level.

“If students are to make knowledge their own, they must struggle with the details, wrestle with the facts, and rework raw information and dimly understood concepts into language they can communicate to someone else.In short, if students are to learn,they must write.”

National Commission on Writing“