Amazing Students

There are so many kids I could write about here, but the one who is currently burrowing a hole right through my heart is Chance (not his real name, just my nickname for him) from Class 4. He is almost 10 years old and has been at the school for 3 years. Before coming here he had a brief stint in a government school where the teacher would come in and fall asleep on his chair while the students played and made noises all day. He had no exposure to English and lived in a village 3 hours away from here by train. His parents brought him for the examination, which he passed, but when he first came to the school he was homesick and was dismissed because he was crying all the time. His mother begged for him to be re-admitted, and from the time he came back to the school, he has applied himself to his studies relentlessly. Although he is generally a quiet and shy boy, one day he got up the courage to ask me for four vocabulary words. I gave him glisten, shimmer, mature and opaque. Within a few hours, he came back. He had looked them up in the dictionary and then written a short paragraph for each one. He asked me to correct his writing (he calls it “copy”) and then demanded four new words. He has since moved on to using all four words in one story, then asking for a topic to write a story about. He comes to my door at least twice per day to receive his next assignment. All of this is done for his own pleasure, just to improve his English. Yesterday I sat down to type up his accumulated work, and it stretched for 7 type-written pages. Since then he has written two more stories. He wants to be a writer or a cricket player when he grows up. Of course I am hoping for the first. I’ve pasted my favorite of his stories below. It includes the few corrections I made, but the vast majority of the text is his words.

Ms. Stone
Ms. Stone-mam came here as a guest from the U.S.A. We are very, very thankful to her, that she has taken the trouble to come here. Here, she teaches students. Sometimes she gives us a maths problem called “Brain teaser.” The boy who solves it is rewarded by her with a pencil. It also contains a small piece of eraser. Sometimes she gives a rubber band. Till now I have never seen her angry. I think she is kind, too. Till now I have received an award from her three times, two times a pencil and once a rubber band.
One day in class, she gave playing cards to all of Class 4th. I was playing another game, that’s why she took back her cards. I was so sad losing the cards. Then I said, “Mam, give me some words to make sentences.” She gave me four words (1) glisten, (2) shimmer, (3) opaque, and (4) mature. In these four words her favorite sentence was:
Opaque
Two friends were talking to each other. They went to a priest and said, “Can you tell out future?” The priest agreed. One of the friends said to the priest, “Can you tell what is behind the wall?” The priest said, “How can I tell what is behind the wall?” He said, “If you can see the future you can see the things kept behind the opaque things too!”
Then I demanded more words, and she gave four words again. Like this she pointed out my mistakes, and I kept improving my English. Whenever I go to her door, she calls me inside and checks my copy. I am very, very thankful to her for this kind of act. I can never forget her. She is my most honourable teacher and God, too. One day she hugged me, that three seconds were the most sweetest and memorable seconds of my life. The next day was Foundation Day. She put on a saree on that occasion. We were shocked. She was looking better than any other. She was sitting in the front row. Her speech was superb.
When Foundation Day ended, I was very sad because my parents didn’t come. I was roaming here and there, she saw me and said, “Did your parents come?” I replied sadly, “No mam.” And she was talking to the guardians.