High School Days

High School Days

The schooling till high school is more of a fun that study. Only during high school days there starts the pressure from everybody around to perform. Even the teachers will tease you out in the name of board exams. In my opinion that is the first time when a student is put under such an intense pressure in his life. I had the same feeling in my high school.

Till high schooling I don’t remember I was ever asked to join any tuition or coaching. Life was 95% fun and 5% studying. Suddenly I had completed std. 8 without realization. The school from where i passed my 8th exams is the only public school in Valmiki Nagar (West Champaran, Bihar). I am not aware of the current situation as this information is from the year of 1996. Nevertheless, I was ready to join high school.

About the Town

Valmiki Nagar is a small town in the West Champaran district of Bihar. It was a very cool and calm place. It was situated on the bank of river Gandak. Valmiki Nagar is surrounded by a vast forest. The place is famous because Devi Sita(Goddess Sita) stayed there with Rishi Valmiki in that town. Also the place where Sita went inside earth is in there.

There is a dam build on Gandak river. Most of the people who stayed there were the employee of that project. The existence of that town was mostly because of that dam. Nepal border was a walking distance from the town. In fact I heard that half of the dam belongs to India and other half to Nepal. More than a 100s of times I went to Nepal for shopping as that was a bigger marketplace.

Schooling  life @ NGY High School

The high school which I was looking to join was adjacent to the high school. The name was Nadi Ghati Yojana High School. It was the only public high school in Valmiki Nagar. Many people told me that I should go to some good city school to have a quality education as it was not considered to be a good high school. But my dad supported me and asked to continue in the school.

Throughout my studying in 8th I used to watch high school students with a scary look. Only those people can understand this feeling who had a similar experience.

Well there are few things about Bihar board that they keep all the subjects in high school. They don’t divide streams in high school like arts, science, commerce, etc. To my understanding that makes this board a touch difficult for students. But you get used to things which you face all the time. Not to mention that I was studying all the subjects in my high school.

Rajkumar sir was standing headmaster of the school then. He also used to teach mathematics and physics. And believe me he was simply the best what he did. I remember Sunil sir used to teach us Advanced Mathematics(AM). AM was a optional subject in high school . Student had the option to select other course as well instead of AM. But I was always good in maths so it was my obvious choice.

Then the school was running short of teachers so most of the teachers used to teach more than one subjects in there. But I always liked the way the school managed with the scarcity.

There was a subject SUPW (Social Utility Productive Works). I can't complete this blog without mentioning this subject. This subject has theory as well as practical part. The practical part was exciting one. It used to come once in a week mostly in the afternoon session. There was a big ground which the school owned. We had to clean the ground as part of SUPW practical. So we used to sit in a straight line and get rid of all the big grass on the ground. I always wondered how the grass is growing so fast in that ground. May be nature was supporting the education. For every term exam we needed to give some completed product to the teachers. I remember nobody used to make anything rather purchase something from the market and submit.

As the school didn't have its boundaries covered. Students used to bunk in afternoon sessions. To avoid this, the school management had a very good plan. The teachers used to check the attendance once again in afternoon session. And whenever it happened all the students who had bunked would need to pay Rs. 5 for each bunk.

There was a teacher who used to teach us civics and history. Unfortunately, I can't recall his name. The funny thing about him was his way of teaching. He would ask one of the students to stand up and read the day's topic line by line for 5-10 minutes. And then he used to summarize what the student read. This way of teaching I had earlier faced in primary schooling. Most of students other than the "reader" used to sleep in his class for obvious reasons.

When you are studying in middle classes (6th-8th), senior students will always tease you asking “when you come to high school then you will realize what studying is", etc. Parents will never bother so much until you are in high school. During high school everybody (including parents, teachers, neighbours, all the relatives) will keep asking how is your study going, What grade/score you are targeting, etc. You will feel like you are the most talked about topic in all the discussions going around.

The only good thing that you feel in school is seniority. You get a serious sense of seniority to junior students. That feeling is very hard to get in other junior classes. People would come to you to seek assistance regarding study of their kids. And you can give all the high fundas to them. I really enjoyed it most of the times.

Well this is it for now. If I remember any other interesting incident I will post it again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Thanks for reading!!! Looking forward for your views on this.