Mrs. Mehta’s Class

Mrs. Mehta taught us History in Class VIII. She wore thick glasses that rested precariously on her nose and whenever she scolded anyone they slid further down her nose and made her look funny.

Mrs. Mehta was popular for two reasons. She was very humorous and always shared at least one joke in every class. The other reason was the way she taught us History. She made history and civics interesting. She had a skit for every chapter in our book and made us take turns performing these skits. Somehow, these skits helped us memorize the dates, the events, and the names in our history syllabus a lot better than just learning by heart. Mrs. Mehta aimed to make learning a fun and easy process for us.

After each chapter in history, Mrs. Mehta encouraged us to write a poem about it. It was fun, but over a period we realized that the poem was actually an assignment. We had to read the lesson really thoroughly to write a poem about it. She never compelled us to do it but she had her way of getting us to do things. If everybody in the class wrote a poem, the entire class qualified to see a movie. Needless to say even the movie was about history. Mrs. Mehta’s favorite line is ingrained in my memory – “History was penned to make us aware of our past and to help us make more informed decisions in our present.”