Welding a teachers green brigade

Bittu Sahgal

I am who I am (and so I would imagine are you) because of the many teachers who enriched my life. I can never forget Freddie Brown, our housemaster at Bishop Cotton School, Shimla. Between him and Mrs. Brown we learned much more than had ever been mandated by the school curriculum. Their ‘lessons’ had more to do with life, values and loyalty than marks, discipline and punishment. When we were caught late one night atop the headmaster’s pear tree with pillow cases stuffed with fruit, I recall him testing the stolen fruit and muttering: "delicious!" The next day we were invited to share a confiscated-pear pudding at the Brown residence. And I can never forget the inimitable Mr. Goldstien, our principal, who, when an unjust caning at the hands of an unreasonable teacher was scheduled, would quietly advise us to wear an extra pair of shorts and use a slim book to cushion the sting.

My father was in government and had a transferable job. I therefore went to more schools and had more teachers influence me than anyone I know. There was Fr. Bouche of St. Xaviers, Calcutta, who reminded me that life would deal me a good hand, even without high Hindi or math scores; E.K. Aibara, who taught me to keep a straight bat when he coached cricket at the Hyderabad Public School; Mr. Lewis who explained grammar and syntax through conversation, rather than textbooks; the good Father Joris, who protected me from a teacher who had wrongly accused me of smoking in college (it was another student, whom I refused to name). And the wonderful Mr. Shankar, my Hindi teacher and originator of the line I now teach to thousands of children around the world: ‘Jungle nadi ki maa hai’ or, ‘the forest is the mother of the river’.

I doubt that I will ever be able to repay my debt of gratitude to my teachers and it pains me to learn that in spite of their invaluable contribution to our collective development they continue to be under-paid, under-appreciated and hopelessly over-worked. And without becoming maudlin about it, I have yet another reason to be beholden to these quiet builders of our lives.

In the past few years I have made it my mission to spread the green message to more than a thousand schools across India. As a first step, Sanctuary magazine actually persuaded one million children to create the world’s largest Save the Tiger scroll. We received more than our fair share of kudos for this achievement, but I’ve always felt uncomfortable about taking the credit, because I know that the real work was done by the teachers in targeted schools.

Which is why Sanctuary has now dedicated itself to the task of reaching out to the fraternity of teachers, to share our appreciation of their worth and to elicit their continued help to prepare ‘generation next’ for the ecological battles ahead of them. As expected, teachers have humbled us with their response.

When John Mason former principal of the Doon School heard of our plans he called together a special meeting of his faculty to discuss how another 40 Dehra Dun schools could benefit from the nature education packages we had designed for children. And Ayesha Das, one of India’s most respected educationists has undertaken to do the same for 70 Kolkata schools. As a result of the efforts of teachers, children in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Amravati, Nagpur, Patna, Mumbai and New Delhi are all part of our Save the Tiger family.

And urging kids on are committed individuals such as Dr. Rajesh Gopal, director, Project Tiger, and P.K. Sen, who heads WWF-India’s Tiger Conservation Project.

In another few months, the children who participated in Project Tiger will be commemorating three decades of its existence. In the words of Digvijay Singh Khati, field director of the Corbett Tiger Reserve: "These children are our children. We will look after them and gain from their support." Our objective is to bring children closer to nature so they can learn more about the earth and prepare to save our vanishing wildlife when they grow up.

Kids manage to disarm adults because the former do not carry intellectual baggage. This is not to say that they do not question positions, or opinions. On the contrary, I have learned to do a lot of homework before speaking with children who ask the simplest, yet most difficult to answer questions.

In the past month, I have personally addressed over 500 teachers in six cities, telling them about Project Tiger. These workshops were held with the support of Heinz India, our new sponsors. And our simple task is to win the support of teachers to realise our mission of protecting the most charismatic cat in the world.

If you happen to be a teacher and are reading this piece, or a principal who wishes to work with Sanctuary magazine to awaken the inherent sensitivity of your wards towards nature, please don’t hesitate to write to us to find out how your school can benefit from our outreach programme. Log on to www.kidsfortigers.org or www.sanctuaryasia.com. Help your students chart a path through the maze of ecological options ahead and be a part of nature’s defence team.

For more details teachers might also like to correspond with Noel de Sa, (former principal of St. Mary’s, Mount Abu). It was Noel who put the Kids for Tigers programme in place three years ago. He is orchestrating our national programme from Kolkata and has made it his mission to weld teachers across India into a massive green brigade. Asked why his life has taken this unusual direction, he replies: "Teachers can change the destiny of the nation, the very face of this country in a couple of decades. And our first initiative should be to put a halt to the environmental degradation that threatens to overwhelm the children who are the central purpose of our lives."