CHENNAI: The strong bond that English teacher P Sivaraman from Chittampatti Panchayat Union Middle School in Madurai shares with his students goes beyond the walls of a classroom. He likes to treat them with respect and affection. Most of them don’t hesitate to even spend their holidays with him, when he plans short trips to teach History or Science in the outdoors or when he asks them to accompany him to plant saplings across the district. He has moulded a number of students in the past 15 years into better individuals and most importantly into human beings who care for the environment.
The 46-year-old who started working as a teacher in Kottampatti in 2004 was transferred to Chittampatti in 2006. Since day one as a teacher, he has been working towards creating environmental awareness among children. “I was born and raised in Manapparai in Tiruchy. My school teachers always taught me about the importance of environment and plants; we used to have practical classes on agriculture and farming. This made me an environmentally conscious person. When I started interacting with students, I taught them the same things my teachers taught me. The main motto was to involve students in planting more trees and making them root for a greener earth,” he says.
When he first joined the school, Sivaraman noted that there were just nine trees in the campus. With the support of his students, he has been able to increase the number to 180. “We have also planted hundreds of trees closer to the entrance of the school. In the past 15 years, with the help of my students, I have planted over 13,000 saplings in Madurai. I can assure you that at least 7,000 of them are alive and have grown into big trees now,” he says.
Sivaraman motivates his students to plant more trees by presenting them saplings for occasions like birthdays or when a student completes class 8 and leaves the school. “I leave the choice of sapling to them. A lot of them ask for trees like coconut and palm. This year, a bunch of them had asked for sandalwood tree saplings and I got it for them. I even go to their homes and check if they are taking care of the trees,” he says.
In the past few years, he has visited over 30 schools and a few colleges in Madurai, Dindigul and Tiruchy to conduct environmental awareness programmes. Though Sivaraman is an English teacher, he actively helps children develop their expertise and knowledge in various subjects. In 2013, when the popular ISON comet was in news, he made presentations about it to children to make them understand how it disintegrated due to the sun’s heat and tidal waves.
“This incident inspired me to buy a telescope for my students in 2015. Since then, whenever a celestial event of significance takes place, we make sure to gather and observe them through a telescope. In 2017, I also bought a spectroscope for the school which allowed us to learn about the spectrum of the sun,” he shares.
During holidays, he plans short trips with his students to indulge in birdwatching on the outskirts of the city. “I believe that a majority of the learning always happens in the outdoors. As the quarterly holidays have begun, I am planning to take them to Arittapatti. There they can see plenty of new birds and observe their behaviour,” says Sivaraman.