Amtul Khair Sadiya Siddiqui
A year of loss. She stayed the course.
Staying with the course through a year of loss.
- Now
- Aspiring business studies teacher, not yet in a classroom
- Programme
- PgCTL, joined with no teaching experience
- Next
- Looking forward to starting a teaching career in the new year
Sadiya joined with no teaching experience and a long list of plans, then a personal loss knocked her off track and she came close to withdrawing from the course. She raised it with the team instead, finished her assignments on a looser timeline, and is preparing for interviews.
Not an instant success story.
Amtul Khair Sadiya Siddiqui begins by saying what her story is not. “It is not an instant success story where I joined Suraasa PgCTL and I got a job or a promotion or an award,” she says. She thinks many people will relate to it anyway. When she joined she was excited, with “so many thoughts that I will do this, I will do that.”
Then came what she describes only as “some uncertainty and a personal loss”. “I just went off track,” she says, “and I realised that it is not always what you expect.” The classes kept her going. They were interactive and engaging, and worked, in her words, “as a booster dose for me”. The teaching staff answered her queries and gave her flexibility with her assignments.
A discussion before withdrawing.
The uncertainty in her life almost ended her studies. “I was about to give up. I was about to withdraw from this course,” she says. Before doing that, she decided to “discuss my concerns and my insecurities” with the admin team. They assured her, she says, that Suraasa would be there “not just until the completion of this course but throughout my teaching journey”. That gave her “a sense of security”.
They were quick to help me, they were quick to respond to my emails and my calls.
A new year ahead.
Sadiya defines success partly as learning a new thing every day. From the course she lists teaching theories, strategies, evaluation methods, feedback, online tools and how to form rubrics. She quotes a saying that an investment in knowledge gives the best interest, and agrees with it: “Any type of knowledge never goes in vain.”
Things are “getting bit difficult” in the global scenario, she says, “but hope is not lost.” She feels she has gained confidence, along with “techniques and skills of teaching”, and is sure she would crack any interview “with flying colours”. “I am looking forward to start my teaching career in a new year,” she says.
