From Missteps to Milestones

Assawer Toheed

My name is Assawer Toheed (no, not the real Lady Whistledown, unfortunately). I teach at a school in Chak Shehzad, where my classrooms are filled with diverse groups of children, speaking a variety of languages and coming from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. With this piece, I want to share my journey from my first week at school to the present day. I have learned, unlearned, and grown.

Excited, but terrified inside, I walked into school on August 15, 2023, and the challenges were immediately apparent. My student group was wonderfully diverse, but this diversity also translated into significant differences in academic preparedness, grade levels, and confidence.
Motivated (perhaps prematurely) by the many protagonist teacher movies I had watched, I made some early missteps. In one of my first classes, I enthusiastically wrote a thought-provoking question on the board, assuming the students had read the chapter beforehand. Instead, several panicked hands shot up. “Miss, when did you give this test?” they exclaimed. My goal had been to spark meaningful discussion, not test their knowledge. Another one of my “cool teacher” moves was to organize a debate on a relevant social issue. After explaining what a debate was, I assigned the task, envisioning a day of lively, heated discussions. But when the day arrived, the students told me, “Miss, we don’t even know how to debate.”

These moments taught me an important lesson: while my students were eager and curious, they weren’t yet comfortable expressing themselves in another language or confident in their creative and critical thinking abilities. It was a wake-up call, and I had to quickly adapt my approach.

Since then, my co-fellows and I have worked diligently to build our students’ skills in a way that lasts. Our efforts are starting to bear fruit—small in size, but profound in impact.

By October, I noticed a transformation in one of my 8th-grade sections. Hesitant participation gave way to animated discussions and eager hands shooting up, now accompanied by sparkling eyes. Recognizing this shift, I decided to take it a step further. As a prelude to our Community Partnership Project (CPP), I asked the students to imagine themselves as community leaders. They identified pressing local issues and proposed practical solutions, presenting their ideas to the class.

The results exceeded my expectations. Issues such as gender inequality, water sanitation, deforestation, drug abuse, and voter awareness were critically analyzed. One student’s declaration moved me to tears: “Miss, I’m not a leader in the future—I am a leader now.”

I wrote in my journal during the Training Institute 2023 that I wanted my students to be leaders of the future, to be change-makers. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that my students already are the change-makers I wanted them to be.

Six months away from the end of this Fellowship, I can confidently say that it has profoundly impacted me. I joined the school as a teacher, but I am the one being taught every single day. Despite the challenges they face at home and school, it’s the spark in my students’ eyes and their growing confidence that keeps me going.

2022 Fellow, Assawer Toheed teaches English to 7th & 8th graders at a public school in suburbs of Islamabad. A graduate of Quaid-i-Azam University with a master’s in International Relations, she is committed to nurturing her students’ academic and personal growth.