“Non ministrari, sed ministrare”
It was something in these words – something in this mission – that brought me to where I am today.
My name is Chaitra Nerurkar, I am part of the Green Class of 2013, and I studied History and South Asian Studies at Wellesley. I am now a Teach for India (TFI) 2013 Fellow and I have just completed my first year teaching 2nd grade at CEM’s Chaitanya English Medium School in Pune, India.
When I enrolled at Wellesley, I came in wanting to study English, then International Relations, then French, and finally concluded with History and South Asian Studies (I followed the typical Wellesley trajectory to switch majors a hundred and one times). My degree was never related to my passions – I was and still am inherently interested and curious about History and South Asia, but I knew if I studied History I would never be a Historian. Wellesley’s belief in service drove me to realize my love, passion and drive to give back to society, and to give back to India.
There was a definite process that brought me to join Teach for India. My first year at Wellesley I was interested in retail so I took up a part-time semesterly job with Ann Taylor, and then that summer, I worked with Lush Cosmetics. After sophomore year, I received a Global Engagement Grant and worked in Maheshwar, a small village in central India, with a weaving community. It was the summer after junior year when everything began to piece together – I decided it was time to go the “corporate” route, and I worked with Accenture. I was lucky enough to be put on a pro-bono project with an Indian education NGO Pratham. We worked on analyzing the education landscape in India – we read the famous ASER report – and I found my niche. I realized then that I needed to be part of the Indian Education system.
It wasn’t just my summer internships that brought me to TFI. Wellesley’s belief and passion in service, in creating women who will change the world, and in the alums who have already begun that process, created this connection that I too needed to be part of. I knew that if I did not do something now, I would never do anything worthwhile for others or for myself.
I am lucky to have studied in the best institutions in the world. I have studied in multiple different educational systems – the IB, the GCSE, the ICSE, American public schooling, American private schooling – the list goes on. My Wellesley experience – meeting people from all over the world, from such different backgrounds and experiences – has filled me with an abundance of knowledge and insights to bring to a group of students who may never see anything beyond their community and their classroom. My students come from an extremely low income society in Pune (3 hours away from Mumbai) and may never leave the constraints of their economic situation. I am their one shot.
I cannot say that I am a good teacher and I cannot say I have figured it all out. Teaching is difficult, and there is a long way to go. Wellesley taught me to stick it out, to push through those difficult moments, and to know that I will be able to do it in the end. My next year is my final year, and it is just about that: making it all happen by the end.