A classroom story about connection—and why it worked.
I didn’t set out to become a teacher, and I certainly didn’t set out to write teaching advice.
In March 2010, I found myself standing in a classroom at Subharti University, Meerut, speaking to second-year engineering students—not because I was trained for it, but because I said yes to something I didn’t fully understand at the time.
For about forty days, something rare happened. The classroom stopped feeling like an institution and began to feel human. There was laughter, resistance, awkwardness, trust, disappointment—and moments of genuine connection that stayed with me long after the assignment ended.
What follows isn’t a manual. It’s an honest account of what I witnessed during those forty days—what worked, what failed, and what it taught me about human connection in places that often forget it matters.
What I Learned When Teaching Stopped Being About Me
At some point during those forty days, I realized something that went against everything I assumed about teaching.
It had almost nothing to do with me.
Not my preparation.
Not my delivery.
Not even my intention to “do a good job.”
The classroom changed only when I stopped asking, “Am I teaching well?” and started asking, “Is this landing for them?”
Every choice began to feel different after that. Why was I using a particular example? Why was I insisting on a certain method? Was it because it made me feel competent—or because it actually helped someone sitting in front of me understand, open up, or feel seen?
Once I began looking at the class from the students’ side of the desk, things softened. I listened more. I adjusted more. I empathized more. And strangely, the less I centered myself, the more alive the room became.
That was the quiet lesson I carried out of that classroom: when teaching stops being about the teacher, something human finally has space to enter.
How Laughter Changed the Room Before Anything Else Did
I didn’t plan to use humor. It emerged on its own, almost as a survival instinct.
The room would loosen the moment someone laughed. Shoulders dropped. Faces softened. A class that had walked in guarded and distant suddenly felt present. Not obedient—present.
I began to notice something simple and undeniable: when people laugh, they open. And when they open, learning stops feeling like effort.
So I leaned into it. Jokes, one-liners, small stories, bits of Shayari—whatever felt natural in the moment. None of it was strategic. It wasn’t about being entertaining. It was about making the room feel safe enough to be human.
It was unconventional, yes. But it worked—not because humor teaches, but because comfort does.
Looking back, laughter wasn’t a technique. It was a doorway.
The Day I Stopped Trying to Reach Everyone
There was another realization that took longer to accept—and hurt more.
Not everyone wants to be reached.
Most students do. They come with curiosity, anxiety, ambition, or at least a quiet willingness. But a few arrive closed, untouched by study, sport, or self-improvement. Nothing seems to matter to them. And no amount of effort can make it matter.
I resisted this at first. It felt wrong—almost unethical—to admit that I couldn’t help everyone. Guilt crept in. A sincere teacher wants to save every student, after all.
But slowly, I saw the cost of that illusion.
Trying to pull unwilling students along only drained the room. It took energy away from those who were actually listening. So in my introductory class, I said something that surprised even me.
I told them I wasn’t there as a trainer or an authority figure. I told them I was a collaborator. That this program wasn’t about me or them—but about us. And then I added, gently and clearly: if this didn’t interest them, they were free to leave. No questions. No consequences.
Some hesitated. One student warned me that complaints could lead to fines if I reported them.
“I won’t,” I said.
I even gave them an exit that saved face. A simple sentence—I need to go drink water. If someone said it, I understood. They wouldn’t be coming back. And that was okay.
For the first time, I wasn’t forcing attention. I was respecting choice.
What remained after that felt different. Lighter. More honest.
That day, I learned something that stayed with me: you can’t make someone care. But you can protect the space for those who already do.
Learning When to Listen—and When to Lead
Over time, I began to understand that listening was doing more work than speaking ever could.
When I listened—really listened—I could sense where the room was. I could tell when a student was confused, disengaged, or quietly struggling. Listening made it possible to respond instead of react.
But listening alone wasn’t enough.
A classroom also needs a center of gravity. If the tone is set by whoever speaks the loudest or resists the most, learning dissolves into noise. I learned this the hard way. Compassion without structure turns fragile very quickly.
So I held both.
I listened with care. I adjusted. I empathized.
And when it was time to move the class forward, I did so without apology.
The balance mattered. Too much authority, and the room shut down. Too much softness, and it lost direction. Somewhere between the two, something steady emerged.
That was another quiet lesson from those forty days: listening opens the door—but leadership keeps the room intact.
The Day I Learned That Kindness Needs Boundaries
For the first few days, I made a well-intentioned mistake.
After recess, I waited. I kept waiting—ten minutes, sometimes fifteen. Even twenty. I thought patience was kindness. I thought accommodating everyone was the right thing to do.
One day, while I stood there waiting for the latecomers, a student who had arrived on time spoke up.
“Sir, why are we waiting? Isn’t this unfair to those who came punctually?”
He was right.
In trying not to upset anyone, I was quietly disrespecting the ones who had shown up. That realization stung—but it clarified everything.
From the next day on, I started the class at the scheduled time, even if only one student was present. Once the session began, no one was allowed to enter late.
The shift was immediate.
Students adjusted. Punctuality improved. And the room felt steadier—not stricter, just clearer.
That’s when I learned that caring doesn’t always mean accommodating. Sometimes, it means drawing a line and standing by it—for the sake of those who are already present.
A Small Breach of Trust I Didn’t Repeat
There was a day when my patience ran thin.
One of my early batches had been restless—noisy despite my best efforts—and it stayed with me. When the next class walked in and noticed my mood, they asked what was wrong.
I answered vaguely. Just a hint. Enough to let them know I’d had a difficult session.
Almost immediately, something felt off.
It took me a moment to see it, but the realization was clear: I had crossed a line. By carrying the frustration of one classroom into another, I had broken a quiet trust—one that students rarely articulate but always feel.
I never did it again.
Each class, I learned, deserved to be met on its own terms. Each group carried its own energy, its own dignity. Speaking about one in front of another—even casually—flattened that uniqueness.
That day left me with a simple, lasting understanding: trust isn’t built through grand gestures. It’s protected in small, disciplined silences.
Learning to Respect the Students’ Attention
Because the subject was personal development, I couldn’t rely on a fixed syllabus or borrowed authority. I had to keep learning—daily.
So I did. During Metro rides and late evenings, I read. One book in particular stayed with me: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield.
Over time, the classroom changed into something collaborative. Students brought questions. I went looking for answers. What I shared with them wasn’t everything I read—only what felt essential, what could actually be carried into their lives.
Somewhere in that process, I noticed a shift in myself. I stopped circling problems and started searching for responses. Teaching sharpened my thinking as much as it shaped theirs.
That experience left me with another quiet lesson: when you respect people’s attention, you offer them the essence—not the excess. And that discipline benefits both sides of the desk.
Trying to Make Room for What Didn’t Fit
One afternoon, the class was alive.
A joke landed. Laughter followed—loud, uncontained, spilling beyond the room. For a moment, it felt honest. Then the door opened.
A senior teacher, known for her strictness, stepped in. The noise had reached the corridor. She warned the students sharply and turned to me with clear instructions: control the class, identify the troublemakers, escalate if needed.
She wasn’t wrong. Shared spaces demand order.
Still, something about the moment stayed with me.
The next day, I went to the Training and Placement Officer, looking for a way through rather than around the problem. I suggested something simple: what if students were allowed a few minutes at the start to release their energy—to laugh, shout, shake it out—before settling into the session?
The answer was firm. It would disturb neighboring classes. The idea wasn’t permitted.
I accepted the decision. But I didn’t quite understand it then—and I still don’t, even now.
The question keeps returning: is it better to allow a brief release, or to suppress it and let the restlessness leak out for an entire hour?
I never found a definitive answer. What I did learn, though, was this: caring sometimes means proposing uncomfortable ideas, even when they don’t fit neatly into the system.
There’s no guarantee it will work. But it’s still worth trying.
The Day the Complaints Came
There’s a part of teaching that no one prepares you for.
Even when you show up fully—when you give time, energy, and care—things can still go wrong.
In my case, they did.
A group of students complained to the Dean. They said I wasn’t a good enough teacher. They wanted a replacement.
The news travelled quickly. My employer was worried. The contract was at stake. A mishandling of the situation could have meant being blacklisted from future work.
I remember saying, with more confidence than I felt, “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”
I knew who the complaints came from.
They were the same students who had never wanted to be there. The ones I had asked—more than once—to leave if the sessions didn’t interest them. One of them even sat through classes with earphones on. I noticed it on the first day and asked him to step out. He promised he wouldn’t disturb anyone, so I let him stay.
That decision came back to me now.
I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt. It did. There were nearly two hundred and fifty students across five batches, and I was giving everything I had. To be reduced to a complaint felt deeply unfair.
But once the initial sting passed, the path forward became clear.
The very next day, I said it again—calmly, without resentment: no one was being forced to stay. If the sessions didn’t serve them, they were free to leave.
This time, the message landed.
The complaints stopped. The room settled. And something in me did too.
What that moment taught me wasn’t about toughness. It was about discernment. Help those who want to be helped. And learn to live with the dissatisfaction of those who don’t.
Some tears you don’t fight. You swallow them—and keep going.
Acknowledge That Old School Is Just That—Old.
When students don’t respond the way you expect, the instinct is familiar:
take control, punish, assert authority, show them who’s in charge.
That approach used to work. It doesn’t anymore.
Today’s students don’t look up to you as a feared authority figure. They respond to someone who is firm, human, and fair. Someone who can hold the room without threatening it.
That doesn’t mean becoming their buddy. It means dropping the dictator act and adopting a firm-yet-friendly stance—clear boundaries, no theatrics.
Once I understood this, a lot of resistance dissolved on its own. Respect didn’t need to be demanded. It followed naturally.
Understand That You Get What You Give
If you want your students to respect you, there’s an uncomfortable place to begin.
With yourself.
For a long time, I resisted that idea.
This wasn’t about me, I told myself. It was about the students—their attention, their discipline, their willingness to engage.
But classrooms have a way of reflecting things back at you.
Slowly, I began to notice something I hadn’t wanted to see. On the days I doubted myself, the room felt restless. On the days I felt grounded, the same students listened differently. Nothing in the curriculum had changed. I had.
That’s when the question appeared—not loudly, not all at once—but persistently:
Do I respect myself as a teacher?
And if I don’t… how can I expect anyone else to?
I didn’t answer it immediately. I just started standing a little straighter. Speaking a little less defensively. Trusting my presence instead of performing it.
And without asking for it, respect began to show up.
Life Is a Boomerang
Once I began respecting the teacher in the room, another question followed—quietly, almost inevitably.
What about the students?
That wasn’t an easy shift. Somewhere inside me lived the old assumption: I’m the teacher. Respect flows one way.
But classrooms don’t work that way. Not anymore. Maybe they never did.
I started paying attention to the language we use without thinking—the casual labels, the sharp jokes, the impatient remarks. Words spoken in frustration that land harder than we intend.
Imagine hearing, day after day:
You’re useless.
You’ll never get this.
Why are you even here?
No one grows in a room like that. No one offers respect where none is given.
That’s when the pattern became impossible to ignore. Whatever I sent out returned—tone for tone, energy for energy. When I approached students with dignity, even in moments of discipline, something shifted. Resistance softened. Conversations opened.
It wasn’t magic. It was symmetry.
Life, I learned, is a boomerang.
If you want respect, you have to release it first.
Do What an Honest Person Would Do
At some point, I stopped trying to appear unshakeable.
I told my students where I had failed. Not dramatically. Just honestly. The exams I hadn’t cleared. The confusion I’d lived with longer than I wanted to admit. The detours that shaped me more than my successes ever did.
Something shifted when I did that. The room relaxed. They listened differently—not because I sounded wiser, but because I sounded real.
Honesty also asked something harder of me. To notice where students were struggling—and to say it out loud. Gently, but clearly. Not to shame them. Not to prove authority. But to hold up a mirror they might not yet be ready to face.
Some didn’t like it. A few resisted. That was part of the cost.
But I learned this much: students don’t need perfect teachers. They need truthful ones. People who are willing to stand in front of them without masks, even when it’s uncomfortable.
The rest—approval, admiration, gratitude—comes later. Or it doesn’t.
Either way, honesty remains.
Realize You’re Not Going to Be There Forever
Students want you on their side. Completely.
That’s understandable. It feels safer when someone else is holding the responsibility.
For a while, I let that happen. I stepped in quickly. I softened consequences. I carried more than I should have.
But there’s a quiet cost to that kind of care.
When you stay too long, when you shield too much, students begin to lean instead of stand. Their decisions grow tentative. Their confidence borrows from yours instead of forming its own.
I had to learn to step back.
I began thinking of my role less as a guide and more as a gardener—watering, tending, protecting where I could. But storms don’t ask for permission. And when they arrive, the plants have to meet the wind themselves.
That was hard to accept.
But it was necessary.
Because the goal was never to be needed forever.
It was to help them grow strong enough not to need me at all.
What Stayed
If there’s one thing those forty days taught me, it wasn’t a technique.
It was this.
Love changes the room.
Not the loud kind. Not the performative kind. Just the steady willingness to see students as human beings first—confused, hopeful, defensive, unfinished. The same way I once was.
When methods failed, when plans collapsed, when authority didn’t work, something else did. Speaking honestly. Listening patiently. Showing up with care, even on tired days. Teaching—not from the head—but from the heart.
Years later, I ran into one of those students. Not in a classroom. Not in a formal setting. Just somewhere ordinary, where neither of us expected to meet.
He recognized me instantly. Walked up. Smiled. Hugged me.
Nothing dramatic was said. Nothing needed to be.
In that moment, everything made sense.
That’s when I understood what had actually happened back in March 2010. The reason those days felt different. The reason they never really left me.
It was never about standing out as a teacher.
It was about choosing love—again and again—in a place that rarely rewards it.
Thank you for staying with this story.