This teacher of tribal school grooms students, washes their clothes

COIMBATORE: The job profile of S Ayyappan, a 34-year-old assistant teacher at the Government Residential School for tribal children at Lingamavur in Udumalpet, Tirupur, is to teach the 23 tribal children in class. However, he doesn’t stop with that. He also grooms them and washes their clothes.
The teacher, who joined the school in October 2018, says when he first saw the children, they were unkempt and weren’t groomed properly.
The job profile of S Ayyappan, a 34-year-old assistant teacher at the Government Residential School for tribal children at Lingamavur in Udumalpet, Tirupur, is to teach the 23 tribal children in class
“All through the year, the children stay at the school hostel and go home only during festivals such as Diwali or Pongal. Their parents come to visit them once a month. When I asked them why they weren’t groomed, they would say their parents had found no work and couldn’t visit them to take them out for a haircut,” he says.
It was then that Ayyappan took upon himself to give the students their regular haircut. “When I was young, I had learnt to cut my own hair. With that practice, I started giving haircuts to my students,” he says.
There are 12 boys and 11 girls in the school, aged five to 10 years. They are studying in classes I to V. The children belong to tribes such as Irulars and Kadars from Thirumoorthy Malai, Udumalai, Valparai and Anamalai. Their parents work as labourers in farms or tea estates. The school was started in 1997.
Earlier, the students used to wash their clothes on the bathroom floor. Ayyappan, with the help of the school headmaster M Pandi, built a washing stone in the campus.
“But even then, the kids were playful and didn’t wash their clothes properly. So, I started washing their clothes,” adds the teacher.
Ayyappan did his schooling from Ramakrishna Ashram’s Children’s Home at Pallapalayam in Coimbatore. “There, we had to take monthly turns in doing ashram work, such as puja, cooking, tending to cattle, etc. This instilled a sense of service in me, because of which I want to help my students,” he says. Ayyappan credits his Class XII teacher Murugesan who helped him pursue teacher training at the institute of education training in Kotagiri.
Pandi says Ayyappan is the first teacher he has seen who does so much for the students. “Because of his approach, students’ behaviour too has improved in class. His friendly and helpful nature have made students behave well and pay attention in classes,” says the headmaster.