‘I remember being sized up by Class 10 boys’

On a weekday morning when we phone Meera Issacs principal of Fortrsquos Cathedral and John Connon School requesting for an interview she laughs it off ldquoI donrsquot know what new I have to sayrdquo she coos Her decision to hang her boots after 44 glorious years has generated tremendous interest over the past week After all the journey from a rookie substitute teacher to housemistress to vice principal and finally to position of top boss of the 146yearold educational institution is a portfolio that not many can lay claim toIssacs relents Only to reveal that along with being a teacher shersquos also a raconteur And ldquobeing a dinosaurrdquo means you never quite run out of stories to tellEdited excerpts from the interviewYou wanted to be a journalist but took up teaching at your motherrsquos insistence Things would have been different had you not Is this something you think aboutI do at times It was mainly writing that I was interested in Thatrsquos what my father did too I deified him he died quite tragically in an air crash while heading to an assignment He wasnrsquot even supposed to be there he was filling in for someone I was five years oldIsaacs seated second from right as the Wilson House headmistress She joined as a substitute teacher in 1977 and rose up the ranksWhat was the education system like in the city at the timeI studied at Queen Mary School in Grant Road and it was a wonderful place run by missionaries The student cohort was multireligious multilingual and from varying economic and social strata but our differences did not merit a thought My childhood was fairly idyllic in the sense that we didnrsquot have the kind of pressure that kids today face They are running all the time from school to tuitions to squash Yes they are all very driven and ambitious We were carefree We would climb trees and play games that have now disappearedWe also worshipped our teachers I remember Mrs Minchin in particular because she was like Scarlett OrsquoHara the heroine of Gone with the Wind in a flowy buckrum dress with a tiny waist She used to play the piano and inspired me to take it up My mother even bought me one and hired a tutor But I was absolutely hopelessWhat do you make of the IB school trend and Indian children flocking to foreign universitiesThis children geared to go abroad was something I saw only after I joined Cathedral in 1977 I remember one particular division where every single child took admission at a foreign university It was a widening of my own horizons of what life could offer I remember when I was a student a Rotary Club had offered me a scholarship to go abroad but my mother refused I resent it now but that was the world view thenYou came up with a rule that every child would have to travel by school bus You also stopped lunchtime meal deliveries How did you deal with the reactionsMost people have a different idea of what Cathedral is all about A friend of mine told me that when she had visited the school to enquire about admissions she saw a table being laid out for a child A maid was serving the food She said lsquoMy god thatrsquos not what I want for my childrsquo I told her that I had been in the school long enough and I had never seen such a thing This was merely a perception and far from trueI was in touch with the police commissioner at the time and the traffic situation outside the school had become a matter of concern with cars arriving with drivers carrying lunch tiffin blocking the road It was ridiculous There are a bunch of schools in the vicinity and we couldnrsquot let the whole of this Fort neighbourhood come to a standstill during lunchtime because of our childrenSo we thought why not have a lunch system in school And if you donrsquot want what the school canteen offers carry a lunchbox from home just like what we did in our days And we survived fine What I mean is you need to be grounded Thatrsquos what school is all about you learn to cope so that when you go out into the world you are a strong resilient human being Eventually everybody accepted it the decision and fell in lineA lot of your students have gone to become immensely successful That must make you proudI remember Fareed Zakaria journalist author and host of CNNrsquos Fareed Zakaria GPS as exceptionally bright There was also theatre actor Rajit Kapur and Geeta Anand dean of the UC Berkleley Graduate School of Journalism And then there are all these CEOs at various companiesTell us about transition from teacher to principalCathedral was my first exposure to a coed school And boys are a different kettle of fish they are scary I remember being sized up by the Std 10 class Fortunately all that passed and I have a nice rapport with the kidsEven becoming a vice principal wasnrsquot that big a change because the buck doesnrsquot stop with you It does when you are the principal Therersquos a distance that needs to be established immediately between you and the rest because the responsibility is much larger Moreover I had to keep the legacy of the school alive The question was how do I enhance it All of that takes a lot of planning and organisational skills It changes the equation You love your kids but itrsquos not that open easy rapport anymoreWhatrsquos it like to let go of what you love doingI would love to visit my own children and grandchildren And then I want to travel the world because itrsquos a huge education Irsquove led a comfortable life and so one has to give back in whatever way one can So I would also like to focus on helping underprivileged children Education is power Therersquos a school for the kids of daily wage earners in Madurai and Irsquom on the school board I get all my friends to help with the funding There are a lot of likeminded people who are willing to help out Therersquos a lot more I want to do I hope I can