Nargish Khambatta: The GEMS educator who touches students' lives

Dubai: She walked in to teach biology and all the children were wearing sunglasses. They said in chorus that they had conjunctivitis. And Nargish Khambatta put on her sunglasses as well and said: “Then this is the way it shall be.” She made the mischievous young minds laugh and won them over instantly. The class was protesting the departure of a beloved biology teacher and had chased away six replacements before Khambatta arrived. Serendipity had brought her to that classroom in Dubai. Thirty nine years have passed since that incident. Today she is Executive Vice President, Education, at GEMS Education. It all started in Devlali, a small hill station in Nashik, India. Born into a large family of nine siblings, she looked up to her eldest sister, who was a teacher. Her sister’s stories entertained and inspired her – stories of how she had turned around the lives of people simply by mentoring children. “Fascinating stories they were. Some of them hilarious,” Khambatta tells Emirates 24/7. “She was my hero.” “Some of my sister’s stories stayed in the back of my mind. I always knew that it was about connecting with the children first before anything else, before you even can mentor them. That's what I've done all my life.” She arrived in Dubai as a young bride in December 1987 with a master's in microbiology and a doctorate she had set aside for later. As a young girl, she had wanted to join the Indian army, the police or medical school, in the hope of serving the community, drawing on the values her parents had instilled in her. Although she tried for the Armed Forces Medical College, she didn’t make the cut. Her other options didn’t pan out either. Her mother's response, however, set the course. “Your whole purpose is to serve, right? Then go another way. How else can you serve?” She didn’t have to look far before zeroing in on her sister, her hero. “I like to talk to the child, the person, rather than the student. Get to know a little more about who they are as people, what interests them, what they are afraid of, what triggers them, their likes and dislikes.” The payoff, she says, is trust. She recalls one such student, a gifted young poet who wrote in English and Hindi. He was distant from his family and found solace among friends. “He stayed out late, arrived at school late and missed his exams routinely.” Teachers and parents held “many, many conversations” with him. Nothing worked. Then the school drew a line. “We said, ‘All right, enough is enough. Pack up. We're not entertaining him anymore,’” she says. She believes the boy knew what was expected of him and that hearing the school had given up on him because he was affecting others was the jolt he needed. He apologised and came back. He sat his exams and started studying. Today he is studying to be a lawyer. It is, she says, “the biggest high an educator can get”. “When students know that you are interested and keen in knowing about them, they just become a little more open.” In her current role, she helps shape the education of thousands of students and prepare them as future leaders. Along the way, she has represented Dubai's educators abroad, co-presented on international stages and brought ideas from positive psychology back into GEMS classrooms. “Academic achievement is only one part of a student’s development. Increasingly, I believe positive psychology offers an important lens through which we can rethink what educational success truly means.” Positive psychology is not about making students happy all the time or protecting them from failure. It is about creating environments where students can develop their strengths, resilience, confidence, sense of purpose and ability to thrive, she adds. After winning a major award (GEMS Exceptional Head of School Award) in 2018, she put half of the prize money into a fund for support staff and teachers at the school she led. “A principal is successful because her team is successful,” she says. The fund still runs and, she says, has helped hundreds of people. After winning a major award (GEMS Exceptional Head of School Award) in 2018, Nargish Khambatta put half of the prize money into a fund for support staff and teachers at the school she led. Nargish Khambatta with Rayeesa Hassan. Decades after she walked into that biology class and reached for her own pair of sunglasses, the instinct hasn't changed. Meet the child first. The teaching comes after. --- Rayeesa Hassan is a Dubai-based writer who has called the city home since childhood. A journalist, she now heads her family's businesses. Her interests range from meditation, yoga, dance, and singing to travel and Sufi music.