Lessons from the ‘World's Most Dedicated Teacher’

Annamma Lucy. Photo courtesy of Lucy

JOHANNESBURG— The award-winning “world’s most dedicated teacher” from the United Arab Emirates is a good Samaritan whose heart is sold out to serving the poor and needy.

Annamma Lucy, 49, started her teaching career in India. She now teaches in the United Arab Emirates and won the 2021 Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Award, a global competition with more than 13,000 nominations in 112 countries. While such a title is hard to quantify, Lucy’s dedication to her students is palpable, and her gift to the poor each month is a simple calculation: 10%.

As an orphan, Christian and member of the Catholic Church who was raised by nuns at the Good Shepherd Sisters Bangalore in India, Lucy uses 10% of her monthly salary to serve and assist the poor and needy children in East Africa and western and South Asia.

Lucy, a teacher at GEMS Our Own English High School, Sharjah — Boys’ Branch in the UAE, explained during an interview with ReligionUnplugged.com that sacrificing 10% of her salary is her way of contributing to meet the needs of her students, the poor and the needy instead of spending on dining with friends and family.

“Every month, 10% of my pay is donated to the poor,” said Lucy. “As a result of this deed, I feel God has given me abundantly and I have never felt burdened.

“Most of my desires are foregone. When I wanted to buy costly apparel or jewelry, or take friends to a nice restaurant, I used to wonder why I should spend money on such things instead of helping the poor and needy.”

In December, Lucy — a missionary of the CFC-Couples for Christ Global Mission Foundation Inc., a Catholic movement intended for the renewal and strengthening of Christian family life and the church — visited an orphanage in Mysore, India. “They didn’t have enough money to celebrate Christmas, so I handed them the money I had set aside for the occasion,” she said.

Lucy has also shown compassion to children and families whose homes were ravaged by floods in Karnataka, Kerala and Kochi in India during 2018. She rode on her scooter and bought the affected families food parcels, soaps, napkins and other necessities for about 3,000 dirham ($816.75).

During her 10-day stay in India, she helped the poor financially and gave helpless villagers sarees and other clothes.

Lucy does not only give financial and food support to the poor. She also spends time with them to “experience their way of life” and wants to share those lessons with her, too. She has taken students with her to Uganda, Iraq and India.

“First and foremost, a teacher must be a good human being,” Lucy said. “So, volunteering and assisting the underprivileged in whatever manner I can is near and dear to my heart. The trip to Uganda was highly rewarding. It was a humble reminder to never cave to ego. Students are inspired to be unselfish as a result of these encounters.”

Lucy’s nominator and colleague Sunitha Sudhakaran said in her nomination letter that Lucy prepares kids for the road ahead in life:

She (Lucy) has given up her personal and family time to be with poor students … encouraged students to participate in the UNICEF Kids Power (program). As an EXPO 2020 volunteer she hosted rewired talks and encouraged students across UAE to participate in meaningful conversations on education. And I should not forget to say about the learning journey programme which she conducted free for all students across UAE during the time of the pandemic. She is an inspiration not only to me but to all the teacher community. As a social study teacher, I see her encouraging her students to respect women, patriotism, good deeds, and I am proud to say she is my colleague.

Lucy’s Learning Journey Program helped UAE students during the pandemic learn 21st century skills, including public speaking, coding, English grammar and more. “I also encourage the students to do lot of free online courses,” Lucy said.

She often brings her classroom lessons to life by introducing students to news and people in “the real world” and challenging traditional ways of thinking.

As an example, on topics about natural calamities, she tells her students about the Kerala floods and her meetings with survivors. She shows videos she has taken in Oman about different crops and soil layers.

“On topics about migration, I tell them about the people whom I met in Iraq who had migrated due to war,” Lucy said.

She also encourages her students to be creative. In one lesson on augmented reality, she asked her students to form groups and work on improving certain products in the market to make them more eco-friendly. One student drew designs for a car that could go on water, air and land.

Growing up as an orphan

As an orphan at a young age, Lucy was raised by nuns at the Good Shepherd Sisters Bangalore in India. Lucy said she learned from the sisters “to love and only to love.”

“I never felt that I was an orphan,” she said. “Not a single day in my life at the orphanage did I feel that I had no parents. They loved me. They taught me to lead a simple life. Believe me, I hated beauty parlors and had never been to one till the age of 35. They have taught me to help, share and care for others.” 

The nuns taught Lucy to never be swayed by money or gifts, never hate, never lie and never support a wrong cause even if that cause is backed by powerful people, she said. She was also taught to not raise her voice, to remain humble and to let her conscience lead her.

She encourages other orphans to accept that they are orphans but to never give up and constantly tell themselves that they can accomplish their goals:

“Consider yourself to be the master of your own life, with the authority to make all decisions. Keep a close relationship with God. Accept that no one can love us as deeply as our parents. Never be taken in by false promises. Maintain your fortitude.”

Being raised at the Good Shepherd orphanage by nuns who were teachers inspired Lucy to be a teacher — even when the nuns encouraged her to train for nursing because the education would be free. Lucy instead pursued her passion for teaching at age 21, enrolling at the St. Joseph’s Teachers Training College in Kerala, India. She met the principal there and told her she didn’t have parents but wanted to become a teacher. The school administrators then agreed to lend her the money for tuition.

Lucy completed her training at the age of 24 and began her career as a teacher at Good Shepherd School in Mysore, India. She taught social studies in India for 12 years, and then came the opportunity in the UAE to teach social studies to fifth- to seventh-grade boys at GEMS Our Own English High School, Sharjah.

Teaching as her childhood dream

Speaking about her profession and her award as the most dedicated teacher in the world, Lucy said teaching was her childhood dream.

Her recognition at the Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Awards global competition has boosted her confidence to continue thinking creatively about teaching methods.

“Winning this award has been a great validation of what I’ve achieved to date, and I consider it an honor to be recognized among successful teachers,” she said. “Professionally, it has given me credibility. Personally, I feel very proud to set an example to my colleagues that hard work and being passionate about what you do leads to success. It’s humbling, rewarding and exciting.

“Before this award, I was just recognized as an excellent teacher, but now whenever I meet someone, they remark, ‘Oh, you’re the one who earned the dedicated teacher award, right?’”

Reflecting on the day Cambridge University announced that not only is she a dedicated teacher but also “the best in the world,” Lucy said she jumped on her sofa with joy, got up, ran to the balcony, returned to the living room, picked up the phone and called her mentor, Bindu Gopalakrishnan.

This led to a celebration with everyone who supported her — Gopalakrishnan, Srivalsan Murugan, her school’s principal, other senior management leaders and colleagues, students and their parents, as well as her friends.

She also phoned her husband and brother to share the exciting news with them. “I left India to (go to the) UAE because I got a job (as a teacher) with a better salary. My husband lives in India; therefore, I phoned them and thanked God for this excellent news.”

Asked what qualified Lucy to be selected as the best teacher globally in 2021, Senior Communications Executive Katie Phoenix of Cambridge University Press said, “The judges only have the nomination to go off in terms of judging — the rest is completely anonymous.

“They look for how well the nomination exemplifies the nomination category selected (going ‘beyond the classroom’, ‘fantastic pastoral care’, ‘making the ordinary, extraordinary’, ‘opening up the world’). They then assess the impact the teacher has had on their students and, in turn, what impact this had on the teacher.”

Phoenix said Lucy’s nomination stood out to the judges because of her unwavering faith in the power of education and her sense of duty to pass on this belief to her students too.

“All around the world, teachers do fantastic work. They don’t just teach a curriculum — they instill values, encourage, support, befriend and truly impact the lives of their students and colleagues around them,” Phoenix said.

Lucy’s heart is to continue loving, caring for students and encouraging them to be creative and imaginative.

“My clarion call to my pupils is to inspire, create and invent because I think that every child is a promise of a better tomorrow,” she said. “My goal has always been to uncover their untapped potential. Learn, dream and be.”

Vicky Abraham is an investigative journalist based in South Africa and has reported for the Mail & Guardian, City Press, Assist News, the Nation newspaper in Nigeria and Nation Media Group in Kenya.