Mitu Majumdar

Brainstormer, Change agent, Educator/Teacher, Hindu, Parent, Photographer, Student, Writer/Editor

Armed with an M.Phil. in History and not one but three Master's degrees — in English, History, and Journalism and Media Studies — Mitu Banerjee Majumdar has always treated the pursuit of knowledge less as a checklist and more as an incurable habit. Fourteen years spent navigating the trenches of communications, first in the NGO sector and then in publishing, gave her a formidable command over words before she ever set foot in a classroom — and when she finally crossed into the rarefied world of school teaching, it turned out to be less a career change than a homecoming. A CBSE-trained and certified Teacher Trainer, she has also been crowned a CENTA TPO National rank holder in her subject for three consecutive years — proof, if any were needed, that her way with words is matched by her mastery of the craft of teaching itself. Now in her 17th year of teaching English at the senior secondary level, she has called Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad, home since August 2021. Beyond the classroom, she is an unrepentant bibliophile, a devoted wanderer of new places, and a writer at heart. But ask her where her favourite stories unfold, and she'll tell you: right there in the classroom, among her students.

I am passionate about creating learning spaces where students do more than learn—they question, connect, reflect and think for themselves. I care deeply about English as a subject that develops not just communication, but empathy, imagination, critical thinking and intellectual courage. I am equally passionate about understanding the psychology behind learning: what motivates students, what makes them feel safe enough to take risks, and what helps them find their voice. I enjoy exploring how pedagogy, technology and AI can transform classrooms without losing the human connection at their heart. Ultimately, I am passionate about helping both students and teachers grow.

'The Student Behind the Screen: Thinking, Behaviour and Agency in the Age of AI' Earlier, teachers used to ask: How do I get students to find the answer? Now we increasingly need to ask: How do I get students to care about finding out whether the answer is worth believing? And underneath that is the psychological question: How do I create a classroom where students are willing to be uncertain, wrong, curious and intellectually uncomfortable?

adolescent psychology, communicate and think., critical thinking and teacher development, My areas of expertise lie at the intersection of English education, with an emergent focus on how AI is reshaping the way students learn

‘The Day I Stopped Teaching English’ I want you to imagine an English teacher standing in front of a senior-school class, teaching literature, explaining themes, correcting answer scripts, preparing students for exams. For years, that might have felt like the job. Then gradually, something shifted. I began noticing that the most important moments in my classroom weren't necessarily when students got the right answer. They were when a student challenged an interpretation, changed their mind, asked an unexpected question, connected a character's dilemma to their own world, or finally spoke after being silent for weeks. My work with psychology, Cambridge PDQ, classroom observations, assessment, AI and teacher development have all given me different lenses through which to understand those moments. And thus I arrived at a deceptively simple realisation: I wasn't really teaching English. I was creating conditions in which young people could learn how to think. How did it evolve? There were three turning points 1. The teacher who knew the answers. Early in my academic career, subject domain expertise mattered. I was the person students came to for explanations, vocabulary, interpretation and the “correct” answer. 2. The teacher who became curious about the learner. Psychology and professional learning changed the question from “How do I teach this?” to “What is happening for this learner while they are learning?” When I was both the learner and the teacher at the same time, it opened up motivation, confidence, fear of failure, classroom safety, metacognition and student agency. 3. The teacher who realised the answer isn't the destination. And now, particularly in an AI-enabled world, knowing the answer is increasingly easy. The more important educational skill is being able to ask: Is this true? Why do I think this? What am I missing? Can I see it differently? What do I believe—and why? My final message is: ‘Perhaps the greatest thing a teacher can give a student isn't an answer. It is the confidence to sit with a question long enough to find their own.’

I speak four languages fluently—and can swear in fifteen others. Yes, there is a story there. But what people may not know is that I have an almost obsessive fascination with language: how it changes depending on who is speaking, who is listening, where you are, and what you are trying to make someone feel. I notice words, accents, pauses, tone and the tiny things people communicate without actually saying. Perhaps that's why English has never felt like just a subject to me. I love the power of language to make people laugh, think, question, connect—and sometimes say exactly what they mean. And yes, occasionally, to swear with remarkable linguistic range.