04 tadoba schools report _ jan 2013

7/30/2019 04 Tadoba Schools Report _ Jan 2013

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1maoKalaa T/sT, pauNao

Monthly Report

January2013Project:Improvement in quality of education through social science subjects and language in two ElementarySchools in Tadoba buffer zone villages

Overview:January 4

thNagpur preparatory visit to Raman Science Centre and Ajayab Ghar

8th-9

thWorking with students in Villoda and Katwal schools

10th

Film Screening and meeting with teachers of Villoda and Katwal schools

11th

Demonstration of teaching methodology and discussion with teachers of

Anand Niketan School, Wardha about its improvisationObjectives:

1. To design and conduct training programs with teachers for improving education methodology2. To work with students and teachers to find and document the history and geography of the

villages in their own area and link it to the mainstream, known history-geography taught in

schools

3. To work with students, teachers and parents (including community) to study linguistic patterns inthe area and increase parents participation in learning teaching process

4. To study biodiversity of the area and design the ways of conservation of forest and wild life5. To document the history and cultural patterns of the area, which can contribute to the

preservation of Adivasi culture


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PREPARATION FOR PROPOSED EDUCATIONAL TRIP4th January 2013, Friday Nagpur

As per the teachers suggestion, we visited Raman Science Centre and Ajayab Ghar (Museum) ofNagpur, to ascertain administrative and logistical details for proposed childrens excursion there. RamanScience Centre has a planetarium and lots of science games which would be of great interest to thechildren. Ajayab Ghar also has many artefacts and sculptures specifically from the Vidarbha region and

it would be a great boost to childrens confidence when they realise that all this cultural and artisticwealth is from their own area and their heritage.We feel that this excursion would be a very special learning experience for the children.

THIS MONTHS SCHOOL VISITS

This visit was with the specific aim of meeting with the teachers, update them about the possibleoutcomes of our year-long intervention in schools and together formulate a plan for the future. This wasin response to a demand from the teachers themselves. But when we reached Villoda school on 8

th

January, some of the teachers were not present.

The next day, 9th

January was not suitable for the teachers, since they had just come to know that it was

their salary day. So, they would be busy with bank work and schools would also only run for half theday. We were struck by the bureaucratic issues that teachers face, just to get their salaries. The villagesdo not have a bank branch, so they have to go to the nearest town (Bhadravati) for this. Since the schooltimings clash with the banks, there is no way other than giving the children a half-day or taking personalleave to complete their bank work. This is very inconvenient; a loss of time for teachers as well asstudents. A better system needs to be arrived at, because for some insincere teachers, this is just anotherchance to get exempted from doing their jobs.

In the light of all these unforeseen developments, we decided to continue our work with the children on8

thand 9

thJanuary. The teachers from both schools suggested to have the meeting in Villoda on 10

th

January.

SCHOOL VISITS

8th and 9th January, Tuesday and Wednesday Villoda and Katwal schools

VILLODA

The main subjects we handled this time were History,Mathematics and English. We asked the children (ClassV, VI and VII) themselves what they would like tolearn and they opted for History. So, we went over allthe different periods of History that they are learningeach year. We also revised what we had taught in ourprevious sessions. We showed them photographs ofour visits to Markanda and of some historical artefacts

like stone and metal tools collected by the Chandrapurhistorian, Mr. Ashok Singh Thakur. These helped the

children remember what we had taught them inprevious sessions and of course gave them a visualaccount of what was written in their textbooks.

Explaining the historical periods they are learningin history led us to the timeline and addition andsubtraction of positive and negative numbers. Thenthe children sang Marathi and Hindi poems fromtheir syllabus. In the next session, they wished tolearn English.


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The children always love seeing audio-visuals ofany kind. We showed the children 2 shortanimation films- Do Flowers fly- about theeducation system and its defects, and Golu afilm about a healthy diet. Next we showed themsome videos from Mr.Arvind Guptas Toys fromTrash series. Some of the students told us that

they had also tried to create such toys at home, ontheir own.

The children wanted to keep watching more and morefilms. Since we had planned to stay over in the village,we showed some more films later at night. Thechildren were so eager that they went home and cameback much before the decided time. We showed them

a documentary on Tigers and a fiction film, Pistulyawhich is about a boy from a criminalised nomadictribe who deeply desires to go to school. Aninteresting thing was that many people from thecommunity too came to watch; men and women,young boys and girls and lots of children of all ages.

KATWAL

The Katwal school was a completely different experience. As mentioned earlier, school was only halfday because of teachers Salary day. It didnt look like they were in a mood to teach that day, becauseeven though we reached the school around 9 am, we saw no classes going on. The children were playing

about on the ground and the teachers were in the office, already getting ready to leave. We said ourhellos and started our usual session with Class VI and VII.

Here the children chose to learn Science. So we taught a lesson from the textbook

(Work and Energy). Children from other classes were peeping into our class and later standing at thedoor of our classroom, indicating that their teachers were not taking their class and also that they wereinterested in what we were teaching Class VI and VII students. In this session, we have documented howmuch children enjoy learning, if taught through interactive, live examples relevant to their lives.

After sometime, we noticed that the children were getting restless. We had to ask them a number oftimes, and then they told us that it was lunch time. We immediately sent them to eat. After sometime,when we went to join the teachers in the office, we saw that they had already finished eating (withoutbothering to offer us any food) and some of them had already left. (It was 10:45 am, 15 minutes beforeschool officially ended for the day. )

When we were talking to the teachers, 2 students started calling us excitedly. We were happy at theirenthusiasm and went with them to to continue our class. On reaching the class, we saw that none of theothers had turned up for the post-lunch session, much to the merriment of these 2 students. Weappreciated their joke and seeing that they both wanted to learn, we decided to take the session just forthe 2 of them. They wanted to learn English, so we told them to go get their English text book. Theycame back with the textbook and a few more boys. Some of them were even from the high school.


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The English class began. We started with a lesson from the text book on Body parts and the 5 Senses. Itwas evident that they had hardly been taught anything. Though a couple of the boys knew some words,none of them could form even simple sentences. But they still enjoyed the session, which we conductedin a participatory and jovial manner.

OBSERVATIONS

Villoda

It was evident that the higher classes did not remember or know anything studied in previous years and

the children told us that they had not been taught any of the lessons. However, it was noticeable thatthe students specifically remembered the things which we had taught them in previous classes usingaudio visual medium or in a narrative story form.

When we came to the topic of the historical timeline (which we had already repeated a couple of timesin our earlier sessions), we found that children were not clear about basic mathematical concepts likepositive and negative integers on the number line. In the limited time we had, we tried to teach thechildren addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers, but making them thoroughlyunderstand these concepts would need longer and more consistent effort.

Both the films Do flowers fly and Golu were very ironic in the context of these children, who haveaccess neither to quality education nor nutrition. There were a couple of teachers present at the

beginning of the film show, but one of them stepped out of the class when the film started and theother did not pay any attention to the film at all, but continued doing his own work.


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This apathy of some teachers is ever present. One of the teachers literally sat in the sun for the entireday and we did not see him teach any class in the whole day. Actually we have not seen much of theteaching happening in schools. Some teachers teach very promptly but most of the times the studentsjust sit in a classroom and do nothing. Thats why our classes are welcome by both the students and theteachers where students get to learn and teachers are officially free from their duty. At 4:45 pm someteachers get on their bikes and leave. As opposed to this, there are some teachers in Villoda whogenuinely want to do a good job. They need a lot of encouragement and support.

Katwal

We asked the HM if we could see examination answer papers of Class VI and VII. He and the otherteachers were completely flustered by this. They had no idea where they were kept and made all kindsof excuses. Finally they said the answer papers were in a locked cupboard and one of the teachers hadtaken the keys home with her. This makes us question whether the examination had been conducted atall.

The students had told us that they had not been taught anything from Geography. So we talked to the

History and Geography teacher. He seemed to have no clue of the syllabus he had covered. When we

asked him which lesson he was teaching at the moment, he said,which was the 3rd lesson in

the book. It was January. He couldnt possibly be on Lesson 3.

Next we asked the HM about some of theadditional activities which are part of theextra-curricular activities to be conductedwith children. When we asked him what

was he made a wild

guess and said, it is about theadvertisements painted on the walls of the

village (!!) He muttered other suchirrelevant answers about the otheractivities.

It is horrifying to think of the progress of aschool with such a Head Master. We haveseen other teachers openly ridicule him.According to the board in the office, hiseducation is upto Class XII, compared tosome other teachers who are M.A etc.

During further discussions, one of the teachers admitted that the earlier system of failing children in

examinations was qualitatively better. In the current system, children automatically got promoted to thenext class and there is no proper assessment of how much they have really learnt. He said that childrenwho had not understood concepts could not be tracked because of the current system. But the mainquestion is, instead of giving excuses and shameless comments that students are too unintelligent tolearn anything, why dont teachers do theirmainjob of teaching?


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FILM: & TEACHERS MEETING

10th January, Thurday - Villoda

As decided some of the Katwal and Villoda teacherscame for the film show and meeting to the Villoda

school. We showed them the film - , a

wonderful film about a government school teacher andhis problems while teaching in a remote school in anAdivasi area. We felt that the teachers would definitelyrelate to the realistic situations depicted in the film andwould be inspired to work towards imparting bettereducation.

The teachers, though restless in the beginning, reallywarmed up to the film. They told us that they were very

moved by the film and really identified with the teacherss journey in the film. Some even shared thatthe film made them cry. It is quite something when men admit they cried. Also it is nice to know thatteachers feel so emotional about their profession.

We held a meeting with the teachers after the film screening where we told them that the time hadcome for all of us to start working towards real solutions to improve the education in schools. We hadintentionally not explicitly asked the teachers to be present during our sessions because we wanted themto come as a proactive suggestion from their side. Otherwise it would have just been a compulsion.Only a direct demand from them would reflect a real need and lead to something feasible. We also toldthem that we were well aware of all the problems in the system, but instead of complaining about thesame, they should come up with suggestions and solutions to solve the issues.

For much of the meeting, they only brought out all the problems they face as teachers. Some of themwere as follows:

1.

Some of the students just cannot grasp what they are taught. Whatever the teachers tell them isforgotten the next day. Students also do not do homework.

2. Teachers are overloaded with governmental work, like Census, Surveys, Afforestation, Elections,Gram Panchayat related work etc. So they are unable to complete the syllabus and their requirednumber of classes. The ZP also makes other sudden demands on teachers, thus wasting many schooldays.

3. Poor teachers trainings: Teachers themselves are made to keep quiet if they ask any questions intrainings. They are called for trainings without prior notice, so whoever is free from amongst them,attends the trainings, regardless of the subject of training or skill set of the teachers.

Some teachers also disappear on year-long trainings. They arrange things so that they can be away from

their teaching duties almost all the year round. E.g.: Class III in Villoda school had no teacher, becausehe was always away on training.

Some teachers totally understand the importance of experiential learning and other effective teachingmethodologies while some teachers could not see how these experiments would help in passing theexamination, which according to them was the main thing in education. It is just too farfetched to talkabout pedagogy of education etc. with these teachers. It has come to this that one is grateful to comeacross a teacher who is present in the class and teaches!

They asked us what shortcomings we saw in the schools and we mentioned some things like syllabus notbeing covered, inability among children to solve basic arithmetic at Class VII level or form even simplesentences in English. Teachers were quite dismissive initially about what we pointed out but later

expressed a desire to observe our session next time.


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Our feedback to the teachers in the meeting was a heartfelt appeal to them to look for solutions ratherthan focus on the problems in the system. We also agreed to help them design a session based on ourmodel the next time we come. But we warned them that we would not spoon feed them and theywould have to design and demonstrate it in class in the next session.

On this day, while the teachers were watching the film, we took an English language session withstudents Class V, VI and VII of Villoda. Here again, they had difficulty forming sentences, but what wasremarkable was that many of the girls were better than the boys. For the first time we had to make thegirls stay quiet, while the boys tried to come up with answers. The children were divided into groupsgiven team work which they did enthusiastically.

DEMONSTRATION AND DISCUSSION OF TEACHING METHODOLOGY11th January, Friday Anand Niketan School, Wardha

Our session with Class V, VI and VII students of Anand Niketan School, Wardha was a dramaticallydifferent experience from our Chandrapur schools. Here, all children were very enthusiastic and eager toask questions as well as give answers and participate in class. They had very good knowledge of the

syllabus and in fact many of them knew much more than what was contained in the text books. Theirquestions were wide ranging and intelligent. Some were even deeply philosophical.


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Another crucial difference was that teachers of all classes really wanted to attend our session. Theyobserved us keenly and even took notes. Their drive to learn new things is passed on to the children too.

We had a good initial discussion with the teachers about the methodology in our model; some of it wasalready being applied in some ways at the school.

In an effort to improve their command on English, a 9 day immersive English workshop was going to be

conducted for the teachers and students in the school. This indicated the spirit of learning in the school.We also got to witness their parent-teacher meeting, wherein the teachers and the parents (mostlymothers) efficiently planned for the residential English workshop. It was touching to see the willingnessamong the parents to contribute towards their childrens learning, in whatever way they could; donatingcash, groceries, vegetables, assistance in cooking, cleaning etc. and the cohesion between teachers andparents. Some of the children were also present in this meeting and they would have also definitelygained lessons in cooperation and generosity from here.

There is indeed a lot to learn from this school. Only if the community is involved in the functioning ofthe school can real integrated learning happen.

OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS:

1. As always, the children were veryexcited that we were there. In fact, onour way to the Villoda school, when wepassed the Katwal school, some of thestudents saw our car and a wave ofexcitement passed through the schoolground. It was a very touching momentfor us when the children literally startedjumping up and down, waving out at usand calling out our names, Shilpatai!Radhikatai! They are here! They arehere! they shouted out with joy. To be

able to generate such positive feelings instudents made us feel happy andhumbled at the same time. Thisindicated that they looked forward toour visits and we had perhaps made

some mark with them. We wondered if they ever welcomed any of their teachers in the samemanner. Our experiences from our past visits tell us that children need teachers to talk to them inan open, interesting way. Then they will love, respect and learn from them. The attitude of drudgerywith which most teachers treat theirwork gets reflected in the atmosphereof the school as well as the attitude ofchildren towards teachers, which is

most often marked by fear, boredom,mockery or indifference.

2. It is obvious that poor teaching leads topoor retention among children. Theblame for children not knowing orunderstanding concepts has to be laidfair and square on the teachers.Children themselves told us that theyhave not been taught even the basicsyllabus from the textbooks. In the lightof this, all other additional activities orbetter teaching methodologies are adistant dream.


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3. About English language: The mostimportant thing while learning anylanguage is to be able to speak out andnot be afraid to make mistakes. Also,hearing the language being spokenteaches us about its distinct style andgrammar. That is how we all learn even

our mother tongues. Then, how can weexpect children from rural areas tograsp English when absolutely no one intheir surroundings speaks the languageat all? The childrens feeling ofinferiority is very much tied to notknowing English. Neglect of theirmother tongue and fear of Englishleaves them weak in both languages,and thereby weak in expression of ideas.In fact, English must to be taught like aforeign language. The fundamental

problem is that their teachersthemselves do not know English. So,how can they teach children?

4. In a remarkable show of discipline, theVilloda children conducted their ownassembly on 10

thJanuary, since the

teachers were busy in the film. It waswonderful to see them dutifully andmeticulously saying all the prayers, ledby a few boys and girls from Class VII.This shows us that children are notunruly by default. In many instances, we

have been able to effectively controlmore than 60-80 children of varied ageswithout having to shout at them orpunish them.

We tried to give the teachers some solutions to the problems they posed:

1. We clearly told the teachers that children who were often first generation learners could not beblamed for their poor grasping abilities. The extra effort would have to be put in by teachers.

2. With regard to their governmental duties and poor trainings, we felt that they should come togetheras a group and put pressure on appropriate authorities to change the situation. They were first and

foremost teachers, and if anything was interfering with their teaching, they should complain about it.

3. If any teacher was absent / away on training, it was totally possible to combine 2-3 classes and teachthem together like we always do. In any case, concepts of children from higher classes were unclear.In this way, they could be revised.

4. We felt that more than just formally completing the compulsory number of classes, the teachersshould concentrate on enabling children at the very least with reading, writing and basic arithmeticto be able to function in the future. It was shameful that even this was being neglected and childrenstepped out of school as uneducated as they stepped into it.

We strongly feel that teaching being their primary responsibility there is absolutely no excuse for themajority of them to shirk their duties towards our children. There are however some teachers who areenthusiastic and dedicated to their work. They need to be highlighted to Education authorities andefforts taken to promote them to decisive roles, so they can make a real change. Established, well knownorganisations working in the field of education like IIE, Pune should take up this task. We can providethe data.


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Our children are not beggars. Just giving them the mid-day meal every day and no real education is afarce and an insult to every self-respecting Indian. Serious efforts need to be taken on all fronts betterteachers trainings and teaching methodologies, effective supervision and monitoring of teachers, moreconducive bureaucratic and administrative regulations, and many more.

FUTURE PLANS

We have a last couple of visits left in this project. The school year ends in March and we would verymuch like to take the students on the planned excursion to Chandrapur / Nagpur.

We look forward to demonstrating our teaching methodology to the teachers in our next visit and alsoseeing them conduct parts of the session. We plan to bring print out charts of our teaching model andhelp teachers design their future classes, integrating and linking all subjects to each other.

Brainstorming discussions of our teachers with Anand Niketan teachers will enhance this educationalmodel. We hope to be able to arrange a visit of these teachers to Anand Niketan School, Wardhabefore the project period is over. With more inputs from all teachers, we plan to make this teachingmodel more comprehensive and applicable on a larger scale.

04 tadoba schools report _ jan 2013

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