01 tadoba schools report _ jun jul aug 2012

7/30/2019 01 Tadoba Schools Report _ Jun Jul Aug 2012

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1 mao Kalaa T/ sT, pau Nao

Quarterly Report

June, July, August 2012

Project:

Improvement in quality of education through social science subjects and language in four Elementary Schools in the Tadoba buffer zone villages

Overview:

June 13 th Meeting with teachers and selection of schools

July 13 th Meeting with teachers of 4 selected schools

14th Visit to Anandwan

15th Visit to Sewagram and meeting with Sushma Sharma

August 7 th 10th Working in schools11th Meeting with Chandrapur historian- Prashant Durve and visit to

Gondi rulers samaadhi

Objectives:

1. To design and conduct training programs with teachers for improving educationmethodology

2. 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 linguisticpatterns in the 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 wildlife

5. To document the history and cultural patterns of the area, which can contribute to thepreservation of Adivasi culture


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JUNE13th, Wednesday- Chandrapur

Participation in the meeting of teachers conducted by IIE and selection of 4 schools for the project-

4 Schools in Bhadravati district were selected for implementation

of the project by Mekhla: 2 schools of Mudholi village- Zilla Parishad (ZP) Schooland Saraswati Vidyalay (High School)

Katwal village- ZP School Villoda village- ZP School

It was decided to work mainly with students of Standard VII and demonstrate some modules andmethodologies of teaching, mainly History, Geography, Language (Marathi) and Environment, with aneffort to rediscovering the history and geography of the area and linking it to the content in thetextbooks. The focus would be on experiential learning and generation of knowledge through productivework.This would be facilitated by Mekhla and carried out by teachers, students with as much villageparticipation as possible.Shilpa Ballal from Mekhla spoke to the teachers about the proposed plan for the whole year. It wasdecided to have a meeting with teachers from all 4 schools in Mudholi ZP school 13 th of next month.

JULY13th, Friday- Mudholi

Meeting with 4 schools Teachers at Mudholi-

Teachers from all 4 schools of Mudholi, Katwal and Villodaassembled at the Mudholi ZP school for a meeting. Shilpadiscussed the proposed plan of the project for the year with the

enthusiastic participation of all teachers. Along with trying toreconnect children with their own local history and geography,the stress was on breaking compartmentalisation of educationand integrated teaching methodologies. In this regard,possibilities of work-based learning were discussed. Professionalsfrom the village, e.g. Cycle repair shop owner- could be invited

to interact and teach children, with teachers linking different subjects together.

As an exposure to the significance of their own area, an excursion of students as well as teachers toimportant historical sites like Sewagram Ashram or Bhadravati caves as well as interactions with subject experts like archaeologists, historians etc. was proposed. Also some activities with the participation andcooperation of the respective village communities were proposed for- like film show, exhibition and night

star gazing.

These activities would be carried out whenever possible in this year, subject to planning and permissionsfrom education department authorities, for the excursions, which would be mainly handled by theteachers. Mekhla would be responsible for liaison with the subject experts and permissions, if required at the sites.

We also visited each of the 4 schools for a short time; to get a feel of each school we would be working it. There was also a brief interaction with the students in each school.

To begin with, teachers seemed enthusiastic, cooperative and open to new ideas. It would be interesting to see how the project progresses.


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14th, Saturday- Warora

Visit to Anandwan- It was very important to visit Anandwan to see the great, pioneering work and perspective of Baba Amteand Sadhanatai Amte. Here, students would be exposed to values such as compassion and the fight against all odds, for dignity of life through self-reliance. Since Anandwan is a one-of-its-kind institution,

the fact that it is in Vidarbha, would also make students feel a sense of pride and attachment. A potential visit of students and teachers to Anandwan was discussed, but it was suggested by Anandwanauthorities that the rainy season would not be a very suitable time for such a visit.

15th, Sunday- Wardha

Visit to Sewagram Ashram Another place of high significance and value in the Vidarbha region, Sewagram ashram is an enriching experience.

A visit to Sewagram would be an excellent exposure to our national history for students, becauseimportant events of our freedom struggle have connections to this ashram and Gandhijis way of life andprinciples can be witnessed here in a concrete form.

Here again, the fact that our countrys great leader spent a considerable amount of time in their area,would give students a sense of pride and belonging.

Meeting with Sushma Sharma Principal, Anand Niketan (Nai Taleem School) Anand Niketan is a school based on Gandhijis concept of Nai Taleem. The meeting with SushmaSharma, the schools Principal was very productive. An exposure of the teachers from our 4 schools wasproposed to the Nai Taleem School in Wardha, so that they could see a model of work-based educationfor themselves.

AUGUST7th 11th, Tuesday- Friday- Katwal, Mudholi, Villoda

School sessions A whole day was devoted to each of the 4 schools,demonstrating methodologies of interactive, integratedlearning. The sessions were planned mainly with Std. VII but for 3 schools (Katwal, Villoda and Mudholi ZP) students fromStd. VI too were included, since numbers were low. Thestudents were encouraged to ask as many questions as they could think of about anything, any subject, anything they wondered about in their surroundings. Initially they were shy,but soon they came up with some very interesting questions:

Some examples

- Why does the flame of a lamp get extinguished if one blows into it and why does the burning coal burn more brightly when one blows into it?

- Which people are red in colour?- Where does the sky rest? ( ?) - Is the sun going to finish soon?- Is the earth bigger or the sun?

There was a discussion about these questions for a long time giving references of their own surroundings-their village, their district and state. Then a Pre- project testing questionnaire was filled out by studentsindividually. This was to see how much they know about their own surroundings and what they feel about their own language, backgrounds, ambitions to see their general confidence levels. At the end of the year,a similar post-project questionnaire would be filled from the students, to know if anything has changed incourse of the year.


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Katwal School :


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Villoda School :

Mudholi ZP School :


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Mudholi Saraswati School :

Links emerged from the discussions itself and we jumped from one subject to another, finding answers,further links and more questions. All the different textbooks were referred to from time to time, thuslinking the outside world with the syllabus. The goal of this was to break compartmentalisation of education, and use interactive tools to convey concepts, rather than just stick to the words in thetextbooks. Singing poems aloud and watching short video clips, poring over maps and reference books,various group activities and a demonstration in the open, outside the classroom, for various subjects-History, Geography, Science, Mathematics, Language were some of the methodologies used. Studentsresponded very well to these sessions.

Here is an example from the sessions showing how the subjects flowed into each other:


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Language : PoemContents

Discussions aboutvalues in ourConstitution

Language: poem

about one of thevalues- Brotherhood

Who wrote this poem? Whowas Sane Guruji? History-

Freedom struggle

Mathematics number line, calculating age/ time

between different ages

History Ancient, Medieval

and Modern eras

Anthropology Humancivilization

Sociology dignity of labour,future ambitions

Language

Since the class wasconducted outside 4walls of classroom.

Why do we have preamble toconstitution in every textbook?

Discussion about how all subjectsare related to each other.


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Language

Geography natural

resources, forests

Geography characteristics of our

own area

Geography Map reading+ Working in a group

Astronomy

Outdoor game

They have been asked to write a small note about what they want to become when they grow up and find out different lessons fromtheir Marathi text book about some people and their ambitions.


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11th, Saturday- Chandrapur

Meeting with historian and history teacher- Prashant Durve We met Mr. Prashant Durve, a history teacher and researcher, and told him about the project. He wasvery interested and gave us a very positive response. He and his circle would be a great help in retracing and documenting local history .

CONCLUSIONS AND LEARNINGS

1. The selected villages, though in the Tadoba buffer zone, have been part of the mainstream for quitesome time. After visiting the schools and villages we understood that this area does not have any distinctly different linguistic pattern, so, we will have to see how much we would be able todocument that aspect. Here the language of the people is by and large Marathi. Still, we would bebringing in the correlation of language and confidence; i.e. the local usage of Marathi in their areaand how that is in no way inferior to that spoken in cities or in western Maharashtra.

2. Overall the response of the teachers has been quite good and over the 3 meetings we have had inthese 3 months, it seems to be growing. But, even though we specifically mentioned that theconcerned teachers should remain in class to observe our session, not many of them did. When the

teachers were present, they were prompting the children quite a bit, which was not conducive to thechildrens participation and learning. The teachers need to be really oriented about how tocommunicate with the children- they are not open to questions, mistakes and a general atmosphereof freedom in class. Even the smallest movements of children were restricted, which puts the childrenunder pressure and shuts them up.

3. The children thoroughly enjoyed the sessions. Their insatiable thirst for knowledge and excitement toDo things rather than just sit inside theclassroom was very evident. Students from other classes also came to watch all the activities. Eventhe quieter students soon started volunteering ontheir own for activities. The students were evenready to miss their PT/ games time for this kind

of learning, which is something not often seen inour schools. Initially, when we suggested it,children were not enthusiastic about doing agriculture in school. But later, when we talkedpositively about it, they agreed.

4. There are some children, who are much more active in class. Usually, boys volunteer and participatemore than girls in class. We feel that this is mainly because only boys are encouraged to speak, madeto take responsibilities like conducting the assembly etc. They sit in front in the class, while girlsautomatically recede into the background. This is part of the gender inequality rampant in our country, which we will take up strategically during this work.There were some very simple but crucial things done during the session, that, if continued cancontribute to building a more inclusive attitude amongst the children.

Sitting in a circle, rather than in rows; everyone is equal in a circle, children can see eachother and interact better

In the 2 nd half of the session, the circle was made to rotate, so that the children sitting in theback of the class came to the front (near the blackboard)

References were constantly given to the values of Equality, Liberty, Justice, Secularism andno discrimination based on gender, caste or class, enshrined in the Constitution.

5. It is noticed that children are quite lacking in understanding of very basic concepts in almost allsubjects. E.g.: They did not know what the Constitution was, that it was actually a written book. They did not know much about the Solar System. They had probably never looked at a world mapproperly before. They had never been explained the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution or any of the poems, all of which they knew by rote. This is certainly not a comment on the capacitiesof the children, but in fact must be attributed to a largely indifferent attitude of the teachers and thetendency propagated in our education system to just learn everything by rote rather than take thetrouble to understand concepts.


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To talk about the schools individually: Katwal ZP School

On interaction with the teachers, we discover that the school has no village support. Whenpreparing a small plot to plant a crop was suggested, the teachers said that the school gate hasno lock and the village youths have been known to enter the school premises, uproot saplings,soil toilets and generally break things in the school compound.

One of the teachers himself did not know the order of planets in the solar system. During our session, when we played our Solar system game outside the class, he sheepishly confessed that since he had not yet reached that part in the syllabus, he did not know. This is only reflectiveof the weak grounding of the teachers an inherent systemic fault which continues. This alsomay be the reason they do not encourage questions.

Mudholi ZP School This school had an intensely disheartening atmosphere. The HM s behaviour with the children

was very rude, even hurtful at times. He kept putting them down because of their humblebackgrounds, even referred to the drunkard fathers.

To their credit, some of the teachers here were present during our whole session and seemedenthusiastic about getting involved. Only thing, they kept prompting the children and seemed abit worried about the children always giving the right answers, which we do not expect at all.

The children are quite distracted and compared to the other schools, were quite noisy anduncontrollable. Again, this is not pointed out as their fault but as a result of the general,disorganised air of the school.

The school building is dilapidated, cramped and quite unclean.

Saraswati Vidyalay (Mudholi High school) This school has a very nice campus; lots of green, open space all around and good classrooms. All the teachers seemed genuinely interested to see the new methodologies and even teachers of

other classes came to observe the session. But again, teachers interference and prompting students was an issue.

Compared to the other schools, the students here seem to have better knowledge of basicconcepts and answered readily. This may be because of their better off background back homeand better general atmosphere of the school.

2 students have been identified to teach agri culture in the planting a crop session planned for September.

When we were there, Tree plantation was done by some students from the higher classes;saplings given by the Gram Panchayat were planted. Many such trees have been planted in theschool grounds and here they dont seem to have any issue with vandalism, like in Katwal.

Villoda ZP School This school was by far the most positive experience for us. We saw students come early to

school, not merely to run and play on the ground, but to actually clean the campus, write on thenotice board and prepare for the morning assembly. (This supposedly happens every morning)The most amazing sight was to see one of the teachers actually join the children and sweep theground himself. He was directing the children in a very pleasant manner, without shouting at them.

The children also seemed to be at ease and communicated with the teachers voluntarily anddirectly; a rare sight in our hierarchical education system. Even in our very first, short visit toVilloda in July, we saw a teacher actually console a crying child in a very caring manner.

The morning assembly was a wonderful demonstration of simple, small efforts that make all thedifference to everyday activities in school. After the usual prayers and national anthem, someStd. VII students conducted the rest of the assembly. This included a story reading, Thought for the day, Samaanya Gyaan - general knowledge questions (that the students searched andprepared themselves) posed to the rest of the students, ji taarik h to paadha - one of thestudents reciting the multiplication table according to the date that day etc.


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Here, we would specifically like to mention, that the teachers talked in a very respectful andloving tone with the children. Participating, talking and asking questions was encouraged.Compared to other schools where children were constantly being told to be quiet, the teachershere specifically told the children to interact as much as they could with us and not be shy.

In the lunch break, we had a detailed discussion with the teachers about our concept and thestate of the education system and in India in general. The teachers seemed to have a deep

awareness of rural problems. They shared their issues frankly and showed a genuine desire tolearn more and improve their methodologies. The irony is however that almost all the teachersat the Villoda school are not permanent; they are Assistant Teachers (Sahaayak Shikshak). In theface of this fact, one has to really think about the reasons for motivation (and demotivation) of teachers in our education system.

6. On enquiry at Anandwan, a time after the monsoon would be a better time for a visit. Given thetime and budgetary constraints of the project, only one exposure is possible. But our focus being reconnecting children to their own local history, geography and environment, a visit to theBhadravati and/or Markanda caves would be better. Also, we feel that a sensitive place like

Anandwan would require a different level of orientation of the children.

Our Logistics : Getting to the villages from Pune is not smooth. There are limited buses and trains. Also, from Wardha, Warora or Chandrapur, it is quite beyond the budget to hire a taxi to go to thevillages every month. So we have to depend on a very uncertain public transport system of a singlebus from these centres into the interiors. Through one of the Mudholi High School teachers, we havefound a satisfactory accommodation in Mudholi village itself. We are most happy to stay in thevillage, but transport between the villages is not always convenient. Again, since we do not have our own transport, we have to depend on the single bus that plies between the villages. This greatly cramps our mobility and flexibility.

Also, to liaison with some subject experts and procure study and other material, we have to stay at Chandrapur atleast for a couple of days. This is proving to be quite costly. If travel costs were takencare of, it would definitely save time and help the implementation of the project. This should beconsidered seriously.

FUTURE PLANS 1. We have planned with the schools to take one crop of Paalak or Methi in the next month. It is

subject to the schools making some preparations for the plot of land for the same.2. In September we plan to visit the Bhadravati and Markanda caves accompanied by the subject

experts from Chandrapur, for an initial recce, in preparation for taking the children there. Themain element of this visit would be documentation of the places to be discussed with thestudents in terms of exploring their own history and giving it to the ASI for their records.

3. An exposure visit of the teachers has been arranged in September to the Nai Taleem School inWardha along with an interaction with the Principal of the school- Sushma Sharma. A visit to

Sewagram Ashram is also planned in anticipation of October, which would focus on Gandhianthought and concept of education.4. Trainings with teachers would orient them in interactive teaching methodologies, which they

would actually demonstrate in the coming months in their respective classes. We hope for goodlevels of participation from the teachers and to gradually move into a facilitation role.


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Pre and Post testing questions

samaajaiva&aana va BaaYaa : ivacaar - ivakasa pa` klpa (jau na 2012 maaca-2013)pa`klpa pa`baM Qak : BaartaIya iSaXaNa saM sqaa AaiNa mao Kalaa T/sT, pauNao .

SaaLa :

1. Aapalyaa Baagaacaokaya vaO iSaYT\ ya Aaho?

2. Aapalyaa Baagaacaa BaU gaao la ksaa Aaho?3. Aapalyaa Baagaata Asalao lyaa eo itahaisak mahtvaacyaa vaastaUku zlyaa?

4. AapaNa ku zlaI BaaYaa baao lataao?

5. AapaNa SaaLo ta ku zlaI BaaYaa baao lataao?

6. GarI baao lalyaa jaaNaa%yaa BaaYao ta AaiNa SaaLo ta baao lalyaa jaaNaa%yaa BaaYao ta jaaofrk Asataao tyaamau Lokaya ADcaNaI yao taata?

7. Aapalyaa paM caayataIcaI kamaMku zlaI?

8. caM d` pau r ijalHyaacaI Baartaalaa kaya do NagaI Aaho?

9. AapaNa iSaxXaNa kSaasaazI Gao taao?

10. maao zMJaalyaavar maI kaya kr] [icCtaao/ [icCtao?11. maaJaI AavaDIcaI SaaLa kSaI AsaavaI?

12. malaa svata:ba_la kaya vaaTtao?

01 tadoba schools report _ jun jul aug 2012

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