Awesome day to remember

 Nearing the dawn of the day of 25^th August ’18 our three and half hours journey was coming to an end as we reached the rural Zphs School at Gandeed. It was quite exciting to travel in the pleasant and cosy monsoon weather overlooking green rice fields, tall trees on either side of the country road, small oasis of villages surrounded by greenery all around. The scarcity of traffic helped us overlook the imperfections of the road and added to the enjoyment.

The faculty and the H.M. welcomed our volunteering team with warm smiles. The team consists of people with varied interests and professions who evaluate the progress of students and how good a job the EFF teachers have done using their virtual classroom for three months. We were even more eager and excited as, from our point of view, the whole school was present and made us proud by participating in all the activities and proving their progressiveness in harmony with the EFF curriculum's based on spoken English, Grammar, and speech, written test drawing and so on...

In spite of these regular assignments, we got them involved in quiz competitions, storytelling and essay writing on topics such as “Independence day, Rakhi, friendship day, teacher’s day and so on. Most of the students did an excellent job. We appreciated them for their willingness to show their abilities and talent. At the end of the day, we, with the help of the staff, rewarded the best performers in all the above spheres.

Last but not the least, the faculty and the pupils, with smiles on their faces, saw us off as the eventful day came to an end. We felt proud of ourselves for extending our helping hands in motivating these students to polish their skills and guiding those to successful careers. They are cool, great fun, adorable and shaping up towards great contributors for our future. All in all, it was a day to remember!

Here are some pictures from the event, let them speak for themselves:

A day in the school with techies

Early morning three hours ride to the country side rejuvenate our senses isn't it? March first week, spring season dressed in its green gown. The beautiful climate welcomed us all the way to the school.
Academic year is coming to conclude in less than a month, it's time  to visit our rural school, ZPHS Gandeed to evaluate their learning through virtual classroom. We made it on 7th March '15 along with a new set of volunteers working in different professions.

We were excited to see the pupils after five months; though we daily interact them in virtual classroom. Inspite of Holi festival prior day, more than 80% pupils turned up to school on Saturday. That makes our teaching unique.

Volunteers were thrilled to meet the pupils, they spent the whole day in their assigned class. Experience in their own words...

"When I talked to these pupils I was really amazed and wondered that they are really good in English. They have learned a lot from virtual class teaching. EFF has given them good opportunity from what they're learning from their regular syllabus. Moreover, they said an interesting line on me - 'this is the first time we're talking to a Punjabi guy, you are literally awesome'. These words made my day." - Supreet Singh, Design Manager at PurpleTalk

"I got the opportunity to teach the 7^th class students through EFF. Before going there my thoughts were like, ‘You are going to a govt school and do not expect much from their side’.

But they proved me wrong and I am very happy for that.

They are poor in English but very enthusiastic, not afraid to express what they know and made my life hard with missiles like questions flying from all around. They have appetite for learning. 

Thank you EFF for making them wonder kids. I can feel all the efforts you have put in when I stood between them.

All the best.

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to teach as well as learn. " - Manohar Krishna, Director & CEO, Creative Bite Digital studio  

"It was an extraordinary experience for me to teach small kids. I was amazed to meet those kids and see how enthusiastic they were to learn the new things through online education system introduced by EFF. After meeting the students, I couldn't judge if they were the students of some govt. school in some village. This kind of initiatives can give a new shape to our Indian education system. Keep it up EFF"- Harsimran Kaur, Freelance designer, sewer & home maker

"Some of the students looked passive, but when I asked questions they answered with full explanation, it was beyond my expectations. I taught them how to give presentation using the resources available-like piece of chalk and black board. I was amazed to see a boy how well he implemented my words. Pupils need this kind of platform to inspire, they'll automatically become good citizen. There is something lacking in this 8th Std, but they're putting good efforts in English-speaking skills.This is the first time I am in between kids, it's wonderful experience; I really learned a lot from them, looking forward to teach and learn from these innocent and smart champs." - Shiva Dasoju, SSE-QA, PurpleTalk

"I dealt with 7th Telugu Medium students. Praveeen, Ravi, Mahesh, Mahendra, Yadaiah have been the best performers." - Nagaraju, SE-Dev at PurpleTalk'

Volunteers are the key resource for a non-profit organisation. On behalf of EFF, we express our gratefulnes to all these techies for making our evaluation easier. A part from it, hanging out with you guys was great fun for the pupils :)

Most unusual expressions

Some interesting words that describe people engaging in fraud or cheating in someway by Nilesh Jahagirdar.

Shill: One time I was at a train station, where I was approached by someone who was offering to sell branded, expensive sunglasses for next to nothing. I’m sure we have encountered such fraudulent offers. As it happens, even as I refused, this seller was approached by a ‘customer’ who was interested in buying, and was praising the quality of the sunglasses loudly enough for me to hear. We know the routine with these things. The ‘customer’ who showed interest was a ‘shill’--a person who was in league with the seller, and was trying to get him business by tricking other people.

The job of a shill is to pretend to be a customer, lend legitimacy to the business or the seller by pretending to like and buy the product, and thus trick other people around into buying the product too.

As you can tell, this is an unflattering way to describe someone who is putting on an act, being dishonest, and essentially trying to defraud others. The meaning of the word is often extended to describe people who are known apologists or unreasonably strong supporters of political parties, politicians, etc.

For example, you might say: ‘Although the government has failed to implement any welfare policies, this prominent journalist--who is perhaps a government shill--continues to praise it.’ Here is another example: ‘The mining activities have damaged our forests and hurt the local people, but the media, which is basically a shill for large corporations, has failed to take the issue seriously.’

Charlatan: Let’s deal with the pronunciation first. ‘Charlatan’ is pronounced--to indicate very roughly-- as ‘shaar-la-tan’. This is a word of French origin, that again means ‘a fraud’ or ‘a trickster.’ The precise usage is important though. A charlatan is someone who fakes a specific skill, or knowledge of a particular profession in order to cheat people and make some quick money. For example, you would frequently come across news items about charlatans who go from town to town pretending to be spiritual guides, and in the process steal money from people.

The word is perhaps most commonly used to describe people who pretend to have professional medical expertise, but are actually not qualified doctors at all. If you are angry at a doctor and believe him to be extremely incompetent, you might call him a ‘charlatan’--which would definitely be an insult--even though you are aware that he has a medical degree.

This article was originally posted in The Hindu