New Year is here

First of all, EFF team wishes a very happy new year to all the teachers, students, volunteers and readers! Every year begins with new hopes and wishes. It feels great to start a year with new ideas and rules set by ourselves to get succeed in our life. In other words we call ‘resolution’. New Year resolution is very much popular in all squares of the world.

As a part of new year activity, I made some students of Red Cross Govt Girls High School to speak about their ‘new year’s resolution’. Here are some interesting ones from classes 7^th to 9^th.

-          “I will not watch T.V. in this New Year” (are you serious!). – Sowjanyna, Class 9

-          “I will not speak bad words in this New Year.” – Ashwinin, Class 7

-          “I will speak in English with my friends at school.” – Sony, class 9

-          “I will help my mother in household chores.” – Radhika, class  7

-          “I will give water to birds on our terrace.” – Anitha, class 7

-          “I will not bite my nails.” – Shruthi, class 8

-          “I will start writing a diary.” – Bhargavi, Class 7

-          “I will not waste food.” – Yasmine, Class 8

-          “I will help the poor” (don’t know what help) – Tahniyath, class 8

-          “I will participate in the activities conducted by Ambica teacher” (is it true?)– Hamida, class 8

-          “I will not hurt people with my words when I become angry!” (is that possible?) – summaiya, class 9 

Well these are some of the notable resolutions which seem to be so easy but really challenging to practice.

One more important thing in New Year is Greetings! In this gadget world we wish each other through electronic greetings i.e., by sms or email. But wishing each other by giving a greeting card is a traditional way of wishing the New Year. As a part of New Year activity, I gave home work to prepare a greeting card for my 7^th and 8^th class students. On a condition – the greeting card should be prepared with used or waste things at home, no buying stuff. Within a day, these pupils have come up with innovative cards. Some of them are here –

That's a great start for the year 2014. Once again wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2014!

Related posts:
http://www.thehindu.com/features/kids/promises-to-keep/article5544582.ece

The soul is healed by being with children – an English proverb

Children are akin to buds sprouting from branches. When they blossom into flowers, their scent and colours will help us enjoy the entire world-Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Well said by the first prime minister of India...as an honour we celebrate his [Nehru’s] birthday as Children’s day. He was fond of children and was known as ‘chacha’ (Uncle) Nehru among them. 

On 14^th November we celebrate Children’s day in every school throughout India. Children’s day was one of the favourite celebrations in my school life. Teachers used to entertain us in many ways, they used to dance, sing, play skits etc. Hilarious TV ad ‘all-out’ was released in those days, where the machine eats away all the mosquitoes like a frog. We rolled on the floor laughing when our strict Hindi teacher acted like ‘all-out’ machine eating all the mosquitoes. That was really unforgettable. School memories rejuvenate us all the time. 

Children's day celebrations @Red cross Government Girls’ High school, Hyderabad.

On the event of children’s day, Lions Club organized some competitions and distributed prizes to the winners.

The cute little angels from primary-performing a dance in front of the chief guests

A devotional song, performed by high school students.

They are upper primary students, was performing ‘Pankida’ dance with sticks. Though they are too small to handle the sticks, their coordination and timing was impeccable throughout the song. I must learn from them for next Navarathri ; -)

Fancy dress competition: A traditional Kashmiri girl

 Miss Goa

Gujrathi girls

The day concluded with refreshments. 

Trophy for the girls...

We just managed to get the photos of the girls with the trophy. If you remember a few weeks back they participated in a dance competition organised by Naandi Foundation with another 100 schools. Our girls came third! Isn't that awesome? The trophy is now displayed in the make shift library cum virtual classroom. As you can see, these girls are the latest starlets of the school . :)

Dance workshop by Naandi Foundation....

Now that the schools are reopening after the long summer break, we have been visiting our schools and doing the necessary tweaking and testing with the Virtual classroom application. Yesterday, at Red Cross Girls Government high school, we bumped into some of the Naandi Foundation volunteers who were conducting a dance workshop as part of their summer camp program 2010. Our girls will actually be participating at Ravindra Bharathi today with other fellow students from Government schools in Hyderabad. We are excited as much as the girls are! A big 'Thank you' to the Naandi guys for their awesome work all these years!

Things I learn as I teach--to teach better

Teaching is easy but keeping the students interested or having them listen to you is altogether a battle in itself. Being a teacher myself and a virtual one at that, it is all the more taxing. But after almost 4 months of teaching virtually I have almost figured out what works for them. 


Somehow I’m reminded of the many preachers in the church I’ve attended and I realize that I only liked the ones who seemed intelligent, well read, in sync with the world types. Most of all someone with a sense of humor, who would make the entire congregation burst out in laughter. My girls seem to like that too. Especially. But me being someone who can hardly ‘crack jokes’ my only way to make them laugh is to talk in Hindi! And seriously no matter how much my friends made fun of my Hindi, I didn’t think it could be as bad. But thankfully, it looks like in a way, it works to my advantage.

The other way to keep them interested is to be INTERESTING! Now that’s not easy. On my breakfast-less, lunch-less, after my University trips, I force myself to appear interesting but seriously these are bright kids. I couldn’t possibly fake it. And therefore, the point is, I have to eat well, be healthy and stress-free to be able to teach well. And of course, I need to be passionate of what I teach, whenever I’m not prepared well, even though I know the subject, I can’t keep them interested. I have to keep telling myself that they are supposed to learn out of the lesson I take. Preparing myself, telling myself that it’s going to be fun no matter what; all geared to meet them is what ticks.

Making them understand is again extremely challenging for me. Interacting with students who only know a few English words is difficult. Sometimes I realize that in the pursuit of explaining a word I end up using another three words which they are not aware of. And when they don’t understand, they lose interest. It goes back to the same thing of preparing my lesson with care, be conscious of every example, words I use, and making them relate to it, explain every little detail and not take anything for granted.

Over the past few months, I have also learned that I need to be supportive and kind. Being aware of where they have come from helps me in this aspect. Onetime, in one of my physical classes, I had an assignment for them to write about their family. They were skeptical at first wondering if that’d be assessed by their official English teacher, the principal and the Red Cross representatives but I assured them that was only for me and promised that I wasn’t going to judge them. 


I made myself clear that it was to understand them better and in the process allow them to practice their writing too. And boy! What lovely writings they were. Even now, on sultry weekends, when I find my days depressing, I open the folder where the papers are neatly clipped, and as I read them one after the other, I’m rejuvenated not only for my next class but for days to come, a reminder of hope and life at its best.

Some pics with Amongla teacher :)

I see them all--each one from my desk in office



and they see me--loud and clear :)

as I teach away from the comfort of my desk...



Interaction at its heights. They love to talk. Like teacher like students.


(Click on the image for a better view.)

in words and pics...

After three virtual classes I wanted to see for myself how my students were responding to the whole new change. From the other side of the table, as it were. So this morning, I walked down to the school and sat with them as my friend and ex-colleague agreed to volunteer for the class.

The girls were a little shy initially but felt comfortable soon and started to interact as usual. Being seated on the floor did not deter them from carefully taking notes. I remember being such a diligent student only when we had to crack the Pythagoras theorem in school. I was particularly impressed with how comfortable they felt in this virtual classroom. In terms of discipline and in terms of their attention and level of interest there was no difference from a real classroom. In fact, this new way of learning seemed to have created much more interest.

Afterwards I spoke to my friend about how he felt teaching in this novel way. This is what he said:

“I’m impressed by the fact that these girls are very keen learners and refuse to let any learning opportunity be wasted. They had lots of questions and as a group they made sure that everything that needed clarification was in fact clarified then and there.

As a teacher with previous classroom experience I also felt comfortable using the virtual classroom which provided all the essential elements that a classroom needs. In less than ten minutes I was comfortable using the technology, was extremely pleased with the high level of interactivity, and at the end of the class came away convinced that I could actually teach using virtual classroom for an entire year.”

The class was on the basics of punctuation and I wish learning punctuation was as easy as this for me too. Apart from lil glitches here and there, the technology does look like a little wonder of wonders!

EFF's Virtual Classroom live in a school!

EFF Virtual Classroom went live on Friday the 18^th of July 2008 in Red Cross Govt. Girls' High School. After a year of research, planning and developing with immense passion and hard work, it was indeed a proud moment for all of us.

I taught the eighth graders from my office desk while they were seated in their school computer room. I could see them sitting systematically forming a pyramid like shape so that the camera could capture all of them. The moment they saw me in the projector they started giggling and chimed in unison “good morning Teacher”. I did explain how this was going to work but thanks to the ‘idea ad’ on Television, they now had a better idea.

And even before I started with my introductory note, they started asking questions just as in our regular classes. The comfort level was amazing and they sure were incredibly enthusiastic. When I asked how she liked the Virtual Classroom, Soni, one of the students, responded that she felt lucky because she never could even dream of these things being provided in a government school. She says she now looks forward to coming to school more than ever.

We always believed that this is something that would change the face of Indian public school system. And now that we see in action, we are convinced that the “change” is not too far away. Our target is to deploy EFF’s Virtual Classroom in 1000 schools in the next 5 years.

Here is a photo of the class in progress:

(more pics and videos on the way :))

(Click on the image for a better view)

Red Cross School girls...

This afternoon I took the engineers to the school to examine the room where the Virtual Classroom technology will be deployed. As they got busy discussing the logistics and stuff I went out and took some pictures of the girls. Not just the uniform but they are bright in every way!




The 7 graders--the girl in glasses (front) stood first in the previous year...this morning she read out a poem in Hindi and translated bits and pieces of it in English for the non Hindi speaking audience :)
The lower graders waiting for their parents to pick them up.

I lifted the red schoolbag just to get a feel of how heavy they were and goodness me!They were as heavy as a ten kilo rice bag!

Buying guava from a fruit seller through the grill of the school gate.

It's 2pm and they are dying to go home but the gate is locked and will be opened only after the long bell is rung :)

SSC to CBSE syllabus in A.P Government School

I had a meeting with the Red Cross officials this morning and as I waited for them to turn up, I noticed a group of unfamiliar students dressed in their own attire seated in a corner of the corridor. I was told that these were newly admitted students, all in grade VI, part of the recently announced plan of the Govt. of A.P. They are the ones who will be using the CBSE syllabus and will be taught in English medium.

The department on Tuesday issued an order introducing English as the medium of instruction with CBSE syllabus from class VI in 6,500 select schools, covering over 250,000 students.

The move is part of the World Bank-aided Strengthening and Universalisation of Quality and Access to Secondary Schools (SUCCESS) project.

Under the order, students of classes VI and VII of upper primary schools which are within two kilometre radius of high schools where English would be introduced as medium of teaching would be shifted to the nearby high schools along with teachers and other administrative staff.

While Red Cross Girls’ High School is an English medium school with their own class VI students why the Government ordered the school to have a bunch of girls from here and there, beats me! At the same time, the teachers are already hands full--the amount of attention the students will receive also worries me.

The students are from Telugu and Urdu medium schools, who am told do not even understand a word of English! Among other things, they do not have a classroom for these students and unless the Government fulfills their promise of providing ‘specially trained’ teachers for them, these students will be left even without teachers.

While there are concerns voiced out by academicians, teachers, parents and concerned citizens, this is a first hand experience of the fiasco that has been doing the rounds ever since the Government announced the plan.

To my girls at Red Cross Government High School

This writing is inspired by my students. Their blank stares and blank answer sheets. This is a message, an appeal to my students on what education can do for them.

Dear Girls,

It is important to be educated because Education makes you aware of your rights in a society. It also gives you the courage and the means to fight for them. In fact, in most cases, you don’t even have to fight. You get what you deserve and what is yours. Education teaches you to treat every human with respect. Respecting people for what they are, and not because they belong to a particular religion, caste or status. It gives you the confidence to live life on your own terms, at the same time by respecting the emotions and opinions of those that are close to you.

It also teaches little things like civic sense, preserving the environment, taking care of your health by exercising and eating healthy food. It gives you the ability to make your own decisions, be it choosing a field of study, deciding on a career, or choosing a person to marry. The freedom to do any of these comes only with 'education’.

It gives you the confidence to present yourself. Become independent. And in many ways people become dependent on you. You understand the things happening around you, and are able to participate in social, economic, and political debates of your interest.

Education gives the ability to make informed decisions and form well thought out, independent opinions. Ability to contribute more to society since you better understand how it works and what it lacks. –A more active role in building and maintaining the society and civilization.

When you are educated, people respect you.

When you are educated, you have a voice, a voice for others too.

Your teacher.

Red ribbons and plaits

I conducted the first unit test today despite resistance from some of the students. Everyone hates exams, including my students! so I decided to treat them with some photos and a video. They were so pleased with the idea that they actually started waving and smiling ...I had to literally force them to 'pretend' to be writing. Take a look...

40 girls in total, but only 33 were present today.

One of my favorite students. She proudly showed me her mehendi (the print on her hand) She must have done for the festival yesterday.

I love the way the girls wear their hair. Everyone of them neatly plaits her hair and tie it up with those red ribbons. It's a part of the school uniform. It seems elder sisters and moms help with the styling.

I did the writing on the blackboard and surprisingly not many of them have problems reading it. I consider that as an achievement :)

Teaching is fun

As I work for EFF, I get to interact with people from different fields: teachers, policy makers, social workers, educators and many others. Recently we had a meeting with Sheel Parekh of Spark-India. She writes, among other things, story books for children with the intention of making them interesting. Now, EFF is also working with the same intention, to make education interesting. We want children to get up each morning eager to go to school. But I had never yet understood how one actually does that.

I asked Sheel, “how do you know what you write will be interesting for children? Do child psychology books help?” In her soft, yet assertive voice, she said “you have to touch to feel the pulse”. That morning I decided to become a teacher.

It’s been a week now since I started teaching English to the 7^th graders of the Red Cross Girls High School. It is an English medium school, with classes from I to X

Teaching children is indeed a challenging task. I’m burdened with a sense of responsibility. Every night just before I go to bed, I prepare my teaching plan. I visualize the girls, just so eager to learn. To make things a little different and interesting for them, I have divided the girls into three different groups. (They had to name their group on their own). So in my class, they sit group wise. For every lesson I teach, we have a quiz just to make sure, they remember what they have learnt.

I keep a “teacher’s journal” and I make a note of my observations and feelings in it. Here are a few things I have noted in my journal so far:

• Most girls can hardly read their textbooks.
  
  
• They do not understand most of the English words.
  
  
• Most of them do not have their English textbook. I found out that the government has not sanctioned textbooks yet. The rest uses old textbooks handed down from their seniors.
  
  
• Students who do not understand English and like to refrain participating in the classroom interaction sit on the last benches.
  
  
• But, they all want to learn. They even wanted me to sing a song and tell them a story about my country. I had to remind them that I belong to this country and was one of them.

I want them to learn to read, write and understand, and speak English, in that order. I was talking to my colleague Sridhar, the other day on how I could encourage and motivate them to read. He suggested that I do something unconventional, like buying them a copy of tinkle each or any other comic that might interest them. My take was, even if they read, they won’t understand. He said, “There are illustrations along with words, which would make it easier for them to understand. And since the illustrations look interesting they will make an effort to read and understand.”

I decided that this was worth a try. After all, as a child it was my favorite comic too. So in my next class, I asked if anyone read tinkle comics. One of the girls had 4 copies right there!

When I asked the rest of the class if anyone else was interested in reading the comics, all 40 of them raised their hands, including the owner.

Over the weekend, I plan to buy them some comics and the English reader textbook for the students.

I've started liking Monday mornings :)