EFF is back again with assorted team: motivating the students

Finally yes!we are here this year to discuss with you about the EFF trip to country side, Gandweed ZPH School. Once in every three months we visit the school to check the over all development and progress among the students, but this time we were late by one month because of the formation of Telangana and Andhra states and hours of power cuts especially in villages. Due to which we could not take the virtual classes regularly.
Every visit of ours, we introduce new set of volunteers from various professions, by doing so, students, get excited to see new faces who could express their intentions, motivating and encouraging the pupils by inserting corporate play schools methods of teaching, rather than the routine presentation teaching.

Volunteers from different backgrounds implant their teaching skills and involve the students in activities such as classroom games, speaking activities, quiz competition, reading, social issues etc... This time we have concentrated only the speaking skills of the students because we wanted to evaluate how well they are able to cope up with English and in their communication skills. The topics that we have emphasized this time were; Role of News paper in our life, what is your aim in life, Story telling and above all last not the least, Eradication of child marriage etc....

Improvisation

At the end of the day, when we took the summary class wise, it was impressive! The virtual classroom teaching helped most of the students to perform well in all categories of subjects, social issues, general knowledge, speaking activities, current affairs, and English grammar and so on. Over all it was amazing to learn that students have put in lot of interest in learning to speak in English. The different methods of teaching especially, to those vernacular medium students of classes VI and a very small number of students from other classes needs an extra concentration individually, to help them shine like other students. Who are already in that stream, in a nut shell, lots of efforts to be put in with students to overcome the fear of stage and speech. Perhaps help them to take daring steps to disclose their talents standing in front of the class and audience.

Vehemently speaking, while the presentation of Hockey Sticks along with items relating to them and some Educational Literature books were awarded for the students for the excellent performance in the activities that were conducted by the EFF.We noticed that there were lot of people standing  at the school main gate and some of them sitting on the walls while others standing witnessing the proceedings taking place in the school premises. Out of their anxiety and excitement, we could hear  them clapping in joy along with the students cheering the students who are presented with gifts. We the EFF are happy to bring this awareness among the residents of Gandweed Village and are very pleased with the encouragement they offered to the students.

This school visit has created awareness: In student's performances, and how we need to work with them in the areas they need to be polished to make an improvement in their progress.

On behalf of EFF, we sincerely thank all the Purpletalk employees and others who supported the achievers and made the children happy at the end of the day. We hope to get the same support and encouragement from all of you, in the future too. We thank the school management for cooperating with us in all errands.

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.

An island of learning

Some of my friends snigger at me when I tell them that I loved my school. But I did and no sniggering stops me from emphasizing that fact. :) As I think of it—it was mostly because of my teachers--simple but dedicated—who ensured that we were taught with enthusiasm.

I honestly liked everything about my school—my teachers, the tests and exams, the extracurricular competitions, sports week and morning assembly…all of it.

Come to think of it--even the textbooks I used were old—handed down from my sister who was a year ahead of me. I remember repairing the books since they had dog-eared pages, some books were torn, pages in the middle had come loose, and there was plenty of scribbling and underlining done in all of them.

It actually surprises me now that I willingly and lovingly used those textbooks. In fact, I remember the cold winter afternoons when I would sit on the wooden floor with a cup of tea, wrapped in a sweater and a muffler and cover them with used white calendars because the textbook covers were usually torn and lost. I would write the name of the subject and my name with a marker.

I did not have access to any fancy educational material apart from those textbooks but the effort with which my teachers taught me with whatever little they had gave me access to a whole wide world. I remember one teacher in particular who taught the class what an island was. He filled a shallow plate with water and placed a slab of stone covered with moss and told us that that patch of “land” was an island and corrected us when we pronounced island with an “s”. That’s when I learned about silent letters.

They always insisted that each of us will in our own way become “great” someday. I may not have become ‘that great someone’ I wanted to, but it’s because of my teachers that I today value education and the life that comes with it.

So with my old textbooks, some motivated teachers, and lots of encouragement, I learned well, and more importantly with enthusiasm and enjoyment. What really made the difference for me was that I always had good, committed teachers who could enthuse me and get me to focus on learning in every class.

I am convinced that without a teacher to help you relate to your lessons and to the textbooks, even the keenest child would find her enthusiasm wavering. And that a good teacher can turn even dull textbooks into precious learning resources. And this is the reason for our sense of urgency regarding this severe shortage of teachers in our schools today, and our desire to do something about it.

Chalk Talk

Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.' Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a horse is.'

Hard Times, Charles Dickens

There it is! A right tick to my lengthy list of things to do. Met the principal of the school just opposite my office this morning.

It was different from all my earlier visits to schools because this visit was to a “real” school, where a principal with a long string of colorful bangles on both arms, a big round maroon bindi on her forehead and a broad smile stuck to her face was seated on the principal’s chair as Bear and I stepped in.

Principals are used to getting respect from people, and therefore I made sure I was at my politest best. A pleasant lady she was; answered all our queries with no controversial remarks. Plain, simple, politically correct answers. There was one, however, that provided us some insight into the functioning of that school, and of schools in general.

When I asked if the students were exposed to any audio-visuals aids as a supplement to the daily teaching, she answered “Yes, we let them watch educational movies and documentaries. However, we restrict them from watching too many of these, because we fear that they might lose interest in the classroom teaching and end up not listening to the teacher”.

I nodded in agreement politely. But I was reminded of our little girl no. twenty of Charles dickens’ Hard Times, who had to fearfully recite what a horse is to her class and to Mr Gradgrind, her teacher. Our students must surely be starved for innovation and imagination. Lacking the freedom to learn from what they see and not just what they are "taught", the freedom to experiment. Because we know what we provide in our schools is boring, we make sure students do not get used to entertaining learning, and to sources of learning other than the regular teachers.

As we walked out, I saw my friend giving me that knowing smile. I told him, “What a perfect answer” and with that I started my day.