MEKHLA TRUST, PUNE.

MONTHLY REPORT SEPTEMBER 2012

Improvement in quality of education through social science subjects and language in four Elementary Schools in the Tadoba buffer zone villages
1st 2nd

OBJECTIVES 1. To design and conduct training programs with teachers for improving education methodology 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 linguistic patterns 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 wild life 5. To document the history and cultural patterns of the area, which can contribute to the preservation of Adivasi culture

Visits to historical monuments around Chandrapur district for Documentation Working in the 4 schools; Focussing on knowledge base of teachers.

3rd 4th

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

HISTORICAL SITE VISITS 1st & 2nd September, Historic sites : Bhadravati, Bhatala and Chandrapur.

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.
In keeping up with this objective of the project, we read some reference books, pamphlets, articles, notes etc about history of Chandrapur. It is very sad that this glorious past is not known to the rest of Maharashtra. But the worst part is that this portion of history is not known even to the people of Chandrapur. We found an important book written by Mr. A. J. Rajurkar : Chandrapur cha Itihas, in Marathi, first published in 1956. The book gives an unbiased and scientific glance at the history of Chandrapur from 2 B.C. till the British took over India.

Bijasan Caves : c. 2 B.C. to 1 A.D.

Tomb (Samadhi) of Gond Raja Birshaha : 1704 A.D.

Meanwhile we contacted the historians and archaeologists in Chandrapur- Mr. Ashok Singh Thakur, Mr. Prashant Arve and Mr. Dinshaw Lakshmi. After discussions about the objectives of our program and the kind of work, we intend to do with the schools they suggested some important historical sites to us and also showed readiness to accompany us to those sites. Although, the sites are far away in the interior areas, they came with us and gave us detailed information about their history. Mr. Ashok Singh Thakur has excavated a very important Satvahan site of Chandankheda and has found many megalithic tools at Savri village. In two days, we visited many sites in Chandrapur, Bhadravati and Bhatala area and have documented them in detail. The output of this documentation would be shown to the students in coming months and also shared with all.

Collection of Megalithic tools by Ashok Singh Thakur.

Many of these sites are in a very dilapidated state, in desperate need of restoration. Chandrapur district has a very rich history and it is very essential that children know about their own heritage. We feel that WORKING WITH SCHOOL rd th this knowledge would really in building their self-image 3 & 4 September, Monday-contribute Katwal, Villoda & Mudholi schools and confidence.

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

Last month, we conducted day-long sessions in each school and our focus was breaking compartmentalisation in education. This month, we focussed on teachers and teaching methodology. So we planned to spend half a day in each school. In the first half, it was planned to work on agriculture with the children- taking a crop of Methi (fenugreek) by making a bed and sowing seeds. Someone with farming knowledge from the village was asked to teach and begin the process of taking a crop with the students, facilitated by us. We brought methi seeds with us for each school. 1- Working with Children: Agriculture VILLODA Just like in the last month, small things made Villoda stand out and showed that this school is a bit different from the others. It has a contagious atmosphere or earnestness. Teachers and students seem active and happy. school, Students cleaning school assisted by one of the teachers In this onededicatedly of the teachers himself waspremises, well oriented with farming. So he conducted the activity Assembly conducted by girls very well, explaining and guiding all the processes. He and the students a rranged for all tools, even cowdung manure, from the of village. Overall behaviour teachers with children and their cooperation with us

Though agricultural activities were nothing new for the students due to their backgrounds, they wholeheartedly joined in the activity. The main aim was to introduce scientific methods into taking this crop and creating links of how all other subjects can be learnt through the whole process of taking a crop. The students were explained concepts such as calculation of the area of the bed, exact quantity of seeds, and the entire costing of the activity- including labour costs, cost of seeds and potential sale of the harvest etc. The discovery of agriculture by human beings and the whole civilization and social aspect of agriculture, songs and language related to agriculture, soil, water, etc. were some other subjects that came up. Actually the themes and topics stemming from just agriculture could be endless, but the purpose was to generate a model for teachers to build upon further. An important point to note is that girls in this school participated and answered a lot in class, compared to other schools.

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

KATWAL Here, one of the farmers from a nearby field was called to guide the students in making the methi bed. When we were conducting the initial theoretical session linking different subjects to agriculture, the farmer actually came and sat in class with all the teachers and students, which we found very nice. Here too, some teachers knew about farming and helped out.

It was noticed that students knowledge level even in te rms of simple mathematics- area, units of measurement, arithmetic is very poor. Girls need to be constantly pushed to participate. The methi bed was made well. As the teachers had mentioned last month, teachers were worried about vandals from the village destroying the crop over the weekend, when no one is in the school campus. We hope that the students will feel a sense of ownership and responsibility toward the crop and take care of it. Interestingly, Std. VI is much more enthusiastic and spirited than Std. VII in this school. We would like to involve the Std. VI class as much as possible in our sessions. The children have very deep curiosity about things and this should be encouraged. These are some of the amazing questions that Katwal school children asked us this month: Tigers are so strong, why do they attack humans from

behind? If the earth is rotating, why dont people fall off it? Why is sea water salty? What is the percentage of saltiness in the water of Mumbai?

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

MUDHOLI It was decided to take a combined session of Std. VII students of both Mudholi schools in Saraswati Vidyalay. The Agriculture instructor from Vigyan Ashrams IBT (Introduction to Basic Technology) program running in Moharli school, had been invited to conduct the agriculture session with the students. But it was constantly raining on that day, so it was not possible to go out and begin the process of taking a crop. Inspite of the rain, the session went very well, because the instructor taught the students how to make grafts of different plants in the class. He demonstrated everything in the class with a tree branch, the students, especially boys were very interested and asked many questions. Girls did not seem to be very interested, but this could be partly because the instructor was mostly addressing the boys and girls could have felt left out. In all these schools, the teacher really needs to take extra effort to involve girls. We explained the scientific angle and links to all other subjects was explained here too. One teacher from Mudholi ZP got quite involved in the session himself. He sat with the children the whole time and also asked the Moharli instructor questions about grafting. Then he also helped with explaining things to the children and asking them questions. It was a lively session which the children enjoyed. 2- Working with teachers: Finding links in textbooks to the topic- Agriculture In the second half of the day, the teachers were asked to prepare a presentation linking Agriculture, as a work with lessons in the curriculum from all subjects from Std. I to VII. This was to be presented to Ms. Sushma Sharma in Anand Niketan School, Wardha. In Villoda, we sat with teachers and students together and discussed the concept of linking various subjects with work and ways of gaining knowledge through work. In Katwal, we noticed that, teachers were quite tense when they were told that they had to make a presentation at Wardha. They frantically took out absolutely brand new text books from the cupboard and took them home, possibly to read up and take out points for the presentation. We suspect, they may not be familiar with the content and must be seeing the whole curriculum for the first time. In Saraswati Vidyalay, some of the teachers were quite unsure about what they were supposed to do. They thought it would mean a lot of extra work for them. They sent some students to go and fetch textbooks for them. Later we had a detailed session with the teachers on how to link the subjects to different aspects of agriculture, like water, soil, air etc. Only one teacher was present from Mudholi ZP. He was present in our session with students and had participated actively, and got a good idea of the concept. He agreed to take the lead for making the presentation in Mudholi ZP school. The HM came but did not participate much. Please see this link about linking different subjects with agriculture : (click) 5Sept Presentation.pdf

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

CONCLUSIONS As always, response from students in all schools was amazing; their never ending curiosity and enthusiasm was very heartening. In fact, they were quite disappointed that we were spending only half a day with them this time. It is noticed that the students knowledge of basic concepts is very weak. Due to this, it is hard to finish what we plan to do in the limited time we have. We have to keep going back and explaining basic concepts (like simple mathematics- area, units of measurement, arithmetic etc.) otherwise children would be completely blank about what we are discussing, making the whole effort pointless. Overall the children were very happy to do hands-on work. But girls need to be constantly pushed to participate. They automatically take up a passive role in the background. E.g.: Even while making methi bed, boys took up the digging with the tools, while girls automatically sat and crushed the mud with their hands. It was nice to see girls conduct assembly in Villoda and Saraswati Vidyalay, Mudholi. This is symbolic of the overall participation of girls in class and other activities too. In Katwal and Mudholi ZP schools, girls need to be coaxed to even utter a word in class. In Katwal, we collected some of the pre-project testing questionnaires that we had given them to fill up last month. We notice that someone (perhaps teachers) have helped them in filling them up with clichd and bookish answers. This defies the purpose of the questionnaire entirely. 5th September, Teachers Day EXPOSURE VISIT OF TEACHERS TO ANAND NIKETAN SCHOOL, WARDHA Anand Niketan School in Wardha has a very important legacy. It is based on Gandhijis principle of Nai Taleem. Their entire curriculum is work based, where children learn all subjects from activities that link the head, hand and the heart. It was decided to take an exposure visit of the teachers from the 4 schools to see this pioneering school. The visit was purposely planned for 5 th September, Teachers Day. Anand Niketan School had also made special plans for our visit and there was a meeting and presentation planned with all the teachers who were coming. Now unfortunately, due to torrential rain, the visit had to be cancelled at the last minute. Ms. Sushma Sharma informed us that it was raining so much that it was doubtful that students would even come to school that day. She felt, and we agreed with her, that the main aim of the visit was to see the functioning and all activities at the school and in this scenario, we would not be able to do so. So, inspite of all our pre-planning and effort taken, postponing the visit to a suitable date in the coming months would be advisable. We had hired 2 cars for transport to and back from Wardha. We had to forfeit the advance given to them, plus pay them additionally for the wasted day. So, we lost money. But we did not feel as bad about this as we felt about the attitude of the teachers that we had to face. The teachers from the 4 schools were quite disappointed with the turn of events. Some of them started insisting that we still go to Wardha as planned. We explained to them that the purpose of the visit would not be fulfilled, but their concern seemed to be something else entirely. Concerned only about their Leave: They were concerned that now that this trip was cancelled, if they did not go to school, the day would be counted as their Casual Leave. It was 8 am. There were still 3 hours for their respective schools to begin, but they still insisted that they would not be able to go to school now. They made up all sorts of excuses for it- that the bridges on the way had flooded over, that their usual vehicle would have now

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

gone (most of them own bikes) The whole point was that they wanted to take this opportunity to shirk work. This, we found totally unacceptable. In his desperation for an outing, the HM of Mudholi ZP school even suggested that we could still go ahead to Wardha and see the school building (!) or any exhibits put up there. They did not feel that without students there, they would be missing something (actually everything) crucial. We told them clearly that we feel that making a trip to Wardha now would not be fruitful. The teachers could go on their own if they wanted to. Then later, we would not be able to have anothe r exposure visit, because our budget for it would be finished. We cannot force grown people to do something. Wanting False Letter: Especially, some teachers from Saraswati Vidyalay, Mudholi, were very insistent that we write a letter to their HM stating that the trip had been cancelled. We readily agreed. But they went further to say that, in that letter, we should write that the trip went somewhere else, or that we went half way to Wardha, reached Jaam river which was flooded, so we could not cross it and had to turn back. We flatly refused to say or do anything untruthful. Going for own private outing in car arranged by us: Finally it was agreed that we would postpone the planned visit to Anand Niketan School. Then to our disgust, some of the teachers went on to plan their own private day trip, in the same car that we had arranged. We had already paid the car for the day, so the teachers shamelessly went ahead and used th e car for their own recreation...taking a letter from us in hand, so now they had a free trip and even no cut in the leave for the day! In this whole episode, we were saddened by the teachers utter lack of concern for the main purpose of learning something new in education from this exposure visit. On top of that, they were also comple tely lacking in any integrity or commitment to their jobs and went so far as to exploit the situation to their selfish interests and go on a picnic on our money. They did not even have the self -respect and honesty to pay for that car themselves. It is really a dismal situation when teachers are so far from practicing what is preached to students as moral behaviour. Some teachers still cooperated: Here we would like to note emphatically that there were a few teachers from Villoda and one teacher from Mudholi ZP who were NOT party to the above argument. They stood aside quietly and fully agreed with our point. They were genuinely interested in seeing and gaining some learning from the exposure and inspite of being disappointed with the situation, were fully agreeable to visit Anand Niketan School at a suitable time in the future. Conclusion: We are also very keen to take teachers on this very essential exposure, but now we think we would prefer to choose some selected teachers who show genuine interest, rather than waste time, money and effort on disinterested, insincere teachers.

Inferences:
1) This project aims to develop modules of teaching methodologies of interactive, experiential learning and generation of knowledge through productive work. This is part of a long term strategy to try and make a dent on education system and contribute in making it better in terms of relevance and quality. To create these modules, a committed and passionate team is a prime requirement, with primary school teachers in a crucial role. The teachers need to have genuine interest in education as an issue, in improving and improvising within it. 2) Given the experience of this month, we feel that we need to be selective about which teachers to train. We need to choose committed teachers, who would get involved wholeheartedly in the

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

process and take it forward by implementing it in their schools. Now we feel that we would like to make a concentrated effort with interested teachers, government implementers / officials in education department, through IIE, so that this module can be developed well and then replicated in the future. 3) In this regard, working in both the schools of Mudholi does not seem suitable to our purpose of preparing a module. Saraswati Vidyalay is quite a big school. It does not seem to care so much about our project as a smaller school. Also, management issues here might prove to be an obstacle in the future. It was teachers from this school who mainly wanted us to give them a false letter, so they could submit it to the management and take an off day. The teachers here seem least interested in learning new things, compared to teachers from Katwal and Villoda. Our experience is that the HM of Mudholi ZP has no interest in improving the school. As documented in last months report, he is very rude to the children and talks insultingly with them. His very presence spoils the atmosphere of any interaction with the rest of the teachers group. He interrupts during classes and has a non-serious attitude about things. In fact, we seriously feel that the future of the school will be better if he is removed from his position.* We were sceptical about cooperation from these 2 schools and this has been proven this month. 4) In cancelling the 2 schools, we realise that the children in these schools will miss out. But we have to choose between joyous learning of a few students for a year and future of much more number of children in this education system if we could replicate the module in future. This is a project of limited time. If we can create a module that can be replicated in other schools, it will benefit everyone. But in this initial stage, we need to find good potential and enhance it. Trying to force results from reluctant and indifferent teachers will make the module suffer. While we understand that the issues we see in Mudholi are quite widespread, the presence of good teachers in even the worst schools has given us a lot of hope. 5) Now we have the following options: i. We drop the 2 Mudholi schools and as proposed right in the beginning, we work in a concentrated fashion with only 2 schools of Katwal and Villoda including 5 th, 6th and 7th grade students. We will focus more on teachers trainings of more schools, lets say in total 6. If possible, we would like to include the teacher from Mudholi ZP we have identified, who is committed and interested in this work. We select 2 more schools from the 17 schools of IIE in the area, instead of the 2 Mudholi schools and continue our work on fresh grounds. For this we would like to informally visit some schools and select 2 the ones with relatively conducive atmosphere. We continue with same schools but the end result may suffer. The module will be most effectively created if there is maximum participation in the right spirit from teachers. 6) The work-centric module around Agriculture that was created this month and the presentations prepared by the teachers for the Wardha visit, which will be discussed with the teachers in our next months visit.

ii.

iii.

[* One of the irritations we face in our work is the HM of Mudholi. He is impolite, interfering and disrespectful in his behaviour. He stares indecently at women. ( ) He has been coming unnecessarily to call on us in our accommodation in Mudholi whenever we stay th ere. Of course we can deal with him ourselves, but it is a nuisance. It is our suspicion that he also drinks heavily and has even met us in that state sometimes. ]

maoKalaa T/ sT, pauNao

Chandrapur as we see...