Readers visit a book store

For the first time ever, the blog has a guest post written by my co-teacher Shruti. I think that it's a beautiful write-up and a pleasant change. She is much more succinct and paints a vivid picture of the wonderful experience. Pictures are courtesy Anish who has been handling the camera for the past few months. Here is Shruti in her own words -

Off late, I have increased the number of read-alouds in class. More often than not, the meticulously picked out book from the library, intended to be a novelty for the kids from my side is intercepted by Soumya, who enthusiastically whispers the next events in the story to her neighbour as I read in class. I give her a silent disapproving look, afraid that she might ruin the story for her friend.  I am greeted by her smiling face in the recess, to be told that she has read ‘this’ book too. She even offers to pick out the book for the next read-aloud.

Soumya is one of the nine kids we took to The Comet Media Foundation at Fort on 8th February to celebrate our dedicated, passionate readers. As a bonus, they were asked to pick out a book for their library to be added as their selection. We spent a considerable time chalking out the list; elated about the fact that we had so many avid readers, disheartened that we could only take a few.

The afternoon heat that day did not deter the girls, Gayatri, Ragini, Rashmita, Yamuna, Nameera, Saira and Soumya from dressing up in their finest salwar-suits. The boys, Ravi and Karan wouldn’t be bothered with clothes and were the first ones to arrive, tugging at Anish’s shirt urging us to leave.

It was a comfortable train ride, with conversations having questions like “Didi, will it be a big bookstore?”, “Will we be allowed to talk there?” or the one which was asked every five minutes - “How much more time Didi?”

A brief walk to Hutatma Chawk got us to a building, with The People’s Bookstore on the ground floor. The watchman directed us to the second floor. A narrow but creatively decorated passage led us to a tiny room with bookshelves stacked on all sides with books and games. The place housed a range of books by Tullikha, Pratham, Tara and a plethora of simplistic but interesting toys. Within five minutes, each kid had found a book they liked and had started reading them. Karan was especially fascinated with the wooden caterpillar and suggested we get that for our library.

Karan with a toy

Yamuna playing with the blocks

Ragini is focusing on her puzzle after reading through a few books

By the end of thirty minutes, Anish found himself humming a Malayalam song from a multi-lingual book (which was picked up by Nameera later) and I was busy building the ‘perfect’ house with Rashmita out of colourful wooden blocks. Two hours later, all the kids had selected books for the library, all without any say from our side. Rashmita hoped that all the students liked the book she picked up. Gayatri was confused between two books that she claimed she loved equally. She made up her mind after a twenty-minute long contemplation.

A lovely picture of Gayatri and Shruti sharing a laugh

Rashmita in full concentration

Ravi, our Science enthusiast, was a bit disappointed about the place not having too many science books. But as we stood to get our books billed, he noticed a stack of thin, light-coloured books. They were by Arvind Gupta and contained beautiful science experiments. Ravi’s face lit up when we told him he could pick up two. We ended the day with lovely ginger biscuits and bun-maska at German Bakery.

It's now Ravi's turn to play with the blocks

The library now has these books with the kids’ names on them. Every time those books are picked up, it is a reminder to us about how far we’ve come; from making do with all the books that were donated to us, to having our kids pick out new books by themselves for ‘their’ library.

Soumya is pretty happy here

Library: Getting them to discover

We have a lot of story books in our library. We have also made a conscious choice of stocking our library with content heavy books on Science, Geography, Math and History . However, most of our students do not read these content heavy books naturally. One reason for the creation of the library was to make students take responsibility for their own learning by providing them an avenue where resources are available. We brainstormed quite a lot about how do we get our students to extract information out of them. We came up with projects.

Over the last 3 weeks, I have started giving them mini-projects. Projects are synonymous with fancy charts, art, glitter and models. Since I am a lazy geek, my projects are less of an exercise in display and more of an exercise in finding out information. My objectives - They realize that they should come to the library, find out the relevant shelf and then browse through the books.

Project 1 - Find out and draw (optional) means of transport.
Result - The childcraft books on science and technology were opened. I saw many versions of the rocket.

Project 2 - Find out names of the countries starting with each letter of the alphabet. Also write capitals.
Result - They know what an atlas is. Globe has been rotated continuously for the past week. They know at least some countries now. I gave a mental fist-pump when I walked into class and 40 agitated and worried kids complained about not finding any country with W or X. We had a discussion about why West Indies is not a country.

Project 3 - Find out any 5 rulers of India before 1857.
Result - All our new Illustrated History books were opened. We had a discussion on why I wasn't going to accept Ram, Krishna and the like. They learnt the word mythology.

Project 4 - Find out the names of 8 bones in the human body.
Result - I announced it today so I'll have to wait and see the effects of it.

Your ideas on this are highly appreciated. And once again, if you are interested in buying books for the library, check out my wishlist on flipkart.

On a separate note, Anurag Behar provides the best reading material on Indian education that I have discovered. Considering all the narrow-minded articles and opinions that I have heard and seen recently, his recent article resonates a lot and makes me want to write more. It's just that it's difficult for me to write if it's not an experience but a general opinion or argument. Education is such a complex issue that it's hard to isolate one factor and analyze it completely. I remain hopeful though. 

Social Evils: Adventures of Krishna Mehta in USA

"Bhaiya, my tuition teacher complains that you don't teach everything from the school textbook. He asks: why are you teaching about female infanticide and dowry?"
"My dear child, what's the use knowing about social reformers in your textbook if you don't know understand what social evils are in the first place?"

The Adventures of Krishna Mehta in USA
This is the title that my students wrote in their notebooks at the beginning of the history period. I had initially planned on naming the character as Krishnamurthy Iyer. However, Shruti, (my co-teacher) being South Indian, took offence and I had to think quickly to be in her good books again. It's fictional and any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Krishna Mehta is a conservative Indian who has grown up believing all the social evils like caste system, female infanticide and dowry. He gets a job in America and goes abroad for the first time in his life where his views are challenged through different incidents.

I thought of using a different narrative to make the kids look at these issues from a different perspective without me making any judgement calls on the these practices directly. The plot unfolds like this -
Late on a cold night,  Krishna is lost and stranded. A helpful stranger (NRI) offers to help him out but Krishna refuses and insults him when he finds out that the stranger is from a low caste.
He survives and goes on to fall for a pretty girl. However, his marriage proposal along with his demand for dowry is met with complete shock, anger and insult. He is forced to contemplate about his ideas. He changes himself slightly to return again. However, he is turned down again when he outlines his expectations for a male child and describes female infanticide. Such events only lead to him coming back to India, single and disappointed.

The story is extremely simplified. However, even these ideas were novel. I needed to get the message across to the 5th graders surrounded by superstition and blind beliefs, even in their own homes. Parents of one of the students took him to see the 'mata' because he is extremely weak in studies. Maybe 'mata ke darshan' will change his report card.

What made me extremely angry were the parents of a couple of girls who were made to miss school for 10 days because they started on their menstrual cycle. One mother told me that she had fever (she probably phrased it that way because of my gender – god forbid males should know about menstruation!). Only later did we discover that the girls were ostracized in their own homes. They were kept on a cot in the corner and surrounded by curtains. They ate out of separate plates and couldn't be touched by anyone for a week until some religious ceremony was held. Is this what one would do to a scared, uninformed 11-12 year old who is experiencing something completely natural similar to half of the world? I wanted to storm into the house, defy their conventions and comfort the (possibly) scared little girl. (Fortunately) my co-teachers restrained me. I had a talk with them when they returned. One of them was pretty mature about it and understood the ignorance. For all our teachings, I hope we can ensure that the following generations don't suffer this.

Library - Wish I could enter

The library has been functioning for many months now so a library post has long been overdue. The library today looks very different from when it started operating.  New games, books, shelves and whiteboards have made their way into the library thanks to a lot of support of will-wisher. The books have been reclassified a few times and the shelves have labels. We have even been mentioned in the Mid-day!

For me, this post is a trip down memory lane, recounting my experiences when the library started. I have written about how the place was found and how it was built. As you can see, it's a small space and we teach 115 students in 5th grade alone. We also know how expensive the books are and how chaotic an overwhelming number of students can get. We wanted to ease our students into the system and at the same time, build this desire and interest for the library. 

We decided to go with a limited access system. Students need entry passes to access it and entry passes were given two times a week to 8-9 new students. Once you got a pass, you wrote your name on it to personalize it. It was a great interest building tool. Some of our most notorious students turned into little angels just to get that pass. Behaviour on the day of the announcement was fantastic.
Chandan was an extremely violent and angry kid. His desire for the pass exceeded his desire to fight and it led to a serious decrease in his aggressiveness. It took a few weeks and after 3-4 weeks, he really thought that he was going to get that pass.
Shubham had become one of the cheekiest, troublesome students in class. Despite his potential, his failure to work was troubling us. Finally, the desire to get the pass got to him and he behaved extremely well for a week.

Announcing the recipients of the pass was probably the most dramatic thing we did in class (That was before the Classroom elections). It was a time of euphoria for some and for some extreme disappointment. Chandan broke down in tears when his hopes were dashed and his name was not announced. Shubham was heartbroken and he, of all people, was silently crying after school. He felt so cheated that he denied that he wanted to come to the library at all. On the other hand, Albaz jumped up with joy when his name was announced.

Everyday, there was a long line outside the gate when we went to open the library at 2pm. We had trouble keeping the kids out. The staircase in the picture was full of children who were denied access to the library initially. They were requested, scolded and threatened to go back. These were the same students who practically had no books at home and would reluctantly read anything in class. We had succeeded in our mission to get them interested to come to a place full of books and read. They just wouldn't leave.

See more pictures here.
You can help kids read more by ordering books here on flipkart. 

Mumbai Marathon with the kids

I wanted to participate in the Mumbai Marathon ever since I heard about it. After many years of failing to register on time, I finally get my chance to run for Teach for India. I figured this would be a good way to motivate me to keep up my fitness levels which have plunged since joining the fellowship.

In class we have been bugging the students to work harder and set goals for themselves. Giving in to popular belief that modeling teaches best, I tried and modeled it to them. I told them what a marathon is. I told them that I am going to take part in the Mumbai Marathon. They have their goals, I have mine. Mine is to run 21km  in January. (Yeah, it's the half marathon. The 42km were too daunting.) Since I live close to the community, the park where I run is pretty accessible to the kids. They play cricket close by. I suggested that they could come to the ground on Sunday mornings and watch Bhaiya run. I thought it'll build their math skills as well. Sounds good so far.

What I haven't foreseen - calls on Saturday evening going like this -
"Bhaiyya, what time are you going to run tomorrow morning?"
(See how there's no question asking if I am running. That's assumed.)
"Err..."
(I was about to go and party with my friends and hence chances of me running in the morning are pretty slim.) 
"I'll be there at 7am kid. That's pretty early for you right?"
"No Bhaiyya. I'll come. You'll come no?"
Deepest of sighs. "Yes kid. I'll see you at 7am."
(Left party early to go home and sleep thinking I'll be lucky to have an actual social life between these 115 troublemakers)

Lack of social life aside, it's been fun. The first time, I thought that we should measure the ground to get an estimate of how much I am running. I got a skipping rope and we measured that with a measuring tape. Then we went around the park holding the skipping rope. 15 minutes, numerous strange looks (who cares?), few additions and multiplications later we decided that the running track was around 400m. One elderly gentleman actually asked us about the result at the end of this. Turns out he had overseen paving of the track. However, he claimed that it was around 650m. I didn't know what to say. We were pretty sure that our process had been correct. Also, I knew that I had not been running 10 rounds of a 650m long ground in 20 minutes. We left it at that.

Normally, kids see me running and they run with me. Being kids, they find it hard to understand why I am not running at full steam so they go up ahead. Then they run of breath and take a break. Not Abhishek. A hyperactive kid, he started running with me at the start of my run and went on to run more than 5km with me. I was amazed. I had been concerned if kids should be running that much but he managed to make it through. He told me that his legs ached afterward and I told him to take it slowly next time.

I have also been coaching kids kho-kho, dodgeball and running for the upcoming sports day. Apart from practice sessions after school, we also practice in the evenings at the park. Some people watch us play. One old gentlemen offered to speak to the park authorities and get proper markings done for kho-kho practice. Might even get a net for volleyball. If it does happen, it'll be great for the kids.

P.S - I am running the marathon for the selfish reason of increasing fitness but I am also running it for Teach for India and for my kids. Do support my fundraising for the same.

Kamraj Nagar Quiz

What should GK be about? In many Indian schools, including ours, GK is about memorizing a collection of facts assorted by people in the system over years. Mostly, these facts are not related to the student's life in any way.
Who invented the microscope or radio? 
Who was Mark Spitz or Jesse Owens? 
Their surroundings and their own knowledge, as always, are ignored.We wanted the kids to know that observing their surroundings is important. Your community (Kamraj Nagar) is valuable and do not let anybody tell you otherwise.

In an attempt to do so, Kamraj Nagar quiz was conceptualized by Neha. Neha and Anish spent a few hours walking around the community observing things themselves and we discussed the questions that we were going to put in. Personally, it was one of the most exciting things we have done in the classroom.

This is what the quiz looked like. My thoughts on particular questions are in italics.

1.     What side of Ghatkopar Station is Kamraj Nagar on – East or West? 

2.    What is the name of the highway outside Kamraj Nagar?

3.    What side of the highway is Kamraj Nagar on? East or West?

4.    What is the name of the restaurant outside Kamraj Nagar gate, beside the police chowki (station)?

5.    What is the name of the temple (mandir) at the starting of Kamraj Nagar? (Hint - It’s a name of a student in 5^th A) 

(I wanted the students to figure out the name from the hint since it's a Shiva Temple and the student is Shivshankar :))

6.    What is the name of the hotel, B, next to the Shiv temple? (Hint - It’s a name of a God whose festival was celebrated recently)

7.    What famous sweet shop is closest to the Shiv Temple? (A lot of our students buy their birthday cakes from here)

8.    What is the name of the chawl of Modern English School? (Must know!)

9.    How many schools are there in Kamraj Nagar? Can you name them?

10.  Name the classes exactly opposite the Municipality school. (We made an error on this one since there are no classes opposite the school. There's just an advertisement for one which we mistook for the real classes. Told to us by a student obviously)

11.  What is the motto of Deep Sagar classes?  (Explaining motto to the kids turned out to be very difficult)

12. What is the name of the first Gali of Kamraj Nagar? (This was only for the adventurous since the first gali is right at the end and not the best part of the community)

13. Who is the corporator of Kamraj Nagar? 

14. How many jewelry shops are there in Kamraj Nagar? 

15. What is the name of the church in Kamraj Nagar? 

16. Between which two Chawls does the library fall in?  

*KAMRAJ STAR* (This really got them excited. It required some work and exploration. They had 24 hours to find the answers)

17. Hanuman provision general store has a big poster of an oil bottle. What is the name of the oil? 

18. What is the name of the bag store opposite Maruti Jewellers?

19. What is the name of the hotel opposite chawl no.29?

*KAMRAJ SUPERSTAR*

20.There is a big, white goat that sits daily around the first public toilet. It has a chain on its neck which has 3 shells on it. What are the colours of those shells? 

(This goat is called Qurbaan and after Bakri-Id, is not seen any more. I don't think we considered the safety issues of having 40-50 kids ogling a huge, temperamental horned goat. I just crack up on imagining that sight.)

The quiz was a huge success. The kids were thrilled, especially about being Kamraj Stars and Superstars. A big chunk of the 5th grade was out on the streets after school trying to find the answers. Ashutosh and Kaif paired up and explored the area from the first gali to the last. They did this 3 times to make sure that they counted all the jewelry shops correctly. 

Does it matter if it was October and really hot in the sun? Does it matter if parents are waiting at home for lunch? No. Not really.  

As much as I thought it was cool, as a teacher I had to remind myself of my responsibilities and send the kids home first. Sigh.  

The next day, the air in the school was buzzing with excitement. Kids were bragging about how many answers they found and how close they got to the goat. They jumped upon us to confirm their findings. When we were discussing, there were shouts of joy on being correct. There were also heated discussions.

One of them was on the number of jewelry stores. Neha had counted 11-12. Apparently there are 15. There were groups of kids arguing about it being 14, 15 or 16. We smiled to ourselves. This time the answer was not important. The search and this discussion was.

While returning from the library, I saw Sejal and Anjali huddling together over the quiz paper in the middle of the street and thinking about which question to do next. They are on an adventure and discovering things on their own. A memorable experience for 11 year old girls. Moments like these are what they will remember. I immediately took out my cellphone and called Neha. So will we.

Building the Library - A photostory

If you haven't, you should read the first post on the library setup I wrote 2 months ago. As I mentioned in it, we (Anish and I) had already found a place to setup the library for our students in the slum. Now the job was to make it a suitable place for habitat of books, kids and us. And there are 4 of us now with Neha and Shruti. 

This was one of the busiest times of my life. We had a full day of school with 25% percent more kids in the class than the space permitted. Anish and I had just moved to a new place and were trying to sort our living conditions as well. And we were essentially renovating another room for the library. I grew by 5 years during that time. 

Task 1: Get it painted

We are always working with limited resources and I wanted to get the best possible with our means. However, I knew precious little about painting a house. These factors meant a little background research. I went through the Asian paints website and found out some basics about paint types and pre-work. Some shopkeepers were willing to give some of their time explaining the process and various qualities of materials available. I spoke to some parents as well about availability and cost of a painter. The colour scheme was inspired from Asian paints website. 

We got a painter from our landlady, some material from a student's father's shop and started.

The look changes after putty and plaster

The first touches of paint!

Coat of Violet on one wall is done

Introduction of Orange

 The look starts to take shape

 What do you think! :-D

Pretty Neat, huh?

 The transformation after the painting was amazing.



Compare the two pictures (ideal before and after).



Task 2: Choosing shelves
We were thinking if we wanted to get stuff built or get it straight from the market. After speaking to some people, the best way seemed to be to get second hand furniture near Ghatkopar station. It would save time, energy and cost. Off we went to hunt for things that would become a part of our library. We saw many. Most were rejected. Some looked good. Few were chosen. These were rejected for various reasons - too small, too expensive, too big, not useful.

These were chosen. One looks quite good and is perfect fit for the library. We got 3 similar shelves for the other and they suited our needs. They had to polished a little though. 

Task 3: Getting the shelves to the library
A tempo was hired to get the shelves into the narrow lanes of Kamraj Nagar to the library. The lanes are so narrow that it takes about 15-20 minutes to traverse a distance of 700m. One vehicle takes up the entire road and people, shopping carts and animals have to make way. Our driver was in such a hurry to leave that he dumped our shelves in the middle of the road outside the library and went back. He didn't bother to get the things inside. There we were, stuck in the middle of the road, sweaty and tired, with 4 shelves to be taken up a narrow attic. Despair at first. Resourcefulness shows itself and our kids come to the rescue. I have always said that our kids are our strength. Exuberant, energetic and helpful, they hardly broke into a sweat as their little selves, carrying shelves a little too big, fit themselves in the narrow staircase.

Library with the shelves. Only one thing was missing now. 

Task 4: Getting the books to the library
We had stored our books in a shed at the end of the lane of the slum last year. With the help of one of the parents, we got a tempo to help us transport the books to the library for 20 bucks. Our kids were the biggest help again. They got the cartons out of the shed to the tempo and then up to the library. In fact, they loved it. They were vying for who could carry more stuff. They even wanted to open the books and arrange them. We had to send them away saying that we wanted to go home now.

Unopened books in cartons

It didn't take long for the books to be opened and for the kids to desperately want to come to the library. Our naughtiest, academically behind students are among them. We let 2-3 of them see it first before we had set it up properly.

Books just kept on the shelves. Not in any order. Shruti spending some quality time with Abhishek.

Suraj spending 30 minutes working on the alphabet with Neha

 Abhishek was at his best behaviour the whole week

The library is up and running now. We have grouped the books in broad genres. The kids love to come to the library. Some of the events that have happened at the library - 

 

1. I am sitting and working on my laptop at the library. The books are yet to be arranged. Gurudev (naughty1), Abhishek (really restless and naughty2) and Rohit (violent, rebellious, angry) climb up to peek inside. I invite them inside. They immediately start looking through the books. I decide that it's time to use them for sorting and arranging. I play some music. Beats of 'I like to move it' shake the walls. Abhishek starts to shake his whole body wildly. I am actually concerned :P Rohit just smiles and wouldn't say a word. 3 minutes later I see him singing along - You like to move it, move it!
   We arrange books into fiction, non-fiction, Indian folktales from Pratham, NBT and others.
   The kids say to me - Bhaiyya, aap baithke aaram karo. Abhi hum sambhaal lenge. *Proud*
   
2. Anish's birthday coincides with World Literacy Day and he is reading out a Pratham storybook. Everyone is invited to the library and I am pretty sure that this was the most densely populated Pratham story read aloud. The line outside the library had built up before we had left school and opened up the library. The shopkeepers nearby were shouting about the ruckus. Everyone climbed inside. There were kids everywhere. So much noise and chatter. Took 15 minutes to calm everyone down. Took another 5 to find and make a place for Anish to actually read a story.
   A few snapshots -
    
3. Nilesh (one my 5 weakest kids who can barely read) comes beaming into the library and searches for one of the phonics books. He knows that he can read simple phonics and loves 'Jam for Hap and Pam'. He can read and explain the story to me. He says that he will try and read other phonic books. He refuses to read the big "Animals from Africa" because he wants to do phonics first. I tell this incident repeatedly to everyone who can understand this.
4. Before their test, a revision session is held at the library. Students come with their notebooks and syllabus and revise (or for some, study for the first time) in the library. They ask me doubts. They teach and help each other. 

This is just the beginning. We hope that we are able to do much more. Funds and your support is needed for that. If you wish to help us out in any way, reach out to me. As always, your comments are most welcome.