Assessing situations, making judgments of different kinds, identifying, analyzing and solving problems, getting along with people, managing resources…these are the skills we need to be developing as human beings, skills that are applicable across all spheres of activity. This issue of Teacher Plus features three articles that deal with the teaching/learning of life skills. While the first looks at theatre as a modality through which life skills can be acquired, another argues for the centrality of life skills in all school curricula, and the third brings in a creative way to inculcate problem solving skills through chemistry lessons. Of course, the discussion on life skills cannot end here; it only begins. Every class potentially is a theatre of opportunity within which life skills can be learnt. It’s about sensitive and “opportunistic” teaching, making those lessons happen whenever the space permits, and about finding opportunities to create such learning spaces.

I read with great interest the cover story “Mother tongue to many tongues” which appeared in your January 2010 issue. I did my high school (what was then called SSLC) in the year 1954. We had three languages to study and they were all compulsory – Telugu, Telugu Special (we could take any foreign language or Sanskrit in lieu), English and Hindi. After having studied in the Telugu medium, when I joined college in Bangalore I did not find it difficult to cope with the English medium. But then we did not have distractions like cinema, TV or the magazine culture that exists now.

Captain HK Rajagopal.

Schools and bandhs

I would like to compliment “Teacher Plus” for taking up the important issue of how educational institutions have become the prime target whenever there is a disruption or the so called bandh. It’s an important national issue and ideally should have been highlighted by both the national print and electronic media. Unfortunately, this aspect of educational development does not find space or time in the mass media. On the one hand, we consider children as the future citizens of India, but when there is unrest in the society, educational institutions are forced to close down for the safety of its children. Why don’t we demand the inclusion of educational institutes under the Essential Services Act and allow them to function normally like the other essential services. What is the use of Right to Education when educational institutions have to close under threat or otherwise. If we can spend crores of rupees to provide security to sundry politicians who are behind such disruptions, why can’t money also be spent on safety of our future citizens?

N Nagarajan, Hyderabad.

Teaching and learning languages

Your January 2010 cover story was interesting to read. However I don’t agree with the author when he says children in India have to learn “too many languages too soon” for if the delivery and assessment are age appropriate and pedagogically sound there is no question of ‘too many languages too soon’.

A child is born with a hundred expressive and communicative languages (Loris Malaguzzi), learning a few more is not an issue… it is the teaching that needs to be tackled before the learning can happen.

Payal (via email)

Sometimes we make incorrect judgments about people because of wrong assumptions and expectations. When we expect something and don’t get it, we find it difficult to accept and as a result, direct our anger at people who don’t have anything to do with these expectations. This happens to many of us in our homes, workplaces or elsewhere and causes psychological and sociological problems affecting individuals and communities. We can help our children in averting such problems later on in their lives, if we teach science more carefully than we are currently doing.

One of the most important aims of teaching Science is to inculcate a scientific attitude in children so that children can approach real-life problems with ease and try to work out solutions. Any research on good practices in the field of education will show that children who develop a scientific attitude during their student years approach any situation or process objectively and make decisions carefully by considering all possibilities and develop into good members of the community. An important ingredient of scientific attitude is the willingness to accept the `unexpected’. It is important that we train our children to have an open mind. How can we achieve this? This article gives one solution.

It was the year 1990. Although I was a Physics teacher, I had to teach middle school biology (as part of the integrated science course), due to a shortage of qualified science teachers in Botswana, at that time. (I remember Zabine Feezer, a colleague, needing my assistance when she had to teach Ohm’s law or my requiring her help when teaching the Nitrogen Cycle. In fact, that was the first time that I realized what `team teaching’ was all about, although I had studied it during my B.Ed course years before). Although I found it a bit difficult to teach biology for the first time in a classroom, I could easily overcome the pressure, by going back to the high school textbooks I had used in my school days, trying out the textbook activities myself and referring to contemporary material. Besides, thanks to the British Council Library, I could borrow very good curricular videos and sci-fi films such as `Fantastic Voyage’ for use in my classroom.

I developed almost all science activities in such a manner that they included the skill of `predicting’. My students identified this as an important skill that would help them become scientists who make hypotheses or effective people who can approach problems in real life situations in a pragmatic manner.

Once I had to teach “Transportation of Water in Plants” to my middle school science students. I developed my lesson material to include a hands-on activity written like a worksheet as follows:

1. Take a transparent plastic cup or container (plastic is better than glass as the latter can cause injury if it breaks).
2. Pour some water and mix some food coloring to it.
3. Dip a leafy stalk of spinach into the water.
4. Leave it for about 4 hours.
5. Soon after dipping the stalk into the water, study the following statements and put a √ mark to show your choice:
• At the end of 4 hours, there will not be any change in the color of the stalk or the leaves.
• At the end of 4 hours, there will be a change in the color of the stalk or the leaves.
6. At the end of 4 hours, observe the stalk and leaves of the plant.
7. What do you observe?
8. Take the stalk out and cut it across. Observe the cross-section of the stalk.
9. What do you observe?
10. Explain the reason.

Emotional problems in children can be prevented if schools use textbooks that enable teachers to develop pedagogically sound classroom processes that will train children to think in the right direction. This means that textbooks should be written accordingly. I place emphasis on textbooks here, because in countries like India, almost all classroom processes are based on what textbooks say. Teachers very seldom have the time to make children think beyond the textbooks (for reasons such as substitution work and administrative responsibilities). Besides, they are under pressure to `cover’ the `portions’ by the most influential stakeholders in the system: parents, school managements and examinations boards. In India, textbook contents are written in accordance with syllabus frameworks prescribed by government agencies and by private agencies such as The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations. Well-defined syllabi and carefully developed textbooks can prevent a cascade of problems.

But, as our syllabi do not adequately emphasize precise skills, the lessons in our textbooks reflect this deficiency clearly. (For example see box, pg.15).

As a professional who has worked in textbook publishing in the private sector, I have found the same situation there as well. There are exceptions in both cases, but they are very marginal.

Science activities that include the `prediction’ component encourage children to be pragmatic in problem solving approaches and train them to be creative individuals who can accept the unexpected, and are flexible enough to adapt themselves as good members of the community. Textbook publishers have an important role to play in this direction. Well-developed textbooks can do well in the global playing field.

“Research on student learning indicates that a cycle of prediction, observation and then explanation promotes student learning” – Tobin K, Tippins T J and Gallard A J: Handbook of Research in School Teaching and Learning: Macmillan, New York: 1994.

What does the stem do?

In India, the central government and state governments run their own schools. It is mandatory for government schools to use textbooks developed by their respective government agencies. National Council of Educational Research and Training develops textbooks for use in central schools all over the country (and abroad) and The Tamilnadu Textbook Corporation, a Unit of the state government of Tamilnadu, develops textbooks for use in government schools in Tamilnadu. Similarly there are agencies associated with each state government to bring out textbooks for use in their schools.

Transportation of water in plants is taught in grade 6 in central schools. What follows is an excerpt from the grade 6 NCERT textbook (http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm).

“We would require a glass, water, red ink, a herb, and a blade for this activity. Pour water to fill one-third of the glass. Add a few drops of red ink to the water. Cut the base of the stem of the herb and put it in the glass as shown in the figure.

Observe it the next day. Do any of the parts of the herb appear to have red colour? If yes, how do you think the colour reached there? You can cut the stem across and look for the red colour inside the stem.

From this activity we see that water moves up the stem. In other words, stem conducts water. Just like the red ink, minerals dissolved in water also move up in the stem, along with the water”.

The same concept is taught in grade 4 in the Tamilnadu government schools. As the textbook contents are available only in Tamil and other regional languages, they could not be excerpted for this article. However, you may view the contents at
http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/Books/04/Std04-ESSc-TM.pdf. In neither lesson is there an option for children to `predict’.

The author is currently a freelance writer and has formerly been the Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Government of Cambodia. He can be reached at panamalairguruprasad@gmail.com.

One thing that all parents and teachers are in universal agreement with is that children should memorize the multiplication tables. But we also know that memorizing the tables is something that all children hate.

Following the ideas of the math educationist, late P K Srinivasan, I tried out some ideas to help my class three children realize that learning the tables could actually be fun. Srinivasan had said, “Do not force children to memorize but help them remember by repeated practice”.

I felt instead of getting children to memorize the tables, they could be taught to “construct” the tables and use them repeatedly. This could be an interesting exercise, which would also help them remember most of the multiplication facts.

I had already taught my children the meaning of 2 X 3, 3 X 4 by grouping tokens and by using plastic tongue cleaners. I had also shown them how these multiplication facts could be put in a table.

The author is a Mathematics teacher at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Vidyamandir, Reliance Township, Jamnagar. She can be reached at sheela.iyer@ril.com.

This is an article for subscribers only. To subscribe click here.

Dear Teachers,

This is an open letter to all of you who teach and toil in schools across India – big, small, urban, rural, rich, poor.

You work so hard within the confines of classrooms and schools and yet you are so often cut off from developments in education that most certainly affect your life as a teacher. Many of you may have read in the newspapers or seen on television that the Government of India has passed a Right to Education Act in August 2009. However, like all Government Acts, you may have thought it to be just another political move that really doesn’t concern us. After all we are more interested in students and what happens in the classroom. But you know what – the RtE Act does involve students and teachers and what happens in the classroom – though nobody may have really explained how it impacts us.

The essence of the RtE Act reiterates what a majority of us in education, philosophically, have no disputes with. Notwithstanding that, its implementation awaits another government notification and in any case it will be a challenge for many of you.

Let’s consider just the key features of the RtE:
Education is now a Fundamental Right for a child in India in the age group 6-14 years.
I can hear you say – of course it should be – so what’s so new about this? I agree with you – but unfortunately in our 60 years as a Republic, India shamefully still hasn’t ensured universal education for all children in this age group. All our children still do not go to school, leave alone get an education that they deserve as a right! Also, did you know that this RtE does not extend to children below the age of 6 years and young people between the ages of 14 and 18 years? What are your thoughts on this matter?

All aspects of the Act are now justiciable as a Fundamental Right i.e violation of any clause of the Act can be taken up in court by any citizen – not just the person/s involved and adversely affected.
You would need to consider the implications of this. Do you realize any child, parent or citizen can file a suit against a school or teacher if they feel a child, any child, is not receiving an education that he or she should? Suppose a child has been denied admission unfairly, or if a school has held back a child in the same class on account of poor learning levels, or if a child has been punished for a misdemeanour – all these will be grounds for someone going to court. So as education professionals, you need to be well-versed and mindful of Child Rights Act 2005 and the National Commission of Child Rights that monitors all perceived abuse of children too. And your schools must mandatorily orient you so that all legal issues concerning the profession are accurately understood and adhered to.

Adequate number of schools shall be built in all communities within three years.
This seems a tall order, doesn’t it? It means the government itself or private organizations will need to build enough schools so that all Indian children of school-going age are enrolled into schools that are conveniently located. But there will be questions that those of you who are school owners will have about how the government will facilitate the process of registration and recognition of these new schools. Or will it still be a tedious affair as it currently is in most states? Moreover, the RtE also recommends that there must be a maximum of 40 students per class. This means most schools in India, especially private schools violate this necessary condition – with students numbers hovering between 50 and 70!

There will be no discrimination when it comes to student enrollment in schools.
I’m personally in agreement with this aspect of RtE. To me, this means that schools, particularly private schools cannot be selective about who they will admit – on the basis of entrance exams and admission tests. So admission processes will need to be revamped and made more transparent. However, I do realize that there are many underlying challenges. For instance, how does one interpret ‘discrimination’? Would it mean that a sought-after-city-school cannot refuse admission owing to fear of political pressure or that schools will take in all local students who seek admission – but will not consider themselves accountable to ensure that each of these students are all learning effectively? And what about a child who may not want to go to the local neighbourhood school and would rather be bussed to a school which has an ethos more in keeping with her needs and interests?

Private schools will have to reserve 25% of their seats for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Many people think the rules should define the 25% reservation as applicable to: a) schools where government has given free land or special concessions; b) schools in the top 100 towns and cities till next 5 years. Moreover, schools should be required to publish their books of accounts and the government must reimburse the school based on the per child expenditure incurred by the school considering its facilities and overhead costs, and not what the government usually incurs in its own far less equipped schools. This last point will undoubtedly be problematic – since it is unlikely the government will agree to reimbursing private schools on a differential basis.

Norms and standards for all schools (government and private), including teacher qualifications, will be detailed without which no school will be recognized.
This is in spirit admirable, especially when coupled with the fact that the government will pave the way for more schools to be established in the next 3 years. If, through these norms and standards, the quality of education is raised for all our school going children, then the RtE would be effecting a huge boost in the development of the human capital in our country. As things stand though, the RtE has not quite detailed how the quality of teaching and teachers will be enabled, even mandated. The Act as of now mentions all that teachers should be doing – but fails to describe how the 5 million teachers in our country will be equipped to deliver what the RtE refers to as “child-centred” education that ensures that all children are learning at their own pace while they are under no pressure of being detained till class 8.

The Act aims to have a standardized national curriculum.
On the up-side this could mean that the National Curricular Framework 2005 of the NCERT could form the basis of all syllabus and textbooks in schools across all states. However since education is on the concurrent list in our Constitution, the state governments have to ratify this. It is possible they will not agree – on the grounds that a National Curriculum will be discriminatory towards the rural and poor students in the state.

I personally believe India must not dumb down curriculum at the state level – that in the long run damages young people’s abilities to have equal opportunities across all the states. However we must allow flexibility in the National Curriculum to address regional and local needs, cultures and practices.

I will be very interested to hear your thoughts on the RtE Act. So do write in and voice your views on this landmark, but belated decision.

With warm regards,

Maya

The author is Director, The Teacher Foundation, Bangalore. She can be reached at
mayamenon@teacherfoundation.org.

It has often been asked if art can be taught. Can you teach someone to become a painter, a sculptor, an actor or a musician? Or are children gifted and talented and it merely has to be identified and nurtured? This seemingly complex question would probably find an answer if one tried to understand the objective of an art form.

In today’s increasingly consumerist society career options for young adults lie in avenues that are likely to maximize financial returns, be it with any compromise. Hence, these ‘yet to be made’ decisions directly influence the time children invest in learning, apart from ‘swallowing information’. The general reactions and attitude towards an art class today, range from ‘how is this important… what relevance does this have?’ to saying ‘this is an urban thing…. an indulgence… there are better things to learn… this is such a waste of time…’

Should the purpose of an art class be only to churn out artists of tomorrow or can the purpose of interaction with art take deeper significance? Should an art class be all about the right design for the right product that will sell in a market or can an art class be the road to refinement of the aesthetics of human consciousness?

The art of theatre
It is said that where there are two people in a common place and there exists a conflict between them, the magic of theatre happens. Theatre is all about interaction and communication. What distinguishes it from all the other art forms is its composite nature, for it combines in itself drama, writing, song, music, dance, painting, architecture, sculpture and so on. And the art of theatre has been reaching out to children in many forms.

Theatre for children is a format in which adults come together to put up plays for children. Adults plan and enact roles of other adults, children or even imaginary characters for an audience of children, who are also entertained, as some important idea or message is being conveyed to them.

In theatre by children, adults plan but it is the children who enact a play for others. Popularly this is where parents and teachers feel that hidden talents are unleashed and children find a platform for creative expression.

Some schools do offer theatre as a subject of study where various aspects of performance history, and developments are studied and performance texts are analyzed; however, the theatre in education format looks at the possibilities of theatre becoming a technique to impart other core subjects like maths, science and social sciences more effectively. Here the children don’t deal with theatre directly as an art form but through the route of theatre exercises and principles understand other subjects including the exploration of life skills.

Theatre education, on the other hand, deals with techniques imparted to teachers and educators to teach theatre and utilize theatre principles effectively.

Theatre and the classroom
Education has primarily been experienced as a passive process. The teacher talks, the students listen! Discipline, rigidity, standardization, examination, mark sheet scores define the boundaries of this system which displays a strong disconnect with the realities of daily existence. Learning is fragmented for only a few mental muscles are utilized; the larger physical body, sensorial body and the body of consciousness remain untouched. And the only way to revert this restrictive process is by engaging in experiential learning. A process where everyone goes through a concrete experience together, observes, reflects, analyzes abstract concepts and tests them in new situations. This immediately replaces the hierarchy of the teacher and the taught and both become co- learners. The involvement in art opens up the avenues for such a system to function. It inherently calls for engagement, expression, making choices, having an opinion, reflection therefore encouraging the child to activate her/his mind, body and spirit.

Theatre becomes a very powerful medium in this context. It breaks all traditional hierarchies. It allows for direct contact with as many varied human experiences and each subjective experience is valued as there is no one right way of experiencing. Each person and her/his experience becomes unique. Critical and divergent thinking is encouraged; the uses of language are enhanced and hence even the articulation. Classroom becomes a collaborative and creative activity without the fear of judgment.

Theatre and life skills education
The two worlds that orient a child’s world are the home and the school. The crucial aspect that strikes the right balance is the psychosocial competence or the child’s ability to have a constructive relationship with the varied challenges and pressures of life. For school going children, life skills learning represent the vehicle by which they can gain a feeling of psychosocial competence.

Life skills are a set of ten skills prescribed by the WHO – decision-making, problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, effective communication, interpersonal skills, self awareness, empathy, coping with emotions and coping with stress. These can be defined as competencies in adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.

These life skills ought to be examined in several ‘contexts’ such as gender, sexuality, peer pressure, career choices, conflict, abuse, self harm and so on. Life skills instructions so far has remained largely in the realm of theory.

However, if a platform for discourse is created, the process of awareness building, understanding relations within the society, their construction, the construction of knowledge, the domains of public discourse and practices, have an opportunity to be examined and explored by the children. Discussing experiences in general provides a window to life skills; discussing life skills provides a window to conflicts and problems; discussing conflicts in general provides a window to specific issues of gender construction / practices/ stereotyping and so on. This ‘window framework’ allows for flexibility and adaptability in context and content development.

The most effective way of imparting and facilitating these life skills is by the use of experiential methodologies like art work, narratives, games and group work. However, the use of theatre seems to enable greater outreach due to its sheer fundamental nature of engaging people in non-threatening and participatory activities. No one has to perform in isolation, a lot of spontaneity is encouraged and through the course of exploration of life skills, participants develop a sense of affiliation, connection and trust. There is space for deeper enquiry through scene work and role plays. All along the methodology is experiential not didactic, contextual not content based and most importantly, process oriented than being outcome oriented.

Theatre – the beginning of a dialogue
As much as theatre can be fun and entertaining, it can also become a very important medium of learning based on the hypothesis that dialogue is the common and healthy dynamic between all humans.

In the words of the great theatre practioner Augusto Boal, “Dialogue should be the rule for humanity. All relationships can tend to become a monologue, a man and a woman…. Races –one race tends to be the one who imposes the standards of beauty, etc., the other race submits to that… human relations should be a dialogue but one of them sometimes becomes active and the other passive……. it should not be spectators specializing in listening and looking at the actors specializing in being super human – we should specialize in being human. Because to act is to be human.”

If theatre is embraced in this light, then theatre becomes all about participation, ownership and dialogue – a process of engagement and transformation. Performances are aimed to meet the needs of all individuals for interaction, dialogue, critical thinking, action and fun. The individual’s story becomes a springboard for collective wisdom. Theatre then, is the way of developing personal skills. The path for a journey of discovery and transformation, for every individual who sets upon it.

And it is this ‘rehearsal of the future’ that allows for the recognition and celebration of the aesthetics of life.

With gratitude to Dr. Shekhar Seshadri, Professor, Child and Adolescence Psychiatry, NIMHANS, Bangalore, for his invaluable guidance.

The author has facilitated several self-discovery and personal growth workshops through drama and theatre in education workshops for diverse groups. She is currently with Makkala Jagriti, an organisation setting up learning centres for children in government schools and communities. She can be contacted at madhushukla@gmail.com.

It seemed almost providential that as I sat down to pen my thoughts on this topic, the television was on and the movie ‘Chak De’ was droning away in the background. When I finished putting down my skeleton points, (as I always do when I write something) it struck me that I did not have to go too far to find some meat for this piece! It was all there for everybody to observe and absorb. The interplay between personal values of different individuals influencing life skills, individually and together, has been eloquently portrayed in the film.

A formal reflection on this subject began when I was asked by Teacher Plus several months ago, to review the NCF and then comment on the life skills portion. I had looked through the document quite carefully, found references to value and peace education, but none on life skills. That set me thinking… why was there no reference?

It would therefore be relevant to consider exactly what we mean by life skills. It is a fairly new coinage … much in the way moral science is now called value education.

Value education is very well defined, and even has textbooks based on the subject. The need to anchor our children in the fundamental tenets of harmonious living cannot be stressed more. The uncertain and aggressive world we live in today is an outcome of the moving away from ideals to extreme practicality. “What’s in it for me” is the mantra of the day. While we understand and appreciate the dynamics of a changing world, do we really need to climb on somebody else’s back to make ourselves more comfortable?

In spite of the best efforts of the educational system to bring some semblance of understanding of the black and white of life, the other parts of the child’s world still present a conflicting picture. It has now therefore become important for children to learn that life could also be the colour grey.

Most schools have value education lessons as part of their curriculum, not only to fulfil the requirement of the NCF, but also because there is a keen sense of responsibility, to play a role in keeping the fabric of society together. And this task by itself being such a mammoth one leaves policy makers and administrators, perhaps with no mental space to look at the other side of the coin.

The term life skills itself seems to be caught up in some ambiguity, in both its understanding and expression. Some consider value education and life skills as synonymous. The term could be open to several interpretations, but the following analogy seems to bring clarity to me.

Value education could be likened to the hardware of a person, while life skills is the software. Our fundamental values that determine how we cope with life. And therefore life skills could perhaps be used to mean coping skills, where the methods that we use to cope, are based on the kind of values we believe in.

Life skill lessons are given by several NGOs to those youngsters who live in disadvantaged conditions and situations. It is ironical that the urban elite children, most of whom are privileged not to be exposed to the harsh realities of life, are not given these lessons as systematically. When “make or break” moments happen in life, children flounder, as they are not skilled in processing the situation. In a world that is increasingly dynamic, we need to engage with our children early on, about the process and the outcome. A systematic reinforcement would perhaps make them better equipped.

The sketch alongside is an attempt to bring clarity and to demonstrate the link. The pointers given are neither complete nor prescriptive. They are indicative and it is best left to each institution, educator or parent, to fix the options.

One is driven by certain fundamental values imbibed early on in life, which are almost like beacon lights for an individual. Development of life skills may take on various dimensions, based on the situations and experiences thrown in our way. Therefore we can say with reasonable certainty that life skill development depends on the number of significant experiences that one has in life. While the experiences by themselves could have either produced pain or joy, which fade away with time, the skill that one develops to deal with the situation remains with the individual.

In my opinion, life skill is not a function of chronology, but of experiences. We may have adults who have sailed through life almost in a straight line, while there may be youngsters who have gone through life in zig zags.

The question that one may ask is then, why talk about life skills for children? If it is all in the realm of experience? The answer lies in the fact that like everything else in life, one cannot wait for the event to happen, for processing to begin; therefore providing simulated situations based on others’ experiences, helps the child understand to some extent how to cope with even unfamiliar situations. Much like giving a theory class so that one can be prepared for the practicals! This is becoming more and more imperative, due to the increasing complexity of our world today.

Is there a comprehensive set of values and a set of life skills that one needs? My submission to that is that there could be a set of core values that one may wish to lay down as operating principles, while the life skills that are required to see one through the journey of life, are several. Ultimately, however, all decisions are based on values.

It is for this reason, that value education classes alone, while extremely necessary, may not be sufficient to equip the children for life. While children need to imbibe strong values, they also need to know when to put them to use and how, during the ups and downs of life.

What is the current effort in schools? With increasing pressure to complete the syllabus, driven by competition, schools are hard pressed to find time to focus adequately on this vital aspect of education. Of course, this may happen unconsciously on the games field or elsewhere, but a consciousness of the process needs time for reflection, which often gets pushed to the backburner in most cases.

Some work has begun in small pockets of the country, based on the priority and vision of the school. Those that lay more emphasis on growth than on marks somehow manage to squeeze in time to at least build some awareness. But by and large, it is as yet an unexplored area in mainstream schools.

One possible suggestion is to weave both value education and life skills into the time table. A 5 minute adjustment in the duration of periods over 5 days would give one sufficient time for this vital ingredient. I must add, that these sessions do not require to be talked about only during formal time slots. A creative and concerned educator can find several reference points within the curriculum. Even a simple act of allotting group work to children in class, is an opportunity to build team building skills in the children. However, the internalization of the skill can only happen if one spends time in discussing the dynamics of the experience, to resolve the probable struggle that may have happened when groups of individuals work towards a common goal. The advantage in providing an exclusive time slot is only to ensure that this “dissection time” does not get overlooked.

The format for these classes could vary, but it is important to mention that these are not regular “classes”. Therefore, activities, discussions, role plays, drama, art, circle time, debates, case study analysis are some of the options. Including watching Chak De!

The author is partner in Edcraft, Hyderabad, a firm engaged in making teaching-learning materials, conducting workshops and providing consultancy services. She can be reached at edcraft94@gmail.com.

The Teacher Plus Photography Contest drew an overwhelming response, with more than 100 entries flooding our mailbox. The contest, open to all amateur photographers and held for the first time in the history of Teacher Plus, had respondents from all over the country.

Congratulations to all those who participated and who made this a truly satisfying experience for all of us at Teacher Plus.

We congratulate the First and Second Prize winners.Since the choice was tough, there are two First Prize winners, and three Second Prize winners. Lakshmi Prabala and Chandrasekhar win the First Prize, a cash award of Rs. 1500 each, while Archana Murthy, Sunita Pijwala and Bharat Thakur take home the Second Prize, a cash award of Rs. 750 each.

The contest was announced in September 2009 and participants were given a time-frame of nearly four months to decide on their subject. Though the initial response was slow, as the deadline drew nearer, the pace quickened and by December, Teacher Plus received entries that left the staff amazed.

All good photographs stir up emotions and tell stories. From Archana Murthy’s creative ‘Envisioning the Future’ to Sunita Pijwala’s dramatic picture of school children in a flooded classroom, to Rashmi Virendra’s gentle visual of children trying to draw a picture of a dog – all caught our attention. There were many others too, which deserve a special mention: Amit Kohli, Mahesh Kumar Basedia, Bharat Thakur, Roma and others.

The two judges, PV Sivakumar, Staff Photograher, The Hindu, and Sadhana Ramchander, writer and editor, both based in Hyderabad, found the evaluation process difficult because they had to choose between a technically good picture and a picture that just could not be ignored. As they say, a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

All entries will be part of the Teacher Plus photo bank, and if published in the magazine, will receive credit and payment.

Prize winners will be intimated directly through email and telephone and their cash award will be sent to them in the form of a Demand Draft.

Second prize winners

Evaluating the Teacher Plus photo contest

Sadhana Ramchander

Evaluating creativity is a difficult and subjective process. The exercise to pick 10 photos from the ones submitted for the Teacher Plus Photography contest left me feeling dissatisfied because there were many, apart from the 10 I finally picked, which were good too. There was a conflict between choosing a technically good photo vis-a-vis a dramatic visual that did not score on sharpness or composition. I tried to choose ones that combined both these qualities, except one (children in a classroom filled with water) that was so dramatic, that technicalities did not matter.

The world of children in school is full of activity, learning and hope, and therefore, visually very interesting. Now that photography is so easy, I think all teachers should use their digital or phone cameras regularly, not only to capture candid shots, but also to use the photographs they take as part of their teaching process to better illustrate what they teach. The possibilities are immense. A picture is truly worth a thousand words. Maybe more.

Too good to be ignored

P V Sivakumar

MY IMPRESSIONS: Some pictures were great, showing creativity such as the one by Archana Murthy, some were too good to be ignored and hence had to be clubbed. Others were too obvious and several others routinely taken.

A good photograph is judged partly by the concept which it embodies, the revelation of the photographer’s point of view and partly the skill employed in the language of the final product – colour, light and shade, value, imagination and atmosphere. If any picture includes all these to the fullest degree (in comparison to other entries) it would be the prize winning photo in a given contest. Each picture is judged by its merits like how far the photographer set out on the theme and how much was accomplished.

Having said that it would be apt to give a few tips:
Each photo contest has special requirements about the pictures expected from participants. Before you start setting up your shot, make sure you are following the rules to the letter.

Use the rule of thirds
Placing your subject in the centre of the shot makes for a boring, predictable photograph. Imagine a tic-tac-toe board over the shot, and place your main subject where the lines intersect. When the picture is off-centre, it will look more interesting.

Let the subject fill the shot
A beginner’s mistake is to take a picture from too far away, including too much irrelevant background. For example, when taking pictures of people you don’t need to get your subject’s full body in the shot, focus on the face.

Avoid pictures from above
Shots that look down on your subject tend to feel small and distorted. Get down on the level of your subject for a closer, more intimate look.

Watch your lighting
Shadows or the glare from overly bright lights can destroy an otherwise perfect picture. Try taking pictures early in the morning, just before sunset, or on a cloudy day. Use the flash on bright days to fill in shadows on faces or irregular surfaces.

Take lots of photographs
Don’t settle for a single shot, take dozens of pictures and select the best to submit to the contest. Try photographing the same subject from different angles, in different lighting, and at different times of the day.

CLEAN toilets with running water are keeping girls in school and bridging the gender divide at six government-aided schools in Bishnupur I in West Bengal’s South 24-Parganas district. The schools here have spotless toilets thanks to the efforts of Nishtha, an NGO, and Water for People, an international funding group.

Ever since improved toilets with incinerators were installed, no child has dropped out of school. Earlier, around eight per cent of girls would leave school between Class 5 and Class 7.

“The improved toilets and running water are a major incentive for them to attend regularly and not be absent,” says Mrinal Kumar Das, proudly. He is an assistant teacher at the Kaastekumari High School. “In fact, in a Muslim minority area, where girls are generally married off at puberty, the improved toilets and hygiene awareness camps have brought in a revolution of sorts. Our students are now keen to study further after finishing school.”

Not only the girls, but female teachers and staff are grateful to Nishtha for providing the toilets. The NGO works in the area of water and sanitation.

Jaya Karmakar, a teacher at the Kaastekumari High School, joined the school 30 years ago. It takes her three hours of commuting each way to get here from Beleghata in north Kolkata. In the past, once she reached school, using the toilet would be a nightmare since there was no running water. There was no tube-well either. A peon would fetch water from a well across the road and store it in the school’s premises. This water was all that students and teachers had access to through the day.

Roma Mandal, an employee who travels all the way from Amtala, one and a half hours away, says, “It was terrible during my periods. Using the toilet after having traveled all that distance to school was a nightmare.”

“Boys and girls would just excuse themselves from class and go behind some bushes outside to relieve themselves”, explains Hasanuzzaman, also an assistant teacher.

The students at the Gabhena Chhatrabandhu Vidypith in the same block did have running water in the toilet. But the school had just one toilet for 1,864 students. For the girls, using the toilet during their periods was tough. There were no facilities for garbage disposal either.

Not surprisingly, girl students would be frequently absent. Once they reached puberty many would just give up and drop out of middle school.

At the Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith ever since the improved toilets, drinking water taps and wash rooms were set up, water and sanitation (Watsan) committees, comprising boys and girls, have set new precedents in self-governance and teamwork. Each committee has 10 members and is annually appointed. It maintains the toilets by collecting a fee of Re 1 per student per month. This is used to buy phenyl, soap, sanitary napkins, toilet brushes and buckets to keep the toilet clean and hygienic. The committee also talks to students about hygiene and cleanliness once a week during their environment studies class.

Although the Vidyapith is in the rural outskirts of Barulpur town, its premises are immaculately clean. Every schoolgirl now flushes the toilet after use, washes her hands after using the toilet, and uses the single wash room connected with an improvised incinerator to dispose off her sanitary napkins. Depending on need, the used napkins are burnt in the incinerator once or twice a week to maintain hygiene and prevent any accumulation of unhealthy garbage. The toilet for the boys is also clean.

Although the Kaastekumari High School cannot compare with the Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith in terms of overall cleanliness, the toilets are well-maintained and clean.

“Since this school is in the interior, awareness levels among students were very poor when we first started work,” explains Jharna Bari, a Nishtha instrusctor. “There would be bits of paper, pencil scrapings and peel strewn all over the classrooms. Once the children were trained at environment camps on our premises and came into contact with students from other schools, there was a sea-change in their attitude.”

Today, students in this school never relieve themselves outside. Working shoulder to shoulder with the boys has given girls a fair measure of confidence. The boys too have started treating the girls with greater respect. “Boys realise that girls can be equally efficient and earnest about making a difference,” says Sunil Kumar Ghosh, assistant teacher at Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith.

In West-Bengal 1.04 crore children enroll in primary school but just 14.05 lakhs make it to secondary level. More than half dropout at middle and secondary levels as per the statistics compiled by the Bureau of Applied Economics and Statistics, Government of West Bengal in July 2007. If the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan is to make any headway the need of schoolgirls on the verge of puberty must be kept in mind.

This article has been reprinted here with permission. The article was first published in Vol. 6, No. 12, November 2009 issue of Civil Society.

The dice is essentially a randomizer. Since it helps create random numbers, you can use the dice for activities that require random numbers. For instance, instead of giving students the numbers to solve math problems, let children generate their own numbers by throwing the dice and then do the problems. You can then get the children to check each other’s answers (classwork or even homework), thereby multiplying the learning.

While we talk about the use of dice in classroom, any other randomizer can also be used for the activities listed below (for a list of zero cost randomizers please visit www.geniekids.com/randomizers). But what separates the dice from other randomizers is that it has dots on it, which makes it easy for children to count and know the number; they also automatically relate the quantity to the number.

The authors run Geniekids, a learning centre in Bangalore that works with children. To know more about their work visit www.geniekids.com.

This is an article for subscribers only. To subscribe click here.