Second Six Months Report of Akshara Work

(February 2002 to July 2002)

 

During February, March and April the interactions with all schools continued. Even though the emphasis was more on academics since the annual examinations were nearing, we were able to do a few art and craft work activities. After the annual examinations, summer holidays were declared from April 24th to June 12th.

 

In May I attended the Asha conference at Kaithi, Varanasi. This was a good exposure for me, I was able to meet Dr Sandeep Pandey and many other Asha friends. It was very useful to share ideas and to understand how Asha network functions. I had displayed learning material that we prepare and gave away a few sets to some of the projects.

 

Environmental Studies (EVS)

 

The schools reopened on 12th June. On my first round of visits I did a science activity with the children of classes 4 and 5. All of them remembered the body mapping activity we had done during the previous year and wanted to do something new. The first lesson in class 4 text book is about ‘Various Parts of Our Body’ and in class 5 it is ‘Various Joints of Our Body’, I combined both the classes and did an activity where all the children had to make a puppet with card, the limbs had to be sewn up with needle and thread. A broom stick is pierced through the hands of the puppet. When the stick is rotated the puppet makes amusing gymnastic movements. The children loved making and playing with this toy and also learning about the various types of joints in our body.

 

During my second round of visits I continued with the same topic. Together, with the help of children we made a ‘Our Human Body’ poster for the class in such a way that when the top layer is removed we can see the ‘Inside Our Body’. Many of the internal organs and structures were cut out of card and coloured. These organs and structures have tabs so that they can be added to the poster in the appropriate place. This poster was also used as a tool to play a game to review and assess how much the children have learnt in the lesson. By doing this activity the children were able to identify the various internal organs and understand their functions. This also gave the children a perspective on where the organs are inside the body and in relation to one another.

 

The activity followed by discussions helped the children to realise how our bodies are amazingly complex and are beautifully designed systems. We also talked about the care we should take to keep ourselves hale and healthy and discussed about the negative effects of alcohol, tobacco chewing and smoking, hoping that they will be able to stay away from these when they grow up and also help bring awareness among their parents about these dangers.

 

On the third round of visits I got the children to make a working model of the elbow with card and paper, this model shows how muscles move bones at joints.

 

Mathematics

 

Class 3 math has a lesson on symmetry and reflection, I combined classes 3, 4 and 5 and made the children to do ‘string painting’ and ‘blot painting’. These are art activities but I found them very helpful in showing children what symmetry is. In string painting we dip a piece of cotton thread in paint. We fold a piece of paper in half, on one side of the paper the string is placed in such a way that it makes curves and loops. The other half of the paper is folded over the string and held firmly with one palm, with the other hand the string is carefully pulled out. When the paper is opened we find beautiful patterns, which are symmetric. Blot painting is a simpler version; a piece of paper is folded in half. On one side of the paper a few blots of paint are dropped, now the other half of the paper is folded over the paint and pressed. When the paper is opened we find interesting shapes, which are symmetric. Several colours were used to make the patterns look beautiful.

 

As a continuation of this topic on my next round of visits I got the children to make Kaleidoscopes. Three strips of mirrors were put together like a prim and were fixed with rubber bands and tape. One side of the prism was covered with translucent plastic paper. Beads and bits of bangle pieces were put in through the open end of the kaleidoscope. When we see through the open end with one eye we find wonderful symmetrical patterns. When the kaleidoscope is turned slowly, the patterns change from one position to another. Children were amazed with this toy, some of them tried to transfer the designs on to paper. We looked for symmetry in nature and tried to copy this on to paper.

 

For each of the 15 schools I made a set of Soma Cubes. Soma Cube is a very interesting mathematical toy made with wooden blocks. This is a 3x3x3 cube with 27 separate pieces, which are stuck into seven special shapes. One of the popular tasks is to assemble all these seven shapes to make a cube. There are 230 different ways of putting this cube together. Unlimited number of interesting three-dimensional structures can be made with these seven shapes. This toy/puzzle not only gives the child entertainment but helps in understanding concepts such as size, dimension, area and volume.

 

For all the schools, I made basic shape sets. Each set consists of 15 shapes made out of plywood and painted with bright colours. This set was used to introduce shapes, attributes of shape, size and colour. And to understand the properties of plane figures. The shapes were also used to trace patterns on to paper and colour. The children were then encouraged to identify shapes in objects around them and in the nature.

 

 To provide the children with a variety of experiences in understanding geometric concepts I made Geoboard sets for all the 15 schools. The Geoboard set consists of 3 boards, 5x5 pin board, 11x11 pin board and a circular pin board. Rubber bands are used for making different shapes on the Geoboards. While doing activities with these Geoboards children are able to construct and explore geometric figures, understand the concepts such as angles, measurement, perimeter and area.

 

Art and Craft

 

We have started making folders for the Conference on Alternatives in Education, which is being organised by ASHA. The folders are being made with hand-made recycled paper. The children are helping in screen-printing and making designs with pressed flowers on the cover of the folders.

 

During this session I have started using the books ‘Art and Craft’ by Nicholas Horsburgh and published by Oxford University Press. This is a series of five books, which are very well written and give plenty of new ideas for our activities. The books are progressively graded so that the children can develop certain important skills and techniques to express their creativity.

 

Childrens’ Resource Centre

 

The Children’s Resource Centre (CRC) has started in a small way this year. In the beginning five children from the neighbourhood started coming to our place in the evenings for two hours now there are fifteen of them. All these fifteen children go to government schools, in the evening they come over to the CRC. For the first half an hour they do their homework, we help them whenever they need any assistance. The next half hour they use the computer to view multi-media educational software. After which the children do some activity that is related to their curriculum. Usually these activities are similar to what I do with children in the fifteen schools that I work with. We provide the children with a nutritious drink, which is prepared at home, it is a malt made with ragi cereal, milk and jaggery. After they drink Ragi malt they either do art and craft activity or play games for some time before they go back home.

 

The parents of these children are mostly rickshaw pullers or construction workers, it gets quite late in the evening by the time their parents come back home. Before coming to the CRC children used to while away their time waiting for their parents or watching TV in neighbours houses. Most of these children are first generation learners so they have no one at home to help them with their studies. Now, the children at CRC are able to complete their homework, understand concepts much better with Activity Based Learning and also get a completely new experience of using the computer for multi-media. The parents and especially the children are very happy with the CRC.

 

Other Events

 

Computer

 

We have bought a second hand computer and a dot matrix printer for Akshara, a very useful tool for our work. And have started collecting Educational CD’s, till now we have about 12 titles.

 

Chaduvula Pandaga

 

At the beginning of this academic year ‘Chaduvula Pandaga’ meaning Education Festival was organised the by Government throughout the state. The main objectives of the programme are:

·        to introduce non-school going children to schools

·        to identify child motivators

·        to make children understand that school is enjoyable

·        to involve parents in school activities

·        to create a festive environment in the schools

·        to assign responsibility to students

Various programmes such as rallies, wall writings and meetings with parents were organised at the village level to fulfill the above objectives. I took part in rallies and parents meetings in a few villages. We identified school dropouts and motivated their parents to send them to school.

 

Promoting Education Activists

 

In collaboration with Movement for Rural Emancipation (MORE) we are in the process of identifying and promoting Education Activists. These are young local literate people who are interested in the development of education in their villages. MORE has deputed one of their staff members to work with Akshara for two days in a week to get acquainted with Activity Based Learning who will then train the Activists. One young man from a nearby village comes to help us in making learning material. We are in the process of building a small team to carry forward this task. We are also planning to organize a workshop for the chairpersons of Village Education Committees.

 

Kaigal Ecology Education Programme (KEEP)

 

Kaigal Ecology Education Programme had organised a workshop on Environment Education in Baireddipalle Mandal for 24 government teachers. I was one of the resource persons; I talked about Activity Based Learning (ABL)and its use as a tool for multi-grade teaching and the importance of ABL in Environment Education.

 

Registration of Akshara as a Society

 

Akshara has been recently registered under the Societies Registration Act, xxi of 1860 by the Chittoor District Registrar of Assurances.

 

It is a providence that all seven founding members of Akshara are either students of Sri David Horsburgh or were associated with Neel Bagh School. The details of the founding members of Akshara are as follows:

 

Sl. Name                      Age      Designation       Occupation       Address

 

1.  M.C.Malathi            50        President          Educator          Vikasana

                                                                                                Doddakalsandra PO

                                                                                                Kanakapura Road

                                                                                                Bangalore 560 062

 

2.  A. Ravi                    34        Secretary          Educator          2/476/7

                                                                                                Ravindra Nagar

                                                                                                Ponnutipalem Village

                                                                                                Madanapalle 517 325

 

3.  Dr. S.N.Gananath    40        Treasurer          Education         Suvidya

                                                                        Consultant        206, 39th A Cross

                                                                                                9th Main, 5th Block

                                                                                                Jayanagar

                                                                                                Bangalore 560 041

 

4.  A.Prasad                 38        Executive          Development    5-357-A1

                                                Member           Professional      Appa Rao Thota

                                                                                                Madanapalle 517 325

 

5.  S.Jayaram               39        Executive          Head Master    The Valley School

                                                Member                                   17KM, Kanakapura Road

                                                                                                Bangalore 560 062

 

6.  T.M.Narasimhan     55        Executive          Teacher            Sumavanam

                                                Member                                   Cheegalabailu PO

                                                                                                Bangalore Road

                                                                                                Madanapalle 517 325

 

7  Nirmala Devi            36        Executive          Teacher            The Valley School

                                                Member                                   17KM, Kanakapura Road

                                                                                                Bangalore 560 062

 

 

Future Proposals of Akshara

 

We are planning to move our base to one of the villages and operate from there. We are very happy with the CRC and wish to gradually transform this into a regular school, which provides quality education.

 

We wish to provide computer-aided education to rural high school students. The idea is to supplement the textbook lessons with multi-media. Present lessons in power point and use educational software for subjects such as Science, Geography and Mathematics. Rural high school students do not have the opportunity to attend tutions(special classes), since most of them are first generation learners they do not get any academic support from home. Computer aided Education will help such students to understand subjects better. Initially we plan to cover 15 schools. We visulise this to be a mobile unit with a computer and a large monitor, LSD projector will be ideal, a generator is also required since most of the schools do not have electricity.

 

If ASHA is interested with the above proposals, we can further work out the details and also get other local institutions involved in the project.