Report

(Project RightStart- Training Programme- Sept 27th,2003 to Oct 3rd, 2003)

The original proposal

The teacher training programme was originally planned for the month of May 2003, but did not happen then as we could not get things moving fast enough to get the participant teams moving. We had also planned a ten day programme, so that we could address the balwadi teachers and primary class teachers separately.

A sum of Rs47000, $1000 was approved for the project.

Asha Chennai however did not lose sight of the need for the training programme. So at the earliest real opportunity the programme was organized, during the common I Term holidays for the primary schools in Tamilnadu.

The participants were from the following schools and in the numbers given below-

Serial No.

Name of the school

No of participant teachers

Name of the Project

District

Remarks

1

Rishiyur Govt. primary school (Classes I to 6)

 

6

Dream

Mannargudi district

Southweast Tamilnadu

Five Asha teachers + Headmaster (Govt. employee)

2

Rishiyur Govt.

Balwadi

1

Dream

Mannargudi district

Southweast Tamilnadu

Govt. employed teacher

3

Venbakam Govt. Primary School (Classes I to 5)

1

Tea Trust

Chingelpet district

Asha teacher

4

Kolathancheri Govt. Primary School(Classes I to 5)

1

Tea Trust

Chingelpet district

Asha teacher

5

Venkatapuram Govt. Primary school (Classes I to 5)

1

Tea Trust

Chingelpet district

Tea Trust Teacher

6

Little Flower Primry School (Classes I 2,3)

2

Tea Trust

Chingelpet district

Tea Trust Teacher

7

Venbakam Govt. primary school (Classes I to5)

1

Village Mission (Project submitted to Asha Chennai)

Kancheepuaram District

Village Mission Teacher

8

Urur Balwadi

1

Pride

Chennai -90

Govt. teacher

9

Lazarus Convent (Classes I to 8)

( contact through Adyar Times)

4

Govt. aided middle school

Mandaveli

Chennai- 4

Govt. aided school teachers

10

Olcott Memorial High School.

(Classes 1 to 10)

4

new teachers

Bridge

Chennai-90

Private school for the under priviledged

11

Seva Chakra

Orphanage Primary School

3

Seva Chakra

Choolaimedu

Chennai

Asha teachers

12

BUILD- for the year 2004

3

Build

Tiruvellore District

Asha Teachers

13

Urur Balwadi

1

Pride

Chennai -90

Asha Teacher

 

Total no. of teachers benefited from the programme

29

The village mission school teacher left after 3 sessions as his father was not well and he was suddenly called back.

The Lazarus School teachers had asked for permission to attend for the first four days as they had a school three day workshop on teaching English.

Both these groups paid for their food.

15 teachers stayed at the Asha Chennai home for the period of seven days. The other teachers came in on time everyday.

 Arrangements for their stay were planned and most of the requirements were provided by Asha Chennai volunteers. Tea in the morning and evening and dinner was provided at the home. All participants had their breakfast at the home. Lunch and tea in the mid session break were served at the OMHS the venue of the workshop.

 

It was indeed an exciting experience to be able to bring together eager teachers young and old from schools and balwadis from different parts of the state, both teachers from the private sector and the govt. schools and a govt. aided school.

Right through the programme the predominant feeling that came across was the level of involvement with which the participants went about each session and the sharing and openness with which they took part in all the sessions. Each of the seven days was split into two sessions as per plan. Refer website for the details of the plans. The resource persons arrived on time for all sessions, and conducted the sessions professionally.

Feedback from the participants was sought from each participant for each of the sessions in the 13th session.

The sessions happened in the following order-

  1. Rights of the Child- Conducted by Ms. Poornima Arun – a senior teacher of the Olcott Memorial High School. Poornima has been specially trained and certified by ICCW- the Indian Council for Child Welfare- Chennai. Poornima had done the exercise for the training for Project Build.

Asha Chennai volunteer Mr. Jambunathan was present for some part of the session. He was impressed with the level of interaction that could be seen emanate ing from the group even though it was the first session.

 

  1. An overview of the plans for the next six days to follow and the outlining of the

objectives of the workshop, discussion on how children learn at different stages and creating healthy school climate. – Ms. Lakshmi Suryanarayanan.  She is the headmistress of the Olcott Memorial high school that has the distinction of being one of the unique and successful schools for delivering quality education to the under priviledged.

 

  1. 3rd and 5th sessions were coducted by Mrs. P. Saraswathi. Mrs. P. saraswathi is a resource person for the Tamilnadu text book committee and has helped bring out the child friendly textbooks of the Govt. Tamilnadu. The textbooks being used by the participants have come about through her able guidance.

She got the teachers to role play children, actually experience how the different

games could be actual learning experiences for the children. 

Mr. Rajaram, Asha Chennai volunteer, attended a part of the fifth session. He found he could learn from the session and also realised how these activity based learning experiences would help children learn’

Participant feedback summary-

Ms. Anita Sathish attended the 5th session

 

  1. 4th and 6th sessions were Dr.L. S. Saraswathi who is a resource person for the Tamilnadu text book committee and has helped bring out the child friendly textbooks of the Govt. Tamilnadu. The textbooks being used by the participants have come about through her able guidance.

Her area of focus was on the role songs, story telling, creating rhymes… as part of the language development for the children.

Mr. E.S. Ananth, Asha Chennai volunteer was present for 4th sessions. He has appreciated the novelty

” The session that I attended was conducted by One Saraswathy madam, and it was really nice that she had adopted various novel methods to be followed, in teaching children of tender ages. She had even played a tape literally infusing a very good idea of science, while telling the age old song on the moon

NILAA NILAA OADI VAA. It was quite catchy.

She also opined rather convincingly as to how pretty young minds are so impressionable, and that they have their own ideas about any subject on earth, and on occasions, it belies to understand that the children's imagination, knows no limit, and that sometimes very uncommon factors they say, lead to a novel story line, and this struck a note in me that perhaps J.K.Rowling must have experienced”.

Ms. Anitha Sathish attended the 6th Session. She expressed satisfaction about the arrangements and the venue. She was happy with the resource persons and participant teachers interactions. She also expressed that this project Rightstart should be put up in Asha projects and written for the Learning Network newsletter Chigaru.

 

  1. 7th and 8th sessions- Mrs. Shanthi Badrinarayanan. A veteran educationist of more than 17 years of experience in class room teaching, as head of schools, a reading expert, a consultant for schools, she runs her own language learning center the first of its kind in Chennai

Ms. Shanthi focused on the integrated approach to learning of subjects and language in the primary and upper primary areas.

 

  1. 9th and 10th sessions- These sessions were interactions with the teachers of Olcott school primary section who were implementing activity based learning the resource room. The teachers teaching the four subjects at the primary level –Tamil, English. Maths and EVS displayed the material they had created, acquired and demonstrated the use of these language and Maths games, puzzles, reading material in their classrooms and in the school resource center. It was also demonstrated how these items can become the integral part of the primary classes teaching-learning experience, by having such material ready in our classrooms. About 200 multi colored cards, sketch pens, stencils were given to each teacher

so that the teachers could make their materials immediately in the evenings and also on their return to their schools.

A copy of the “Blackboard Drawing Book” which is useful for teachers to learn to draw on the cards, as well on the BBs was given to each group (TEA Trust, Dream, Seva Chakkara, Lazarus, Build, Urur Balwadi).

The afternoon saw the demonstration of the use of Computer Technology in Learning in the Olcott school’s AVRoom.   

 

  1. 11th and 12th sessions- these sessions were for sight seeing trip, around Chennai. Local Seva Chakkara volunteers did not participate.  The group went to Gandhi Mandapam, children’s park. Time was given for the group for shopping, as this was a request made by the groups.

 

  1. 13th session- Mr. V.Balakrishnan of TANPIC, conducted the session on parent and community involvement as stake holders in the school and as part of the process of schooling. They certainly are a great resource to the schools and they could be very happily involved in the process of education. He suggested various ways in which the teachers could get their involvement for the benefit of the school. The session lasted for an hour.

The participants had another hour where they were requested to write about their understanding of the 13 sessions and give their feed back on each of their experiences. Each one participant has done this with great enthusiasm.

 

  1. 14th Session- Lakshmi suryanarayananconducted the discussion on the feedback and summarization of the 7 day programme.

Concluding session saw a great deal of comradeship a genuine feeling of having gained from the workshop and request for support at their school levels with implementation

 

Special Highlights

  • Mrs Radha Arjun and Mr. Arjun spent a lot of time with the groups, attending the sessions, discussing difficulties, giving essential immediate feed back for course corrections. Mrs. Radha helped with the summing up o the workshop reading through the participants feedback sheets. Their presence was a great source of reassurance to the participants, the workshop designer and facilitators.

·        The project drivers Mr. Murthy, Mr. Arputham made it their point to be present with their teams for the inaugural day in spite of busy schedules.

·        Build teacher came in or the first day and narrated how she was now working with a govt. school and how her intervention was improving the school climate and actually helping children talk about their problems. She has gone up to the level of the village council to speak for intervention in the matter of the helping the school’s headmaster change his attitude to help the students.

·        The facilitators and teachers of the Olcott school spent their vacation time willingly helping with the process of workshop facilitation, arrangements, working hand in hand with Jeba, Shekar and Satya. They performed their roles to the satisfaction of the workshop designer.

·        The participants felt free enough to talk about food, request for change in menu, request for the afternoon break…Particular mention must be made of Mr. Selvaraj headmaster from Rishiyur, who was there with his quick suggestions and free in sharing his thoughts. This helped make things very comfortable for the organizers.

·        The cooperation of the Asha Chennai team, the enthusiasm of the volunteers, the endless hours put in by Jeba, Satya, Sekar, Dhanalakshmi(Build teacher trained last year, now working with The Urur Balwadi) team.

·        The clear, long, serious feed back given by the participants.

 

Participants Feedback-

Participants have expressed freely their understanding of the sessions, what they have gained, what was new to them, what they plan to do on getting back. Reading through each one of these sheets was a energizing experience for the workshop designer. It shows that we have a thinking, listening group of teachers who will not stop with the workshop learning and sharing but will take the learning to their school environments.

The summary has tried to bring out the essence of the feedback, yet it cannot do justice to the individual participants’ seriousness and commitment.

A file containing their feedback will be available at Asha Chennai home at Besant Nagar for interested volunteers.

Main points-

  •  Had heard about/ participated in activity based teaching methodologies. Never believed that they could be implemented in our schools. It does require some material and some effort, but we know it is possible to use these techniques for our children.

  •  We have learnt how to connect the activity to the topic we are going to help children learn.

  •  Practical methods for our classrooms

  •  The importance of building self confidence, giving room for the children’s abilities is possible.

  •  Never thought our children could learn so easily

  •  Will never again treat children harshly or without respect

  •  Will give more opportunity for children to participate

  •  Will not use the children for errands, but plan carefully

  •  We did not even dream that the workshop would be so useful

  •  The arrangements were excellent

  •  Food was great. We felt really well taken care of.

  •  The time for the workshop should have been longer

  •  The outing should have been better planned

  •  Some theory parts of the sessions were a little difficult to understand

  •  The food in the afternoon could have been lighter and we need a break in the afternoon- The menu was changed after discussion and the tea break was provided during the course, to the satisfaction of the participants.

 

Accounts

  Rightstart  Teacher Training Event-1   27th Sept 2003 to 3rd Oct. 2003
  Budget= $1000 = Rs 47000    
  Heads of expenses Details Amounts in Rs.  
1 Food for 7 days Breakfast for all participants, lunch for participants, resource persons and facilitators, dinner for the participants who stayed at T58A, Tea at break time everyday at the venue  21,801.25  
2 Resource persons Honorarium
  • Poornima-1 session
  • P. Saraswathi - 2 sessions
  • L.S.Saraswathi -2 sessions
  • Balakkrishnan V. @ Rs300 per session
1800  
3 Conveyance to Resource persons and facilitators Shanthi Badri for I whole day- Rs200 + Rs500 for 10 teachers of Olcott School @ Rs50 per person for demonstrating the use of Resource room activities and AV room facilities on 1st Oct 650  
4 Facilitators remuneration 1 teacher from OMHS @Rs150 per day for 7 days= Rs1050 &        1 more teacher for 5 days  @ Rs 100 per day= Rs 500 1550  
5 Wages for helpers at the venue 1 person at the rate of Rs60 per day for seven days, 3 persons at the rate of Rs 50 per day for 7days 1,260  
6 Photography Pictures taken on all 7 days 1,587  
7 Outing for the participants To Gandhi Mandapam, Children's park and shopping 2,500+40=2,540 Rs40 for parking the vehicle.
8 Travel expenses of participants from Rishiyur Train tickets for 7 teachers to and fro +   Local transportation from station to T58 and back + Tea Trust teachers return fare 1,890+550+200=   2,640

at the rate of Rs 181 per person from Rishiyur and

Rs80 for internet booking+

Rs200 for the TEA Trust teachers to return
9 Materials for the participants to take home Cards for making flash card and games, teachers kits, cassettes of songs, blackboard drawing book and photo copies of teacher training material 5,122.55

learning materials and photocopies

 of teacher training materials.
10 Transportation costs For getting material and stuff to T58 A, venue of workshop …. 380.4  
11 Maintenance Utilities 1,049  
  Total Amount   40,380.40  

The balance of about Rs6600 will be used for material for students for  and for travel of resource persons for Asha Chennai projects –Tea Trust, Dream, Build appropriately.