Literacy-based Summer Camp: Day 2

The day began with Salim and a new student Sahil. The latter is a child of a teacher in the school who attends a different school. Sahil is very proficient in English and has better communication skills than other children. I was apprehensive about taking him. From my earlier experiences with children from advantaged backgrounds, they tend to overshadow others and make it difficult for other, less advantaged children to speak. I saw glimpses of these today as well. Nevertheless, having Sahil also meant that other children continued to benefit from his knowledge in other activities. It then required a balancing act on my end where I had to not only allow expression of all children, including Sahil, but at the same time, create a safe space for apprehensive and shy children to take their time and others to listen. The instances below from the day detail some of these balancing acts and children’s expressions. 

The day began with creating an origami butterfly. This process of creating things with paper gets children to focus their hands and senses. Some children struggle to remember the exact paper folds, or others add too much pressure on the paper, and it crumbles. Nevertheless, they continue to engage, learn from peers, and try to get it right. In the middle of this activity, Khwaja and a new child, Karthik, joined us. Karthik is quiet and hardly speaks; however, he continued to participate. 

Map Making

We moved into a map-making activity, where children had to draw a map of the route from their home to school, with all the surrounding elements around it. Children drew elaborate elements of things around their homes. Sahil drew a big entrance of the school, and our conversation moved around purpose and representation on a map. This included the idea that elements on the map do not have to be the same scale and can only be representative. Taking this idea forward, Sahil drew a scale at the bottom of his map. In addition, he continued to work with Salim and help him understand the task better. See children's maps in the images below.

Sahil and Salim's Map of their surroundings

Karthik drew a map of the school

Khwaja's map of his surroundings

We then pasted children’s maps on the classroom wall, and each child presented their map to their peers. I also asked questions to each child on things that were unclear or made suggestions. While Sahil was the first to present his map and did this very easily in English. Salim struggled with English. When I encouraged him to use his own language, he mixed Dakhini and Hindi to speak about his map. However, it was clear that he needed time and patience. In the middle of this presentation, Sahil continued to move around the class, making snarky comments at others’ presentations. I have to continue to draw children’s attention to the rules of the camp. That is, listening and supporting their peers. Perhaps this needs to be a regular reminder.

Salim’s map included elements around his house, but also elaborate buildings, a mosque and a very extensive use of green. Khwaja, on the other hand, included past elements that no longer existed, including trees, which he really liked but were chopped down recently. Karthik drew a map of the school itself. While he drew a smaller house, the sections of the school were more prominent in his drawing. 

In the middle of this activity, four new children entered the classroom. I have had to contend with the fact that, given the informal nature of the event, children will continue to move in and out, with no regularity. Perhaps this is also a form of children’s agency.

While children were engaged in origami at the beginning of the day, I also created a reading corner at the far end of the classroom. These included a collection of books in Hindi and English on various topics. If new children came in the middle of an activity, I directed them to the corner so that they could engage themselves in the book. However, this also became a disruptive element, as Sahil continued to move towards the books and engage others in conversations when he finished his tasks. From the next day, perhaps, I would open the space only during the reading hour at the end.

Brainstorming "Courage"

For the next activity, which now included about 9 children, we brainstormed what it meant to be courageous. Children came up with various notions, including brave, people they found brave around them. I also encouraged them to share stories of people they found courageous around them. A boy shared that he found his father and mother brave, given they provided food, education, among other things, despite economic hardships. Others shared how they found their sister brave. Sahil added that being brave meant doing things in spite of being scared. I then asked them if they thought they were brave. Some said almost, others clearly refused. I drew their attention to tasks they did daily, like crossing the road, coming to school or doing hard things. This created a buzz, and children started talking about reading and writing as hard things that they did anyway. I then pasted printouts with information on children who had done brave things in India and received bravery awards from the Prime Minister. Children read their stories pasted on the walls. See images below.

Brainstorming "Courage"

This led a child, Sohaib, to come to me and tell me about an Instagram story he had read about a 7-year-old boy who recently crossed a strait between India and Sri Lanka and won an award. He was very captivated by this story.

While I opened the space for children to use the rest of the time in the reading corner, Shoaib wrote a few lines about the swimming boy and wanted me to read it. He said he will add a few more points about him and show me tomorrow. I was intrigued by how the conversation about courage led him to put his thoughts to paper. I will add more on Shoaib’s writing in the following post. 

Children continued to enjoy reading the books, occasionally coming to me to ask questions. I sat away from them, writing my reflections, letting them read undisturbed. Some children read on their own while others read in groups. I was surprised by how much children enjoyed going through the books. The school does not have a library; maybe this is something that can be built with the help of the principal. 

We also sang the song, “We will rock you”, thumping to its beats and clapping our hands. I gave each child a photocopy of the lyrics so they could sing along. Children certainly seemed to enjoy the song because many of them asked for a similar song in our feedback circle. 

Feedback circle

Children asked for more art, craft and song-based activities. Some even asked for carrom, chess and other board games. Sohaib said he liked the brainstorming activity. Some mentioned linking the map activity. Request for computer-based activities continues to be put forward by children. However, between the school's unwillingness and my resource limitations, creating a virtual project activity, is perhaps untenable this time. Perhaps more group based and shared activities can be tried out.

Note: All names are pseudonyms.