Now that children had experienced a few days of activities at the camp, there was a sense of routine for them as well as me. I had created a rough plan for each day of the week before I came to Warangal. However, I ended up modifying much of it, given the different ages of children, their irregular presence, and their late arrival. Also, I had to carefully plan activities that were sensitive to the children's language diversity, including movement (as they did not like to be stationary for long), as well as the new information they could learn in the camp. My interaction with children revealed that, except for one or two children, most children did not have much general knowledge about their surroundings, world, including geography. To address this gap, I introduced books and wanted to engage children in information-seeking activities over the internet.
Children began their day by creating an origami frog. In order to teach the children, it has become a ritual of sorts to spend time each evening learning paper-based animals from YouTube. The other day, Sahil asked me how I learned these origami animals. When I shared that I usually learned them from YouTube, he said he found it hard to learn from YouTube. I even mentioned that he could pause the video, which makes it easier to understand the paper folds and repeat them. However, his question and the difficulty of learning from the said source also made me realise that learning from a source is also about training oneself in a certain kind of pedagogy. In a class on multimodal analysis, which I undertook with master's students at the Tata Institute of Social Science in March, this is exactly the problem that two students encountered. When I asked them to analyse the modes in a painting video on YouTube that had no words, one of the students found it difficult to analyse and speak about the pedagogy of the video. One of the reasons for this difficulty was that our idea of learning is heavily based on a spoken language pedagogy. However, we often forget the things we learn through observation, moving through the world and engaging with things around us.
Quiz
I had planned a map-based quiz competition for children. This was based on the computer-based group activity they undertook in the class the previous day. i.e. search for countries and information related to them on globetrottinkids.com. I had also asked them to use the time at home to read more about it on their devices. I divided the children into groups of two for the following rounds.
This is the capital of which country (seven such questions from South America)
Children were unable to respond to most questions. This included Sahil (child of a teacher in school and went to a different school), who was usually better informed than most children. However, this also became a learning opportunity. Each question became a way for children to learn about countries as well. Next, children were expected to name five countries from a continent. For group 1, I gave them Europe. For group 2, it was Asia. Children found even this question difficult. Nevertheless, they were able to make a few points in this round. I was surprised that Karthik, who was usually quiet, was able to get a few countries right in this. When I probed further, it was his love for sports that helped him. He followed teams of certain countries for certain sports, which gave him some insights into countries and their locations.
Next, the children were to respond to any five countries that speak French for group 1 and Arabic for group 2. Given that a large number of children in the classroom were from a minority background (Muslim), it was easier for children to come up with Arabic-speaking countries than French-speaking countries. I also learnt that a country like Palestine was referred to as falestine by children in their local language. They said that's what they called it. Khwaja, in between the quiz, also asked me to share information on other countries that speak Arabic.
In the end, Sahil’s group won by ½ a point more than the other group. He was very irritated and slammed a book on the floor. I have a feeling that this may be because he thought he knew more than most children in the classroom. However, in this particular activity, he was similar to most of the children around him. This realisation perhaps broke his illusion, which left him uncomfortable.
Favourite Actors
In my doctoral study, I had noticed that children spent a lot of time watching movies. Imitating dialogues, songs and scenes. I wanted to use this interest for literacy-related activities with the current children as well. For this purpose, I divided the children into groups and asked each group to write their favourite actors. This led to animated conversations between children. Children who did not speak at all began to open up and express themselves. I next asked them to perform a scene or song from any of the movies they liked, and the other group had to guess the actor or the movie it was from. Children were shy and hesitated, but began to discuss options in their groups. Many of the performances were from Telugu movies; however, a few Hindi movies, including Dhurander’s dialogue, were also heard.
I then moved the activity further for children to start thinking of a short film or drama in their respective groups that they can come up with to perform at our exhibition. Although initially, children felt lost, they began to think of stories they already knew. Salim, who often looks disinterested, came up to me and narrated a story from the Quran. When I encouraged him to use it and think of it from a performative angle, he began to retell the story to his group members. I noticed that girls and boys often hesitated to work together. In fact, the other day, the father of a girl came to class and insisted that she be made to sit away from all boys. However, when I sternly told the parent that I would manage the class and that he should not order the children around, he felt embarrassed and left.
Khwaja, to my surprise, wrote a completely new story. This is the same child whose mother is an administrative staff member in school, and had mentioned to me that her son was slow. Sometimes, I feel that if we could show empathy and care towards children, give them time to figure things out for themselves, we would find solutions to many of the literacy-related problems we associate with children. The issue is also that we expect children who come from completely different backgrounds to all learn in the same way.
In between all this, Sahil continued to move around the class, requesting access to his laptop that his father held in the other classroom. When I refused, he insisted that he could not think of any story, and the use of a laptop would only make it better for the group. I think Sahil’s demand also made me realise that purposeful use of a computer can also be detrimental to learning. I continued to push him to talk to Khwaja, his group member and help him with his story. My effort continues to be to get him to support other children and get him to collaborate.
Sunshine in my Pocket and Birthday
We ended the day with Justin Timberlake's song, Can’t Stop the Feeling. This song was slightly longer than the other songs that children have learned in the camp. However, children did enjoy the beats. They were also given the printed lyrics of the song to sing along.
In the end, we celebrated the day by cutting my birthday cake. Rakesh (my spouse), to my surprise, had sent one to the school’s address. Children were very surprised that I had not mentioned it earlier. I guess birthdays are very special for children. I remember feeling that way as a child. Nevertheless, I did not want to make a big deal about it and distract them. I was very content that I got to share the cake with them and receive their heartfelt wishes (including that of family, friends and a teacher who called and wished).
Principal and availability of Computers
Working in the current context, I have noticed that children’s general knowledge about the world is extremely limited. This is an insight that came through in the doctoral study as well. One of the reasons for this is that children often spend much of their time at home, in their neighbourhood, did not have access to uninterrupted internet. When they did have access, they did not have people around them from whom they could learn the fruitful or informative use. It also made me realise how our people in our environment impact our habits and influence our engagement with the world. The use of the internet for information seeking and knowledge gathering can also be seen as a kind of social capital that many of these people did not have.
The result is that it led to a vicious cycle. The lack of virtual devices and resources meant children did not have fruitful examples in their environment to use the Internet for productive purposes. Thus, children used the internet to watch Instagram reels, watch YouTube videos or play games. While children from all backgrounds and classes engage in these activities. However, in the case of children at the margins, their use gets exaggerated, given children’s limited access to the internet and devices. Thus, parents and teachers of children at the margins refuse to give them devices, since children only use them for their entertainment. I have become more and more aware of the circularity of this argument.
After the camp, I met the principal and continued to share my concern with her. The principal, who, despite her fear of the Internet in the hands of “these” children, is an individual who listens and continues to engage with me. I pushed the point that I shared my laptop and tablet with children for a reading of the world map the other day, and they enjoyed it very much. Also, they were very careful with the devices. I also said that these children do not have access to these devices in their homes, so they can only rely on the school to provide computer-based skills. If the school is also unable to provide so, then it will be very difficult for them to acquire these necessary skills, including creating an email, when they move into the world of work. I noticed that she resonated with me, and after many days, I saw the logic behind it. She said that she will try to get access to the computers. The management, according to her, was on a cost-cutting spree, recently having fired a senior-level employee, so she did not want to ruffle any feathers.
This conversation highlighted the politics of resources and their limitedness that are often created for children at the margins. For the management of these schools, the low-fee private schools, like the Victory High School, continue to be a money-making scheme with limited investment to make any improvement in the quality of education or skills. The principal, even with her good intentions, has limited resources at her disposal, much of which is used to run the day-to-day functioning of the school.
No comments:
Post a Comment