So much love.

Everyday , since the beginning of school we just found our selves trying to tell these children to not fight. Everyday atleast ten kids would come and complain " Didi, *ABC* hit me", and then we would call the child out and try and ask what the need was of hitting and tell them how much better everything would be if at all they were to treat everyone with respect.

The talks didn't seem to be making much of a difference because the complaints didn't stop. We felt there was no unity in the class as everyone kept fighting amongst each other and kept complaining. Swati, my coteacher and I were almost getting sick of the fighting and hitting and the complaints and right when we thought nothing was working out TWO things happened.

One, a kid from my class was wrongly accused and confronted about something he hadn't done, which he felt horrible about. It led to him feeling really hurt and he started crying. Within 10 minutes a crowd gathered around him and then there were four others who were crying with the boy. We ran to the scene and tried asking why these other kids from our class suddenly began crying. After sometime of waiting, we discovered, that these kids were crying for the kid who was wrongly accused. They felt hurt that their "FRIEND" was crying. It was overwhelming to see this happening in a class we thought had no sense of unity whatsoever. (Picture above)


Two, while saying out a couple of shout-outs/announcements for some outstanding things that were happening in the class, I opened the floor to the kids so that they could thank whoever they felt was helping them or did something for them in class. In a minute about ten hands shot up. While 5 of them thanked others for sharing their food and the others thanks their classmates for helping them in academic, One of the kids (Lets name him X) got up to thank another kid, [lets name him Y(this kid was known for hitting people)] and said... "didi, today boy from other class was hitting me and Y told him "stop hitting my classmate"".


We were pleasantly surprised.
Since then, everyday we have similar shout-outs and we are seeing more and more kids being united as one class. It's a beautiful feeling.

The very basic want! :D

Carrying on from our reading lesson,where the poor boatman meets the king and strikes gold... our writing lesson's topic was decided to be "If I had all the money in the world, I would..."


Kids came up with many brilliant and noble ideas, and this piece which is put above, was one of the most well written ones we had.

The note talked about using the money for ones own benefit and not being oblivious to the poor and helping them out as well. What was amazing, was to see, the love of my kids for Salman Khan come alive once again.

The kids love Mr. Salman Khan. When we frame questions with his name in them, they are ten times more eager to solve the questions.

Therefore, when I read this, I couldn't help but smile. I was amazed to see how even the thought of having ALL the money in the world was not enough to make them think off excluding Salman Khan's movie. Ofcourse, for me a movie wasn't that much of a big deal, but,  the faith they have in the man, is unbelievable. Sometimes, I wish I were Salman Khan, not to be rich and famous, but, just to make my kids be thousand times more willing and interested in what they are learning.
 :)

Such a happy feeling!

We started with updating our kids with news and when The father of the White Revolution in our country passed away I thought it was my responsibility to inform my kids about who this man was and what he had done.


I stepped into class the other morning with several pictures of Mr. Verghese Kurien and went in to talk about how he was responsible for making India one of the largest milk producers in the world. To give the kids something to relate of course I couldn't help but mention Amul and how he was the founder of this dairy giant.
I didn't expect my kids to retain everything I said to them, considering they had no prior knowledge what-so-ever of this great man and remember all these factual details which I gave them in 15 minutes of class time was a great deal to remember anyway. In that moment I just wanted them to know who was responsible for the milk revolution in our country.



HOWEVER, the next day, Sajid Ali, came to me in the morning, pulled my hand to call me and handed me this piece of paper which he had cut out from a newspaper remembering what I had told him in the class a day before...

Needless to say, I was beeming with joy. 

Help us to help them! :)

Seventy-Five

The number of children in my class.

Two.

The number of years my co-teacher and I have with them.

A Million.

Things they still have to learn and change.

A Few.

Resources we need to make this happen.

You, can help us to get these resources.

The page below explains why our classroom is in urgent need for funds and how big a difference each contribution can make.

It’s my sincere request to one and all of you to contribute towards making this change take place, as soon as possible.

Any contribution, would mean a lot to me and to all the kids in my class.

Thank you! :)

http://www.giveindia.org/iGive-Shaantfi

Azhar.

Azhar is just 8 years old.
He is the youngest member of our class.

Azhar is also extremely patient with his 74 other classmates who keep jumping around the entire class almost all the time and his two didi's who more often than not give moral science lectures in class, which it doesn't seem, he needs.

This child intrigues me and inspires me.
When I look back at my childhood and my time in school, I realize I was a good kid. I wasn't too naughty and I wasn't too quiet either. I wasn't exceptional in academics, but, I wasn't bad at all.

But, Azhar really makes me think that I could have done a lot better. That I SHOULD have done a lot better.

He is ALWAYS before time. He is one of the very few people who wears a watch to school every single day. He is ALWAYS neat and tidy.

But, that's not what inspires me. I believe Azhar has an AMAZING attention span. At no time in my four to five hours at school, 25 to 28 days in a month does Azhar need to be reminded of how he should sit straight, fold his hands, look at the board and listen. He is ALWAYS paying attention. He is also, always sitting straight with his hands folded and looking at the person teaching or at the board. Azhar also makes me keep a tab on my self.

On days that I tell my class, the time division of what I'm going to teach them...
For eg: "Class, for the first ten minutes, I will be showing you examples of Transparent and Opaque things and in the next 15 minutes I will give you this worksheet in which you will..."

After I finish my examples, and say " Now, for the next fifteen minutes, we will..."
Azhar promptly gets up and say "Didi, you already took 12 minutes and 3 seconds."

He happens to be one of the most sincere and disciplined children in my class and I am sure if he maintains his set of principles to be the same, he will go a LONG way.

Here is a picture of Azhar, right after he finished making sure there is no speck of dirt on the ground, being the cleanliness incharge of our class! :)

Revising Short Vowel Sounds.

The kids found it hard to differentiate between vowel sounds, so, in our reading fluency classes we decided to take up short vowel sounds more seriously.  The confusion between the short sounds of E and I were evident. If they were told to write pet or pit they wouldn't know which vowel to use for which one. Also, there was amazing amount of confusion between the sounds of U and A. So we made it a point to make the class more  colourful and fun. Now everday before the reading fluency class starts, we take 5 minutes off to revise vowel sounds. 

                                     We also learnt the difference between ONSET and RIME today.

I tried uploading the before-class-quick-short-vowel-sound-revision video, but, the file size is too big! :(
Hopefully, I figure out a way to put it up here soon! :)

Some Incentives at School

 A little bit of fun in between sessions! Playing different beats using hands and desks!

 Paper lamps in craft class!

Children with full attendance on a field trip to watch ICE AGE 3D

Nikunj and Swati with the kids outside the cinema hall.

The ALL NEW Behaviour Trackers.

Behaviour Trackers help keep a check on how each kid behaves in class. Our class has a set of 5 rules. When they don't follow them, their team loses marks. When they follow, they gain marks.

The team with the highest marks at the end of a unit gets an awesome incentive! :D

We have six teams based on the jungle book. Here is the evolution of the tracker wall:

PREVIOUSLY:

THEN:

AND NOW, :D

That's Ayesha, keeping score.:)

Some Pictures from Class.

Seema, all excited, before a day of school!

Swati, my co-teacher, helping out the newest member of our class - Ruchi.

 The lovely science, maths and craft Exhibition at school! :) Rizwan explaining the water cycle.

Noor, explaining his contribution to the exhibition.

Sameer, as he goes through the art and craft part of the exhibition.

Farheen, as she explains her model.

Kids going through the Exhibition.

Class Elections! :) The highest scorers on the "behaviour tracker" were nominated for the unit.

Things that change for the better.

Whenever someone asked me about kids, I would tell them that I hate kids. Even the thought of being left alone to play with a kid or to take an infant in my arms was torture. Friends always watched me walk away or shift back and hide behind someone, when there were kids around. There were cute little babies and people running towards them swearing their life over who will get to be the first one to hold the infant, and then there was me, walking in the opposite direction or standing there staring, wondering what was SO amazing about children and hating the fact that once, even I was, a kid. I always found them either too disruptive or nagging and I stayed away, but, recently my whole life just turned around.

I completed my graduation in Media and Communication and then I suddenly decided one day to switch gears and applied for something no one in my family thought I would. Surprisingly, I even got through. 

I am now am a fellow at an organization called Teach for India - an organization that helps underprivileged children have the kind of education all children deserve. I teach a classroom, with not 10 or 20 or 30 children but 74 of them. I spend about half of my day with them and the rest half thinking about them.

For the first few days after I got through and was going to go through my training I wondered… WHY did I choose this? 

After teaching in the classroom, my questions have changed. These days I asked myself… WHY was I so repulsed by the thought of being with children before this?

Every day, I learn something from these children, that a lot of adults have failed to be examples of.

Each kid has so much to himself and herself. So many dreams and aspirations, so many stories and so much potential.

I’ve been teaching a class of 4^th graders who may not know as much as they should but carry the same or bigger dreams that children in otherwise privileged schools do and as far as I have seen, a LOT more strength and potential within them.

Up

 here is the picture of Sameer from my class. Sameer due to some unfortunate events in his life missed his entire 3^rd grade of school. Sameer finds it difficult to speak in English to an extent that sometimes he struggles to remember letter sounds or to put letters together to form words. Sometimes he finds it difficult to understand other subjects because the mode of instruction is English. HOWEVER, Sameer, NEVER gives up. He comes to school EVERY SINGLE DAY, he sits through each class and tries to listen whether he understands or not. He comes to me almost everyday and asks something in Hindi, and in a minute I exclaim, “Sameer... English?” And instead of giving up, he runs back, thinks, asks around and then comes back to me to say the same thing in English. I see him learning more everyday and I see the eagerness he has in himself to come to school no matter what!

When Sameer joined in this new class after one year of not being in school, he was clueless. I can almost surely say that he hated being with 73 others who he knew had studied the previous year and got along so well. Initially, he fought with everyone in class and everyone complained. He felt left out, but he slowly tried finding his place. Today, in just about a month’s time, I’ve seen a change in Sameer, that makes me have faith in him and myself every day. I’ve seen him grow. 

Even after a horrible and exhausting day at school, I go back to prepare harder for the  next day, because I know that the kids need me and I need the kids.

I see myself providing them with knowledge that I have and I see them giving me strength that they have.

I clearly remember how after an extremely exhausting last week I came back home to realize that there were THREE full days of holidays lined in front of me. I was delighted at the thought of having a little time to rest and enough time to plan for next week. 

The next day in the morning, Sameer’s mother called, she said “Madam, aaj school nahi hai na, maine sameer ko bola ki aaj chutti hai, par wo sun nahi raha, keh raha hai, school jana zaroori hai! Tab se keh raha hai didi se phone karke bolo ki aap mujhe school nahi bhej rahe ho, mujhe school jaana hai…”

(Madam, there is no school today, right? I have been telling sameer that there is no school today but he is saying it is very important to go to school. He has been telling me that I am not letting him go to school and that I should call and tell you that I am the one stopping him from going to school, because he is very eager to come…”

It struck me hard. On bad days, I just remember Sameer and so many others like him in my class. I remember his eagerness, his willingness to learn and his never give up attitude and I push myself to work harder. It is because of children like him that I get up every day and go to school not to do a job but to strive to make a change.