Session 5 Class ||| C

It was a very challenging session. From the first exercise I noticed that the class 3 kids today were in such a naughty mood that they were just not in the mood to work. They wanted to giggle and run around and just have fun. Sometimes it is good that such kinds of things happen and we use it to our advantage. We started off by making a circle and doing activities like hanging like a towel with our bodies bent and breathing that woke the kids up. Then I gave them newspaper. I asked them to use the newspaper to depict the elements. Some started making a house, some a plane, while some wrapped it around their neck and pretended they were flying superheroes. Some were sitting down and very immaculately moulding the newspaper. They were just having fun.
After the session I asked them what they felt. Some said they like a bird flying in the sky.
But one girl had an extremely different answer. " I have made a ball because it can float on water or become a cloud in the sky." :)
They had a lot of fun in this session and like I said earlier you never know when what will surprise you. I was happy that the kids were starting to think differently. Bizarre things came out like a sea house and a grass house on wheels where the house will grow as and when it rains. They were beginning to think and stimulate their imagination. They also did visualization that I will put up very soon.

"Fear cannot be the basis of learning. Neither can competition and comparison. A little more subtle but equally crucial fact is that reward and punishment do not bring about learning. So what is the right approach?"

Videos and Drawings of session 4

Sesssion 4 class |V D

Today's session was great!
Taking some points from the talk I had with Varun and Vivek I decided to combine movement and drawing today. I noticed that when I used to tell them to draw from home and come they used to loose the feeling and imagination, experienced in class. So I decided they will draw in class. We focused again on air as the kids find it very difficult to express. We started off by playing a word association game. I gave them chits on which there was written one word relating to the themes like WET, DRY, FLAT, BLUE and the first association that came to their minds without thinking they had to write it down.
We then began with our bodies to express the element air, and feel like either a balloon expanding or a kite flying or a bird. This time I thought the kids were becoming more and more accustomed to this process. With the object automatically came the sound and we let them go with the flow. Today we also experimented with different speeds. We also taught them breathing. What happens when the sir fill up your lungs and what happen when the air is let out?
After expressing with the body I gave them a LARGE sheet of paper they we excited and overwhelmed with the size of the paper. All this time I was making them draw on A4 suddenly I gave then an A1 size they all started drawing intricately, but I kept instigating them to draw what the felt and use the expanse of the sheet, Slowly their bodies started to move and use the whole paper. It was very interesting to see their interpretation of the session. Because air is light they started by moving their crayons lightly. I encouraged them to move away from form. With form comes basis and I wanted them to just feel and draw rather than concentrating on the prettiness of the drawing which was difficult for them. They did something out of their comfort zone today.

Interviews

Vivek Mansukhani and Varun (Puppeteer)
-Rather than interviewing him on the questions, I asked him how I could remove certain obstacles in my process. One of my major obstacles was removing their personal bias. They were viewing the elements subjectively and I wanted them to see the "Bigger Picture". I figured that everything is biased, we all have pre conceived notions and if I wanted an objective way of thinking I needed to stimulate it, they wont be able to think of it by themselves.
-Another really good point they told me that make them create something larger than themselves in that space, and the anticipation to see it morph each time would make them engage and be more involved in the process, that way they will look forward to your sessions and will have something to work towards.
-They also told me " Don't ever make them feel that you are using them for your own research and process, make them feel that my purpose here is being there for them and make their experience more enriching."
-Make them do bizarre things because when it sparks into something meaningful you don't know. You also get answers when it is least expected so don't force it, it will come.
-Make the child from now on do hands on things after doing the feeling exercises.
Make them feel and do.
-One of my problems was that after my class they felt very very sleepy and the teachers were complaining and I began to think I was going wrong somewhere. Then they told me if they are feeling sleepy its good thing because that means that they are using their brain and all there senses are active. To avoid this give them a sugar rush it always works with them.
-Make them feel that they are a part of this whole process and we are one team, take their opinions also, make them design their own activties.
-Interconnections, associations and Interactions.
-Control their fun, have a balance.
Talking to them really gave me a lot of insight from their own personal experiences how to handle children.

Session 3 class ||| C

This session with class 3 C we decided to focus on one element: AIR. keeping from last sessions feedback many of them found air difficult to do as it wasn't a tangible object that we could see or touch. It was a sense, a feeling. We started with a discussion how do we see air or feel air, and very interesting things came out. The first one being the obvious wind and storm. Then we started moving to our daily life and some said fan but we went to complex things like running and then "When balloon fills up with us blowing into it we know the sir is present."
"We also know there is air present when we breath when our lungs go in and out."
" Air is also there when we fly a kite"
" Even when a bird is flying it pushes the air from its wings"

After hearing their discussion we started with a breathing exercise and imagining the colour of their breath going inside and bloating your stomach. It was also a concentrating exercise to get them in the mode. After them being relaxed and taken some deep breaths in we asked them to start getting up very lightly and blow and imaginary bubble in front of then and then step inside and see how you can move in that bubble and what you feel. Do you feel light? or trapped?

Then we asked them to feel the air is pushing them and moved and each of their body parts getting lighter. Like the air is asking their arms to mover. We also asked them to moved like they were different states of the wind, Still, windy, storm, calm. They kids were very easily able to move from these states and this session was definitely better than the last one. Because the kids are a little younger they take time to get accustomed to such a process.
After the session I gave them paper to draw or to make a visual of what they felt or what they saw, I also gave them an exercise to look through magazines and news papers and cut out things related to air and make a collage. I also introduced them to KWL charts.

Visualisations of class 3 B

Introducing 4 D to the KWL Charts

Session 2: |V D

Introducing Class 4 D
We did the same thing as in the method as we did for class 3C the theme was spontaneous reactions and this class was much easier to work with as the were older.
We started first by focusing and concentrating and then slowly imagining and then expressing the element through your body.
With this class the voice commands were more easily understood and the kids felt it they were very serious and wernt as giggle as the younger kids. We started by first slowly moving one part of the body like the arms and making them as liquid like water as they could and then the hips and then the neck and after they are completely liquid then we put the movement into it. This class wasn't inhibited by any element. They the same way did air and earth as well. They knew the different materials and they moved accordingly. Clay was very interesting to see as they kept sculpting themselves in various positions. The School had a learning Center that i knew off but I didn't know that I would have a blind girl in my class, Iris. She is very well trained to judge distances with sound. When looking at her you cant make out that she is blind. When I got introduced to the class she was extremely apprehensive to meet me but then she got accustomed to me being around. It was her birthday that day! Her reactions were very different as she didnt have any pre conceived notions of the elements because she hadn't seen them and expreienced them the way the other kids had. It was refreshing to see what she came up with. The only command she followed like the rest of the class was FREEZE!. The other kids when the were asked to do water they started wriggling like fish or the waves and she with her duppata kept dancing around in circles. :) It was really nice!
After the class I asked the kids to draw what they felt.

Interviews

Head Mistress Pathak: Bluebels school, New Delhi
Drama is an extremely important tool in education today, it not only helps you learn but it also works in "Therapeutic ways" your mind becomes calmer and your learning is stress free. With drama all your senses come alive and are put to use.
Young Children are more adaptable to a tool like this as you grow older you come more rigid and this unnecessary societal pressure."Tunnel Vision".
Today we are very adaptable to such a learning system but it requires "changing of mindsets". The teacher who is teaching the subject needs to believe in the system in order to impart knowledge. It also depends on the person itself . What kind of a person is teaching the child.
Integrated learning is extremely important for the child to get holistic learning. We have introduced Kinetic education, Maths through physical education, Dance, Music, Sequencing.
All our teachers are familiar with Howard Gardner's Theory of multiple intelligences. Yes it is a rigid theory and everyone has a bit of all the intelligences but it is important for a teacher to understand the different levels in which teaching can take place. The other theories like the 360 degree way of learning also are being used by our teachers.

ONCE UPON A SCHOOL

-This talk made me think about the importance of One-on-One attention.
-Each child has different needs and they cant be addressed in a class room of 60 kids with a single class teacher. They come from different backgrounds.
-How can we give each child one-on-one attention once a week? I t proved that the kids moved higher faster.
-Trust. The parents trusts the teacher, The teacher trusts the syllabus, The students trusts the teacher and the parents and the syllabus. Are we living up to each others TRUST?
-Stigma. A place like this wasn't seen as seeking Help. And also it was different from school.
-"Cross pollination" Feeding off each other while working together.
-Volunteers. Should Parents be allowed to be a part of the child's learning process in school?
-Outcome such as a prize gives the child an incentive or a drive. This made me think why in school everything we did was an interhouse and points used to go towards the Best House Trophy. Even chart competitions in class were a competition. :)

TED talks: How we learn?

BRING ON THE LEARNING EVOLUTION!




I was just going through some of the Ted talks on the theme How we learn when i found some very intresting responces that got me thinking about my project and my workshops,

"Sir Ken Robinson hits the nail on the head when he says we must educate individuals, rather than trying to make one size fit all students. The right-brain, artistic children are seen as a nuisance in some schools because they are bored to death by the left-brain curriculum and "death by lecture" approach to presenting it. Dr. Richard Feynman, the famous physicist, was a kinesthetic learner who would roll around on the floor trying to imagine particle behavior. He would be viewed by many teachers as disruptive in the classroom.

Overall, the message we hear as children is "you're not good enough," and this is reinforced throughout our lives in the workplace and by the commercial advertising on television. Performance appraisals in business and industry most often go something like this: "Jim, you are doing fine at xyz, but you really need to work on ABC." In my case, xyz might be project management, while ABC could be juggling. I'll never be good at it, so why worry?"

This got me thinking about my school days. I was that one child in class who hated to sit in a lecture and just stare at the bored and hear the teacher go non stop for 45 mins about a subject when I'd rather be rolling in the mud and learning my own way. In school even in my senior year i used to either draw out the lesson so i could visually remember what i was learning rather than textually or stand in front of the mirror and read to myself aloud and take on different charecters and instances so I could retain better. I realised that the poems I made tunes for or the first act of Julius Ceaser I made a drawing with characters for I still remember by heart because they were catchy and interesting ways of learning. So while doing that Is the child being disruptive or innovative? What is being creative and innovative and how can you judge that with a teaching system like ours?

Research Questions

-Can Drama or theater be used as a pedagogical tool?
- What all can theater do in the field of education?
-Is there a need for such sort of transformation in our teaching system today or is the current teaching system convincing enough?
-What do you think of Integrated Learning? and how should it be incorporated?
- What do you think of the new NCERT text books?
- How do you think that children learn best?

These are my base questions secondary questions will come up as the conversation builds.

Session 1, Class ||| C

I went for my first session with Blue Bells School, I was allotted a class of 20 kids. Much to my surprise the theater teacher of Bluebels school, Beatrice was one of the people from Adil Hussain's troop that had taught us in foundation.
For the session we had choosen the theme of SPONTANEOUS REACTIONS.
Let the children with he medium of body and movement express the elements of Water, Air and Earth.
We started of by introducing what i was doing and my themes of Water, Air and Earth. The were extremely excited as they were studying these in their EVS class. We began by first making a circle and closing our eyes to build concentration and feeling the warmth of each others palms. The concentration span of the children was zero. They were giggling and laughing. :) They were excited. We worked this excitement and energy to our advantage. We asked them to close their eyes and imagine a nice river a clam river...Blue, calming blue and you could suddenly see smiling faces. Choosing the right moment we asked them to start moving, all of them started moving in very very flowing movements with their hands and feet swirling from one place to another. We asked them to take diffrent moods of the river calm, rough, still and all of them understood the command and moved accordingly. It was fun to see their perception of the subject , but it was very difficult to keep their eyes closed. They didnt enjoy the slow part of the workshop and soon saw they were getting bored and suddenly we asked them to mover like rain with sound which they enjoyed very much. The made wishi-woshi sounds and tip-tip and pitter patter sounds. They knew the difference between the nature of the two water bodies. We did the same thing with the other elements of Air and Earth. They each Knew the difference of nature and material.
After the session we asked them to voice out what they felt:
" Air is all around us so, we cant move all around so it was a little difficult"
"Air was difficult because we cannot see air but we can only feel air, we cant even smell air."
" Rain was fun because I love the rain"
" Earth was fun because I like clay and made a figure."
" Water, I love moving like water."
Air was tougher for most of them as it was not a tangible object they didnt know how it looked or felt or touched and imagining that was difficult for them. I was very happy to see that they were not rigid to move or inhibited to express. They were very open.
A lot of their reaction came from their own basis of what they liked and what they didn't. After the class I gave them a sheet of paper each and asked them to draw what the saw while imagining and what they felt.
So eagerly waiting for the drawings! :)
My next session is on Tuesday with class |V D.

P.S : I didn't document this session as the kids are too small and they need to get accustomed to me and bring a camera would startle them. But I will document the Tuesday session as they are older kids.

Agastya: Sparkling Creativity in Rural India!

This is a very Intresting site where similar work is being done with rural children.
http://www.agastya.org/index.html
Agastya is a science- Education progrmame. This is what they do:
One of Agastya’s central goals is to create an education dissemination model, which is cost-effective, scalable and replicable within India and elsewhere; a model, which provides breadth and depth.

Theory of multiple Intellegence

According to multiple intelligence theory, there are eight basic types of intelligence. Originally Gardner listed seven intelligences, but in 1999 he added the eighth' one: naturalist intelligence. He has also considered existential intelligence and moral intelligence, but does not find these acceptable.

Use in education

Traditionally, schools have emphasized the development of logical intelligence and linguistic intelligence (mainly reading and writing). IQ tests (given to about 1,000,000 students each year) focus mostly on logical and linguistic intelligence as well. While many students function well in this environment, there are those who do not. Gardner's theory argues that students will be better served by a broader vision of education, wherein teachers use different methodologies, exercises and activities to reach all students, not just those who excel at linguistic and logical intelligence.

Many teachers see the theory as simple common sense. Some say that it validates what they already know: that students learn in different ways. On the other hand, James Traub's article in The New Republic notes that Gardner's system has not been accepted by most academics in intelligence or teaching.

George Miller, the esteemed psychologist credited with discovering the mechanisms by which short term memory operates, wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Gardner's argument boiled down to "hunch and opinion" (p. 20). Gardner's subsequent work has done very little to shift the balance of opinion. A recent issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law devoted to the study of intelligence contained virtually no reference to Gardner's work. Most people who study intelligence view M.I. theory as rhetoric rather than science, and they're divided on the virtues of the rhetoric.

The application of the theory of multiple intelligences varies widely. It runs the gamut from a teacher who, when confronted with a student having difficulties, uses a different approach to teach the material, to an entire school using MI as a framework. In general, those who subscribe to the theory strive to provide opportunities for their students to use and develop all the different intelligences, not just the few at which they naturally excel.

A Harvard-led study of 41 schools using the theory came to the conclusion that in these schools there was "a culture of hard work, respect, and caring; a faculty that collaborated and learned from each other; classrooms that engaged students through constrained but meaningful choices, and a sharp focus on enabling students to produce high-quality work."

Of the schools implementing Gardner's theory, the most well-known is New City School, in St. Louis, Missouri, which has been using the theory since 1988. The school's teachers have produced two books for teachers, Celebrating Multiple Intelligences and Succeeding With Multiple Intelligences and the principal, Thomas Hoerr, has written Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School as well as many articles on the practical applications of the theory. The school has also hosted four conferences, each attracting over 200 educators from around the world and remains a valuable resource for teachers interested in implementing the theory in their own classrooms.

Thomas Armstrong argues that Waldorf education organically engages all of Gardner's original seven intelligences.

Can People be judged in black or white. No one person can fully come under a category. Each person has a bit of each category in them and for some one category is more dominant than the other

Theatre in Education: Learning is Fun for Barmer, Rajasthan school students

Let’s do it the fun way When Joga Ram, a Class VII student of a government school in Barmer, Rajasthan, wanted to participate in a four day theatre-cum-education workshop, he was discouraged by the people in his village because he was someone who had problems concentrating on studies and they thought it would prove to be too distracting for him.

His performance in the play was so commendable, however, that he became a regular at all of his school’s stage productions. Gradually, his interest in studies also grew.

Thanks to the ‘fun’ element in such theatre workshops, most students find these help improve their academic performance as well.

“I was a maths teacher and was keen about theatre. A few years ago, I combined both to make mathematics interesting. It gets all children involved in the class activity,” says Kamlesh Tiwari, who co-founded the BNKVS Group of Theatre Society, which propagates theatre-in-education.

Play time Theatre in education has simplified the lives of students and teachers alike. With advent of theatre-oriented education, Shyam Sunder Gehlot, an elementary teacher of mathematics in a government school in Jodhpur, doesn’t struggle any more to explain the concepts of geometry.

“To teach children about different geometric shapes such as a circle, triangle and hexagon, we make them enact a play,” says Gehlot. These theatre workshops get a ‘thumbs up’ from child counsellors, who find theatre an enriching exercise.

“It improves communication skills, helps children overcome hesitation, and makes them confident. Children also make new friends (while enacting plays). It brings out different aspects of their personality,” says Pervin Malhotra, a child counsellor. Psychologist Dr Anindita S Roy has a similar opinion.

“Continuous study engenders boredom. It is important to seek the help of music, sports and sometimes yoga to help children unwind. With these methods, students can keep learning without getting bogged down. Using such teaching methodologies not only help students shape their personalities, but also better their academic performance.”

“I have seen the results of around 20 per cent students improving after we took up theatre,” adds Gehlot.
After witnessing an overwhelming response from more than two dozen schools in the oil fields in Barmer, Tiwari plans to replicate theatre-in-education in parts of Gujarat, too.

The entire exercise is spearheaded by Cairn India, an oil and gas major. Unwind to rejuvenate In elementary classes, theatre is used as a vehicle to teach mathematics, English and Hindi.

However, senior classes still have to use conventional teaching techniques, which can become monotonous. To avoid such monotony, Zion Tutorials, an IIT-JEE coaching academy in Rohini, screens interesting and motivational videos for its students. Anup Gupta, co-founder of the academy, believes in the need to unwind after classes.
“Students watch interesting videos on YouTube. The videos could relate to a dance performance or magic tricks. Though it doesn’t help them in the entrance preparation directly, it does help rejuvenate them,” he says.

Raising the bar Recreational breaks can be used to motivate, too. Divya Dawra, a student of Little Flowers Public School, Shahdara, says, “Attending classes continuously for four hours is quite difficult.

Watching inspirational videos for 15 minutes is quite a healthy break.” Recalling one such video, she says, “We were shown the story of Pranav Mistry (the inventor of Sixth Sense, a wearable interface technology) who studied at an obscure engineering college in Gujarat but went on to become a research scholar in a US university. The message we got was that you can achieve anything you want if you are focussed and hard-working.”

Experts say that if students are immersed in sports right from school, it transforms their attitude for good. “Students then learn to be competitive, develop team spirit and follow a disciplined approach in everything they do,” says Saumil Majumdar, managing director, EduSports, a company that provides sports solutions toschools across India.