A child needs a good teacher rather than a good School

 The teacher student relationship is very important for children. They spend about eight hours a day together for almost 10 months a year. A positive relationship between the student and teacher is difficult to establish, but can be good for both individuals at either end.
Good relationship can reward an approachable learning environment and invite the students to learn. A teacher and student who have the qualities of good communications, mutual respect and interest in the subject will establish a positive relationship in the classroom. 
Children show different capabilities in learning and achieving goals. A few students will grasp and learn quickly, but some need repetition and different techniques to understand the same lesson. On the other hand, there are students who are not serious in any thing and will be ‘fooling’ around all the time. They use school as a source of entertainment alone. Teaching in such situation becomes difficult, especially if communication is frequently interrupted. Teachers restore to punish the disruptive students to control them in order to create a positive relationship. Instead they need to inspire students with a desire to learn.
Vernon F. Jones and Louise Jones discussing how to create a learning environment for children, in their book Responsible Classroom Discipline say ‘Student disruptions will occur frequently in classes that are poorly organized and managed where students are not provided with appropriate and interesting instructional tasks’. Good communication creates a better atmosphere for a classroom environment. Studies indicate that academic achievement and student behavior are highly influenced by the quality of teacher-student relationship. The more the teacher connects with their students, the more likely they will be able to help students learn at a high level and accomplish better.
Thanks to Ms. Suma G. of Srikantha Girls High School for illustrating this case with one of her ‘new’ students, Jayasmitha, whom she proudly introduced. I was curious to know what was new about this girl in her tenth grade. She was a new student to the school! She had been made to change schools in a crucial period of her formative days. The reputed earlier school had shown doors to this girl for lack of performance. That school it seems was proficient in producing ‘marks scoring machine’ like students. I recollected a teacher from that school once proudly saying ‘we only produce Sachin Tendulkars’ and they knew about it two years before hand. Bravo!
The image conscious school had gone to the extent of complaining her parents about her class room discipline and shown her the doors. One would expect a sober face of such an unfortunate girl but in reality she was the opposite. She was bright, curious and out-going. She didn’t seem to have any regrets for the event. She politely said ‘I am worried about the other four girls who came out with me. I miss them’.

Here she was an active participant of the School Eco club. She had also won a place in the Inter High school Wildlife elocution contest organized by the Mysore Zoo. A prize in the English speaking contest was big news in this, as some would call, a small school.  In less than three months she had bonded with a new teacher and had started shining. May their friendship reach greater heights and last for ever.

Workshop on Energy- Explore, Harness and Conserve

National Council for Science and Technology Communication, Dept. of Science and Technology, Govt. of India launched the program “National Children’s Science Congress” in 1993. Ever since, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath (KRVP) has coordinated this program in Karnataka. A theme is chosen for every couple of years and the focus for this year is Energy- explore, harness and conserve. This is an essential issue for the stability of India and needs a lot of attention and popularization among the current generation.

Every citizen is getting into the league of power users and there is an urgent need to regulate the generation and distribution. It is said that since independence we have electrified over 50 thousand villages and there are some 80 thousand villages to be electrified. All cities have been electrified and there is an ever growing demand in them. Some cities witness severe power cuts. Our industrial sector is the greatest guzzler of power and the Agricultural sector is experiencing the greatest pinch.  Without electricity none of the modern technologies work. As a result many people leave agriculture, village life and move on to the cities. Because of this, the policy makers keep projecting Power Generation necessities upon projected latent demands. Also we should bear in mind that development is inversely proportional to preservation of Nature.

In this context it is high time we consider looking for alternate and cost effective sources of energy rather than depending on the vast power grids of the country. Local means of generation reduces the initial cost of production, would cause less environmental impact and save upon the transmission and distribution loss.  Such congress that has a design of initiating the thought process at the school level is a welcome initiative.

With our governments going on an all out mission towards a Nuclear India what relevance does such programme have?  Thousands of crores of rupees are invested into Nuclear Energy research and installations which caters only about 3 percent of our requirement till date. On the other hand the Departments of Alternate energy in the universities is systematically made to shut their shop. ASTRA of the Indian Institute of Sciences Bangalore and CART (Centre for Appropriate Technologies) of National Institute of Engineering are examples of such institutes that have left behind land mark inventions.

Nuclear technology has become a strategic instrument of US Foreign policy and is working to reach a Global nuclear Market to 750 million dollars over the next ten years and a power starved country like India becomes an important customer on their policy. Indians must look for alternative sources if it really needs to become self reliant.  But our politicians and policy makers are letting us down. Indian needs to do more than simply conduct such children’s congress. We need a collective will to tap the vast reserve of renewable resource sector and talk more of saving power and money than how much you spend at the policy level.

INDIAN POWER SCENE

 Sincere and dedicated teachers like Bhavani Shankar and Kantharaju of the Chamarajanagara unit of KRVP have been facilitating science teachers to undertake student projects through their schools. They are involved in the field for over a decade and promoted the national cause. The teachers from their circle have reached their students to the state and national level competitions several times.  On the 17^th August they had organized an introductory workshop in which 60 teachers had taken part. Mr. Manu. K and Mr. Dinesh Kumar, Project engineer of KREDL delivered the guest lecture and enlightened the teachers.

Mr. Bhavani Shankar

Mr. Kantaraju

How Independent are we, from Poverty and Hunger?

I had a privilege of being invited as the chief guest for the Independence Day celebration at Govt. School Halemarthalli, in a valley near Male Mahadeshwara hills. Children were in their fullest of spirits- neatly bathed and dressed up in whites. They were all profusely dusted with super white chalk and the girls had conspicuous red patches on their cheeks. The teachers were also at their best and were involved in putting up for the ceremony. The head master gave a call over the microphone and the entire community started gathering in the school premises. The elected representatives and the members of the school betterment committee occupied the chairs across a table that made the dais.

The colourful march-past began to the rhythm of the school band which was setting up a trance and even building up. The elected representative hoisted the flag. The kids were doing exactly what the armed forces or the policemen did in front of their commandants.

Watching the parade from the dais I slipped into the memories of my childhood. We too would undergo a sort of regimental training for a week in the month of August. We enacted the very same parade as these kids. I wondered why we do this! After all, we were all civilians gathered to hoist the flag and the Independence Day was a common man’s celebration and that of the state like the Republic Day. Well, how could this practice been absorbed into our psyche?  Such celebrations were a custom of the British regiment in the cantonment areas. Indians who obeyed the English and had their etiquettes were part of the ceremony.   People who worked for the British officers and later children of Indian officers who could school in the Cant became part of these practices. The others were not even let into the area.  For a common Indian it must have been a great adventure to even see such practices. As the British clout rose, it must have been a routine even around the last picket. People must have watched the parade go from across the compound walls just like the people who stacked upon the school compound wall here. So many of them might have developed an ambition to be part of the celebration- to salute and be saluted.

There was a series of spectacular dance by the children to filmy patriotic songs. Apart from songs in Kannada there were songs in Tamil, Marathi and Rajasthani which the children had learnt by themselves. The community was largely made up of Tamil speaking Christians. The mother tongue of the teacher who did a wonderful job of compeering in Kannada was Urdu. What was moving was the fact that the celebration was funded by the parents.  Mr. Kandasamy a senior citizen who had worked in a stone quarry had presented all the prizes for distribution. The spectators were made up of women and children, men who had nothing to do in this season without rains.They missed the rains for three consecutive years! Their fields were all ploughed and prepared but there weren’t any rains to initiate sowing. Their only assured rains were in the month of October during the North east Monsoon. With all the granite quarries gradually winding up were really out of jobs. The adjoining forests were declared national park and protected for tiger and the Elephants barring their entry into them for grazing. Yet they held back to their village while so many of their neighbors had left to the big towns in all directions looking for jobs. But these people must have had no choice but hold to their posts in anticipation of some minimal rewards of Independent India. 

-Narrated by Manu K

Meeting a budding artist!

Nisha Sastry

Early morning, last Sunday, my friend SJ Srinivas of Regional Museum of Natural Histor called me to inform that Mr. VSS Shasry, origamy and kirigamy artist from Kolar was in town. We decided to meet him. He wasn't home. He was out for a programme, and we waited at the gate without knocking the door. We thought that there was nobody at home. After sometime, a stern voice came out to enquire who we were. It was his sister who had taken us to be some customers of neighboring shop or youth who came for a smoke and create nuisance at doorsteps. There were exchange of smiles and apologies from both sides. Behind the lady was a girl in her teens who wished politely "hello uncle". She was Nisha, Shastry's only daughter. I had last seen her as a kid when she visited Kokkare Belluru in the peak of a bird season, a decade ago. I was at the nursery pen, set up for the orphan pelican chicks involved in some daily chores. Shastry couple came in, and withstood the stench of the birds and took pictures of this little girl standing beside the pelicans. the picture of a little girl handing me over a contribution from her savings is still afresh in my memory. They had made it a custom to donate some one in need on each of her birthdays and that year the pelicans in the pens were the beneficiaries. I recalled the incident, but Nisha had no register of it in her memory. May be with a good intention of not to pamper her, Mr. Shastry had not revealed this fact to her. 

Paper Man

Mr. V S S Sastry

Nisha had got seat in a prestigious engineering college at Bangalore and was waiting for the classes to commence. Nurtured by her father, a Limca Book of Records holder for 151 inch long paper rocket, she had ample opportunity to pick up  extra curricula. Apart from reading, she had indulged in drawing and painting. She didn't hold back to present her scrap book. I was astonished to see a whole series of birds neatly painted in her book. They all were quite realistic and truthful in their colour representation. Over the years, she had transformed into a budding artist. Here are some of her paintings!

Black headed Oriole

Black necked crane

Indian Bustard

Fairy blue bird

Horn-bill

Pheasant tailed Jaccana

Red Finch

Narrated by Manu K

Tributes to Zafar Futehally

Zafar Futehally was a well known conservationist and ornithologist of high order. He was associated with Bombay Natural History Society for over 60 years, of which he was the honorary secretary for 16 long years. He was the founder editor of Newsletter for Birdwatchers which he had started in the cyclostyled format and sustained for over three decades. He served as co editor of Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society too. He was the founder trustee and vice president of WWF-India. A recipient of many prestigious national and international awards, he had settled in Bengaluru since 1970s. He had nurtured a vibrant bird watching community there, and was instrumental in conservation movement of lakes. He recently shifted to Raigad, his home town, where he breathed the last at 92.

Need for change in Curriculum

Here is a response from a respected teacher on one of our workshops for teachers! 
Let us read it in her own words.......

The urbanization has created such a situation where we are scared to send our children out alone. The cruelty of assaulting young children at the slightest opportunity has become a common shocking event. In the plight of protecting and providing children the best knowledge at the safest place on earth is- enclosed protected classrooms at schools and TV and computer tables at home. To day it is inevitable that both parents run around to pull the family cart forward to meet the ends. We know there is no end for those “ends”. Parents obviously have less time to spend with their children. We have raised and created children who are aliens to our own Natural environment.

In my career I have seen thousands of children suffering from learning disabilities just because their curriculum for learning is made up of materials using only two dimensions 1.Auditory input 2. visual input. The other sensory organs like tactile, sense of smell, sense of taste are barred of learning. Majority schools insist on reproducing the printed or written material as it is in their test or exam papers. Understanding of the subject or the concept is not focused at all. The concept of depth, space, etc are all learnt through formula and to apply this knowledge in real life is very difficult for these kids. One of my10 year old student used to wonder why is it so difficult to learn something that is already discovered, invented. If we our selves had to discover or invent how much more difficult it would be?

As a child I remember playing out doors for long hours with so many friends. We used to hide a piece of glass bangle in between the mud , divide the mud heap in to three and ask the other one to find the bangle piece. Now the glass bangles have replaced to plastic and rubber. Our children don’t see colourful glass pieces like that in any common place. Touching mud, playing in the mud helped us to overcome our sensory issues.
We also played a game with 5 small pebbles called as “Achinakallu”. One has to throw the pebbles from palm side and hold them back on the dorsal side of the palm drop down 4 of them and catch one in the hand, now throw the single pebble up take one of the pebble which is lying down and catch the thrown pebble before it drops down. This game taught us balancing, counting, eye hand coordination, spatial judgments, sense of timing, quickness, judgment of how much effort to apply to throw the pebble up to catch it back after picking a pebble from the ground and the great sense of achievement. This single game taught us Physics, maths, hand function, language skill as you interact with your friends and socialization skill. 
Our parents never pampered us with junk food, we would have only three meals a day, when ever we went out to play we were ever hungry we could eat any thing irrespective of the item’s edible nature, we as friends used to plunge in to any bush and eat the fruits grown on them eg. Lantana fruit, some creepers bore white fruits, the inner core of a marigold flower below the petals, the inside portion of the gulmohar seed and many such things used to be very very tasty. We used to steal grocery from home to play family games and cook, it used to be fried dal, beaten rice, dry coconut, jaggery, ground nuts, tamarind, salt chilly powder etc. Now a days we see so many parents complaint that their only child’s only problem is being fussy in eating. Child is not allowed to get hungry there is utterly no physical exertion, above all they are allowed to eat harmful junk food. These practices naturally lead to Hyperactivity and inattentiveness. They are unable to focus on their learning activity which does not involve any physical activity.

It is high time that we need to change Teaching methodology to our future generation, facilitate and enable them to explore, learn through reasoning, and thinking. Allow the children to experiment, learn through trial and error method, touch, feel things about which they are learning to understand and learn better. In this regard Hasiru Hejje has already stepped forward we just need to pool in all those who wish to provide better learning environment to follow their foot steps and join them. Let us strengthen Teaching-learning programmes in a better way to handle this earth more meaning fully.

Champa Jaiprakash

Visit to Protected areas for EE intervention

Every protected area has a different habitat and a flagship species of its own. Environment Educators could make use of this opportunity for the broader cause of Education. They provide a real world context and issues from which concepts and skills can be taught. Even a nearby sanctuary can become an ideal place for a field visit. A theme based camp could be planned in every sanctuary; of course the success of the camp lies in the availability of logistics. The rule is not to have all the time upon travel. More time should be dedicated to activities in the sanctuary. Also, all sanctuaries will not have similar facility. Yet, most of them can accommodate around 30 students.
By designing a series of educational experiences a particular set of outcomes could be created. Non-formal education has a great advantage over formal education because of its flexible programme involving a wide range of activities. Choosing activities that are hands-on, minds-on investigation type and learner-centered the participants are provided with ample opportunities to construct their own understanding. When engaged in direct experiences, learners are known to be challenged to use higher order thinking skills.

While at the Daroji Sloth Bear sanctuary, children can work to decipher why sloth bears have a dark shaggy coat in spite of being a mammal of the tropics. Last summer children of grade 7 of the TVS school, Hosur spent four days in the field to find the right answer. They collected fruits and berries that the sloth bears thrive on and analysed the calendar of fruiting.

At the tropical rain forests at Someshwara, the shape and size of the leaves could be used as the central theme to realize the ecosystem. Children of Mysore collected many plant specimens to understand the multi-layered structure of the forests and the creatures that inhabit them.

In an arid zone, typically grasses are in abundance. The diversity in them could be made the key issue. Based on the age group the theme and the activities could be designed. In most cases the local officers and the community could be involved in discussions about the conservation issues and human- animal conflict.

Nature camps - vital interventions in environmental education

The concept of Environmental Education (EE) or environment for sustainable development(ESD) is not new to our country (that's what we claim) . Our traditions emphasize harmony with nature and has taught volumes which the current generation has neither heard of them nor values. 

There are a number of good teachers who deliver EE with passion and out of their heart. This might be out of their patriotic concern or out of their understanding of the issue as a global, contemporary concept. Do they comfortably link EE with the prescribed syllabus and enumerate the concept of sustainability?

In fact, that is the greatest challenge of our times. We have reached a point where education policy must ensure that the concept of ESD is discussed in its broadest sense and woven into the curricular framework so that, strong bridges are built between the classroom and the outside world. The main focus of EE should be to expose youngsters to the real world in which they live and would work upon their aspirations. they need all the knowledge, cognitive and motor skills to design their world better. This cannot be achieved only through capacity of the teachers but through abundant practical hands on experience to the students. 

Nature camps are an ideal intervention into the curriculum that has the potential to associate and interconnect several of the most essential skills that enables ESD a reality.

Night stay camps have the advantage of extending the class beyond the school hours. It gives more scope for elaborating the subject. It builds better student-teacher relation too.

Child-Nature relationship; vital for Earth’s Future

Psychologist Herbert Spencer of nineteenth century proposed the “surplus energy theory” in his book, Principals of Psychology. He considered that the main reason for children’s play is to get rid of surplus energy in them. Though researchers rejected his theory long ago, it has left an unfortunate and lasting influence on our plan of children’s outdoor activities. School grounds are seen as areas for physical play during intervals, where children ‘burn off steam,’ and not for the other domains of development or for learning. 

Throughout human history, children were free to play and their first choice must have been to flee to the nearest wild place—whether it was a tree, brush or a watercourse. A few generations ago, most children spent their days in the fields or in the wilderness around. During our childhood, urbanization had begun yet we had access to nature and the world at large. We spent the bulk of our recreation time outdoors, using the streets, playgrounds and vacant plots “left over” during the process of urbanization. We had the freedom to play, explore and interact with the natural world without restrictions or supervision.

Children today have few opportunities to play in the outdoor and interact with the natural world. With their physical boundaries shrunk, the deep rooted ‘culture of fear’ among the parents has deprived them of the out doors. Crime and safety concerns are the reasons they don’t allow their children to play outdoors. Due to ‘stranger danger,’ many children are no longer free to roam in their neighborhoods unless accompanied by adults. Fears of reptiles, stray dogs, insect-born diseases, sunshine and rain and pollution are also leading adults to keep children indoors. Furthermore, children's lives have become structured and scheduled by adults, who believe that this sport or that lesson will make their children more successful as adults.
Childhood of wandering and exploring has been replaced by a childhood of adult supervised and scheduled activities. This drastic shift the opportunity for direct and spontaneous contact with nature has become a vanishing experience for children. No wonder children of sixth grade have doubts about where we get milk from or whether it is the ‘male cow’ or ‘female cow’ that gives milk.
Childhood and play in the outdoor natural world are no longer synonymous. With a ‘childhood of imprisonment’ experiences with nature is becoming ‘extinct’ which breeds apathy towards environmental concerns. As a consequence we have become a society separated from its natural origins failing to recognize our dependence upon nature even as a species.

Biodiversity of India is too diverse to teach in single syllabus

The rich biodiversity of India, along with twelve other countries account for more than 60 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. The species richness and endemism here is due to the diverse eco-geographic zones within. Being one of the world's oldest agricultural societies India is characterized by a complex mosaic of distinct agro-ecosystems, differentiated by their climate, soil, geology, vegetation, crops and other features like human culture. The stability and sustainability of biodiversity of such an agrarian society is therefore of paramount importance for the well being of the country.

Rightly, Biodiversity is an indispensable part of the curriculum of school education in the country. However, understanding of biodiversity varies with the context provided to the young learner through their surrounding environment. In most cases, it remains limited to mere theoretical chapters in their science and social science textbooks. It is so, because our education system at large looks at the science of biodiversity for its significance in the country’s socio-economic life rather than its support systems. The real-life connections, in the teaching of biodiversity and its conservation, are rather weak in the formal education system. The highly centralized syllabus of course would not relate to the local biodiversity. In such a context even the best of teachers and teaching methods would fail to create a practical citizen.

The fast emerging disconnects in the formal education system, between theory and practice of needs to be addressed urgently. We need to review the way environment and biodiversity and related concepts are taught and learned. A child needs to see a direct example of what it reads about to get connected with.

Even the teachers have expressed their problem in teaching a topic that they have not truly informed about. It used to be a case when a lesson on coral reefs was taught in the secondary schools through out our state. A vast majority of the teachers had not seen a picture of the habitat they were teaching! So the syllabus must be made up of relevant topics with local examples. A thorough decentralization process must happen in biodiversity education at least. Unless these links are strengthened and connections made, we will keep seeing another generation of young urban citizens who are unmindful to the critical importance of biodiversity our life, economy and polity.

At Hasiru Hejje we are exploring several creative educational approaches and efforts that we believe are required to make biodiversity education meaningful for an agrarian economy like India. 

Saving Biodiversity; whose job is it? Children are the last hope for Biodiversity

Biodiversity is a hot topic much talked after in the academic and conservation circles. But its concepts are not even known to common man. Younger generations seldom ignore it. The schools and colleges address these issues but have a very superficial approach. Topics related to the subject are known to be selectively skipped are asked to be read by the students themselves.

In the days of rampant development we only see habitat loss and gross mismanagement of whatever protected habitats that are left. While the profusion of invasive species has proved to be an irreversible havoc, unscientific and unsustainable methods of harvesting forest produce have become cause for the erosion of biodiversity.

              Many global conventions have come out as tools to safeguard the world’s biodiversity but in practice they have also become means to exploitation the same. Without strong policies and the will to retain the powerfully built knowledge about the consumption and conservation of local biodiversity the world wide web of life goes shattered. The concept of having Bio-diversity monitoring committees at the panchayath level was proposed ten years ago. The local communities were to prepare a register and monitor the existence, harvest and propagation of species within its jurisdiction. These committees were to safe guard the biological riches and bring in dividends to the community through sustained harvest. Such a nice concept lay asleep without any body feeling guilty about it.

Serious efforts are to be taken up to educate youth about the fragile ecosystems that support bio-diversity and the incalculable dividends they provide. Unless we show how much we derive as ecological services from them, Biodiversity conservation would not be appreciated by common man either. In a society where the common man is absolved in the process of eking out a living and the youth in the rut for a lucrative job there is no body that we can turn to. Probably it is the children who are a hope for all the life on earth.

Hence we have taken up Environment literacy as a single point agenda of Hasiru Hejje.  Our long experience in the field has convinced us to focus upon children above any other group.  Adults have fewer choices to make about their own lifestyles and their mindsets are rigidly formed. At times we have felt that it is much easier to bend a metal bar than convince an adult.  Egos and baggage are an issue when it comes to our consumptions. As adults we are made up of ‘pear pressure’ and mostly make personal decisions out of compulsion to remain in the right peck order.   As a result we don’t have much control on what we buy and what we require. Where and how to travel? What to eat and how much space to build for oneself?

Where as children still have time to make decisions for their lives. While we adults are stuck between our whims and possibilities, children have the leisure to make up their aspirations based on their needs. So it is doubly worth in investing in the education of the future custodians of this planet. After all it is their world and they need to have the freedom to know about it and the way our generation is vandalizing it. Let’s wake up and help them to see their world better.