We Are the Learners
RATIONALE: Case studies can be used to educate both the school teachers as well as school students.
Aman was a young man of twenty-four years, who was a postgraduate in Economics and was looking for employment. His couple of stints with local BPO organisations had left him disillusioned, that he had taken a step as harsh as cutting his academic certificates into pieces; overpowered by the resentment that the values and beliefs he learnt from home and in course of his formal education was a total waste at the workplace. Being the only son of his salaried parents, who had reached the age of retirement from their government service, made him gather himself up and look out for employment. After, many futile attempts to get employment, he eventually got the job in a charity school of a temporary school teacher on a year’s contract, as he was not a qualified teacher.
On the first day at the school, when Aman approached the classroom of Form Four, he was welcomed by a loud noise from the room, and as he stepped into the room, he found the students engrossed in a melee on the floor of the classroom. Aman loudly cleared his throat to attract their attention and moved to the middle of the classroom to disengage the students from one another and stop the scuffle. In an effort to introduce himself to the class, he extended his hand towards them and said, ‘Good Morning, I am Aman and would like you to introduce yourself to me.’ He received a very cold response from the students, as one of them replied in a gruff voice, ‘Yeah, we know, Pradeep, the Principal had told us about you.’ Just then, the clerk from the Principal’s office entered the classroom and asked Aman to meet the Principal in his office. Before heading for the Principal’s office, Aman glanced at all his students and pointed towards a small girl cowering in the corner of the classroom and said, ‘Hello, beautiful lady, can you take care of the class, while I am away. Do make a note of all those who yell, shout, fight and misbehave in the class while I am away. Will you?’ looking rather scared of her classmates, the young girl nodded her head and with a pencil and notebook in her hand, still looking scared and shy, she came and stood beside Aman. Sensing her fear, Aman gently asked her name. She continued to look at her classmates and whispered, ‘Sir, I am Heena…’ Aman gently patted her head and left the classroom and headed towards the Principal’s office.
When Aman, returned to the classroom after visiting the Principal’, he found all the students had made Heena stand in the middle of the room and were yelling, screaming and scaring her. The little girl was in tears and looked helplessly towards Aman, as he silently entered the classroom. He placed a finger on his lips, indicating to Heena to remain silent and not make her classmates aware of his presence in the room. Aman quietly joined the group of children and began screaming and jumping along with them. Immediately the children recognized the elderly voice that had joined the din and stood silent looking at Aman, who smiled and said, ‘Why did you stop; come. Let’s all jump and dance together for fun sake. Let all of us hold each other’s hands and circle around Heena. We will sing dance around her and she has to catch us. Whoever she is able to touch anyone of us, he or she has to move into the circle and introduce him or herself to the class, like tell his name, his favourite fruit, friend, animal and place. Come let’s have fun!’ Encouraged by Aman, all the children wholeheartedly participated in the game and by the time the game got over, Aman and his class of students knew each other well. Aman remembered what the school Principal, Mr Pradeep had told him in his office; the children were from broken homes with disturbed family life. Many of them had a single parent taking care of them. Aman, therefore, needed to take special care of them.
The children appeared happy after the small activity of getting to know each other. Aman then asked them to help him rearrange the classroom. With the help of the students, he rearranged the study desks and chairs in a horseshoe shape around the room and declared that from now on they would be the ‘teacher-learners’, to do that they needed to be in teams. On the count of one through three he divided the class into three teams and allotted each team one side of the horse-shoe arrangement of desks. He then asked the teams to decide a name for their team and a mascot too. He then gave each team a sheet of modelling paper and colour pens to write the team’s name along with the image of the mascot on it. Aman was happy to see the students enthusiastically complete the work and he then helped them to post their team’s banner on their respective side of the horseshoe.
While the students were busy designing their team’s banner, Aman quietly visited the library and with the help of the librarian, got copies of the children’s encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, books on mythology and even science dictionary and placed them on the table they had in the middle of the room.
The following day, when all the teams had settled down in their respective places, Aman gave each team a mythological story and asked them to sit in circles on the floor and read the story given to the team. He showed them the encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas and other reference books on the table and asked them to refer to the books to understand more about any work, animal, person, object or place they came across in the story and did not know about. The team would make a note of the information they would collect from the reference book and after the teams would complete reading the story, they would then narrate the story to the class along with the information they had collected from the reference books. They could even paint pictures to explain any new information to the class. The teams could even enact the story to make an interesting narration. The team with the best narration of the story would earn a branch of a tree. By the end of the week, the team that would first complete a tree by winning the most number of learning activities would be the Tree Winner of the week. The students welcomed the novel idea and out of sheer excitement, they yelled and clapped their hands, when they saw Aman too joined them in expressing their excitement, they giggled and quickly huddled together in their teams to complete the activity. Aman had got his old music system from home and switched it on to play a piece of peaceful instrumental music while the children were busy in their group activity. The first group to narrate the story used many pictures to explain the new concepts and information they had learnt. The second team enacted the story and used pictures too. The third team, to everyone’s surprise, sang the story in the form a ballad and used pictures too to explain any information and concept they had learnt in course of the activity. (To know more about Inter-Disciplinary and Holistic Approach to Learning please refer to: http://sunipslearning.blogspot.in/)
Aman was glad to find a positive transformation not only of the students in the class but also of him. One day, while he was playing a treasure hunt game with the students, he was called to the Principal’s office, where he found Mr Pradeep speaking with a group of people. On seeing Aman, Pradeep greeting him with a smile and introduced him to the people as parents of his students, who had come to thank him.
Aman was a young man of twenty-four years, who was a postgraduate in Economics and was looking for employment. His couple of stints with local BPO organisations had left him disillusioned, that he had taken a step as harsh as cutting his academic certificates into pieces; overpowered by the resentment that the values and beliefs he learnt from home and in course of his formal education was a total waste at the workplace. Being the only son of his salaried parents, who had reached the age of retirement from their government service, made him gather himself up and look out for employment. After, many futile attempts to get employment, he eventually got the job in a charity school of a temporary school teacher on a year’s contract, as he was not a qualified teacher.
On the first day at the school, when Aman approached the classroom of Form Four, he was welcomed by a loud noise from the room, and as he stepped into the room, he found the students engrossed in a melee on the floor of the classroom. Aman loudly cleared his throat to attract their attention and moved to the middle of the classroom to disengage the students from one another and stop the scuffle. In an effort to introduce himself to the class, he extended his hand towards them and said, ‘Good Morning, I am Aman and would like you to introduce yourself to me.’ He received a very cold response from the students, as one of them replied in a gruff voice, ‘Yeah, we know, Pradeep, the Principal had told us about you.’ Just then, the clerk from the Principal’s office entered the classroom and asked Aman to meet the Principal in his office. Before heading for the Principal’s office, Aman glanced at all his students and pointed towards a small girl cowering in the corner of the classroom and said, ‘Hello, beautiful lady, can you take care of the class, while I am away. Do make a note of all those who yell, shout, fight and misbehave in the class while I am away. Will you?’ looking rather scared of her classmates, the young girl nodded her head and with a pencil and notebook in her hand, still looking scared and shy, she came and stood beside Aman. Sensing her fear, Aman gently asked her name. She continued to look at her classmates and whispered, ‘Sir, I am Heena…’ Aman gently patted her head and left the classroom and headed towards the Principal’s office.
When Aman, returned to the classroom after visiting the Principal’, he found all the students had made Heena stand in the middle of the room and were yelling, screaming and scaring her. The little girl was in tears and looked helplessly towards Aman, as he silently entered the classroom. He placed a finger on his lips, indicating to Heena to remain silent and not make her classmates aware of his presence in the room. Aman quietly joined the group of children and began screaming and jumping along with them. Immediately the children recognized the elderly voice that had joined the din and stood silent looking at Aman, who smiled and said, ‘Why did you stop; come. Let’s all jump and dance together for fun sake. Let all of us hold each other’s hands and circle around Heena. We will sing dance around her and she has to catch us. Whoever she is able to touch anyone of us, he or she has to move into the circle and introduce him or herself to the class, like tell his name, his favourite fruit, friend, animal and place. Come let’s have fun!’ Encouraged by Aman, all the children wholeheartedly participated in the game and by the time the game got over, Aman and his class of students knew each other well. Aman remembered what the school Principal, Mr Pradeep had told him in his office; the children were from broken homes with disturbed family life. Many of them had a single parent taking care of them. Aman, therefore, needed to take special care of them.
The children appeared happy after the small activity of getting to know each other. Aman then asked them to help him rearrange the classroom. With the help of the students, he rearranged the study desks and chairs in a horseshoe shape around the room and declared that from now on they would be the ‘teacher-learners’, to do that they needed to be in teams. On the count of one through three he divided the class into three teams and allotted each team one side of the horse-shoe arrangement of desks. He then asked the teams to decide a name for their team and a mascot too. He then gave each team a sheet of modelling paper and colour pens to write the team’s name along with the image of the mascot on it. Aman was happy to see the students enthusiastically complete the work and he then helped them to post their team’s banner on their respective side of the horseshoe.
While the students were busy designing their team’s banner, Aman quietly visited the library and with the help of the librarian, got copies of the children’s encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, books on mythology and even science dictionary and placed them on the table they had in the middle of the room.
The following day, when all the teams had settled down in their respective places, Aman gave each team a mythological story and asked them to sit in circles on the floor and read the story given to the team. He showed them the encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas and other reference books on the table and asked them to refer to the books to understand more about any work, animal, person, object or place they came across in the story and did not know about. The team would make a note of the information they would collect from the reference book and after the teams would complete reading the story, they would then narrate the story to the class along with the information they had collected from the reference books. They could even paint pictures to explain any new information to the class. The teams could even enact the story to make an interesting narration. The team with the best narration of the story would earn a branch of a tree. By the end of the week, the team that would first complete a tree by winning the most number of learning activities would be the Tree Winner of the week. The students welcomed the novel idea and out of sheer excitement, they yelled and clapped their hands, when they saw Aman too joined them in expressing their excitement, they giggled and quickly huddled together in their teams to complete the activity. Aman had got his old music system from home and switched it on to play a piece of peaceful instrumental music while the children were busy in their group activity. The first group to narrate the story used many pictures to explain the new concepts and information they had learnt. The second team enacted the story and used pictures too. The third team, to everyone’s surprise, sang the story in the form a ballad and used pictures too to explain any information and concept they had learnt in course of the activity. (To know more about Inter-Disciplinary and Holistic Approach to Learning please refer to: http://sunipslearning.blogspot.in/)
Aman was glad to find a positive transformation not only of the students in the class but also of him. One day, while he was playing a treasure hunt game with the students, he was called to the Principal’s office, where he found Mr Pradeep speaking with a group of people. On seeing Aman, Pradeep greeting him with a smile and introduced him to the people as parents of his students, who had come to thank him.
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