Trailblazing school-level teaching

Rudra Pangeni  

Kathmandu, December 6

Yes, it is Shankar Sir all the way. He finds fourth-grader Raghav Thakur least interested particularly in his classes of Maths, history and sciences. There is restlessness evidences in the boy when he is in the class. Another facet is that boy is very much interested in his father's hairdressing saloon. Seeing his interest, Shankar Sir tells the boy's father to send the boy to Mumbai for the required training for his professional development.  

Shankar Sir is of the view that school is short of catering to his interests. Not only to him, he has suggested Dinesh to join the security forces as his characteristics shown in class suits it, and also advised to arrange for the necessary study of some laws. Likewise, he also decided to call three other students, with below par performances, to his home regularly to help prepare them for the following next classes. The rest of the students of his class are upgraded to grade five, without any formal examinations, as practice is much more indispensable than written tests.

Such recommendations by a teacher for students to go the way where their interests go is not a part of the school system. Whereas high scorers are awarded and praised, the low scorers are never considered as human beings. This is perhaps the underlying conflict sown right from the school, and that becomes pervasive prevalent in the society.  

The rendition of the fourth-grade students are from Diwaswapna (Daydream), recently published by "Shiksyak" monthly magazine in Nepali edition, and Shankir Sir is a practitioner in the class. He also represents of Gijubhai, a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, ventured in the practice of teaching the fourth grade at Nabodaya Primary School in Bhabnagar, Gujarat, by pleading with the District Education Officer.  He had vowed to inculcate changes in the traditional way of learning by rote, to the fun-way of learning and learning by doing. The students were habituated to rote learning, cognitive learning was absent.

Upon being introduced to grade four,  Shankar Sir found the pupils disorganized, were unclean and paid no attention to the teacher. He had drills of games, storytelling for drawing their attention, besides weaving the lessons into stories and games as the vehicles for teaching, as means to teaching. Soon, he started to have much impact on their learning gradually, but the other teachers and parents of the students were at the opposite pole for the first six months. He developed book reading habit by establishing a small library with the money the students used for purchasing textbooks, and helped students develop their reading and listening skills.

Shankar Sir was a change maker in teaching. His teaching practices can be an eye-opener or guidelines for the teachers and their professional development.  

All the teachers toed his line, following the year-long perseverance and patience ofShankar Sir. There are, in fact, several teachers and schools in need of mentors likeShankar Sir. Reading this book, its simple action plan for classes, facilitating the students in a manner that they are given an opportunity to learn without the boring and dull activity of rote learning, which can be see in several schools in our country, can make learning fun and worthwhile for the pupils.

Teaching history with imaginary stories, and geography to find the locations on the maps and making visits to the survey offices were the best practices of model teaching. This not only kept the pupils engrossed but also widened their horizon.

Shankar Sir's passion for finding ways to grab the interest and tab the course objectives are very notable.

His approach is very appropriate in our school education system, as thousands of students drop out from school for they do not find their interest addressed. National statistics say that nearly 80 percent of one-grader never reach grade ten.

The concept of imposed activities, in which students are less interested, are replaced by the belief that students should be respected and their learning needs should only be imparted through an integrated exercises instead of rote learning of prescribed textbooks.

The other teachers were stiff-necked to the changes made in the first fortnight, however,Shankar Sir was able to reinforce the classroom activities replacing the exam system, and the ruling of the District Education Officer to all the teachers to learn the way for grade four teaching.

In light of a recent national assessment of grade ten, the practice of cognitive learning should replace the practice training for the SLC exam throughout the year. Shankar Sir says the exams are irrelevant, they are creating trauma for students, not their confidence. That is the students losing their capacity to learn, and the teachers not imparting cognitive skills in the classes, which are important in life for the students.

Therefore, all the school teachers of  schools ought to read the useful book for the classroom teaching, and many can change themselves or they should let others take their place for better teaching, as Shankar Sir is opinionated at the end of the book.

In the book, the translators have provided the Nepali context through Nepali songs in the place of Hindi songs and several others, but it would have been better if Nepali places were used in geography classes so that Nepali students would have identified places like Pokhara and Lumbini on the map.

Shankar Sir's approach to teaching could be useful in accomplishing the goal of 'education for all' in the next four years, as it has been said that it's not going to be achieved.