My next trip (and the last one for 2007) took me to Mulbaagal Taluk, Kolar district, Karnataka. I admit, I still get surprised at how different the world looks even 5-10 kilometers away from a national highway. I'll cherish 2007 for those moments when I broke the inertia, got off my butt and went out to see some worlds different than mine.
A friend's mother works as a teacher in the one room school some 6 kilometers from Mulbaagal. I'd been hearing accounts of the school for a while now. My good friends, knowing of my interest in learning and education and things like that, invited me to see Sarva Shikasha Abhiyaan in action. Their mother, on the other hand, just wanted her 25 kids to meet some new people and told us it would be a treat for the kids if we took them some biscuits. 25 kids, coming to school mainly motivated by the mid day meal. Kids whose parents worked as labour on the nearby fields, kids definitely from families that our economists would slot as "very poor".
The clay elephant
The one room is spacious – big enough to accommodate 2-3 classes if need be (the schools are designed to be multi-grade, with one room and one teacher handling all of the students). Two big blackboards on two walls. Lots of sunlight. A gas stove, a back-up cylinder, some utensils and provisions to cook the mid day meal are piled in the corner. The boards have the mandatory list of two-syllable words and basic math written out. The kids are doing a word repetition exercise. The first thing that struck me was a series of clay figures made by the kids, sitting and drying in the sun. Pretty much like what I'd have expected to see in some urban school, or school that "fostered creativity". There are assorted things, including an elephant and a model anthill supposed to be inhabited by a snake. I am told they kids will be making vegetables tomorrow.
Am I in the picture?
Armed as we were with cameras, camera phones, a small laptop etc, we began doing what comes almost instinctively to us these days – clicking pics and videos. The kids were curious, they smiled, nudged and shoved. But one thing they were not – shy. Few kids showed any sign of hesitation. Some took a moment to warm up, but within minutes they were all there... wanting to be in the picture. I transferred the pictures to my laptop and ran it for them. I had anticipated that the kids might show some curiosity to the technology. But it was as if the technology was opaque to them... they were so focussed on the content. On the pictures. Hey look, that's Lavanya.. and here is the other lavanya. Look, it's me. Where is Marappa? Hey we forgot Maarappa... call him from home.
The transition from still pics to video was equally simple. The kids responded spontaneously. No surprise, no awe. Yeah, now we are moving. Yeah yeah, now I can hear us singing... Look she wasn't singing at all... Bharath can tell a story...
Having started with these observations, I figured I could try some other "experiments" as well. I turned the laptop into a tablet mode and picked up the stylus. With the kids crowded around me, I began writing their names on the screen (or what appeared convincingly like ruled paper). Again, the kids were there, correcting my spelling, telling me which letter to write next, recognizing the letters and words I was writing – completely oblivious to something called the computer. By the way, it was the first time the kids were seeing a computer of any sort (some of them had exposure to TV, not all).
Lunch time!
At lunch time, the kids pulled out steel plates from their bags. (Most bags contained little else), and lined up to get their food (which on that day, turned out to be a combination dish of rice, dal and vegetables). They sat outside in lines (the ranks swelling a little by the arrival of two or three younger siblings from the houses nearby) and ate. The over-friendly neighbourhood dog also arrived and was shooed away, lovingly.
By the time we left, the kids were winding up their meal. They waved us goodbye, clutching the biscuits we'd bought, which had turned out to be the treat for the day.
A space for violence
As I was speaking to the teacher later, she narrated something I had to record. The teacher tells them stories about being kind, clean, good – the staples of any primary education. As long as they are in the story space, the kids seem to get it. They empathise with the characters in the story, predict the consequences of actions etc. Then they go out after school and mindlessly stone and injure a bird or puppy.
Most of the kids continually see violence at home and around them, mothers being beaten, people beating up each other, for any reason, for no reason, violently. How much did I expect stories to accomplish?
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