Crafting School Transformation step-by-step: An impact story

Two years back, when I first entered Florida English School (FES) in Goripalya, I saw a tall person wearing a white sherwani sitting amidst a huge pile of admission forms, surrounded by many parents around his office; his hands going back and forth on the papers and the call-bell like an automatic machine. The scene was no less than that of a busy market. It did not take me long to understand that I was not going to get an appointment from him. As I started walking towards the stairs hopelessly, I heard a lady calling me, “Excuse me, Sir. Principal sir wants to meet you.”

Wow!! Finally, I did get to meet him. As I entered his office, sir offered me a place to sit and we discussed about our work at Mantra4change & potential to collaborate for a school transformation project over a cup of tea. More than the conversation about the work, what left me spellbound was his explicit willingness to learn: a man running an institution for the last 19 years was still willing to learn. I could see a man with aspirations to provide quality education to the children of his community. As he narrated the tales of endless struggles that he faced during functioning of the institution, I could see a man on a mission with a positive mindset and a fighter’s spirit. Zaka-ullah Shariff, the Principal of FES, is quite an inspiration.

“Give me ideas for the improvement of school and I will implement it.” - This statement from Zaka sir summarizes my discussion with him. Over a period of two years, Mantra4Change and FES have embarked on the journey of improvement and transformation with a vision that FES would be a model school in the locality. It would be an example for other under-resourced, budget schools of the possibilities within the constraints. True to his promise, Zaka sir ensured that he invested time, energy and financial resources to create a great experience for the children studying in the school.

Principal Sir, as he is fondly called by everyone, invested himself and his entire staff at FES in the process of change. He worked tirelessly to understand what additional structures and tools could help elevate the school. He created a second tier of leadership in the school that can ensure sustainability of change efforts. Most importantly, as a leader, he has learnt to delegate and let go. He has started realizing the power of collaboration. Throughout these two years of our partnership, we have introduced six of other partner organizations and many volunteers to FES and Zaka sir has welcomed them all with enthusiasm.

There has been paradigm shift in the way teachers use time after school hours. While they were always seen doing random admin work earlier, now they sit together to plan for their next day lessons and share ideas. Learning circles are facilitated and led by the teachers themselves. Even Zaka sir participates in the learning circles whenever his schedule allows. One day, we saw him explaining to teachers how ‘hook’ (a technique) can be designed to introduce a particular topic.

“How can we create better experiences for our children?”- sir asked one day. We brainstormed and jotted down few ideas on a piece of paper that remained with me. Little did I know that sir kept them in his heart..! After the Diwali holidays, we were up for many surprises: there was an activity center for Pre-primary, a well-designed terrace-cum-auditorium and a beautiful library space for the children. This Diwali indeed lit up the lives of our children.

School Transformation is a long journey. It is not a two year sprint, but a marathon worth attempting. You need a hero to lead the efforts and we were lucky to find one in Zakaullah sir at FES.

- The blog piece has been written by Mr. Santosh More, who works with schools at Mantra4Change. 

Seeds, pets, forest canopies and simple machines: A story filled Saturday at Citizen's School

- The post is written by Rahel Rao, Intern, Pratham Books StoryWeaver.
(Reproduced from StoryWeaver's blog)

All children love stories. Especially when the stories are told to them in an animated manner or the stories come with illustrations, bringing them to life. With this in mind, on the 21st of January, 2017, Oracle India Volunteers partnered with Mantra4Change and Pratham Books StoryWeaver to conduct a storytelling session at Citizens Schools in Bengaluru - a partner school to Mantra4Change.

The session was for classes 5 and 6 and the stories read to the classes were: Reeti and Mithu (Anupa Lal, Soumya Menon), Up Down, Down World (Padmaparna Ghosh, Sunaina Coelho), and Let’s Go Seed Collecting (Neha Sumitran, Archana Sreenivasan) along with a bonus story - Ammachi’s Amazing Machines (Rajiv Eipe) - read by Menaka Raman, from Pratham Books.

All these stories sparked discussions about animal abuse, deforestation, and other such topics which the children had an acute awareness of and were ready to engage in discussions about - they only needed an opportunity to voice their views. The children enjoyed the sessions very much and their infectious enthusiasm made the experience better for the storytellers. You could see their faces lighting up when they realised that they were going to be told stories. They were alert and interactive throughout the sessions, ready to answer any questions asked and were even more excited when they realised that pictures were being taken of them. As Rashmi, an Oracle volunteer said, “[their reaction] was really awesome”.

They clearly enjoyed the stories too. Oracle volunteer, Pranjala, said that the stories available on StoryWeaver are filled with so much positivity. She added that it was very important that children from the underserved sections of society get the right values, saying, that "stories are a wonderful way to impart values to kids at this age, which  they can carry with them for the rest of their lives”.

It was clear that initially the children weren’t very certain how to act around the storytellers. But they soon settled down, realising that it wasn’t a formal setting. This feeling was common even among the storytellers. Rajeshwari, who works with Oracle and was doing this for the first time, said that although she was a bit apprehensive when she heard that this was for the fifth and sixth grade, she found that they were really excited and later said that “overall it was a great experience” - an observation made by all the storytellers.

Rajeshwari also brought a guest, who used to be a teacher in a playschool, to do a storytelling session. She said that “storytelling is not just an oral rendition, it's more of an art to get children involved. They learn faster through stories” and was very excited when this opportunity came to her. She said that the stories on StoryWeaver were “told in such an adventurous way” and so the “small things which have been added in the book which they [the children] tend to overlook” were brought to their attention through the discussions that followed each story.

The entire morning was very heartening and the children even asked some of the the volunteers when they were coming back to do another session. Their level of interest and their love for stories was apparent, which only made the entire experience better and completely worthwhile.

My tryst with Mantra4Change: A JOURNEY TO REMEMBER

- The blog piece has been written by Ms. Soundarya Ganesan, who worked as an intern at Mantra4Change. She is in 2nd year of her graduation at SRCC, Delhi. Her energy and enthusiasm continue to inspire us.

It all started with the movie ‘Homeless to Harvard.’ The movie took a toll on me. Until then, I never really thanked God for His blessings rather I would always badger him to give me good grades, to bless me and my family with good health and we all know there is no saturation point for human needs. This movie made me recount all the bountiful blessings God had showered upon me. He blessed me with good parents, good family, good teachers, good friends and a good life altogether. I realized there are people who weren’t as privileged as me.  I was filled with remorse and I experienced a pang of guilt for always badgering the Almighty with my list of never ending needs. I realized I should do something, something that would make up for all the trouble I caused to the Good Lord. I couldn’t really figure out what I could do. I kept asking myself ‘what can you do’.

One day, it dawned on me that I could teach the kids –the kids who couldn’t afford good education like I do. As a kid I used to love playing ‘teacher-teacher’ with my flat mates. Never ever had I thought I’d be teacher, teaching kids for real in the future. I spoke to my acquaintances in Chennai and Bangalore; and finally one of my good friends in Bangalore told me about Mantra4Change. I approached them and after a few formalities I was in. I was totally happy.  It was amazing to know about Mantra4Change, its journey and its mission. Before formally starting my internship, I tried my hand in crowd source funding to contribute to their existing campaign. I was really excited and reached out to my friends, family etc. for help. The best part was that a lot of anonymous donors from different parts of the world donated to the cause and they encouraged me so much. I was enthralled. Thanks to all the donors once again!J For once, I really felt good about my own self.  

Once I was done with all my academic commitments at Delhi, I flew to Bangalore. I met the entire team at Mantra4Change and also got to spend a day with them. On my first day, I visited two of their partner schools- one Govt.-run, Urdu-medium school and one low-fee private school located in the slum. I encountered something that we all heard and read on the news: All the students in the Government-run school were first generation learners and most of their parents were daily-wage workers. I got an opportunity to talk to the teachers and they were very thankful to Mantra and team for bringing a change in the mindset of the people in the community and making them understand the significance of education.

The visit to the private school helped me witness the functional and infrastructural change brought by Mantra and team. I was taken aback by all the efforts taken by Mantra and its team. The next day, I visited my placement school which Mantra4Change had started working with just 2 months ago. From my interaction with kids, I figured out that they were really poor in English and they were really scared to hold a conversation in English. I started with the basics in English Grammar for all the children regardless of their standard. Initially, being in classroom with 40 kids, I felt like a rudderless ship tossed in every direction and my self-confidence started to ebb away. But the team at Mantra gave me continuous support and motivated me to keep working hard. Gradually, children started opening up to me. They were enthusiastic and receptive. Whenever they had free periods or when the respective subject teachers weren’t there in class, they would ask me to conduct activities for them. They approached me with a lot of doubts / queries. I was really happy with the progress I witnessed. By the end of my 30-day tenure, I made sure the children were confident in their basics and all the lessons I taught them.

I was in tears- happy tears of course- when my children presented me a “Thank you” card on my last day with them. I had developed a saccharine bond with the kids and it was very hard for me to bid farewell to those ever charming and budding faces. It was a great learning experience for me. I never thought I could be a teacher and I think I’ve done justice as a teacher. I’m very thankful to Mantra4Change for giving me this wonderful opportunity and for having been immensely encouraging and supportive. Looking forward to work with you guys again J