Teachers’ Learning Centre: Hub of change

20^th March, 2017. A remarkable day for all of us at Mantra4Change.

Normally, Monday is the devil in working people’s lives as it follows the day of relief, but at Mantra4Change, Mondays have always been different and so was March 20^th. It was the day our Teachers’ Learning Centre (TLC) at Goripalya got officially inaugurated. The hard work put in to create the space, to make it effective for teachers and above all, succeeding in making the teachers see the value in it was finally going to be put in public. As any big day starts, this too began with a lot of apprehensions and fits of nervous activity. We were all set with our big plans and all the preparations, but somewhere we were anxious if invitees would turn up. The reason was the choice of date. It was the first day of exams in the government schools and most of our private partner schools too. We had prepared ourselves for a low attendance. Little did we know, what awaited us was more than we expected. 

The event started at 2 P.M and then came the big surprise. All the chairs that we had put in the room were filled with SDMC members, partner school principals and teachers. It was enriched by the presence of our chief Guests- Mrs. Kumari Shibulal, who has been constantly supporting Mantra through her foundation, Mrs. Nagarathnamma, the Block Education Officer South Range-II, who managed to join us despite her busy schedule with the exams in government schools and Dr. Anupama Purohit, who has been a mentor to us at Mantra. These special guests didn’t only inaugurate our TLC Space, but also inspired all of us by their childhood stories and words of wisdom about the relevance a teacher in a student’s life and importance of teachers to be lifelong learners.

It was a pure delight to see the room come alive with enthusiastic people who participated as well as shared their wonderful experiences at the TLC so far. One of the partner school Principals, Mr. Ayub Pasha went on to say that the TLC should be renamed as “Creativity Studio” because it provides a platform to the teachers to explore their potential and unleash their “Out of the box” Thinking! 

What more could we ask for..! We had got the Change makers, the School leaders and the nurturers of a child’s life under the same roof talking about innovative teaching methods to improve the quality of education that our schools currently offer. This definitely looked like a dream come true. Read our previous blog to explore the purpose of the TLC.

This day indeed will be etched in our memories not because of what happened but because what it symbolizes in our long quest of educational equity. We can now finally say, that the ripples of change have started forming.

- The blog piece has been written by Ms. Poonam Shukla, who works as the School Transformation lead at Mantra4Change.  

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. 

Teachers’ Learning Centre: creating a culture of ‘learn-it-all’

What is common between the multi-billion dollar, US-based technology giant Microsoft Corporation and our under-resourced partner schools, located in the ‘not-so-famous’ alleys of Goripalya in Bangalore? 

Both of them are on their path to a huge culture shift: from a ‘know-it-all’ to ‘learn-it-all’. In his interview to Bloomberg Businessweek, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella told how he is transforming the culture at Microsoft ‘by creating an environment focused on learning’. At Mantra4Change, we have been trying something similar with our partner schools.

January 2017 saw over 45 teachers from 8 different schools coming together to learn and explore better teaching practices. At our newly set up Teachers’ Learning Centre (TLC), these teachers - from both Government-run schools as wells as from low-fee private schools- forgot their differences & competition and started a new journey of collaborative learning. The atmosphere in the TLC was electrifying. 25 year olds were facilitating the sessions and the participants, with an average teaching experience of 25 years, were beaming with unmatched enthusiasm and joy. One could see how teachers exhibited child-like curiosity and were exuberant about volunteering during the demonstrations.

Anyone, who has worked with under-resourced schools and teachers, would agree that this is no easy feat. This is a complete overhaul of the hierarchical, rigid culture typically seen in such schools. It marks the beginning of the evolution of a collaborative and learning culture.

Collaboration and learning are at the core of our conceptualisation of the Teachers’ Learning Centre (TLC). The idea is to dissect isolation from teaching profession. TLC would enable teachers to come together and to discuss, brainstorm & learn together. They could be each other’s sounding board. They could leverage each other’s connections to catalyse and accelerate their own learning process. TLC will form the foundation of a professional learning community for teachers.

At Mantra4Change, the TLC at Goripalya (Bengaluru) is a culmination of our efforts in that community for last 2 years. Creating change readiness among different stakeholders doesn’t happen overnight. Ours is a tale of unflinching efforts towards trust building and of living our values of empathy and resourcefulness. Spending time on ground with our teachers, students and school leaders helped us understand their challenges and limitations better. This informed our program design and thus, improved its acceptance among the participants. Today, we are a part of their learning community. We learn together; we grow together.

Stay tuned for more mesmerising stories of collaboration and learning from our TLC.

[Update]: Read our next blog on the inauguration ceremony of the TLC.

- The blog piece has been written by Ms. Khushboo Awasthi, who works with schools at Mantra4Change.