Opening a world full of possibilities on Karnataka Rajyotsava

To anyone staying in Karnataka, November 1^st is a day of celebration. It’s Karnataka Rayotsava, i.e. Karnataka Formation Day.

On November 1st 2016, the same fervour could be felt at one of our partner schools. The crisp morning air, the children lined up with almost military precision and the stage all set for the day added to the anticipation and excitement that was palpable in the air. There were a line of speakers and along the sides, there were children dressed in traditional clothes ready to perform the traditional art forms. Amongst all this, there was a considerably large group comprising of parents and children crowded around team Mantra4Change and a couple of other people, clutching forms and pens. This was the day, chosen to provide scholarships to the students who excelled in their studies, but did not have the financial backing to continue their higher secondary schooling.  

Mantra4Change has found a wonderful partner in Vidya Poshak, an organisation that believes that poverty should not be a barrier to education. They provide 5-year scholarship and mentorship support to selected students till completion of their graduation. Their process of choosing students for scholarship has been meticulously designed and is two-fold.

Once the potential candidates were chosen by Mantra4Change based on merit, the process started off with a written test to assess the academic prowess that the children possessed. This was followed by a home visit to ensure that the scholarship went to financially disadvantaged families who were committed to let their children study further.

This scholarship support by Vidya Poshak plays a major role by enabling our children to pursue their studies to create a better future for themselves. Thus, this Karnataka Rayotsava marked the beginning of a partnership that completes the cycle of our quest for providing quality education to children irrespective of their socio-economic background.

This year, 38 of our students across three of our partner schools got the scholarship support. The school had graciously invited students from other partner schools of ours and they set aside a slot just to give away the scholarships amidst the celebrations, inspiring more students to work harder because they had to know that there is always help for those who work sincerely.

As the state celebrated its formation day, the kids celebrated a new world full of interesting possibilities for their future and we were the happy spectators.

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

Lighting up the temple of knowledge on Diwali

Diwali is the celebration of good over evil. But it is more popularly the festival of joy and that of light. It is symbolic of fighting off darkness. What could be a better way to celebrate Diwali than by building a temple of knowledge that could fight off the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy..! What could be a better way to celebrate Diwali than by creating a space for the tiny human beings- the students of the Kindergarten section- of my school to learn by exploring in an 'adapted' Montessori Method..! 

This beautiful space would have only remained a dream, but for the Principal of the school. The Principal's belief in the changes that Mantra had been bringing into the school and his trust on the process of transformation made this possible. This huge shift of mindset from garnering the little profits earned from the school to spending most of it on development of school is very heart-warming and is an achievement worth being proud of.

Read our previous blog on how we introduced the ‘adapted’ Montessori to our pre-primary classrooms.  

Gradually as the principal of the school started realising how kids were excited about this new way of learning and how this is benefiting them, he went out of his way to ensure that his kids get the best environment he could offer. The dirty-looking corner that used to store all the junk and discarded materials suddenly got transformed into a shining and bright ‘Activity Room’.  At Mantra, we reached out to our partner, Let's Do Some Good Foundation (LDSG) for monetary support. They contributed part of the funds for building this space, and so did the extremely invested principal of the school. Now that is how magic happens..!  

Usually these kids in the pre-primary section are live wires, full of so much energy that they can't always seem to contain it. Turns out that the activity space is their Zen-zone, a place as envisioned by Maria Montessori; a place where the child is a dedicated worker and explorer.

Every day, we (adults) stand around the kids watching them in awe as they labour in pure bliss and concentration. The teachers look on proudly at the children and why should they not. It is their handiwork, indeed. They imbibed the training, meticulously implemented it and even created a few activities to add on to the already existing Montessori activities. Such was the dedication of the staff and the management of the school.

Nobody could have come up with a better way to celebrate Diwali. It was the day a dump yard in the school got transformed into a beautiful activity space for children.

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

Samarasya - The Knowledge Fair

Someone once said –“A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.”

One of Mantra’s partner schools took the words literally.  Apart from the usual, they decided to celebrate Children’s day in a fashion that gave children the opportunity to expand not only theirs, but others’ mental horizons. They decided to host “Samarasya” – a knowledge fair – for the children (and parents), by the children.

Students from grades 5^th to 10^th showcased their individual ideas through projects in streams of Science, Math, Social Sciences, English, Hindi and Kannada. They put up an elaborate showcase of three hundred projects. Anyone who walked in was awed by the sheer variety and concepts of the projects put up. From Robotics to Magic of Cards to Kuvempu to drip Irrigation models – they had it all! Along with these, children gave talk shows on Formation of the Solar System and on The Seven Wonders of the World.  This one beat all records known to the region. Receiving a heavy foot fall, the show went “house full” from 10am in the morning to 4pm in the evening. It almost challenged Bahubali’s popularity! In a different location, they also held talks that showcased their primary research in geography (courtesy TIGS-IGYS 2016), their views on Education and the lives of the Jnanapeetha Prashasthi.

When not presenting projects, many students were found volunteering and just helping out. From organizing to directing visitors, controlling the queues and giving tickets for the house full talk show, assisting the presenting friends, they did it all. Teachers witnessed a lot of student leadership at play. This made them truly proud.

The event received a heavy footfall of the students and teachers of neighboring institutions and parents alike. Students were found to steal time and take rounds to see their peers’ works. Each and every visitor was enthralled by the projects; many teachers also commented how they were pleasantly surprised by their own child's capabilities.   

At this school, 14^th November 2016 was one of those days that will be remembered for a while. It was a children’s day where each child literally shone like a star. This was a day for the children and by the children. 

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

A Step in the right direction: Giving new meaning to Women empowerment

As I narrate this, I do so with pride: Proud at having been able to witness the events of change unfold before me. I had always imagined "important meetings" to take place in high profile offices. After having been a part of the social sector, I have realised that it is the willingness to work and an undefeatable sense of purpose that is essential; and an "important meeting" can take place in a room, a shack or as in this case, in a government school.

At MANTRA, one of the key elements of our project is working on enabling community. To this end, we keep exploring meaningful partnerships that can bring (economic) opportunities to the doorsteps of these people in the community. Today’s is a story from one of such communities that we work very closely with.

It is a community like any other low-income community that has blended so seamlessly with the more affluent part of the city that nobody gives a second thought about its being, purpose or reason. The agenda for the day's meeting was to create self sufficiency amongst the women in the community. These women work at the local ‘beedi’-rolling and ‘agarbathi’-making factories in order to supplement the meagre income that their husbands bring. The wages that the men in the family receive often reduces before they reach home due to many habits, they have inculcated over the years. 
Along with Mantra came the rather influential benefactor of the community and Mr. Venkat Raman Iyer and the other people in attendance were the women in the community. Having turned myself into the photographer for the event, I happened to notice how raptly everybody listened to Mr. Iyer as he spoke of how in a similar community, he along with the women in the community formed a self- sustaining group. They make cloth bags that are sold to nearby shops. While the women earn some amount of financial independence, an environment-friendly alternative is being provided. What a brilliant example of killing two birds with one stone..! Thus, the meeting set the wheels of change in motion.

About a week later, I visited the community in Koramangala with my colleague, Pallav and the ladies from our community. We met the group of ladies who successfully run the cloth bag enterprise. As we entered the house of the 'aunty' who manages the entire process, we witnessed piles of cloth bags and cloth material, covering every inch of the floor. We seated ourselves on one of those piles and 'aunty' dove straight into business. She opened by explaining different kinds of materials used for making the bags and followed it up by demonstrating how to measure and cut each kind of material. Once she felt that sufficient practice time had been provided to the ‘visiting’ ladies, she moved on to explaining how to maintain and tally accounts effectively. It was impressive to watch how she articulated her experiences as manager and shared them with the audience. She went onto say that it is imperative that the accounts manager make each tailor sign in a separate book mentioning the number of bags submitted, once they have been counted in front of the tailor, in order to avoid misunderstandings later on. She then let the ladies use the sewing machine in her house, so that each of them can practice sewing a bag. As the machine whirred on and each lady got to work, they started sharing their experiences in their community. They disclosed that they don't feel valued and often are at a disadvantage of being a woman. This meant that they don't get paid regularly for the work they do. The work being rolling 'beedis' and 'agarbathis' in the nearby factory.

As they each flourished a cloth bag proudly, I overheard one of the ladies, Gulnaz promise Pallav that she will stand by us for the good of the people.

As I took leave of the group, I walked away light-hearted, yet excited.

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

Aims of History and Social Sciences Education

In my previous post, we explored “What kind of Social Sciences is worth teaching.”

Will there be any contention if it is stated that travelling to see places, armchair politics and stories concerning people- famous and ordinary, are among the top topics of non-work discussion for ordinary people in India (and elsewhere as well)? I do not think so. Ask any tour operator and he/she would confirm that our local tourism industry is thriving; Check any discussion forum, be it an informal gathering or a formal, one will find that politics is the most discussed topic; and a glance at the daily supplements of our newspapers and general magazines confirm the marketability of stories concerning people. If we strip the subject of social science down to the bare minimum, one can see that it is all about stories of people, places and institutions and we see all around us people tuning into stories, be it on the television, movie screens or newspapers.

However, survey of people, in general, on how interested they were in any of the social science subjects during their school days will indicate that either they were bored and hence completely switched off or disinterested because they saw no value add from these subjects to the practicalities of living life. And this when the subjects are all about living life!

In 1964, the Kothari commission said that one of the aims of teaching social (studies) science is to help students acquire certain values and attitudes which are critical for participation in the affairs of the world other than the acquisition of knowledge of the environment and understanding the human relationships.

The subjects that make up social science in school connect us to the past to understand, appreciate and learn how we have reached to where we are now; they also connect us to the present through the study of institutions that govern us; and contextualise the past and present by providing us with an understanding of the larger ecosystem that we are a part of.

Social science helps us to dream of building a better world. Practical questions related to human development such as ‘How to make our cities better, improve standards of living, reduce crime rates, overcome discrimination, provide better governance, improve productivity’ are what social science is made of.

The social sciences are sometimes described as the policy sciences, although the contribution of disciplines such as sociology and political science to the making of policy is indirect and limited. In any case, it would be unrealistic to aim to make school students into policy makers or even policy advisers. At the same time, a general awareness of how economy, polity and society work can help them in later life to understand the role of policy in public life. It can provide them with a basis for taking an informed view as to why some policies and not others are adopted, and, among those that are adopted, why some succeed and others fail. My view is that the more significant contribution of the social sciences is not in the training for policy making, but in the education for citizenship. An educated citizenry is indispensable for the proper working of a democracy. One does not pluck the qualities that make a good citizen out of the air; one needs a certain kind of education to acquire and promote them. To be a good citizen, it is not enough to be well informed about physical and biological phenomena; the good citizen must also have an informed understanding of the social world of which s/he is a part.

In 2005, in its position paper on social science, the NCF said that it is important to ‘reinstate the significance of the social sciences by not only highlighting its increasing relevance for a job in the rapidly expanding service sector, but by pointing to its indispensability in laying the foundations for an analytical and creative mindset’.

Educating students for citizenship, for example, requires encouraging them to think clearly, systematically and objectively about the social as well as the natural world. Beyond that, in the social sciences, it is important to give them some knowledge and understanding about the varieties of economic, political and social arrangements in such a way that the description and analysis of facts is not subordinated to the preferences and prejudices of teachers and writers of text-books.

In the next part of this blogpost, we’ll explore how teaching of the social sciences to school children is complicated by what may be called the ‘value problem’ in these disciplines.

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

One Day, Many Stories!

 -The blog piece has been reproduced from StoryWeaver's Blog, posted on September 23rd by Menaka Raman.

Every year, the entire Pratham Books family (including our lovely community) gears up for the biggest celebration of the year – our ‘One Day, One Story' campaign. Celebrated on the occasion of International Literacy Day every year, the campaign aims to take stories to as many children possible on a single day throughout the country (and beyond!)

This initiative is part of the Pratham Books' Champions program where we encourage our community of volunteers to conduct reading sessions. These sessions are conducted free of cost and mostly with children from under-served communities. The Pratham Books' Champions program is a one-of its kind volunteer program that has scaled to a national & international level with more and more volunteers joining in each year. For this year’s edition of ‘One Day One Story’, volunteers from Oracle Bangalore joined us to take stories into classrooms, thanks to our partners Mantra4Change.

Read more at https://storyweaver.org.in/blog_posts/73-one-day-many-stories.

What kind of Social Sciences is worth teaching?

We have a subject called social science taught in some form or the other in schools across the world. Sometimes it goes by the name of Environment Studies (like in the present primary schools in India), sometimes as separate subjects – History, Geography, Civics (or the more Contemporary Citizenship Education in many countries today or social and political Life as in India) until middle school and then as History, Geography, Economics, Political Science and Sociology in high school. In some countries and at sometimes there has been a subject called Social Studies and some kinds of thinking excludes History and Geography from the Social Sciences and treats them as separate subjects while including Economics, Political Science and Sociology in the social sciences. For the purpose of this type of writing (Blogs), I will not enter into that discourse, however relevant. By social sciences, I mean all subjects dealing with the analysis of some or all aspects of society and social life seen through some lens or the other. Thus History is part of social science as it analyses continuity and change in different aspects of society and their interrelationships over time, Geography as it does the same across regions, Economics as it develops and applies the concepts and method to analyse economic aspects, Sociology as it does the same for the social aspects and Political Science for political aspects. Till the elementary level of schooling, the latter three are not taught as separate subjects, but are in some way integrated through the subject of civics, citizenship education or social and political life as the case may be.

At MANTRA, we have been striving hard to provide subject-content support to our teachers in whichever we can. We are looking for extending support to our partner schools in this discipline because this is the most commonly feared among the teachers and students.

“How do I make it interesting? The content is just so dry! What is the content aiming — remembering dates?!”

These are some of the common statements that I have received and trust me, as a student of Social sciences I feel different now. However, I felt the same way when I was in school. So what kind of Social Sciences is worth teaching?

Irrespective of how we understand the social sciences, there is often a question in the minds of parents and society in general as to whether the social sciences are relevant at all to the lives of people in today’s technocratic world. The first question people ask is what will a child do if s/he takes up the study of any of the social sciences at the college level? What kind of ‘job prospects’ does s/he have- become a teacher in a school or college, a researcher or academic; join one of the services through the entrance exams? Take up a management field particularly Human Resource Management. All these options are open to a graduate of engineering or a medical student as well; so why take up social sciences if the option of the so called technical fields is open?

This attitude percolates to the primary and high school level as well where students (and parents) have the attitude of just wanting to pass in the social sciences. Seldom is it asked as to how the social sciences can contribute to make students better human beings or make them capable of contributing to the betterment of society or in fact, how can the teaching and learning of social sciences at school sustain and develop a democracy. Specialising in a social science at the college level needs to be looked at differently from the essential education in the social sciences at the school level.

Getting too much for one blog?

Stay tuned for the second part wherein I will write what according to me the aims of History and Social Science Education should be. You can agree and disagree, add or subtract, maybe implement it in your classrooms! For that, you have to read the second part :)

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