Do you ever wonder what a day in the life of an IDEX fellow is like?
Zach took a camera with him for one day -
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How to Teach without Teaching
Each IDEX fellow works full-time in an Affordable Private School in Hyderabad, India. IDEX Fellows are charged with collaborating with their school leadership to implement enterprise-building, sustainable solutions. However, a key draw for school owners is having a fluent English-speaker in school.
One of the most difficult struggles our fellows face is trying to communicate to their school owners why teaching in the classroom actually does very little to improve the school in the long-run.
So what do the fellows do instead?
Check out this blog post by Amy, who is working on English language solutions with a group from her fellow cohort:
Pragati Vidyaniketan School- Amberpet, Hyderabad
Sharayu Kamath
Walking into Pragati, you are welcomed by the openness of the school and the cheerful, brightly colored walls. Pre-primary kids playing on the slide, older kids kicking a ball around, children milling around, doing P.T or yoga, all lead to the impression of a progressive school that offers its students diverse activities besides academics. This is all not surprising, given that the school is run by the very dynamic and enterprising Mr. Madhusudan.
• Locality: Amberpet, Hyderabad
• Established: 1991
• No. of students: 2100
• No. of teachers: 69
• Medium of Instruction: English
• Grades: Nursery – 10
Established in 1991, Mr. Madhusudan started the school with 50 students enrolled in Nursery to class 3. In 19 years, his commitment and passion has seen the school grow to over 2100 students and 69 teachers! His story is a humbling story of how wanting to make a difference in the quality of education available to children made him strive for the best, starting with his modest home tuition center while he was still in class 12! With the growth of the school, he purchased a plot of land in 1997 and built another building in 2000. Each year since then, he has added more classrooms and more facilities to contribute to the growth and welfare of his students. Since that day, as a school going student, Mr. Madhusudan has epitomized commitment, hard work, and motivation to all who know have known him in his fruitful journey.
Growing up in a neighborhood populated by low income families living in slums and kuccha roads, he felt deeply for the children who had no access to education. His small school provided quality education to those 50 children for a very modest tuition fee. His friendly approach to teaching and being a mentor to his students ensured that the school's popularity grew. Till date he maintains that teachers should share a close relationship with students and guide them in overcoming challenges in order to get the best out of students. He shuns corporal punishment, instead encouraging his teachers to problem solve challenges with students. So how does he ensure that all 2000+ students are treated as well respected people in his school? "I have developed a culture where every child in every classroom shares a good relationship with all teachers. I dedicate a lot of time on teacher orientation and effective teaching methods. Punishing students only makes children resentful. Treating them respectfully solves problems." Remarkable indeed! I wish a lot more people had this at the heart of their teaching and relationship with children.
He is very proactive in providing the best for the students. Mind-body development goes hand in hand with academics. So I saw terrific karate feats and a class silently engaged in yoga. He follows the Xseed curriculum till class 3 which points to his level of interest in innovating in instructional practices. He says his vision for children is, "Imparting holistic education at an affordable price." He wants his students to be disciplined and modest, to be role models in society. To this effect, he basks in the glory that his students have achieved and is proud that the school alumni are doing well in life. After all, in his words, "The success of the students reflects on the success of his school."
So with things going so well with the school, I asked what his vision for the future is and how he views his relationship with GMC. To this, he enthusiastically responded that he learned a lot from the rating process and identified where his school wasn't doing well. Added emphasis on co-curricular activities is a direct outcome of this. Moving forward, he would like for his teachers to be involved in more teacher training programs, teaching aids and for himself to go through leadership programs. He is currently involved in Dasra, a 1 year intensive program for entrepreneurs that was facilitated by GMC and he would love for these programs to keep coming his way!
Fellows Interviewed by Start Some Good
IDEX Fellows are required to supplement the cost of their fellowship experience by fundraising a portion of their programmatic costs. Fellows Tyler and Lyle rose to the challenge and started a campaign on StartSomeGood.com to fundraise their portion of fellowship costs, ultimately raising over $4,000.
Start Some Good (SSG) supports innovators by presenting a platform for entrepreneurs to access the necessary capital to launch their ideas. By starting an SSG campaign, entrepreneurs can build financial and intellectual support in order to turn their ideas into impact.
SSG recently checked in with Tyler and Lyle to see how their fellowship experience is going, and to learn more about their future plans.
Check out the full interview at StartSomeGood.com!
Think Outside the Box
Averil Spencer
“Think outside the box!” was how I began to introduce the outline of Design for Change, a competition that empowers students to create change in their communities. Once the words were out of my mouth, the 8th graders at St. Nizami’s Model School looked at me blankly. As I surveyed the smiling faces in the classroom, I realized they did not understand this saying but also most of what I had been trying to convey for the past twenty minutes. I proceeded to draw a box with arrows springing from it hoping a visual representation would help convey my message. It did not.
When the concept of Design for Change was introduced to the FIAPS fellows, we all believed the competition would be an easy way to begin interacting with students and to get a feel for our schools. We were right that it gave us insight into our schools, but I was not prepared for how difficult implementing this competition would be. My poor teaching and misunderstood American sayings aside, I found that pushing the 8th grade students to stretch their minds and critically think about problems in their environments was a challenge that took days to overcome. I mostly had to adjust how I addressed the class and how I framed the questions that I hope challenged them and enhanced their thinking about issues in their communities. While Design for Change has pushed my students to employ critical thinking to problems in their homes, schools, and communities, the entire process has made me reflect on the quality of education in Indian schools.
Rote memorization is heavily employed in class work as well as homework where students copy English words 5 times, or teachers define an English word and students are required to regurgitate the definition multiple times throughout the lesson. Teachers are asking questions but immediately supplying answers for the students to verbally repeat and then copy for homework. In higher grades this rigid type of teaching is even worse because students are studying for government-designed tests that they must take at the end of the year. I find myself wondering how much learning are students actually doing during these types of lessons and how can the curriculum and lesson be planned in such a way to encourage student driven debate and engagement with learning.
These enterprising schools have a competitive advantage because they are English medium schools, but being in the classroom has me wondering if the very thing that gives this advantage is detracting from the overall ability of a student to obtain a quality education. Discussing, dissecting, and challenging ideas is difficult for any young student, but requiring students to attempt this style of learning in a nonnative tongue makes this education goal almost impossible. When asked, “what are your aims in life?” students give a flurry of answers of which the majority are doctors and engineers. In both of these professions, students will need critical thinking and problem solving that is currently not being promoted in classroom learning.
Over these next few months, I would like to explore a way to strengthen how English is taught in my school, but also find a way for students to be challenged and engaged in their other classes that do not resort to rote learning. It might be that students need to be given more permission to discuss topics in their native tongues during classes such as social studies or chemistry. These next eight months will be a test to see if we can find a balance between keeping the competitive edge English medium gives but promoting critical thinking. Design for Change motivated my 8th grade students to analyze and discuss the world around them. In the week that I have been working with them, their capacity to communicate in English with me and with each other in local language has grown. They are more comfortable discussing their ideas.
Already, venturing off the well-trodden path of rote learning appears to have strengthened important skills within this 8th grade class and as we progress through the steps of the competition, I am confident I will see greater synthesis of knowledge and a more passionate class of students who can think outside the box without pushing or prodding.
By: Averil Spencer, IDEX Fellow
This is one of the stories posted from a member of the IDEX team. We are on the ground in Hyderabad, India, working closely with school owners, teachers, and students to improve the quality of education in several of Hyderabad’s Affordable Private Schools. We hope to leave positive, sustainable changes that improve education and the quality of life not only for the students, but, also for the communities that they serve. Please continue to join us on this exciting journey!
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