CHENNAI: Laying down pencils, erasers, sharpeners, scales, sketches, charts, glue, and scissors on their desks, in an orderly fashion, the students of Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram await their teachers. Some kids chat with their friends while some eat snacks, and the class representative tries shushes them to maintain silence.
Soon, Krishnapriya Vinod, formerly an assistant professor and now a trainer with Rhapsody, enters. Joyfully, the class of 40 go “Good Morning, Rhapsody miss,” in chorus. She greets them back and together they sing the Rhapsody anthem “Rhapsody for every day, Rhapsody we sing and play, Rhapsody for songs and games…Rhapsody through art we dream”.
In the last decade, this has been a routine for over four lakh students from almost 400 schools in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Delhi, and Pune. “Rhapsody started as an initiative to promote creative classrooms. The idea is to use music and other visual arts as inputs specifically curated to learn and clarify concepts of Science, Maths, language, and others,” shares Anil Srinivasan, a pianist and an educator.
Through a school, for schools
In May 2013, Anil founded Rhapsody Music Education to start an art-integrated approach to be used by schools. According to him, the viewpoint for the mode of education hit him when he was invited to school functions immediately after he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2010. “When I visited a government school in southern TN, I interacted with the students and teachers and felt this approach would help the kids.
Many first-generation learners found it difficult to understand multiplication written on the board without explaining the insight behind it.” He adds that this method is backed by neuroscience. “Studies show that one textbook for 40 students does not work. When a space in a classroom is fun and creative, a child can relate to and they will learn better,” he says.
With a background in cognitive neuroscience and studying how the brain works after learning music, Anil rolled up his sleeves to work. It took him a year to research, which involved reading all the available textbooks, visiting classrooms, and understanding what was being done. At the end of the year, he formulated 312 lesson plans that were conceptual songs in English. “In Math, we use thala to break down the concept of fractions.
Each beat is named tha, thakka, thakita, and so on. Students repeat this and create patterns with each other,” he explains. Similarly, in Environmental Science, Anil wrote a song on photosynthesis. When the students sing it in a swara and the teacher switches off the light — denoting the sunrise. When sung off-key the lights go off denoting the sun did not rise.
Other examples include students of class seven designing an origami craft for boat races during the celebration of Onam accompanied by a Malayalam folk song. Students of class one learn how to pronounce Tamil alphabets. They learn it through a song in Tamil, “Pallan sullani pallathil thalli vittaan, ellan pallai kaati vellam kettaan, kannan thinnum pandam vennai…”. Today the programme offers 460 plus plans in Hindi, Tamil, English, Kannada, and Telugu.
Making classrooms fun
Lesson plans are the key to this mode of learning. The 70-odd trained faculties attend online classes through their online platform, CoCoon. Here, the trainees are taught syllabus mapping — to create new learning environments, revise the course syllabus, and track students’ advancement. “Based on this, we teach the children. It is a fun-based learning, easy for them to recognise and identify,” shares Krishnapriya.
“The classes start with icebreaker exercises — including beats or claps to warm the students up — followed by a song about the concept and at the end of the session the kids indulge in a craft activity to exhibit what they have learnt,” describes Anil. Krishnapriya elucidates, “In a Math class if we deal with distance, an icebreaker game is played. This session helps us know which student is understanding and how much.
Next are thought-provoking questions, we ask one or two and assess the kids. Then comes an explanation, a brief one, followed by a song and activity. The student’s creativity increases through this because we do not ask them to recreate or repeat what we have done but ask them to do something from their learning.”
The trainers conduct four classes a month with one class each week. The fourth week is an exhibiting class where the kids “showcase the activities, be it a song, craft, a drama or a skit, they have learnt over the month to the headmaster or the school’s coordinator,” she says. Students too have fun in these classes. A few students’ responses include, “nalla jolly ah iruku (It is fun and jolly)” while another says “I wait for Rhapsody class throughout the week”. In a video shared with CE, pupils surround Anil and thank him.
Paving the path
“It is quite ecstatic. I was also informed that the day Rhapsody class is scheduled the attendance is in full,” says Anil. This has led the platform to win recognition. They were ranked number one globally and received Gold in Asia in the Arts and Humanities Category by QS Reimagine Education presented by Wharton in 2021. They also received the McNulty Global Impact Fund for making significant strides in the k12 education space in 2023.
The award money was used in the communities of North Chennai. In partnership with Transworld, a shipping and logistics company, Rhapsody has made its presence in schools in this area. “We are focussing on 12 primary schools here. These children have to struggle for their basic needs; through this programme, we brought them to school,” says Sivaprasad G, head of delivery at Rhapsody.
The students are gearing up to participate in the celebrations of Pi Day on July 22. “A song is taught to them and they are to sing it on stage,” he says, adding “The ultimate focus is for such programmes and celebrations to reach government schools as well. In this process, they have to learn and unlearn.”
Way ahead
Post pandemic, Rhapsody started afresh. Anil also founded Kruu in 2022, which promotes project-based learning to skill youth. Rhapsody and Kruu will soon come together as one entity. “Up to primary classes you have Rhapsody for alternative ways of thinking and after middle school, we are providing opportunities to skill themselves further. Combining the two entities, from KG to class 12, is an alternative approach to education that works with the child’s strengths,” he shares.
Anil plans to create a physical space for students from tribal, unreserved, and AWS communities to take the best of all these programmes as a college curriculum. “We also plan for them to get placement opportunities as well. I hope this establishment comes to shape in three years that is when I turn 50,” he concludes.
Why Rhapsody?
Sharing his thoughts on National Education Policy , Anil says, “I have studied the NEP and it is the right approach moving forward. The intent is fantastic and we will see a shift in education and the way people think. The implementation is a challenge because India is a huge country with many demographics. It will be difficult to measure when and where the policy is executed. That is why there is a need for programmes like Rhapsody in the system. It has to be a public-private partnership for it to work. The next problem would be execution. We will need a huge investment in teacher training. As of now, we have all the raw materials but we are not there yet.”