BARGARH: In his quest to ensure quality education for the children of his village and remove the fear of mathematics from children’s minds, a school teacher from Paikmal block in Bargarh has developed a first-of-its-kind ‘Maths Park’ on the premises of the government primary school in his village Pujharipali.
Subash Chandra Sahu, a cluster resource centre coordinator (CRCC) of Lakhmara panchayat in the district, has developed the park over 20 decimal area to teach maths to children in a fun-filled interactive manner. Every feature in the park from painted rocks to canopy and benches, represents geometrical shapes, mathematical symbols or numbers. It also comprises installations through which students can practically understand the fundamentals and principles of mathematics.
There are also wall paintings and standees depicting information about various mathematicians and theorems. The park became operational two months back and has turned into the centre of attraction for children. It has been developed entirely out of scratch and the expenses were borne by Subash and some like-minded villagers.
The objective, he said, is to make children proficient in mathematics. “Our students here lack competency in English and mathematics. Maths is always the most fearful subject for children. We wanted to remove the fear and ignite interest for maths among them by making it easy and fun,” said the teacher.
Not only children of Pujharipali primary school, the park has been drawing students from schools in neighbouring areas and on some occasions, neighbouring Chhattisgarh too. “This park is also designed to keep them engaged and help them learn while they play. Since schools reopened after a long time, it has become difficult for students to focus in classrooms. But in the park, they are spending time doing sums and learning tables with the help of installations beyond the class hours,” he said.
In fact, Sahu’s innovative approach to learning has given the Pujharipali village an unique identity as far as primary education is concerned. Earlier in 2020 when schools shut down following the Covid-19 outbreak, Sahu had painted learning materials on alphabets, numbers, maps and hung different charts on trees and started teaching the village children under them.
Subsequently, he started putting up different charts outside every house in his village so that children could learn something whenever they stepped out. He has also put up boards across the village roads which display pictures of freedom fighters and information about them.