TENKASI: The students of the Panchayat Union Primary School in Kurunchankkulam of Tenkasi district were repeating after instructor M Muthu Durai’s words; astoundingly, the chorus they made had a tune to it. One glance and anyone can misinterpret it for a music class, with the presence of two keyboards, a set of hand drums and a tambourine inside the classroom. It was a language class and the students were singing verses made by Durai with a tune. With the array of musical instruments at his command, Durai turns harder-to-remember poems, pieces of information, and fact snippets into digestible verses, easy to memorise.
“When I joined the school in 2016, I observed the difficulties of the students in remembering the lessons,” the government schoolteacher reminisced. As a method to enhance memory recall, he decided to incorporate music into his teaching techniques. With the assistance of a philanthropic alumnus of the school, Durai was able to purchase musical instruments. “Besides understanding the subject, the students are able to memorise the lessons easily when I teach them with the help of music. I see so much improvement now,” he says.
The adjustments Durai made were not simply bound to aiding retention. To the best of his abilities, he has transformed the school significantly to nurture the creativity of his students. Smoke art, glass and spray paintings adorn the walls of the viridescent classrooms that even accommodate puppets, a microphone and an electronic speaker. Besides textbook lessons, Durai — an author of two poetry books — teaches art, martial arts and silambam to the students. The school administration organises, annually, an art exhibition, showcasing its students’ painting skills; several students from nearby schools attend the event. “Our students have secured prizes in district-level competitions,” he says.
Technological gap that plagues many of the government schools seems out of place at the Tenkasi school. “My students are competent in operating computers,” Durai says with the pride of a dedicated instructor. The teacher, to develop the much-required technological skills of his students, purchased three desktop computers, two laptops, a projector and a printer. He transformed the classroom, where students of classes 1, 2 and 3 study, into a smart classroom.
Based on parents’ requests to teach Hindi at the school, the school administration reached out to officials of the school education department, who transferred a Hindi-speaking mid-day meal organiser to the school. “She now teaches Hindi to interested students after school hours,” he says.
Acknowledging Durai’s performance, the educational officialdom made him a resource person to train his peers on his teaching techniques, and a member of Ennum Ezhuthum – a state government initiative to improve the quality of teaching and learning in primary schools.
Again, with the support of the alumnus, Durai spends Rs 4,500 per month for auto rickshaw round trips, to facilitate transportation for 25 students. He said he had made the decision as many parents could not afford to spend money dedicated to transportation. It also helps raise the enrolment, he adds.
Often, Durai posts videos of his teaching on YouTube. One such video, inspired a Coimbatore-based industrialist, who donated bench desks worth Rs 1 lakh. “Another person donated a water-pumping motor,” he says. That was when he shared the story of the high-tension electric cable passing through the school premises and how the villagers came forward, together donating nearly Rs 45,000 to pay the Tangedco to relocate the cable to outside the school grounds.
Besides, Durai recorded a short film with the students to spread awareness against the use of banned plastic items. Word of quality education at our school has drawn interest from parents in nearby villages, who want to enrol their children here, he said, demanding the state government to upgrade the primary school into a middle school.
(Edited by Thamizhamudhan Sekar)