BHUBANESWAR: Inside a thatched house at the remote Khuntgaon village of Sundargarh district, children take turns to purchase small amounts of grocery from a dummy shop at one corner. In another corner of the room, a mock bank operates for them.
Under the watchful eyes of Shreejita Das, they learn to speak in English, Odia and carry out basic calculations by doing simple transactions, something that has only been taught to them on blackboards by their teachers at the local school. Every week, a new learning experience awaits the children.
In fact, learning is never a dull moment in this community learning centre set up three years back by Shreejita, a 30-year-old voluntary teacher, with the help of a local organisation called Koru Foundation. She has been providing free remedial learning to children of the village and nearby areas, belonging to tribal (Munda and Bhuyan) and SC communities, who do not meet the borderline learning outcomes in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN).
“In these remote villages, the FLN standard of children usually does not match their education level. For example, children who are in 7th grade cannot write a straight line in Odia or English or know the basic mathematical applications like calculating a large sum in a real life situation,” she said. Which is why, she has created a curriculum (learning by doing) that would teach the students practical application of language and maths.
“For example, in the mock bank and shop, children learn to interact with one another in English or Odia, learn to write their names, do basic calculations, plan expenditures, etc. There are no school books involved here but it is all about strengthening their foundational skills which will make it easier for them to integrate the knowledge into their school curriculum,” said Shreejita, who has done her Masters in Chemistry and BEd. She worked in the Azim Premji Foundation for two years from 2017 and was a teaching fellow before deciding to come to Sundargarh to teach students of remote villages for Koru Foundation.
That is not all. Shreejita encourages the children to think, write and publish their stories, comics, poems in a monthly wall magazine - Rangeen Patrika. The name of the magazine has been collectively decided by the children. “The children, who have a lot of indigenous knowledge, are encouraged to think about their own day-to-day experiences and pen them down in the form of stories, poems and comics for the magazine,” she said.
But the learning is not confined to the four walls of the community learning centre. Forests around the village also become their classrooms. “For a long time, many of the children did not wish to come to the centre after a long day at school. Girls, particularly, because they had to also help their mothers with the household chores. Most of them visit the forest to bring forest products,” Shreejita said. This is when she decided to join them in the forests to teach them about plant parts, different types of plants, the forest ecosystem and the environment in general.
Shreejita has also created a rubric following the learning outcomes recommended by NCERT, to assess children’s progress every six months. “Every session, there has been a considerable improvement in the learning outcome of these children which is visible in our assessment and their school results. It is a continuous process,” said Shreejita, who is now planning to approach the local government school authorities to implement the practical learning model for better understanding of children.