Anand Niketan Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Annual Report 2014-15 +91-7152-284101 | +91 98810 18188 | [email protected] Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Contents Message from the Principal .......................................................................................................................... 3 Students and Teachers at Anand Niketan ..................................................................................................... 4 Teacher Preparation ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Integrated learning with Curricular and Co-curricular activities .................................................................. 6 Academic Learning .................................................................................................................................... 6 Agriculture, Cooking, and Vastrakala ........................................................................................................ 7 Solar Cooker .............................................................................................................................................. 9 Use of Improved Cooking Stove .............................................................................................................. 10 Water is life, let’s conserve it .................................................................................................................. 10 Study Tours ............................................................................................................................................. 11 Independence Day .................................................................................................................................. 12 Street play ............................................................................................................................................... 12 Music, Dance and Drama ........................................................................................................................ 13 Scrap Bank and, scientific toys and Kirigami ........................................................................................... 13 Morning and Saturday assemblies .......................................................................................................... 14 Physical education, Sports and Games ................................................................................................... 14 Science Laboratory ...................................................................................................................................... 14 Parents meetings ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Documentation of School work .................................................................................................................. 16 A film as a visual document .................................................................................................................... 16 A Book on Anand Niketan and its Pedagogy ........................................................................................... 16 School as a Resource Center ....................................................................................................................... 16 Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 2 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Message from the Principal How do we bring quality and meaningfulness in education is the greatest challenge faced by schools today when the societies are very highly influenced by consumerism and market. Due to excessive influence of competition, English language and uniform of learning patterns on parents, acknowledgement of cultural diversity of students has reduced to minimal. Extreme individualism is ruling the collective spirit. While centralized corporate development model is creating extreme poverty, migration is aggravating the issues of learning of children from adverse background. Too much emphasis on academic learning has reduced the scope of harnessing different potentials existing in children. Consumerist values are conflicting with humanistic values. All of these have reduced the time and comfort that children and teachers can have in appreciating, responding and nurturing beauty and creativity in various forms. The problems of excessive deskilling and going away from nature are of serious concern, which unfortunately are being least acknowledged by today’s educational system. There is also an urgent need to understand environmental degradation caused by human actions at every level and responding to it through individual and collective corrective actions. Our inability to distinguish between need and greed has not only resulted in depletion of natural resources but also of human values. All of these have taken us towards unsustainable relations within human societies and with the nature. Anand Niketan, a Nai Talim school with holistic and futuristic perspective, tries to deal with all such issues in an integrated manner. Our effort is to develop understanding on all such issues at the levels of teachers, parents and children to create positive learning atmosphere with the spirit of cooperation, compassion and collective action. Though the process has not been easy with the systemic and other pressures playing their role, together we have been moving towards better collective understanding and action. We have been able to do this work only with the financial and moral support of our partners. Our special thanks to our partners – 1. Bajaj Foundation, Mumbai 2. Manudhane Trust, Mumbai, 3. WATIS (Wipro Applying Thoughts in Schools), Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 3 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Bangalore and individuals and groups who have been consistently helping us in keeping our morals high. Here are the highlights of our work of academic year 2014-15. Students and Teachers at Anand Niketan Classes Total Pre- Class Class Class Class Class Class Class Class No. of school I II III IV V VI VII VIII Students Girls 22 15 14 15 11 12 09 05 05 108 Boys 27 13 15 08 14 06 08 10 07 108 Total 49 28 29 23 25 18 17 15 12 216 During the academic year 2014-15, the school had total 16 full time and 4 part- time staff members, including teaching and non-teaching, to facilitate learning of around 216 children. Teacher Preparation Teacher is the backbone of any school. Her holistic preparation, commitment, innovativeness and teamwork determine the learning culture of a class and school. In order to ensure continued learning and qualitative mentoring of teachers, workshops and training programmes were organized throughout the year. These workshops focused on developing curricula, equipping teachers with better academic and pedagogic skills, and refining pedagogic features of Nai Talim (integrated holistic learning). A summary of the capacity building efforts is presented here. Title Details Topics Planning All teachers and two - Worksheets on First language and Workshop fellows (Hemant Mathematics from Age 6 to 10 [10-19 June 2014] Mohrir and Madhav - Annual Work plan and Monthly Plans Sahasrabudhe) - Yearly Plan of Gardening participated in the - Integration of energy and related topics Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 4 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. workshop (sources, issues, need and challenges with alternative-sustainable sources) - Projects for Class V to IX: (working and related science of) Solar Cooker, Bicycle First language 14 teachers from - Language learning pedagogy school and - Child’s language [12-14 July 2014] preschool - Multilingual situation in the class participated in the - Reading and Writing skills session by Ms. - Learning disabilities Varsha - Tricks and tips for teachers Sahasrabuddhe - Integration of language with other areas of learning Mitramilan at The entire team of These two days provided good Bramha Vidya teachers opportunity for the team to think about Mandir, Pavnar participated in this purpose of education in a broader [15-16 Nov 2014] annual meet perspective. Listening to renowned organized on the educationists, like Narayanbhai Desai, Dr. death anniversary Abhay Bang, provided inspiration and of Vinoba. opportunities to introspect individually and collectively. Pedagogy of In all, five teachers - Basic functions Mathematics participated in the - Fractions [25-28 Dec 2014] workshop organized - Word problems by NAVNIRMITI, - Where do children make mistakes? Pune. - Making learning experiential. Dialogue with All 12 teachers - How to plan for food and other Shri. Dhirenbhai participated in the necessities? Soni dialogue with Shri - Routine day and work of the family [11 Oct 2014] Soni, an organic - Perspective of new generation towards farmer from their life-style. Baroda. Participatory The session was - Importance of participatory decision Decision making conducted by Shri. making for grassroot democracy and Collective Mohan Hirabai - Relationship between self-rule, self- learning Hiralal, from esteem and self-respect Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 5 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. [6-7 Nov 2014] Mendhalekha, - Importance of collective and Gadchilroli (dist.) continuous learning - Journey of Mendha Lekha to become a ‘Gramdani village’ and how has it helped individuals and the community - How ‘Decision by all’ is different from ‘decision by majority’? How does it help in accountability? Performance All the teachers - Vision, Mission, Objectives and Values management were present for of the school system for the session - Annual goals with respect to number school and facilitated by Mr and performance of students team Hemant Mohrir - Learning opportunities [29 Nov 2014] - Teacher capacity building -- content, pedagogy, technology -- integrated and life-centric teaching - Infrastructure Development -- Science lab, Library, Playground, Farm, Art- Craft, Computer lab, Kitchen, Vastrakala, Workshop. Alternative The principal of the 50 teachers from different alternative Education school participated schools of the network had discussions Network Meet in the Annual around ‘Spirituality and Education’ [24-26 Jan 2015] Network meet theme. Integrated learning with Curricular and Co-curricular activities Academic Learning As the school has been legally recognized by the State government, it follows of Maharashtra State Board Curriculum. At the same time as the school functions in Nai Talim spirit, academics, art-craft and value based education are transacted keeping child in the center. As Marathi is the first language for most of the students, it is also the language of instruction at the school. However, the school has provided the facility of studying Mathematic and Sciences in English from Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 6 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. class 5 onwards as an option. EVS and Social Sciences are studied throughout in Marathi. At all possible instances when the need is felt, teachers follow bilingual method to ensure comprehension and proper understanding. Similarly, teachers ensure that the teaching learning process is interactive and designed around suitable activity. Besides State Board Textbooks, teachers refer multiple books from NCERT, Eklavya, HBCSE (Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education) and other publishers. Students have access to Encyclopedia and dictionaries for their reference. Children are encouraged to visit and use library on regular basis. Largely it is found that children’s academic development has been good. We want children to enjoy learning and take up work in a self-disciplined manner rather than being forced on the child. Multiple intelligences of students are catered through multiple activities to ensure nurturing of diverse potentials in children. Our effort is to create opportunities to learn and develop a holistic individual and also to create a cooperative school community taking cognizance of the outside world. The school is not selective in admitting children and we have approximately 10 % students who need special attention and care due to various reasons. For us, helping all the children in a positive and cooperative environment is as important to us as nurturing their intelligence. Agriculture, Cooking, and Vastrakala Agriculture, cooking, and Vastrakala are some of the areas in which systematic testing of curriculum is being done for all classes on regular basis. All children from preschool to class VIII work regularly in the garden. This year the crop yield was poor in monsoon due to a long dry spell and continued heavy rains later. However, Rabi season had been good. There has been a good yield of leafy vegetables till now. The garden flourished with fenugreek, spinach, coriander, onions, radish etc. Children take good care of their vegetable plots. School has decided to pay half the prize of the yield to grower so that they work sincerely and can collect money for books and stationary of everyday use. Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 7 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Gardening on bamboo racks with recycled material like plastic bottles and jute bags was an added experiment. Documentation of these activities in the form of modules continued last year as well. Students and teachers planted around twenty fruit trees last year. Children sang songs in a Dindi for a tree sapling in a cradle and plantation was done on Janmashtami to understand the relationship of Lord Krishna with nature. The saplings are being taken care of regularly. To enable efficient watering of vegetable beds, it was necessary to provide taps. Thus, a pipeline was installed and five connections were made available with the pipes. However, this created a need to ensure that children understand proper use of water to conserve water and to avoid detrimental effect on plants and soil. Therefore, rules have been framed for the same. Multiple visits to Sewagram Ashram farm helped children in observing different crops and processes involved in farming in different seasons. Cooking has been a part of learning from the first grade itself. We believe that systematic exposure to cooking is very helpful in developing good understanding of health, nutrition and nutritional security. The exposure is given without gender discrimination and the work is well integrated with other disciplines like math, language besides sciences mentioned earlier. It also helps in developing good understanding of hygiene, gender sensitivity, social issues, deficiency disorders, cooperative learning and self-reliance etc. Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 8 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Preparation of doormats with jute thread and use of applique work on jute mat were the new additions for V and VII graders this year. Older children used sewing machines to stitch small purses. Solar Cooker Work with solar cooker began this year. Cardboard model of solar cooker was prepared by students of class VII and VIII with the help of teacher guidance and some experiments were also conducted around it. Working of actual solar cooker was understood and actual molding work of solar cooker done by an artisan was observed by children. Children read a book on solar energy written by Mr. Arvind Gupta to understand the importance of renewable energy. Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 9 Anand Niketan, Nai Talim Samiti, Sewagram. Use of Improved Cooking Stove Children of class VI worked on a project to understand ways of reducing indoor air pollution. They observed and helped in preparing an improved cooking stove with the help of a mold. This will be followed by a survey on the types of cook stoves and fuel used by people in nearby area. Children have studied the ill effects of indoor pollution particularly on women and young kids who spent more time in kitchen. Water is life, let’s conserve it Students of class VII and VIII worked on ‘water is life, let’s conserve it’ project. Developing an understanding about basic natural resources has always been a priority of the school. When the school came across the Wipro Earthian programme, the idea was discussed with students and decision was taken to participate. A systematic plan of study was chalked and executed. The project enabled children to do number of activities to understand sources, quality and use of water. They also studied various ways to conserve water including roof water harvesting, preparation of soak pits, bunds, and careful monitoring of taps. Children dug a soak pit themselves for waste water from school kitchen. A visit to scientist’s well-designed house and dialogue on water conservation provided a lovely experience. The project offered good opportunity to look at the local practices of domestic storage and use of water and possibilities of contamination. This enabled them to rethink about the cultural practices related to the use of water. This project also helped children relate to the broader issues related to management of water in farming, the impact of deforestation on availability of water, recurrence of floods and famine situation and so on. Children were exposed to the impact of human life on the situation of river water pollution. The final report was presented in front of the jury in Bangalore and it was selected as one of the best projects. The school was awarded a prize of Rs. 1 Lac by president of Wipro, Mr. Azim Premji. Annual Report - May 2014 to Mar 2015 10