PUNE: “Science has to be taught to the students in such a manner that they feel drawn to the learning process,” said Samadhan Shinde of Women’s Organisation for Socio-Cultural Awareness (Wosca).
To simplify science for students from backward socio-economic background, the NGO has been running a project ‘Life Labs’ at several government and lower income group private schools in nine states across India.
In Pune, till date, the programme has reached 60 schools.
“In our latest phase inaugurated earlier this month, we have taken 10 city schools including those run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and private ones. We installed our Life Labs there, with support from Charities Aid Foundation, in association with Symantec. The project will be impacting 2,500 students from Classes III to VIII,” Shinde said.
The Labs comprise 81 working models, designed to clarify and demonstrate scientific concepts to the students.
“We select the schools we are going to target by a thorough screening process. After that, in case of the government schools, we contact the administrative authorities in the local governing bodies to take their permission to use an empty room in these schools to set up our Labs where we display all these models. The teachers can either take students to their rooms, or take the models to the classrooms for explaining the concept,” Shinde added.
TEACHERS’ TRAINING
“Not only do we set up the labs, but we also train the teachers in using the models for demonstration. We encourage children to use these models freely on their own, as they are extremely handy and safe. That’s why, we always ensure that the models and the charts explaining the concept behind those and instructions of use are displayed in a room, and not locked up in the cupboards,” Shinde said.
While the government schools and teachers are often frowned upon for lack of quality teaching, Shinde said, “We have been visiting several government schools across the State under this project, and we interact with teachers there. What we often see is there is no lack of interest or investment on part of teachers at government schools, but we do fall short on training.”
He added, “Activity-based learning is a recent concept, even though several schools have introduced it. However, the teachers need to be given practical training on how to make learning fun, and demonstrate the concepts to students instead of just explaining them theoretically. Of the teachers trained through this project, at least 80 per cent retained the knowledge and passed it on to new teachers.”
Wosca is associated with the schools for one or two years, and then the schools need to maintain and use the Life Labs provided to them on their own.
Speaking of government school teachers’ involvement with students, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay English Medium School Principal Elizabeth Auchite said, “I would say it without doubt that teachers at government schools have to be totally involved with every student’s learning process in the classroom, as they know that the parents of the child would probably not be able to look after his or her studies.
That is not the case with most teachers in private schools as the parents there tend to be educated and well-informed. We need to train the teachers at these schools with up-to-date knowledge and equip them with adequate resources.”
