What is Sikshana? - A Child's Perspective

On Friday Mar 14th, 2008 I and Zankhana Patel of Vibha India, visited a few schools in the Kanakapura taluk on a field visit. Sasalapura Govt. Higher primary school was our second school stop of the day. The school was celebrating its annual day later in the evening and had given the afternoon off for the kids. A couple of teachers and a few students were in the school premises getting things ready for the evening function. We were shown an excellent year book made by the children of class 6 and 7. All the pages of the book were handwritten by students themselves and one article caught our attention. It was a two page article on Sikshana written by one Basavaraju of 7th class. Pictures of his writing and its translation in English are shown below.

We were impressed by the boys understanding of Sikshana and its activities and so wanted to meet him. Luckily the boy stays very close to the school and the teacher got him to come to school to meet with us. We then asked him to summarize what he had written in his own words. He spoke confidently for more than 10min and he could fully explain all the programs of Sikshana, how it benefits children like him etc. The highlights of his talk are captured in the 4min video clip below (with english subtitles).

During this time we were joined by his classmate Shivamadu who is the computer wiz kid of the school. Together they demonstrated various programs they use on the laptop. At the end of all this Ms. Patel asked the boys if they felt that all that they have learnt will be lost when they go to a different school for 8th standard to which they replied "If you hold the summer camp we will come back during vacation and teach the junior class kids all we know about computers".

(Read this blog by Subramaniam on his visit to the same school an year back at http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2007/01/sasalapura-public-school.html)



Translation:
If you take up any improvement work, you need mainly moral and financial support. In the same way for a well rounded education along with the school, ngo's are very much needed. In Kanakapura an NGO involved in such an activity is 'Sikshana Charitable Trust'. Sri Ramamurthy as the head of this trust is a source of inspiration for us.

The fact that recently the trust adopted all the higher primary schools in kanakapura taluk is very significant. The trust has been operating for the last four years and has worked hard to improve the schools. Sikshana expects the following from the schools they adopt.

• Identify unique talents of the children and encourage them by awarding spot prizes
• Along with academics encourage extra curricular activities
• Inculcate library book reading habit among children
• Improve writing abilities of children
  

The following facilities are available through the trust.

• Free notebooks for all children in the school
• Provide Rs.2000 per month to the school for its activities
• Two laptops and one desktop has been provided
• Every year provide library books thereby improving children's knowledge
• Identify talented children through quiz and take top performers on Delhi trip and all participants are taken on a one day educational tour
• Has created a system to identify special talents in children and rewarding them with spot prizes.

written by - Basavaraju (7th Standard)


Video Clip of Basavaraju's talk

Imagination Unlimited

Here are some of the pictures that Basavaraj, a seventh standard student in Arakere public school, created on a computer using Xara LX, a vector drawing program. His initial attempts were confined to simple drawings found in textbooks and workbooks. Once he mastered the trackpad, he moved onto drawing articles around him and even drew a wrestler he saw on TV!

Mangoes and flowers are staple pictures in classrooms, but Basavaraj paid special attention to smooth curves and shadows.

A pencil appears magically when triangles, rectangles are blended together.

In drawing a water tank, he experimented with shadows and lighting. This came in handy when drawing a house. The detailing on the door is amazing. The shading even takes into account light reflections from the interior!

Basavaraj has inspired his classmates Praveen, Rakesh, Sagar, Shilpa and others to weave their own dreams on the computer. When I dropped by their school, the children pleaded for more computers so that they can spend more time learning on it.

The 70+ children of Arakere share two computers amongst them. Working time is severly limited. But their imagination is truly unlimited!

A mind ignited

Basavaraju is a 12-year boy studying in seventh standard of Arakere public school. The school is located in a small hamlet about 15 kms southeast of Kanakapura town. Both his parents are marginal farmers who often migrate to Bangalore in search of work during lean seasons leaving him under the care of his elder sister.

Basavaraju with his elder sister and her kids.

Traditional teaching methods involving textbooks and notebooks failed to excite him. He would often skip school in the afternoons and wander off to the fields. He barely made the grade.

Arakere school was adopted by Sikshana last year and they received two computers - a notebook computer and a desktop computer - in July, thanks to GE Infrastructure in Bangalore. Manjunath, one of his favorite teachers, demonstrated many interesting ways of using a computer as an authoring tool. Basavaraju was fascinated by Xara LX, a vector graphics illustrator program. The program not only allowed him to compose interesting shapes using lines, curves and millions of color shades but it was so easy to erase mistakes and redo a shape. He started coming to school regularly and taught himself to draw pictures. He also cajoled Manjunath, who lived close to his home, to let him work on the notebook computer in the evenings. Manjunath, happy to see his ward show interest in learning, encouraged him to experiment freely with buttons, icons and trackpad.

It didn't take long for Manjunath to recognize that Basavaraju had a special talent in drawing. The boy quickly learnt to exercise very fine cursor positioning using the trackpad. While other children were still learning to draw and color simple shapes like squares and rectangles, he had progressed well into composing complex shaded drawings like a water tank, a tiled house and even a freehand sketch of a person. His sketches were precisely proportioned and even used color gradients for lighting and shadows. When Basavaraju sits before the computer and starts the program, he would have already 'drawn' the picture many times in his mind. He uses buttons and track pad dextrously and fluently and completes a sketch in about half-an-hour. So far he has completed more than a dozen sketches. They deserve a separate blog post. I have included a sample below. Notice the fine details on the face drawn using just the trackpad to control the cursor.

One of Basavaraju's sketches

Basavaraju attitude towards school also underwent a sea change. It took on a new meaning for him. Every drawing he completed fueled his desire to learn more. He attends school regularly and has started reading books in both Kannada and English. He uses dictionaries to look up words and phrases that crop up while he is on the computer. He looks forward to going to high school next year. With proper nurturing and guidance, Basavaraju can become an excellent professional illustrator or font designer.

Sikshana enters Phase III

A GIANT STEP

On Feb 11, 2008 Sikshana took a giant step. On this day, we inducted 98 more schools into the program, thereby covering all Upper Primary Schools in the Kanakapura Taluk. Over a period of three years from June 08, we intend to validate the model for further upscaling and replication. Details on this Phase III are available as a Document under www.sikshana.org/phase3.html and as a PP under:

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dwdqjhw_1147sx2wcg4

The event was marked by a simple function held at Jayamahal Palace Hotel in Bangalore with Shri T M Vijaya Bhaskar, Secretary Primary and Secondary Education , Shri G Kumar Nayak, Commissioner for Public Instruction and Shri A Ravindra , Ex-Chief Secretary Government of Karnataka as Chief Guests. It was attended by all the HM's of the schools, Volunteers in the field and the Members/ Staff of the Trust. The following links outline the coverage of the proceedings by the media:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dwdqjhw_131frp665cz
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/esrmurthy/LaunchOfPhaseIII
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dwdqjhw_134c6j6k9fc
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dwdqjhw_135gsr7nm4h

In his keynote address, Shri Vijaya Bhaskar complimented our efforts and offered all help and co-operation from the Department to the success of the program. He made two pertinent suggestions in this context: one to focus on the 'low end' students, try and bring them into the mainstream, and the other to involve the community in the efforts. While we are already working on the former through keeping track of all students scoring under Grade B, we have offered to introduce a scheme on the lines of what SVYM has done in HDKote by forming a Federation of SDMC's and getting them involved actively in Sikshana. The first steps in this context have already been initiated, showing the level of commitment both from Sikshana and the Department.

Shri Vijaya Bhaskar also indicated that the Government is considering another innovative scheme for NGO/ Private Sector participation for bringing excellence into public schools through adoption of one school in each cluster under a joint effort. Interesting opportunities may come up for Sikshana under this scheme, for which the details are awaited.

There was a working session in the afternoon when the new HM's were given an overview of Sikshana ; the response was extremely positive. The first series of interactive sessions which essentially are Workshops for TQM, are being scheduled from 20th Feb 08 onwards.

We, not only believe, but do strike it when it is hot...

VIDEO CLIP BROADCAST BY DD INDIA

More Scholarships

Another Impetus to the Scholarship Program

We have already 300 kids under our scholarship program to cover the talented kids coming out of our primary schools, aimed at seeing them through high schooling. With one more batch of kids coming up in June for funding from the existing 48 schools and 100 more schools being added during the next academic year, the need for additional resources cannot be over emphasized.

In this context, we were fortunate to have R and R Family Trust offering us adequate funds to cover another 35 schools/ 105 kids for three years - from 8th to 10th Grade. At a simple function held at the GUPS at Kallahalli, Mr Sudhakara handed over the cheque for this amount to us; the Trust members also had a chance to see the school and Sikshana in action.

Our heartfelt thanks to their wonderful gesture in instituting this R and R Family scholarship scheme. With the amazing pace at which this scheme is gathering steam, our goal of reaching 1000 students under the program is not far off..

Ramamurthy

The Other India

Ramaiah and his vision

We come across occasional stories in the media about the faceless Indians who, in spite of their sub-minimal living conditions, go on to make a difference to the lives of others; the magnitude of one such effort struck us forcefully when we visited the school at Kallahalli and placed our own interventions in the right perspective.

Ramaiah is a subsistence level farmer with three acres of dry land, in which he is able to raise barely enough to keep his family going. This has not come in the way of his donating a premium site on the main road of the village to house the Government primary school; it is here that the GUPS of Kallahalli is now functioning. Considering that the market rate for this land is presently in the range of Rs 700,000, the enormity of his sacrifice could be assessed and understood. Rightfully, his photo adorns the Office Room in the school; Ramaiah is so self effacing that he does not like to be reminded of it! In fact, it took some real effort on our part to make him come out with his story and what inspired or drove him to come up with this magnificent gesture. He would want to brush away all that; his fond hope is that the children of the village will now be able to get educated in the real sense and break through the barriers that confine them to eternal poverty.

At the end of the day, we had to return to the city with a deep feeling of humility in the light of what we have seen. Ramaiah represents all that is good in Rural India and its vibrant culture ; it is with people like him that the remaining 90% of the population sustains itself. We, belonging to the other 10% often tend to forget it...

Notebook Computing - One Year Later

A year is sufficient time to take a step back and see if the efforts in introducing true computing in schools are in the right direction. When we launched the notebook computing project around this time last year, it was considered a very high-risk venture. Imagine putting expensive notebook computers in rural schools amidst dust, heat and humidity, lack of teachers, high student count and expecting them to be integrated into the classroom. Why would such a project succeed when so many well-funded efforts in the past failed?

Last Saturday, ESR, Prasanna and I drove down to Kanakapura to meet teachers from 14 rural schools who had been given notebook computers in July. The teachers represented schools from the villages of Acchalu, Aralalu, Arekere , Bannimukudlu, Doddakaballi, Halasuru, Hosadurga, Hukunda, Hulibele, Kadushivanahalli, Kallahalli, Krishnayyanadoddi, Maralabekuppe and Nallahalli.

As for previous batches, they got no training except for keyboard/mouse and basic desktop usage. Only two of these schools had computers (three months and six months) but the desktop computers were rarely used due to power cuts and brown outs. Most of them knew very little English and the system was not localized in Kannada. The schools were located in remote areas. Their only source of support were two field Mentors, Asha Rani and Roopa, who would visit them about once a week or fortnight. It would be a miracle if they managed to integrate computers into their classes under such conditions.

A miracle it was! The progress they reported that day simply took our breath away. Every one of the teachers had learnt to operate the computer fluently and confidently for their own needs. Their creations included English flashcards, bar chart analysis of their class performance, a slide presentation with animated English words, diagrams of ameoba, solar system, cell structures, Kannada poetry and poet introductions and so on.

I had them write down their opinions to captured their unbiased views before initiating group discussions. Each teacher then spoke about their own experience with the computer. There was a common pattern in their experiences - initial excitement mixed with trepidation and self-doubt, gradual experimentation, early frustration about lack of training that slowly diminished as their skills developed, and finally the thrill of completing their first project - drawing, recording or document - successfully and independently. In the next round, each teacher got to exhibit their creations. The excitement was so high that the meeting stretched well past lunch time but nobody seemed to mind.

The teachers had exploited the computers ability to create detailed and colorful pictures, to record and edit sounds, to zoom text in/out, to edit and compose multi-lingual text quickly. A few teachers used Stellarium to show what happens during lunar eclipse (one happened on August 28th but was not visible in Kanakapura). Another teacher used animated words in slides to teach English. The computer was configured with separate accounts for children that didn't require them to type in a password for login. Yet, children would insist on typing a password to exercise their keyboard skills.

A few quotes from teachers

• I was so afraid when I opened the computer for the first time. Can an old rural school teacher like me learn to use it without any training? But it was pointed out to me that if I could master complicated recipés like Bisibele bath and Chitranna, then using a computer should be a breeze. Indeed, it was easy to learn and use once I got over my initial fears. Now I can train my students to compete with the best from the towns.
• I thought I should know English to use a computer. Now I am using my computer to learn English. This device is so powerful. I want to use it in my classroom everyday. I feel frustrated when the battery runs down and there is no power.
• My students learnt periodic table quickly when I used Kalzium program to show them pictures of each element. This is much more interesting way to teach than reading off a chart on the wall.
• When I watch my students learning to use computers, I am also encouraged to learn more.
  
• I thought computers were for playing games and watching CDs. Now, I realize I can also use it to create beautiful charts and diagrams.
  
• Being able to take the computer home is very helpful. I like working on the computer after 8:30pm (post dinner) for an hour. It is difficult to work on lessons during school hours.
  
• In future classrooms, teachers should be a facilitator and use the computer as the main teaching aid.
• After one year, I want to see all my students use computers in the classroom. Could you please give us more computers?

The highlight of this meeting was an incident described by a teacher. He brought along a boy who, previously, preferred to skip school to graze goats and sheep. No amount of coaxing would keep him in the school for long. When the computer arrived, the teacher showed it him and allowed him to use it for a few minutes every day. The boy was drawn to a vector drawing program and learnt to build pictures of huts and homes. Now he meets the teacher regularly to learn more about maths and science. He wants to become a "computer expert" when he grows big.

Looking back at the progress over the last one year, it is clear that our public schools, even those in remote villages, are quite capable of absorbing computing technology, if the project is designed with the whole computing experience in mind - not just a 'computer' project. In the last one year, teachers in 36 schools in Kanakapura and ten in Bangalore have successfully integrated notebook computers with FOSS (free and open source software) into their regular classes. All of them have started authoring and adapting content in a way that is personally meaningful to them. In every one of these schools, children use the computer to explore, to discover and to educate themselves. The schools use the computer the way schools of yore used microscopes and telescopes - to open up worlds from the tiny atoms all the way to the magnificent objects in the heavens.

Empowerment through Technology

Subbu and his 'One Track mind'

Originally I thought that this Title should read " Subbu and His Vision" ; knowing him as I do, this will be even more unacceptable to him. The idea is that a bit of a negative statement may get me the necessary go ahead to write about him and what he is trying to do. That you are reading this now shows that I have succeeded in this strategy.

A year back, we got an offer from Adobe to support an effort to take Note Book Computers to our schools - a Project which is the first of its type, naturally eliciting lots of enthusiasm and some cynicism in the process. Subsequently we got more such offers, first from Bosch and then GE in Bangalore. The progress in the schools that these have been deployed is being meticulously documented and brought out by Subbu in these Blogs. My aim obviously is not to replicate it; this blog is going to be more in the form of an environmental impact analysis, if you can call it that. These are also the impressions of a by-stander, who has been watching the progress over the last few months with conflicting feelings, changing from dire skepticism to 'awesome' amazement.

To start with, the note books were loaded with Open Source operating systems, much to the chagrin of the few teachers who have had some exposure to PC's and all the rest. This was followed by applications like Latex, Kyle and Squeak. A lot of us honestly thought that we will get nowhere with this approach. The first meet with the teachers was interesting and led to a stand-off: they wanted a training program about Computers and applications and Subbu bluntly told them that he does not intend to do just that. I was watching the exchanges and almost concluded that the program will collapse shortly , with the note books left untouched. After all these people came in with grave misgivings ranging from distrust of the medium to an undefinable fear that it will blow up in their face, if it is not handled properly.

The first batch of 12 teachers from five schools took some time to realize that Subbu meant business and that they have to start finding their own solutions, if they do not want to look silly in the eyes of their bosses and worse still, their students. Subbu told them that the NB is a tool in their hands and it is for them to find the best way of using it in the class room. By disabling the VCD facility, he had even blocked the one safe and easy method of using them - with canned stuff of which we had enough stock. This is another area in which a lot of us disagreed with him and ultimately gave in.

The first interaction session after five weeks showed that about half of the teachers have started on their learning path and the rest were willing to listen to their colleagues on the possibilities. Our assessment at this stage was two fold: that this effort cannot be kept up and even if it does succeed to a limited extent, it can only be attributed to the small sample size. Extending this to 50 schools looked like a crazy thing to try and do.

The second and third sets of Note Books came in and these were so distributed that nearly every school got at least one of it. Subbu increased the coverage to 15 schools and about 30 teachers . We had recruited in the meanwhile two excellent trainers - cum - facilitators in Asha Rani and Roopa, whose enthusiasm was second only to Subbu's.



The last meet at Kanakapura on 1st Dec 07, in which 15 of the recent converts participated to demonstrate their work was an eye opener for many of us. The following things struck us finally:

• That the teachers are willing to put in the required efforts and learn for themselves all that can be done with a Computer in a class room, with minimum hand holding
• That they are not only reconciled but also keen to use them for lesson planning, instead of using them as demo tool for 'entertainment' of the kids
• That they are willing to put in extra hours at home and on holidays to learn new applications and come up with good ideas
• That they are willing to take it to the kids and encourage use in a participatory mode
• That 90% plus of them are putting the Computers given to them in a responsible and safe manner, even though we have given them almost unlimited freedom of use

And to cap it all, to our pleasant surprise, Manjunath , a teacher from Arekere, said that he sees his role in the class room now becoming increasingly as a 'Facilitator' - a message that we would have given anything to convey effectively ourselves. It goes entirely to the credit of this program that it could bring about such a revolutionary change in the mind set of the participating teachers..


Some of the lesson plans which were shown at this meet were nothing short of amazing- given the manner in which the program was defined and driven. You will see instances of these in Subbu's Blogs shortly.

I thought I owe it to the teachers and the staff to place this appreciation on record; I know Subbu needs this least.

Ramamurthy

School Assessment Parameters

Valuable Inputs from APF Program

We have been struggling to find the most optimum parameters for assessing the schools so as to give us a tool for judging the impact of our program on a reliable and continuing basis. On the academic front, we have been using the competency based tests and question papers developed by Azim Premji Foundation and further adopted by the Department of Education since then. To these, we added a few other parameters like the Results from the Examinations and some simple competence based benchmarks, such as fluency in reading, writing, expression and computation. While these give a fairly good idea of the learning levels obtained in the schools, they are still inadequate to distinguish between a school which is on the rise and another which still needs to get moving.

In this context, I came across an excellent Report recently by the same source from which I had prepared Extracts and published them under the following link:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dwdqjhw_113cj36xn

The factors that differentiate the performing schools from those which are lagging, as brought out in the above document, make interesting reading. These are highlighted under different heads:

1. School Practices: Good Appearance / Adequate Teachers/ Proper Maintenance of Student Registers
2. Initiatives concerning students: Extra Classes / Orientation on Exams / Additional Reading Material / Incentive to Students
3. SDMC Participation: Incentives to Teachers and Students / Involvements and Meets
4. Parents Role : Focus on enrollment and attendance / Donations to schools
5. Other Indicators:

Timely arrival of HM
Active supervision by HM
HM spends extra time
Punctuality of Teachers
Use of Learning Materials in classes
Regular checking of home work
Special Classes
No Corporal punishment
Students arrive on time
Books and Notes available with students
Discipline among students- Absence of fights
Positive opinion of the SDMC by the Teachers/ HM

I was amazed to see that the conclusions are almost the same as the ones we have arrived at independently and are being covered by us for corrective action under Sikshana. Our emphasis on augmenting the teaching strength, providing incentives through spot prizes and scholarships, supplementing reading / writing materials at the hands of the students, stress on tests/ examinations and improving the morale of the staff bear testimony to this fact. It is even more striking if you look at the negative list headed by infrastructure, which have little or no impact on the standards in the schools.

There are however a few more factors highlighted in the Report which have not possibly been getting the attention that they deserve from us; I think it is time we took a relook and expand the action and check lists under the Sikshana template. While APF developed these as a 'post-facto' study while identifying the factors that separated the performing schools from those that dont, we need to look at the same from a different angle: to disseminate the same data and provide the key to success among the latter.

Any takers for the idea?

Ramamurthy

The Real India

It is the same story - with different characters



I am back after a long time; moved out of my inertia by a very moving story - acknowledgment to CNN-IBN at the following link:
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/the-onion-blog-your-curry-has-blood-in-it/49873-3-single.html
One cannot miss the parallels with the field of education : cartel formation, price fixing, control of supply/ demand and the whole works. It brings us to the basic theme: educating the masses. One wonders what the effect will be if there is even a modicum of empowerment!
It gives us renewed vigor to go ahead with our mission.
Any comments?
Ramamurthy