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Honey bee publish details |
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Education |
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Why did search for grassroots innovation extend to education besides culture, technology and institutions? |
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Our curiosity about linkage between biodiversity and poverty way back in late eighties led to a paradoxical insight. The regions of higher biodiversity often had higher poverty (a relationship which was later proved in 2004). It was so because diversified agro-biodiverse products lacked much market value we all seem to want uniform kind of tomato, brinjal, potato, rice, maize etc. Dependence on rain in dry regions caused higher fluctuation in productivity, lesser purchasing value, lower incomes and thus lesser enrolment or higher drop out from schools. If we had to break the nexus between conservation and developmental goals of local communities, we could not have conserved natural resources by keeping people poor and illiterate. Thus began our search for innovative teachers, and knowledge rich children in an otherwise disadvantaged communities. A few examples of our early encounters with innovative teachers and children will bring this out perhaps more clearly. Ignited India: Children Uncaged Bhanumati Upadhyaya had been teaching in Primary School for more than 30 years. She was among the few lady teachers invited to a meeting to learn about the ways school education could be improved about eighteen years ago. She was finding it very difficult to get girls in the school. She tried many approaches but none seemed to work effectively. Finally, she thought of an idea. She bought thread normally tied on sacred occasions for about five rupees. She invited all the men of the village to her school on Raksha bandhan day. This is a day when girls in India tie a ‘rakhi’ (a sacred thread) around the wrist of their brothers so that brothers would take care of them. Once she tied the thread, the men folks offered to give some gift to the school. They offered to have a water cooler, fans or some other amenity in the school. Bhanumati ben kept on refusing each offer. She said she did not want anything. But when men insisted, she provoked them by saying that they would not be able to give what she wanted. This obviously infuriated the men. Now, they would not relent and insisted on her telling her wish. She said, ‘please give me your daughters for the school’. How could they say no? In five rupees, she solved a persistent problem which our planners have had difficulty in solving after spending millions of rupees. Another teacher Thakarshi Kunbar found that many children, including boys and girls would either not enrol or drop out from the school. He tried to persuade the parents but in vain. He collected the details of birth date of all the children in the last five years from the birth and death register maintained by village attendant. Then he took rupees thirty from his pocket and bought 300 postcards [at that time, one card cost ten paise]. He started sending birthday greetings to all the children. Parents of many of these children were baffled and brought the card to the teacher to ask ‘What was it for?’ He would look at the card and say, ‘Oh, I am waiting for your child after two years, or three years or six months’. Parents were intrigued as to why was he reminding them so much in advance. He replied innocently but effectively, didn’t they forget to send their children to school. In thirty rupees, he solved a problem which otherwise had remained poorly addressed. A few others, Rajesh Parmar among them, developed the concept of ‘shala bina tala’ i.e., a school without locks. They asked the local community members who had actually contributed in building the school as to who should they protect the school from. If the school belonged to them, then shouldn’t it be their common property for which they would be responsible. Like this, there were teachers like Motibhai Naik who used puppets to teach various subjects; Ramanlal Soni wrote few hundred songs to communicate different concepts of science. For instance, to explain how the pump helped in filling the air in the tube in a cycle or kerosene stove, he explains it through a song. While there are many workbooks on environment, there are few that help children not only learn about environment but also its social implications. The Honey Bee Network members and various teachers’ federations and staff at IIMA worked with Prof Vijaya Sherry Chand to discover such teachers in different parts of the country (see www.teachersastransformers.org). SRISTI also organised biodiversity competitions and idea contests among children. Vivekanand in Madurai organised one of the first such contest to find that children by the age 12 knew almost half as many plants (112) as the maxima of the community. In Rajasthan Shodhyatra, a school boy could make a list of more than 500 plants with their uses. In North Gujarat at Virampur, a girl child brought just a single leaf. She obviously did not care about winning the contest, participation is all that mattered. How many of us will do that! The idea contests are organised in every Shodhyatra and also otherwise. Many of these ideas are included in IGNITE competition for children organised by NIF. A school girl in Jharkhand Shodhyatra was unhappy about the daily fights her parents had at home when her father came back drunk. She asked, “Cannot we have a room in the village where children could study in peace?†Another boy in Haryana Shodhyatra regretted that school desk were too tall for some children. Why could not their height be adjustable so that shorter kids could also keep their feet on the ground? Recently, we met Tunnab Joy, a Chakma child in Tripura Shodhyatra who thought about a two handle umbrella under which children could go to school. One kid will hold the handle in front and another at the back. There are numerous ideas which children can conceive at much younger age and still we seem to treat children as sink of our sermons rather as a source of ideas. There are several other ideas in works: open source multi-media, multi-language lessons for school children so that those who cannot afford tuition, can also get good education; an app that helps children ask question to each other as well voluntary teachers, a small social innovation fund to invest in the innovative ideas of the school teachers, improving educational material in government schools, etc.The Honey Bee Network salutes teachers who go out of their way to reach out to students, find innovative ways of communication and inspire not so privileged children to study. Over the years, the Network has developed a collection of work done by some of the most innovative teachers who are an inspiration to many. Honey Bee Network shares their experiences so that these can be replicated in other parts of the world. SRISTI has carried out a number of studies on innovative primary school teachers. Prof Vijaya Sherry Chand, Vice President, SRISTI and Professor at IIMA, spearheads this movement. The book Teachers as Transformers - Learning from Outstanding Primary School Teachers, is a record of the inspiring narratives of primary school teachers working in state-run schools in very difficult socio-economic contexts, overcoming odds with their imaginative responses to seemingly intractable problems. Their experiences illustrate the dictum, ‘universalisation has to be from the village upwards’. Efforts to ensure education for all have to counter localised and context-specific socio-economic barriers that hinder educational performance. In another initiative to reach out to school teachers and engage them in the process of identifying grassroots innovators, letters were sent to all the 18,600 primary schools in Gujarat. SRISTI requested village teachers to extend their support for identifying innovative knowledge holders and felicitating them. In response it received only 10 forms duly filled! Since the ratio was very low compared to the letters sent, SRISTI consulted some villagers. The latter felt that despite the low initial response this activity needed to be continued at regular intervals. They were confident that the efforts would bear fruit if pursued over time. There are so many interesting ideas given by children that have overcome our society’s attempts to discourage creativity and to make children conform to an image of what they should do and become as they grow up. Such ideas have emerged in the absence of a supportive ecosystem. They have thrived in spite of the barriers posed by the conformist system of education that we have created for ourselves. If our educational system was to encourage creativity and create an ecosystem that embraces experimentation, we would see a much larger pool of ideas for solving societal problems eventually leading to a better human life. That is why it is important to learn from these children and consider how formal education, which is today all pervasive can be reformed. Many years ago, a class one student asked a simple but, what for her turned out to be, significant question: “Why do we see more of the large black ants attracted to jaggery (gur) and the small red ants to white sugar?†She reflected on her own experiences and realised that her observations matched those of the boy. But she did not know the answer to the question! Inspired by this story, we started collecting “tough†questions that children in government primary schools had asked their teachers. “Do animals feel they have brothers and sisters?†“I see many flies around, but do not see the same number of corpses of flies. Why?†“Why is that most birds do not have big ears?†“Plants make their own food. What will it take for humans to do something similar?†“Do fish feel the cold?†“When coconut grows in saline land and water, how does it produce sweet water?†“If both potatoes and brinjals are kept in the open, brinjals lose their colour faster. Why?†“Why is the sky above my head and the earth below me?†“Why is the axis of rotation of the earth angular?†“Why do humans die?†What happens to this curiosity as one grows older? Is it killed by encouraging a focus on certain things that are valued? That is, along with educating into fear, we educate our children out of curiosity. Not that maths, science and language are not important, but not valuing other aspects which provoke curiosity does a disservice to creative expression. How well do our schools in forest areas draw on the curiosity about and the knowledge of plants and herbs that children possess? Unfortunately, that kind of curiosity is not valorised. The “curriculum†does not permit it. In short, educating children into fear of being wrong, lack of curiosity and disregard for expression hinder the development of what every child is born with creativity. Creativity is something natural; killing it is akin to depriving ourselves of a resource for the future. Especially an uncertain and unsettled future that calls for an abundance of this particular resource in order to solve our most pressing socioeconomic problems, whether these are related to depleting natural resources, the need for greater efficiencies in delivery of services to a growing population, or the demands made by an increasingly networked and decentralised society. Vol. 24(3) Jul-Sep 2013 The Educational Innovation Bank How do some teachers in government elementary schools achieve their educational goals in spite of facing the same constraints as thousands of other teachers? The answer lies in their ability to innovate and find solutions to their immediate problems. These teachers depend largely on their creativity and resourcefulness to transform the socio-economic constraints to schooling. It is important to identify such teachers, document and validate their work, and make it available to other teachers, administrators and policymakers to bring about educational reforms in the public system. The “Educational Innovation Bank†has been designed as a clearing house for such innovations in the existing pedagogies, systems and institutions. It seeks to create a grassroots innovation database that can be used by teachers, teacher trainers, administrators and policy makers. Making teachers sing Many of the poems in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Sanskrit textbooks of Classes 6 to 8 are best taught through songs— with fun, so that learning is more enjoyable. But teachers do not know how to convert the poems into songs. Often male teachers also hesitate to sing. Tasleema created melodies for all the poems of the four subjects of Gujarati, Hindi, Sanskrit and English of Classes 6 to 8, sung the songs along with her students and recorded them. Many of the songs have been uploaded on YouTube at: http:// www.youtube.com/user/taslimasheikh2012 Given the difficulties in access to the internet, these songs will now be put in DVD format by the Educational Innovations Bank for other teachers and children. Feedback from other teachers who have used the songs is a monitoring tool for the teacher. Schools in the surrounding areas have picked up the recordings of the poems and use them in their classes. Tasleema Hussain Sheikh, Shree Olvan Primary School, Una, Junagadh (taslima.sheikh@yahoo.in)Beyond the boundaries of reason: Let the children be! A duck and a porcupine, no one knows how,(Contrary to grammar) are a duckupine now. The stork told the tortoise ‘Isn’t this fun!As the stortoise, we’re second to none!’ The parrot-faced lizard felt rather silly-( Must he give up insects and start eating chilli?The goat charged the scorpion at a rapid runJumped on his back, now head and tail are one.The giraffe lost his taste for roaming far and wide, Like a grasshopper he’d rather jump and glide.( The cow said, ‘Am I sick, too, from this disease?Or why should the rooster chase me, if you please?’And oh the poor elewhale-that was a bungle,While Whale yearns for the sea, Eli wants the jungle. The hornbill was desperate as it had no horns, Merged with a deer now, it no longer mourns.Source: Khichuri (Abol Tabol by Sukumar Roy) Absurdity in art, poetry or life often is a precursor of defreezing of minds. Rationality is important but too much of it cripples the imagination. Creativity needs thinking beyond boundaries. Breakthrough Innovation will elude us till we pack the lunch boxes of children with unmet ambitions of parents and teachers. Let the children be ! -Ed.Vol 23(3) Jul-Sep 2012Creative childrenA Homage to Dr. APJ Abdul KalamSRISTI and The Honey Bee Network mourn sad demise of the former President of India, Bharat Ratna, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam whose birthday, Oct 15, has been celebrated by NIF as the Children’s Creativity and Innovation Day. Dr Kalam who is also best known as missile man of India gave us the chance to take the grassroots innovations and children creativity to national stage. His inspiration enabled us to create an identity for the innovators and traditional knowledge holders at national and global level. We pray that his spirit sustains our commitment to the cause of an inclusive and imaginative India. Why would a student bother about his mother having to climb the stairs and bring clothes drying under the sun on the roof when drizzling starts? Why should inability of grandfather of a school girl, Shalini to use walker on a staircase trigger a novel design idea but same inconvenience to many older people did not help them to overcome their inertia? How do we harness the ability of children to see drudgery involved in the back bending posture of a potter on the wheel? For a long time, we have treated children as sink of sermons: do this, do that; what should one do and what not. Many times parents and teachers even make model for the children which then are presented in science fairs as the children’s work. At an early age, children learn that presenting somebody else’s ideas as their own is ok, what a tragedy! Ignite awards by National Innovation Foundation try to recognise creative ideas of children even if they lack the ability to implement them. NIF then gets them converted into products wherever feasible, files patent in the name of the children, and tries even to commercialise them as it happened in the case of walker. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, former President of India gave away the awards every year. A small selection here presents a bird’s eye view of ideas received by NIF in ignite competition. SRISTI has been organising idea contests in Shodhyatras for almost two decades. Many of these ideas are also given here. Likewise, in various children workshops having privileged and under-privileged participants, several unmet social needs of slum people were identified and addressed to the extent possible. If in every school, we spend an hour a week or month to have churning (manthan) of ideas, one will not only get a lot of ideas but also children will develop appositive attitude.Children are not sink of sermons but source of IdeasA torch with an additional bulbMd. Alisher, Class XII, KSS College, Lakhisarai, BiharThe idea is to have another bulb below the main bulb of a torch so that light is available near the feet of user and also for people following the user. Once, Alisher was returning home with his grandmother at night. As he was using his torch to show his grandmother the way, he could not see a pit under his step and fell into it. This made him come up with an idea of a torch that can give light in different directions simultaneously.Posture correcting chairKulsoom Rizavi, Class V, Lamartinere Girls college, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh; Tarun Anand, Class X, Ch. Chhabil Das Public school, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.A chair with sensor at appropriate places, which alerts the user sitting in a wrong posture. Kulsoom and Tarun both conceived this idea independently after being regularly scolded by their mothers for sitting in a bad posture.Vol 24(3) July-Sep 2013Pen to check concentrationR Prosed Goswam, Class XI, JAY Kapil Dev Public School, Ranchi, JharkhandA pen with pressure sensors on the grip to indicate loss of concentration when the grip loosens. Once, while summarising notes of a physics chapter, Rudra lost his concentration and his attention kept diverting from one topic to another. It was then that he thought about such a pen.Vol 24(3) July-Sept 2013Shoe Vacuum Cleaner T Chris Ananth, Class I, Bell Matric Higher Secondary School, Tirunelveli, Tamil NaduSeeing his father vacuum cleaning, little Chris could not but reflect on his shoes, which made sound. He thought, could not he suck dust with his shoes? He added, “Since my mother is struggling a lot with cleaning, I would like to help her with my inventionâ€. So far mothers complained that kids dirty the floor, now they would ask the kids to come and walk on the dust, so that the floor gets cleaned! Chris wants to become a rocket scientist and roam in space! He is also a member of the NASA Kids Club. He also wants to play in the snow and land in space and visit Jupiter! His mother recalls that whenever he would get a new toy, he would dismantle it and then try and put it back together. His father an Electrical Engineer is also one of his inspirations. His grandmother, his biggest inspiration, guides him in reading the newspaper and story books. His mother suggests that young children/ inventors need to be encouraged by providing them with financial and technical support. Why not?Vol 21(3) Jul-Sep 2010Step-lock system in busR Santhosh, Class XI, J Rajasekar, Class X, A Nivashini, Class X, K Rathna, Class X, Govt Boys and Girls Higher Secondary School, Tiruvarur, Tamil Nadu Mechanism, which would not allow the bus to move if people are still standing on the steps thereby preventing accidents: an often-observed problem in our country unfortunately.Vol 24(3) July-Sep 2013 Co-pedaled cycle rickshawArnab chakraboarty, class XII, future foundation school , Kolkata, West Bengal.l Patent fieled under 121/KOL/2012Arnab recently moved to Kolkata. It disturbed him to see thin, frail men pulling heavy weight of cycle rickshaw all by themselves. His modified cycle rickshaw has extra pedals for passengers who may wish to share the burden and co-pedal the rickshaw. The pedals are placed just below the passenger seat and connected to the back wheel.Vol 23(3) Jul-Sep 2012Recognition Aid for the BlindB Suresh, Class X, The Hindu Colony Chellammal Vidyalaya SSS Chennai, Tamil Nadu Patent filed under 4650/CHE/2012Suresh though of creating a sunglasses that could help recognise people and objects. The glasses have an inbuilt camera to record the image and the name of a person met for the first time. When the person is met the next time, the image processing software will recognise and speak out the name to the blind person. The innovation can also search online to identify objects.Vol 23(3) Jul-Sep 2012Jacket that can sense body temperature, blood pressure, etc and send alertsSheikh Sipai Farhinbanu Makbul Ahmed Class XII; Amlan Anupam Class XII, FD High School for Girls, Ahmedabad, Gujarat & DAV School, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa Both the students have thought to develop a jacket that could monitor some basic physiological processes like temperature, blood pressure, heart beat, etc and store all the parameters in a digital device like a mobile. This device then can be programmed to send an alert signal to a doctor/hospital if there is a marked deviation in the parametric readings from the normal.Far away in Orissa, two deaths in his family due to heart attacks motivated Amlan to conceive this idea. Amlan, who aspires to be an Orthopaedic Doctor, says, “You can’t get anything unless you say Yes!†That’s his mantra in life.Vol 23(3) Jul-Sep 2011Children Creativity Workshop, Festival of InnovationCollecting disposable cupsAhmed Raza, Class IV, SDMC Primary Pratibha Vidhyalaya, Nizamuddin West, DelhiAhmad Raza came up with the idea of collecting disposable cups. A box normally holds 150 cups, Raza’s idea can take up to 750. Shireen Shei, Class V, SDMC Primary Pratibha Vidhyalaya, Nizamuddin West, Delhi Shireen felt that the need of the of the hour was sanitation and cleanliness. She came up with a clever idea that stickers should be placed inside and outside the Lunch Box stating, “Wash your hands before and after eatingâ€, in that case nobody can complain that they forgot washing hands. Use of Helmet as an ignition to start two wheelersArthi, Class XI, Vinotha Class XI, and Lailaa, Class XI, Government Girls High school, Tiruvarur, Tamil Nadu SM Arthi, S Vinotha and Lailaa Banu While there are laws preventing a two wheeler driver to ride without a helmet, yet the same is not followed properly. A lot of deaths in road accidents occur due to this. Arthi, Vinotha and Lailaa independently thought about this problem. They wondered if the helmet is so useful and is life saving, why it cannot be used for ignition to start two wheelers. It effectively means that until the rider has worn the helmet, the vehicle would not start. Arthi has been brilliant in academics and has been a National Talent Search Scholar. She likes ancient history and loves to derive contemporary lessons from historical incidences. She likes being challenged in the game of chess and wishes to become a marine engineer. Vinotha gets inspired by reading about women achievers like Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and Kalpana Chawla. Children ideas from CHINA shoe freshenerWei zhi chuan, Class XII, Middle School, Tianjin, ChinaIt is not very uncommon to find one’s shoes stinking because of perspiration and putrefaction of leather or socks in the evening. Wei, a brilliant student of class 12 in Tianjin faced this problem himself. He was quite fond of ping pong, which he started playing at the age of six. After lot of practice in the day, his shoes became wet due to sweat and left an uncomfortable feeling. This feeling was not unique to him. Millions of people from around the world have suffered from this stink. But, Wei, the Vice Chairperson of Writers’ Association of School Students and Chairperson of the Association of Student Innovators did not stop at feeling uncomfortable. He thought of inventing “bactericidal shoe hanging machineâ€.This machine essentially has a filter having active carbon, exhaust fan, air heater, ultra violet rays’ emitter, etc. When the shoes are put on the hooks in the shoe hanging machine, the ultra violet rays and hot air start freshening the shoe and the dampness as well as the odour is removed. The shoes become fresh.Belonging to the low income group, his father could not afford to buy lot of new gadgets for Wei. He did what seemed most natural; invent his own toys and gadgets. Natural water filterSoring Lepcha, Std IV, Passing Dong village, SikkimSoring Lepcha came up with an idea of installing water filters in the community taps so that every single person can drink clean water free from pathogens. 34th Shodhyatra, Sikkim. |
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Honey Bee 25(4) & 26(1) 45-53, 2014-2015 (25 years celebration) |
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