The Pedagogy Puzzle

I was a founding teacher at an English medium secondary school in Pune, India for the 2015-16 academic year. We had around 130 eighth and ninth standard students and shared our school building with English, Marathi and Urdu medium schools. With space and time both at a premium, it was a challenge to give our children experiences beyond academic content. Keeping this in mind, our team decided to start clubs at school that would meet once a week (usually on Thursday). Different teachers led the clubs that ranged from debate to music to craft. I was in charge of two clubs - a Cycling Club (discussed in another post ) that met on alternate Sunday mornings and a Puzzle Club that met in school to learn and solve different puzzles. Being passionate about both these activities drove me to want my children to experience the same joys that I felt when solving a puzzle or cycling in the cool, fresh morning air! Let me be clear - the Puzzle Club was the least glamorous club at the school! Afte...

I was a founding teacher at an English medium secondary school in Pune, India for the 2015-16 academic year. We had around 130 eighth and ninth standard students and shared our school building with English, Marathi and Urdu medium schools. With space and time both at a premium, it was a challenge to give our children experiences beyond academic content. Keeping this in mind, our team decided to start clubs at school that would meet once a week (usually on Thursday). Different teachers led the clubs that ranged from debate to music to craft. I was in charge of two clubs - a Puzzle Club (discussed in another post ) that met in school to learn and solve different puzzles and a Cycling Club that met on alternate Sunday mornings. Being passionate about both these activities drove me to want my children to experience the same joys that I felt when solving a puzzle or cycling in the cool, fresh morning air!

Necessity is the mother of invention. A proverb that aptly describes the short sequence of events that took place at school towards the end of November in 2015. The organisation that primarily funded our school had planned a visit on December 1st. To convey our gratitude, it was decided that the students should put up a play demonstrating the importance of the organisation in supporting our school and children's education. Due to a combination of teacher availability and time constraints, the onus to produce and direct the play fell on my shoulders. While at my first school, I had worked with my children to enact a play on annual day. However, in that case, I had about three weeks to write, plan, cast and rehearse with my children. Furthermore, that play was an adaptation of a textbook lesson that my students were familiar which made the task a lot easier. Having never written a script from scratch, this play required me to be creative which is not my strong suit! I had l...

During my first year of teaching at St. Francis High School in Pune, I started to raise funds for my classroom to help facilitate activities and field trips for my children. In my second year, one of the activities that my children expressed an interest in was cricket coaching. As our school had a large playground, this was a feasible and convenient option to explore. Using a contact provided by one of my students, I arranged for a cricket coach to come to school on Sunday mornings for 2-3 hours to work with the children who were keen on cricket. My students brought their own bats and equipment while I purchased the cricket balls. There were around 10 boys from my class who regularly attended the classes. Both the coach, Shubham, and I were strict about children coming on time at 6:30 a.m. so that we could get sufficient time before it became too hot. Shubham used to begin by asking kids to jog a few rounds of the school field to get warmed up before proceeding to stretching exer...

During my first year of teaching at St. Francis High School in Pune, I started to raise funds for my classroom to help facilitate activities and field trips for my children. One of the field trips that I took my children on during the second year of my fellowship was a visit to a handmade paper factory in Pune called Papertells. Papertells was inaugurated by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on August 1, 1940 and has since been supplying handmade papers across India. At Papertells, paper is manufactured in an eco-friendly manner - no wood is used, no pollutants are released as a part of the process and the raw materials include various types of cotton, jute and mill waste. Papertells has the distinction of producing the paper on which the first copy of India's constitution was printed. Currently, the products available at Papertells include (but are not limited to) files, photograph albums, pen stands, lamp shades, lanterns and notebooks. All these products ar...

During my first year of teaching at St. Francis High School in Pune, I started to raise funds for my classroom to help facilitate activities and field trips for my children. Early in my second year of teaching, I used some of the funds to organise a field trip to the Pimpri Chinchwad Science Park which was located about 20 kilometres from school. Anusha was in town during that time so she joined us on the trip which added to the excitement for the kids! My students receiving instructions from a guide at the steps of the entrance to the Science Park. An exhibit of a car with hydraulic steering and pneumatic brakes caught the fancy of many of the boisterous boys in my class! Neat exhibits showing the evolution of man and the tools he used to make his life easier were also on display inside the main building. An exhibit with mirrors all around at strategic angles ensured that I could be in a photograph while taking it! My kids loved making crazy expressions and seeing ...

During my first year of teaching at St. Francis High School in Pune, I started to raise funds for my classroom to help facilitate activities and field trips for my children. One of the first field trips that we (Anusha and I) took our children on was a visit to the Kelkar Museum. It contains the collection of Dr. Kelkar, who dedicated it to the memory of his son, Raja. The three-storey museum houses various sculptures dating back to the 14th century and ornaments made of ivory, silver and gold, musical instruments and war weapons. We set off after school on February 22nd, 2014 along with some of the 5th standard students and their class teacher, Ms. Pramita Mukerjee (also a Teach For India fellow in her second year of the fellowship). A few volunteers known to Pramita joined us to ensure we had enough adults to monitor the children while we were navigating the different floors of the museum. As this was my first field trip with the kids, the 45 minute bus ride from school to the ...

During my first year of teaching at St. Francis High School in Pune, I started to raise funds for my classroom to help facilitate activities and field trips for my children. Early in my second year, I used some of the funds to organise a field trip with my 5th standard children to the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Science With Toys programme being run at the time by Mr. Arvind Gupta, a renowned toy inventor and science expert. His TED talk on making toys from trash has been viewed more than 300,000 times on YouTube. A friend of mine (also a Teach For India fellow), Ms. Priyanka Agrawal, joined us for the trip. She taught 5th standard as well and brought some of her kids along. Two teachers are always better than one on an outing with active children! We were taken to a classroom where Mr. Gupta and some of his team members were ready with materials that they planned to use for the workshop. The workshop started with demonstrations involving...