Shifu quickly acquainted with the dogs on campus and went around exploring the campus.

We had our breakfast with Jane and spoke of her experience interacting with asha-volunteers in her visit there as the keynote speaker at the asha-conference. She spoke about her diverse experience and also her interactions with people working on schooling in the US (with minorities and peace studies). We also spoke about the school and the children.

• Seven of the children had graduated and joined high school in eighth grade. Their further studies is being supported by the funds raised by the sale of asha calendars created by Sita School last year.
  The children join the eighth grade after appearing for the seventh grade examinations. Till four years back this examination was an open public examination after which it became a trimester (3 sets of examinations) and two yrs back it was a two semester examination. Without an open examination it has become difficult for the children to take these examinations. They along with Vikasana had approached the government for permission for the children to take the examinations. In the mean time the system may revert back to the open public examination this year and the children will be able to take the examinations as independent candidates.
• Two children joined the school this year as compared to eight last year. Ironically, this is the year later after two children from Sita school had topped the school in Xth grade. This year five children are taking the Xth grade examination.
  We were discussing the reasons for this and she mentioned that part of the reason is perhaps just the choice of primary schools now, there being around 22 schools that have opened around in this area in the last three years. There is also one government school in the area.
  Given the limited strength of 28 this year Jane had discussed with the other teachers on focussing on other aspects of schooling and how they could contribute more as resource people this year.
• Divya is working on a book for 'Everyday Kannada' and also a book on 'reading and writing for meaning'. The second would help in ways to encourage children to read and write independently. It will also explore combining art and writing. Nav Karnataka is interested in publishing this the Everyday Kannada book.
• Sarojini is working on maths for younger children. There is a text that is used in Sita school for the same (it is also used at CFL) that she will be adapting to Kannada.
• Kamala is working on translation of practical maths and science experiments into Kannada additionally she wanted to work with the primary government school children on applied science.
  [Update June 28 visit: There are only 14 children in the government school of which 10 were present at the school. Only one child has joined in this school too. Given the lack of strength one wonders if the school will even continue.]
• One of the teachers is pregnant and may be taking some time off in Sep.
• Jane's book Everyday English-II is now being published by Jotsana Prakash. Everyday English-I is already being used for 3 grade children in one district of Maharashtra (around 10,000 copies). The second part will continue where the first left off. Jane is now working on the teachers book for Everyday English-II (this comprises of suggestions for activities around the book). She has also started working on Everyday English-III. The books are being supported by the language center in Phaltan in Maharashtra.
• Learning Through Art is due to be published by Eklavya this month.

We spent the rest of time time at the school and reading some material on education. Rather than just give information regarding each of the things we saw cronologically, I will mention some of the things I felt were of interest especially to learn from:

Story Telling with magnetic board

This can be used for story telling and introducing English (and Kannada) to the children. The boards can be used for many colorful animals and characters to create stories that can be magnetically held on a metal board. Here is a short simple story - bang, bang a hunter goes to hunt a elephant. The elephant is scared and tries to hide behind the tree. But the elephant is too big, so the elephant asks for help from other animals. Then the elephant lies down and one peacock, two rabbits, three turtle, etc cover the elephant so the hunter can't see it. Rats says the hunter and goes home.

This can be useful for multiple of our projects that are trying to work with younger children in shorter time like in Chaitanya.

Independent work and individual attention

In math the children were refreshing what they had done before (this being the first couple of weeks of school they were also refreshing overlap with previous year). There was a lot of independent work that each child was doing and the teacher was taking turns with each child at his/her understanding and giving suggestions.

Language: Enacting out small plays

I have written about this in my previous visit with regard to getting comfortable in conversing in English and learning new words. The plays can be short - this one had 8 dialogues 2-3 each person. First the children did their parts then they sat together and did everyone's part with Jane. The play was used to introduce new words and you could see that initially the children were having difficulty with the syntax, at the end of each play cycle, Jane went over the why and whats of what was being said. The children slowly got more comfortable and accurate.

Younger children: Group work, responsibility

In case of younger children there was a craft class, but it wasn't just drawing something. They were together trying to make small parts for something bigger. It gave the sense of working together as a group while contributing your little. Additionally, the children are given the chance to be responsible on their own. I chanced upon kids putting away their play material after their class when I was sitting in another class.

Environment

Throw in nature and keep the place beautiful with the help of children. Let them learn from nature and from each other.