Avehi Abacus
Visit Report - Jayashree
Janardhan
This visit report has been prepared after visiting the Abacus project and
some of the associated government schools in Dec 2002.
Conversations with the supervisor team
Problems faced during implementation
Conversation with Abacus coordinator
The idea of the Abacus curriculum
was conceived in 1952 on the banks of the
Manuals for teachers are produced
in Hindi and Marati. The worksheet for children is in 8 languages – Hindi,
Marati, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, English and Gujarati. Currently Sangati
reaches children in 5th and 6th class. Next year it will be reaching children
in 5th, 6th and 7th standards.
Sangati Curriculum & Methodology
Sangati is the name for the curriculum designed by Abacus -
a course that covers a variety of topics. It means “Togetherness, Relevance and
Harmony”. It is a series of 6 kits that aim to make school education more
relevant and vibrant by addressing both what is taught and how things are
taught. The curriculum addresses the current vacuum in school curriculum that
helps prepare children with knowledge of the world around them. It takes up
current issues in society and the values that will help them take care of
themselves and contribute to the society around them. Sangati evolves with the
belief that education
needs to give children skills that they require - to make decisions, weigh options, find
out information (rather than just giving information, since it keeps changing).
Learning not only happens at school, but also at home, with parents and in
their surroundings. Sangati approaches topics with this type of philosophy
guiding the curriculum.
Sangati emphasizes the links between themes rather than
treat information in isolated pieces. The themes aim to help the child analyze
and develop understanding in the process. The curriculum also encourages
interaction between the teacher and students and opens up the classroom
environment to greater exploration. Active participation of the child is drawn.
The child develops better analytical and communication skills. Sangati draws
upon a wide variety of visual and art aids including flipcharts, posters, art
works, games, songs, stories and group discussions. Assignments/worksheets aim
to help the child understand aspects relevant to the child’s life by exploring
subjects in the child’s environment.
The six interlinked themes are:
Myself, My Body,
Our Needs – I am unique and yet share
something with every human being. Explores understanding the potential and
limitations of the human body. Regardless of all differences human beings have
the same needs.
Our earth and the
web of life – Provides the resources that
make it possible for us to fulfill our needs. The web of life – all life has
evolved a complex, interlinked and continuing process.
How societies
developed – Will help understand our own
lives better.
The way we live
today – Continuing changes in technology
and different social, economic, political and cultural institutions which
influence how we live today.
Understanding
change – which characterizes our
relationships, with all forms of life and the environment. It is only by
understanding these changes and their impact that we can learn to deal with
them and create the kind of lives and society we want.
Preparing For Our
Future – Exploring alternatives for
ourselves as well as our society and earth.
Through the themes and associated stories I have found that
Sangati clearly tries to bring in values that promote greater sensitivity to
society around us. It promotes gender equality, encourages harmony of diverse
backgrounds including religious and cultural differences. The underlying values
promote equality of all people
independent of caste, gender, varying abilities or religion. It explores aspects of development and social
prejudices via discussions among children. The themes are developed very well –
encouraging children to talk about different aspects and analyze rather than
blindly absorb. Although it brings up
different topics – it does not lose track of children’s way of learning or
analyzing – which can often be very different from adults.
One more aspect that Sangati tries to be cognizant of is
involving the teachers in what to teach and how to teach. Typically teachers
are just handed down instructions on how to teach cover to cover. This is never
questioned since teachers are at the lowest level of hierarchy and are simply
subjected to authority. This simply passes down to students in most cases with
the teacher being an authority figure allowing minimal interaction. Interactive
material like Sangati tries to open up the spaces for teacher creativity more
and change the basic class room structure.
The Abacus team has 8 members
(all women) who design the course and material.
They form the core design team of Abacus. Most members of the core team
volunteer their time with this project. All of them are strongly driven by
conviction in the values that Sangati tries to emphasize. The core team members have varied personal
and religious backgrounds. Various team members have worked in a variety of
roles outside of the Abacus project and their combined team has rich experience
to draw from. I found the team extremely committed. Often when there has been a
shortage of funds – the core team members have had to forego their
remunerations to ensure that their work is able to continue. The team meets
regularly to design the course material in an atmosphere of lively discussions.
In addition to the core team is a
team of supervisors – who visit the schools on a regular basis and work with
the teachers to ensure that the sessions and materials are used properly.
Supervisors play the link role between the Abacus project and the MMC
teachers. They ensure that teachers
receive proper training, gauge the response to Sangati kits from the teachers
and provide sustained feedback to the core team. They also provide feedback on
the teachers needs, the problems they face and how to proceed further.
The group has office staff to
help co-ordinate printing and all other office help. The Abacus office is in Mahalakshmi – in an MMC school
building which rents out a few rooms to different non-governmental
organizations.
I visited BMC schools in the following
areas – Dadar, Mahim, Daravi (2 schools) with Seema and different supervisors
for each school. These schools are in 2 different wards of BMC. Classes are
held twice a week for a total of 2 hours. Classes are held on Mon-Wed in one
ward and Tues-Thurs in another ward.
The first session we (Sima and myself) attended was in the
Dadar school. The school building had decent infrastructure. The first class we
attended was for the 6th
standard children - the teacher (male) was covering a session “How
agriculture/farming changed our lives”. The session was in Hindi. (I have a
recorded audio-tape of this session for anyone interested). The class had
approximately 35 students. I will summarize what I noticed about this session.
The session went over the importance of learning history and why we need to
learn it - on how history related to our lives. It then described the early stages
of evolution of humans, evolution of agriculture, domestication of animals,
storage of food and how life transformed in the early years because of this.
This teacher was very earnest, affectionate and the children seemed to like him
a lot. He seemed very excited about the lesson. He spoke fast (and his speed
certainly tested my own slightly outdated Hindi knowledge). He would ask
children questions in between and did
ensure that all the children got a chance to see the material (although his
speed was a bit fast and the children did not get a chance to keep the material
with them for long enough). He was very well prepared for the session and could
handle the pace of it. The session itself unfolded nicely and the flow of
topics within it was nicely done. The teacher brought up several questions in
addition to the basic Sangati material.
This session can impact the children’s history lessons and encourage them to
learn history with more interest. The interaction in this class was very good.
The children seemed to really learn the lesson.
We talked to the children after this class (and in many
other classes) and asked them what they liked/did not like about it. In this
class they told me they loved the teacher, pictures of the Sangati sessions,
music in other Sangati sessions, gave me the names of their favorite stories
(“Ramu ki roti” seems a hot favorite. Bhagat Singh a hero for some). The girls
told me that they were irritated by boys in the class who sometimes don’t
listen properly and ask silly questions. In another class one girl complained
that it bothers her that some others are so noisy in class. She likes her
lesson so much she wishes they would be quiet and appreciate it! I asked the
children if the teacher let them handle the picture flip-charts. They mostly
said no – that the teacher would not give it to them because it may get ruined
and there is only one copy. Some children wistfully said they wished their
other classes were as nice as Sangati.
We then visited the 5th standard session in the
same school. This session was supposed to be an introductory one and important.
The teacher (female) in this session was unprepared. She was very nice and
patient with the children but did not know the lesson very well. The children
seemed to take over the class – going over the material and prompting the
teacher/coming up with their own versions. The atmosphere/openness in the class
was lively but not much of the material was covered. The teacher later
apologized and told us she had not found the time to prepare properly for the
class.
As we were leaving the school – the principal stopped us
and asked me why I was recording the session. The children had promptly told
her that I was doing that. I explained that this is just for our reference
later and apologized for not taking permission earlier. We were very careful
about this from the next time onwards.
The next school we visited was in Mahim. This school has
very poor infrastructure and little or no room for the children to play. The
school premises were stinking and it was difficult to sit in class. I can only
imagine what the teacher and children have to put up with everyday. There was
also no drinking water and the children brought their own water to school.
Amidst this stench – what I witnessed in class was pure teacher magic. This
teacher (female) is one of the best ones I have experienced. She obviously
cared very much for the children and was extremely skillful in involving every
one of them in the lesson. She took the Sangati session to its highest potential
using her own creativity and children’s unlimited thirst for exploration and
story telling. The session
co-incidentally covered the topic of schools – why there are schools, what each
child experiences when she first comes to school, what she likes best, what she
would like to change. Under her skillful/loving care I found children who could
really open up and grow in confidence as the session progressed. The teacher
took the class for a much longer duration than the allotted 1 hour and let it
go on till the session completed. This session left me deeply affected about
the teacher herself and the effect learning aids can have in helping her unfold
the lessons and transform the classroom.
I had to ask the supervisor how often one finds teachers
like this (in her experience) – she told me that it is actually not that
uncommon. BMC pays well and is able to get some really good teachers. At least
1/3 of the teachers are good, a larger number average and the remaining are
lacking. I do feel that investing in good aids is worthwhile just to help the
good/average teachers take their classes to a higher potential.
The next set of schools we visited was in Dharavi including
one Tamil medium class. The school building here was huge and different
language schools were on different floors of the same building. The Tamil
medium class covered a session on disabilities and special needs. About the
story of a child who learns determinedly to adapt and get past his
disabilities. The teacher explored what each organ helps achieve and asked the
children how they would adapt without one of them. He led them to what other
special abilities they may develop in this process. He talked about facilities
available in the media for persons with special requirements (such as news broadcast
for hearing impaired. The class was fairly interactive and the teacher well
prepared. The children followed the
stories well and later came up with a few examples from within their own
communities. I talked to the teacher about how he found Sangati and any special
feedback he wanted to convey. The
teacher likes Sangati and can see it is worthwhile. He mentioned that he found
it difficult to learn the material in Hindi/English and then teach it in Tamil
(note that some of the material is only available in Hindi). He often has to
find another teacher who can comprehend Hindi better than he can, learn from
them and then prepare for the class. His request was that Sangati makes all
materials available in Tamil or in English at least and this will be very
useful for non-Hindi speaking teachers.
I asked Simantini (the abacus coordinator) for her input on this – she
mentioned that it is difficult for them to create material in each language
since they don’t believe in just translating. They material has to be written
in the language to have full impact. The effort and cost involved is high. They
would like to make English only versions in the near future which may help
address some but not all of this.
The last session I attended was by a male teacher (Hindi
session) who was well prepared. He was very methodical and conducted the class
at a very good and careful pace pausing for children’s responses and viewing of
the material. The children answered continuously and the class interaction was
excellent. The topics he covered were to do with health, health care, sickness,
preventive health care, taking care of ourselves well. The topics explored what
needs to be done during sickness. The children gave examples of illnesses in
their families, of themselves being ill. At this stage the children also gave
lots of examples of home remedies followed in their own homes by their mothers
when they are sick. First aid was explored as well. Some common ailments like
an upset tummy caused the children to joke and then double up with laughter.
The teacher made it a point to applaud children’s answers and tried to give
many children a chance to answer. This teacher enjoyed being with the children
and was very fatherly in his advice. Each teacher’s personality makes the Sangati
material assume a different personality. The session was being keenly followed
by most children in the class. A couple of children were more keen on observing
us than the class. The benches in the class had little leg space for me and
they found it amusing to see me try to fit into them!
There is a detailed example of the Sangati curriculum in
the presentation by Abacus at the Alternatives in Education conference in
Conversations with supervisors from the Abacus team
Described below are excerpts from conversations with
various team members from the supervisor team about how they see their own
roles. I spoke to all of the team members. All of them feel their role is very
important and this type of a link role is critical for the Abacus curriculum to
be implemented correctly. Their main task is to build a relationship with
teachers so they can learn about the effectiveness of the actual implementation
of the syllabus. Their work involves correctly understanding the intention of
the curriculum and then gauging to see if the objectives are met. The team is
very meticulous about their record keeping. They visit the schools during the weekdays.
Saturdays are spent documenting all the feedback from the week. Here are
various tasks in their work -
I also talked to the supervisors
about how they perceive Sangati itself is making an impact. Here are their
comments based on their observations -
Problems seen during Sangati implementation
The problems typically seen in the BMC implementation of
Sangati –
The supervisors have studied all
the BMC problems very carefully. Common BMC problems affect all the work. They
report all these problems every week. The coordinator of Abacus talks to BMC
about all the problems they encounter bringing it to their attention. Long term
I feel that this documented work of the supervisors may be useful in working
with BMC to fix problems with their schools.
Conversation with Abacus Coordinator – Simantini Dhuru
I discussed some additional
questions sent by Asha volunteers with Simantini Dhuru – the Abacus coordinator.
(Q)
Do you interact with
organizations that do similar work? Who
are they and how do you interact?
(A)We work with several groups in
the area of looking at the curriculum and pedagogy critically. Ones we interact
with in Mumbai include Comet Media Foundation which organizes baal-melas with
interactive stalls, workshops, seminars.
We work with Prakash Burte of Eklavya (M.P) who is based in
Mahashtra. He has done an analysis of
Marati medium text books of Maharastra state to look at different social issues
and how they are addressed in books. Initially both Abacus and Shri Burte were
working on this independently but started collaborating once we found out about
each other’s efforts. We work on and off on this and are mostly constrained by
lack on time on both sides. The issues looked at are gender, urban/rural
representation, communal and religious representation, caste, development
issues, how is progress defined, representation of tribal issues, the concept
of nationalism. These are issues that have a direct impact on how children
grow. For more than 95% of the teachers and children these text books are their
only resources of information. So it is important for us to ensure they are
correct. How the textbooks look at these is a key issue. Our study tries to
come up with examples that are depicted incorrectly and how to change these. We
have looked at textbooks from 1st-10th standard (Except
Math). Shri Burte’s work is very systematic and exhaustive.
We do interact with several groups
during campaigns. For example during the right to education – we participated
in both state level and national level campaigns. We have participated in a
group called “Insaaniyat” on the role of education and addressing communal
harmony through education. Teacher workshops have been designed in this area.
Typically groups come together on a need basis since everyone is busy day to
day.
Aksharnandan in Pune and 2 more
private schools in Mumbai use the Abacus material. Several groups have
interacted with Abacus to get their kits.
(Q) How do you evaluate your own
program w.r.t ownership and acceptance within the government system?
(A)We feel that besides the actual
learning many aspects go into determining the success of a program. Especially
with an implementation within a government setup – it is important for us to
engage the different government staff involved. We have to get association and
people within the system on our side. We feel we have done a good job with
teachers, 100% involvement from the children but need to work more to get more
senior staff involved in an understanding/ownership of this program. When
senior people stand by the work it is difficult to shoot down a program.
We are measured by the objectives
we have signed up with the government in the beginning. Our objectives clearly
state that the child will become sensitive to environmental, social, gender and
other issues. This will lead to increased interest in schoolwork. We do not
claim the child will get better in Mathematics because of this. Our intervention
is not strictly in the area of traditional academics. So legally we have set up
expectations in our objectives document. So far the evaluation has been based
on the original objectives and the evaluation found the teachers and class room
environment enthused. We need to go through one more round of evaluations
later.
We work with ¼ of the BMC schools
now. Our hope is that we can actually expand to the remaining BMC schools which
means reaching to the almost 1000 BMC schools. However there is no budget for
this since the material is expensive and BMC cannot afford to buy it. BMC does
not have any money to budget for this. Today 98% of BMC money goes towards
staff salaries. They don’t even have money for infrastructure repair or
educational supplementary or additional material. If all Asha chapters chip in
we could reach all the 905 BMC schools in Mumbai which would be a tremendous
achievement. What Asha has to do is provide the 1 time investment to create the
materials for all the schools. Once this is done we could approach UNICEF or
other orgs to take up yearly running costs (worksheets for the children etc)
long term. Note that this is a one time cost for Asha. We could long term get
UNICEF or other orgs to support this provided Asha can give startup costs.
Also, if BMC says this is very vital to us UNICEF can fund it. BMC has been
asking us to expand but we have been short of funds.
UNICEF has bought copies and all
the material for 120 schools in two additional districts in Maharastra -
Chandrapur and Yawatmal districts and provided money for training costs etc.
Perhaps UNICEF could have taken it up in Mumbai itself but for some reason they
preferred to take it to newer districts in rural Maharastra. This in a way
helped us since we made the material adaptable to rural Maharastra as well.
(Q)What were problem areas (in your
anticipation) during Sangati implementation and your observations now?
(A) We were wondering about how the
teachers will react to the material which explores common biases that all of us
carry. We were gauging how they bring up the discussions and have been
pleasantly surprised by the ease with which many of them are able to bring up
difficult topics. We have also seen some teachers change their perceptions and
this has been very rewarding.
(Q) Are you able to gauge the
parent’s response? Have you done any surveys of this?
(A)We won’t get to this for another
five years J till we have finished our production and have other basic requirements in
place. But we have indirectly received their feedback through conversing with
teachers. After their training workshop last year several teachers reported
that many parents show more interest in their child’s schooling after Sangati.
They credit this to Sangati. They have also seen some improvement in attendance
of the parent-teacher meetings. This is because a lot of what the child does
includes and takes parent’s opinions into account.
We could potentially request
volunteers to survey parents and get their feedback. When people ask for
volunteer opportunities we could perhaps suggest this.
(Q)Have the teachers evaluated
Sangati?
(A)Yes, each and every teacher’s
feedback is with us. (Abacus has sent some copies of these to us).
(Q)Have you evaluated the difference
between children who have been exposed to Sangati versus children not exposed
to Sangati?
(A)TISS did a survey spanning 8
months. They found a marked difference in how the children interacted with
their teacher. (Copies of this have been given to us).
(Q)Do the teachers spent enough
time with Sangati? Although 2 hours is dedicated to it – in reality the
teachers don’t always utilize this time for Sangati.
(A)We have discussed this before –
we do a lot of work to inspire teachers through the supervisors. What is still
missing is the conviction among the higher level BMC staff about the usefulness
of Sangati. Once this happens teachers will no longer think of Sangati as
optional work in any way.
(Q)What have done external
evaluations of Sangati?
(A)TISS and one by BMC. I will give
you copies of these. The third evaluation by Sudipta Dhruva, the fourth by the
Asha Mumbai volunteer team.
(Q)Could you describe your
production process?
(A)When we first started we had no
experience of working with teachers/BMC schools. We used to go to the class and
actually work on it with children. We then started taking notes of what used to
work and what did not. Now we have supervisors who do very detailed feedback
and help us design future material. Over the years our writing and drawings
became more sophisticated and the learning materials have become very good as
well. We use the computer to produce material for the kits and the quality of
it now is very good. We are now very happy with the way the materials are produced
and manuals written. The easy use of material is feedback we are now getting
constantly. There has been a lot of improvement in the kits.
We have in house translators
because we believe our material needs more than a translation. It should be
like actually writing in that language. A mere translation will lack the depth
of our stories. We write entire sessions, stories, poems, activities etc Three languages are keyed in the computer
then a person does the illustrations, page
design and layout etc. This is then put on a CD and sent to a positive
maker who can make it with the number of specified colors. It is then sent for
mass production.
I think that the Abacus project is unique in its goals and
what it is trying to achieve. The philosophy, curriculum material and team
commitment to this cause is excellent. The fact that Abacus work is being taken
up for wider implementation by UNICEF in other parts of Maharastra is a
fantastic achievement for the team and their dedication.
The curriculum addresses sensitive issues in a very
skillful way. Sangati is able to bring in discussions on society and values
based on equality of gender, religion, caste, different abilities in very well.
This may still cause their work to get undue attention given the
socio-political climate of the country but I believe this is all the more
reason why Abacus needs support. They are able to converse about issues that
are relevant and do it in a manner that encourages greater sensitivity and
analytical thinking. There are few efforts in this vital area and Abacus needs
our full support.
I believe that the team of supervisors and meticulous
follow-up Abacus has in place currently is greatly contributing to the success
of the program. I wish more government school interventions had this level of
detail.
The budgetary requirements for Abacus are given in the Additional information section. I hope more Asha
chapters can participate in this.
My suggestions are more in terms of long term perspective.
These are areas I believe Abacus and Asha should address in the very near
future (as soon as possible):
Presentation on Avehi abacus (with an example of an Abacus
session).
Avehi, the parent body of the abacus project is an audio-visual resource centre, was launched in 1981 as an initiative of the Avehi Public Charitable (Educational) Trust. It was founded by individuals from various fields, committed to empowerment through education and to using the potential of audio-visual media to facilitate rational thinking, social awareness and social change. Please see the Website for Avehi resource center.
Financial
requirements for 2003(see the history section)
Contact
information
Noella, Deepa, Ms. Simantini Dhuru
3rd Floor, K.K. Marg Municipal School,
Behind New Shirin Talkies, Saat-Rasta, Mahalaxmi,
Bombay 400 011
Email: avcab@bom5.vsnl.net.in
Tel: 022- 3075231
Future
Visits
I did not get a chance to explore the teachers training aspects of
Abacus or attend any training sessions. This is an area that the next volunteer
visiting needs to explore in detail.