Despite seeing and focusing on all the
negatives that exist in the public school system in India when it comes to
teachers, including teachers who didn’t understand the subject matter, and who
were unenthusiastic and unsupportive of their students, there were many that I
met who were extremely dedicated, and continue to be an inspiration to me as I
work on this project.
In the first school I visited on my first day in India this year, I met Savitha, a second-grade teacher who is incredibly dedicated to making sure her students have the opportunities that she herself did not have growing up. As a child, she went to a public Tamil-medium school and did not receive a comprehensive English education. Once she was ready to join the workforce, she found herself at a disadvantage for that reason. When she became a teacher, she learned English on her own time and developed a lot of her own English learning material, making sure every student understood each topic they covered before moving on to the next. She even taught phonics to students even though it wasn’t in the government textbooks. I learned a lot from Savitha over the course of the month including how to reinforce skills. Also, quite a few of the phonics activities I developed after that were inspired by the activities that she had designed herself specifically for her students.
In 2009, the first time I visited India, I met Lakshmi Suryanarayanan, the director of Olcott Memorial, when I was looking for volunteering opportunities. She introduced me to the English labs there and was my inspiration to eventually start English Kadhavu. Lakshmi ma’am, as her students called her, was committed to improving the lives of the children from the nearby slums attending the school and tirelessly created opportunities and resources for her students. From her vast experience, she had understood that lack of English proficiency of the teachers was a major hinderance to the students learning the language and initiated many teach training programs including hands on activities and conversation sessions to improve the english fluency of the teachers.
Lakshmi ma’am was my main inspiration to start English Kadhavu and over the years was an integral part of our efforts. She loved the idea of the book boxes when I first presented it to her in 2015 and, although was battling a relapse of breast cancer at the time, guided me, gave me many suggestions for activities for the book boxes, and enabled us to test the book boxes in her school. The teacher versions of the story books and the bingo games, which are a part of most of our book boxes, are just a few of her contributions. Even though she passed away last year, Lakshmi ma’am’s ideas, dedication, and tireless efforts to bridge the language divide, continue to inspire me and in own work.
LINKS
Website - www.englishkadhavu.org
Facebook - www.facebook.com/englishkadhavu
Instagram - www.instagram.com/englishkadhavu (@englishkadhavu)
In the first school I visited on my first day in India this year, I met Savitha, a second-grade teacher who is incredibly dedicated to making sure her students have the opportunities that she herself did not have growing up. As a child, she went to a public Tamil-medium school and did not receive a comprehensive English education. Once she was ready to join the workforce, she found herself at a disadvantage for that reason. When she became a teacher, she learned English on her own time and developed a lot of her own English learning material, making sure every student understood each topic they covered before moving on to the next. She even taught phonics to students even though it wasn’t in the government textbooks. I learned a lot from Savitha over the course of the month including how to reinforce skills. Also, quite a few of the phonics activities I developed after that were inspired by the activities that she had designed herself specifically for her students.
In 2009, the first time I visited India, I met Lakshmi Suryanarayanan, the director of Olcott Memorial, when I was looking for volunteering opportunities. She introduced me to the English labs there and was my inspiration to eventually start English Kadhavu. Lakshmi ma’am, as her students called her, was committed to improving the lives of the children from the nearby slums attending the school and tirelessly created opportunities and resources for her students. From her vast experience, she had understood that lack of English proficiency of the teachers was a major hinderance to the students learning the language and initiated many teach training programs including hands on activities and conversation sessions to improve the english fluency of the teachers.
Lakshmi ma’am was my main inspiration to start English Kadhavu and over the years was an integral part of our efforts. She loved the idea of the book boxes when I first presented it to her in 2015 and, although was battling a relapse of breast cancer at the time, guided me, gave me many suggestions for activities for the book boxes, and enabled us to test the book boxes in her school. The teacher versions of the story books and the bingo games, which are a part of most of our book boxes, are just a few of her contributions. Even though she passed away last year, Lakshmi ma’am’s ideas, dedication, and tireless efforts to bridge the language divide, continue to inspire me and in own work.
LINKS
Website - www.englishkadhavu.org
Facebook - www.facebook.com/englishkadhavu
Instagram - www.instagram.com/englishkadhavu (@englishkadhavu)
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