‘REAL-WORLD’LEARNING

Our member, Ms T. Bhawal, shares with us a unique experience that she had during her short teaching stint in Bikaner.

Ms Bhawal was brought up in Lucknow. She relocated to Bikaner in Rajasthan with her husband and joined Bikaner Boys School as a teacher. The school was about 11 kilometres away from the main city. The place was well known for two reputed schools, one was the school she taught in and the other one was Sophia Senior Secondary school. She could not continue with her profession for a long time as her daughter was quite young and she preferred looking after her rather than continuing with her job.

The school she joined was apparently, like any other school, but it had a unique way of educating the children. To provide hands-on experience, unique insight and practical knowledge, they used to take the children (class 9 onwards) for day excursions to the nearby villages. This was under SUPW (Socially Useful Productive Work), which was a mandatory part of the course curriculum in schools in those days. The purpose of these excursions was to increase productive work and services related to the needs of the community, which would prove meaningful to the young learners. Other than that, it also developed individual skills, habits to work in a community, increased awareness of scientific advancements, dealing with daily real-life issues and developed a scientific outlook. The training acquired in the classroom helped the students solve day-to-day problems of the community. The teachers had to accompany the children and take them to different villages. They were provided space, kitchen utensils and other essentials for cooking and they had to prepare lunch either individually or in groups. Then, they had to meet the villagers and enquire about their problems and attempt to find solutions for them. The problems would vary from health and hygiene, water logging, clearing of weeds and bushes, to make the places clean and habitable. They had to cut the grass and bushes themselves, make a note of the road condition and other social problems and try to find solutions for them.

This kind of experience under the guidance and supervision of the teachers made the students independent and confident. Salute to the teachers, who put their heart and soul in building the future of the society, and igniting the desire to learn and the passion for knowledge within their students.

(As narrated to Support Elders by our member.)