Minutes of Meeting held on 23rd Feb 2008

Minutes of educator’s collective meeting
23rd February 2008

People who attended the meeting from Pravah: Ishani, Swati
Teachers who attended the meeting: Namita, Dimple, Santosh (BNPS School), Hemlatta, Padma Shankar, A.S. Lakshmi, A.V.S.Lakshmi (Andhra School)

Agenda for discussion
It was decided that we could explore the agenda for the next 6 months with the teachers. It was felt that the teachers should be encouraged to come up with the plan for the next 6 months.

The second issue which was thought to be useful was exploring what kind of support the teachers were expecting from Pravah and what kind of support structures were available with Pravah which could be provided to the teachers.
Next, it was decided that during the meeting, the fellowships and their scope would be discussed with the teachers.

After this, the teachers initiated a discussion on assessment and how they are facing a lot of problems with it. The concerns expressed by teachers included implementing innovative assessment techniques with large student groups, addressing parent’s concerns, how to work more effectively with respect to individual attention in assessment. Teachers expressed the need to learn more interesting techniques other tha exams for assessing children in non threatening ways.

It was felt that we could consider looking at interesting experiments in evaluation such as those happening in the centre for learning, Bangalore, Mirambika etc and borrow from them their achievements. Namita Mam added that the heritage school didn’t have any exams till class 8. She also expressed that her school starting this year was going to follow the same practice and she was not sure how she was going to assess children in ways other than exams (summative tests).

This was followed by collectively deciding that the teachers were interested in exploring the following things as part of the collective:
visiting each other’s and others schools to learn
learn more about non competitive environment
nurturing parent teacher relationships
teaching techniques
share worksheets
learning workshops arranged by Pravah
observing other’s classrooms
participate in film festivals relevant to education and their classrooms

Exploring fellowship (learning and research)
Research fellowship
Learning fellowshipIshani initiated discussion on what teachers would want to take up as part of research fellowships. She mentioned that there were 8 research and 3 learning fellowships available. The teachers gave responses such as:
looking at the national curriculum framework
integrating theatre in pedagogy
adolescent issues
how conflicts in classrooms be resolved in non violent ways
alternative methods of teaching
addressing use of abusive language, bullying and aggression in classrooms
gender in classroom
social class and materialism
peer pressure leading to reactions such as suicide

Ishani while introducing learning fellowship asked Lakshmi from Andhra school to share her experience, which had took up the Pravah learning fellowship to take up a course in theater at IMAGO. Lakshmi shared her experiences of how her own rigidities have resolved and some of her own limitations have reduced. She said that earlier her entire focus was on completing course and now is much more on looking at each child’s concerns. She said her facilitation skills have also improved and she doesn’t get irritated easily, gives space for physical movement to children and does not restrict them and is not necessarily always looking for the perfect answer, but even the nearly perfect answer is fine. Also, she said she feels the need to encourage children who are interested in theater who may not even be doing academically very well.

After Lakshmi finished sharing her experience, Ishani talked of the different learning fellowships that have been taken up and that could be taken up in the future. She said there was someone who took up a fellowship to do a course in needs of special children. She mentioned how the Programme was an open one where each individual teacher decides for herself what her learning need is.

There was also some talk on how the fellowships would be chosen. She mentioned how the fellowships were earlier selected by Pravah personnel, but they would now like the collective itself to choose the needs and projects. Also, some discussion happened on whether the fellowships should be restricted to the members of the collective or should be open to teachers outside. Finally, it was decided that to begin with the collective is who the fellowships should be restricted to.

Also, Ishani mentioned that learning and research fellowships could be combined. Also, mentoring support would be provided to the teachers, along with monetary support in the form of a contingency grant of Rs 30,000 in case of research fellowships and Rs 20,000 in case of learning fellowships, which would be given in a phased manner.
The teachers also suggested taking the research fellowships in groups of 2 or 3. It was decided that the maximum members in a group would be restricted to 3 in order to ensure ownership of the project.

It was decided that the collective would meet once every month till it gets formulated, post which we could explore the idea of meeting very 3 months.

Also, the idea of traveling together or independently to an educational experiment/ conference outside Delhi was explored. The teachers were very excited about the idea and it was discussed of how we could plan the trip in advance to go to places such as NBA, SIDH, Digantar and Mother’s School in Pondicherry.
The possible timings of the trip were explored and 3rd week of may and the December break emerged as two possible timings.

Teachers were asked if they wished to know anything more, had questions/comments on fellowships or any other issues. After this, teachers were given a folder containing an article on formation of religious identities in children and a magazine on educational issues. With this, the meeting ended.