On Wednesday I conducted my first classes at Parichay. My first class was to a younger class where we covered Hindi, and looked at the meanings of various Hindi verbs (smile, drink, eat) in Hindi and English, and also involved asking the children to translate simple sentences between the two languages. The second class was for the oldest group in Parichay, most of whom I had already met when we went to Tribal Fusion last week.
The two hour lesson involved reading a story, and looking at the meaning of new words. Towards the end I conducted an English spelling and Hindi meaning test for the class, and out of a maximum possible score of 34, a young, bright girl (called Moni) achieved 33 - well done Moni!
The class ended with handshakes from a couple of the young boys and comments such as 'acchi lesson Sir' (good lesson Sir). The experience was so engaging that we did not realise the lesson had run 15 minutes over! The experience felt very natural and normal for me despite being my first time teaching, and I am looking forward to my coming classes tomorrow. The children were extremely well behaved and seemed to have a thirst for learning - and this is because the children have realised the value of education in uplifting them from their previous circumstances (such as child labour, for example).
On Thursday Vijay took me to MTU (Mission to the Unreached) Vidhya Kendra. The NGO has a school of around 200, and is based in New Ashok Nagar. As we entered the children were beginning their day by singing 'We Shall Overcome' which had set the tone for the day. Vijay was there to conduct assessments on some selected children to assess their mental ability (to check for any learning difficulties, for example).
While Vijay conducted some other parts of the test (relating to memory, for example), I was helping with tests relating to order (such as placing story cards in the correct order, and duplicating patterns using matchsticks). I learned about the importance of testing these children as young as possible so that they can be given the appropriate extra support where it is required, in order to ensure maximum possible educational attainment.
On Friday we returned back to MTU Vidhya Kendra to conduct some further tests with the children there, and then we returned back to Vidhya Niketan in Bilaspur. There, I watched Vijay give guidance to the ladies on how to set up their groups (establishing a name, keeping log book records, establishing regular meetings and keeping records of money given in to the group). Two groups were formed, and I had seen with my own eyes the will power of those ladies to empower themselves through their own means as a community.
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