Pradeep is a big fan of activity based learning. His focus is more on aesthetics, which he believes is neglected in our education.

Pradeep came in at 1120 hours. He landed up at the old school, as I had not shared the Google location with him. He wanted to do an activity with the kids, so we gave our kids an early lunch break. He then got them to trace outlines of their hands on newspapers. After that, crayons were given and they were asked to colour these outlines. They were asked, what did these outlines resemble. The answers ranged from trees and fishes to birds. Pradeep demonstrated how it could be transformed to a bird. He had an interesting rule. When I am talking, students don’t do anything, except listen. When you are doing something, you don’t do anything except doing.

Most students imitated Pradeep and drew birds. There were only 2 fishes. The homework that was given by Pradeep was, go home and make a parent or sibling do the same thing. A collage was made out of these drawings and stuck on the whiteboard. Pradeep ensured that each student had also written her name on the drawing. Once the collage was on the board, Pradeep asked students which drawing they liked? Based on the answers given by students, he advised them that they work on drawings at home, and incorporate these features into their drawings. On the way back, Jayant had some apprehensions about this. He felt that we should not compare. My feeling was that benchmarking is good, as long as it leads to improvements.

Next was the p4c session by Jayant Gadgil. We started with focusing. Most students had done some work with Shalu Mati. He asked students to close their eyes and imagine the work that they had done with clay. Was a good experience, especially since I was sleepy. I enjoyed the meditation the most!

Quite a few of the students had done their homework. They had got it written down with them, but our mistake was we did not check their written assignments. Jayant did not want them to be disturbed too much by moving around after the focusing session. What we could have done was to get them sit along with their notebooks, before the session started. The previous thought for the week was: in how many ways can you drink a liquid? The answers: straw, glass, bottle etc. Jayant wondered why no one thought comma by hand!

Next was an exercise of how to interpret shapes. Jayant used a circle, rectangle and square, to illustrate the symbol of a man. He then asked what changes will need to be made, so that this figure looks more like a woman than a man.

From here the discussion progressed into what distinguishes man from animals? The answers that came: jumping, laughing, driving, cooking, writing, thinking, homework and speech. This lead to finalisation on what our thought for the next week is going to be. Think about when you don’t do your homework and when you do do your homework. Jayant has offered to hold a pottery class, if all students finish their HW and come.

Pradeep’s observation was that it is a bit difficult for the first and second class to follow these P4C sessions. He feels that we should concentrate on the third, fourth and fifth, even if there are fewer children. Possibly, we may need to relook participation of people like Sahil and Hafeeza. But the rest of the first and second kids seem to be ok.

We then moved to the staff room, where we had a session with teachers. Pradeep was asked to share his experiences in schools. One of the interesting things we talked about was how he evaluates students. When he looks at an essay that has been written by a student, he does not look at the content. Instead he looks at what all got used by the student.

Did the student use his head? Which means, are the ideas thought through; has there been thinking involved?

Did the student use his hands? Which means, was the essay a mess, were margins present, was it done in a manner which shows neatness?

Did the student use her heart? Was she convinced about what she was writing or was it only for academic purposes?

He calls it the 3H model. The Head, the Hand and the Heart. The 3H model works well from 2nd standard onwards. He feels that students will then learn better, because now we are teaching them how to learn. Part of the 3H model is also the teachers heart. She should ensure that  the kids are appreciated. Applaud their solutions. Display their work in the class, and outside it.

The focus is to do simple things, but do it perfectly. He gave an example of a very simple thing. The first step in any origami activity is making a square. He spends hours doing it. In kindergarten it could be with colours.  

Today’s teachers are overstressed. It is because of their focus on teaching. Instead if they concentrate on peer learning, it will make life so much easier.

If you can’t explain something, you have not understood it. This applies for both students and teachers. Teachers, no matter what their experience, need to think before they teach. Have you ever asked a student to explain why 2 + 2 = 4?  Teachers should focus on the things that kids should be knowing, if they have to understand the idea in a chapter. Not the chapter itself, but the  prerequisite skills for understanding the chapter.

What is important in a class is that the boundary between subjects should be crossed. For example when you teach a paragraph in English, make students write its summary. Then a poem, based on the ideas, that they have seen in the paragraph. Then make them draw a picture based on the same idea. Then have a discussion of this idea. This is holistic learning!

He believes that India’s priority is primary education. Learning is best till 5th standard. These are the years in which we build a strong foundation. He thinks that for our school the role model is the Kolhapur based Shrujan Anand School. Must visit some time.

We then discussed Pradeep’s observations about Nagesh Mone, the principal of New English School. Nagesh is a good friend of the Pradeep, who thinks that Nagesh is one in a million teachers. We asked him what is special about Nagesh’s teaching? Pradeep mentioned that it is mostly the small things, the details, which make a difference. He recollected a class of Nagesh in Sangli. What Nagesh usually does is, if any student has got a math problem right, he puts his name on the board. Even if he knows the name of this student, he makes a habit of asking the student’s name. The names are not wiped out from the board, even after the teacher leaves the class.

One day, Nagesh wrote on the board, the name of a girl, whose answer was obviously wrong. Students observed this and questioned him about why her name was written. He replied, because her thinking was right.

In Nagesh’s class, students don’t shout answers, they raise their hands. There is a big difference in morale because of this.

We had the usual question and answer session with teachers after that.

Nishi wanted to know whether she can do the Origami square folding exercise with her nursery kids. Pradeep thought that it will be too complicated for them. For them, things like crumpling paper or colouring inside boundaries is better.

Nidhi wanted to know what should be done when kids exhibit irresponsible behaviour. When Pradeep had just started teaching a fifth standard class, a girl sitting on the first bench, throughout his class of math, just did colouring. He didn’t know how to react. When he was walking out of the class, she ran after him. She showed him her drawing and asked for his reaction. He didn’t have any option, but to praise. Moral of the story: don’t worry too much about such students. They will understand with time. Also, teachers need to teach, leveraging a student’s interest.

It’s wise to rebuke publicly, but without pointing fingers. This  leads to an indirect education, because of peer pressure. One technique that he uses for class control is, discuss how many kids have you observed in the class who are talking. This observation is repeated at different intervals. No fingers are pointed at students. But they realise, who are being talked about.

In his class, erasers are not allowed.  All the erasers are kept on the teacher’s table. Students are asked to strike out their mistakes, but aesthetically.

Kalplata wanted to know whether in craft class, should she help students, who are not able to complete the task themselves? Pradeep advised her to choose activities, that are easy. The objective is not art, but how to do art.

Another kaizen of Pradeep’s is after his lesson gets over, he tells students, ‘I have two words in mind. Your task is to guess them.’ This discussion helps reinforce the learning. So, the teacher works less and students more. When it comes to choosing subjects, choose easy ones, so that all can do it.

Maithili asked a question related to classroom noise. He felt that if they do things like working with beads and collage, the noise will be reduced. If someone has finished, ask them to do a Thumbs Up. Then count the number of Thumbs up. Some natakbaji is required by the teacher for class control.

Neelam had a question related to her son’s studies. He is currently infatuated with the cycle that they have purchased for him. Pradeep advised to teach him, in a way that he wants to learn. He believes that the television and the phone are the biggest distractions in student’s life today. By the way, there is no TV in Pradeep’s house.

He has promised to visit us again. He has also made a very interesting offer to the school. He has almost 2 terabytes of data of audio visual stuff related to teaching. He is ready to share it with us. One of his recommendations is a film,about how to teach history. It is part of a series in Kannada, dubbed into Marathi and English.

Samar Hotel was closed. So we ended up going to Aniket canteen in university and having lunch over there.