Visitors Make a Difference!

During the early summer, we had a visit from two friends of Shikshamitra who took out some time from their travels to volunteer doing dance workshops at school. The culmination of this ended in a beautiful performance! Here is the blog entry they wrote about their time spent at the school:

Dear Shikshamitra Readers:

Our names are Kajori and Meghna Purkayastha. We had the most remarkable experience in Kolkata this year. Out of the many places we visited in India, Kolkata was definitely the most memorable. We were born and raised in Orange County, California, and despite the assimilation to American culture, our parents have kept us in touch with our Indian heritage and culture. As 14 year olds, we have a lifelong desire to pursue community service, especially through our involvement in Swanirvar. Our time spent at Shikshamitra was a continuation of this goal.

We spoke to Sujit and Sudeshna about what we could do while at Shikshamitra, and proposed that we expose the children to movement and dance. We have both been learning the Indian classical dance known as Kathak for eight years, with our teacher Ms. Punam Kumar. Sudeshna asked us to write a brief narrative on the history of Kathak and also asked us to choreograph a short dance piece. We picked the song “Jhini” by the group Indian Ocean.

We choreographed Kathak footwork and added some Bollywood steps to make the dancing more free and flowing. In our dance group, we had much help from other Shikshamitra staff members, Mausami Auntie and Biswajit Uncle. They helped us teach the Shikhamitra students: Kiran, Rajesh, Indu, Priyanka, Anita, Bikey, Prodeep, Neha, Kakoli, and Chaitali. The ages of the students ranged from 7-15 years. After the school session was over each day, the kids assembled in the classroom. We taught from 1:30 PM to about 3:00 PM. We had a lot of fun teaching and getting to know the kids! They were polite and friendly, and very curious to know where we came from and what we liked to do. When they got more comfortable around us, they were not shy to fight with each other and ask for help. Kids will be kids!

In the beginning, we were apprehensive of our language skills. We worried about how we would communicate with the children, as our Bangla was not perfect. However, as time went on, we learned quite a bit of Bangla from them, and they learned English from us – it was quite amusing hearing them imitate our American English phrases like “Good job!” and “Fantastic!” We looked forward to spending every afternoon with them. The rigorous dance practices in the sweat and heat paid off- the kids gave a wonderful performance for the entire school. The dancers were beautifully dressed and looked so sweet for the final day.

We had the most memorable time at Shikshamitra- it was an experience we will keep in our hearts. For this we thank our relatives, Sujit Uncle and Sudeshna Maasi. We made many friends and hope to stay in touch with them. The parting was very emotional, but it will not be our last. We plan to visit our friends at Shikhamitra in the future!

Lastly, our visit has changed the way we do certain things. We found upon our return, that we have become much more gracious and alert about the struggles of life. We work to shed our attachment to material things and focus on working hard to overcome the obstacles we encounter-not complaining or doubting ourselves. Indeed, we felt that we had learned more from the students at Shikshamitra than they did from us.

"Whistle while you work..."

Isn't this what work should be all about, afterall?

Recognizing what we are made up of

For weeks before the Puja holiday break, it was clear that something was UP at Shikshamitra. Kids were huddling in groups, walls were being taken down, decorations were being hung up, there were rehearsals and practice sessions, things were getting cleaned up and there was an overall feeling of determination in the air. Sometimes instructors at schools might feel that having a big event takes away important classroom time but from what we could see, the kids were doing some of their most important learning in the weeks leading up to the Annual Function, held on 14 September, 2009, just before school was to let out for a long holiday.

The children themselves put together their skits and worked with the dance teacher to choreograph new pieces. They made invitations and invited their families and friends from the neighborhood. And while the kids were busy making their own preparations to wow the audience, teachers were also working on their own presentation: the Awards Ceremony that would be held in between the acts created and performed by the children.

At every school, children are awarded for good performance in certain subjects but at Shikshamitra we like to think that academics alone do not make up the student and we try to look at the growth and personal performance of each individual as well. This year, the awards that were presented to our students were based on total performance of the child throughout their stay at Shikshamitra. For some this meant four years, for others it meant six months.

Sudeshna and Kasturi called Samrat's grandmother out of the audience and up to the stage to help award the following unique honours to our students:

For SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY: Biki, Mohan, Sajahan, Hasna, Ador, Boloram, Chaitali

For EAGERNESS TO HELP / COOPERATION: Boloram, Ador, Babai, Samrat, Chaitali, Hasna, Rajesh

For CONTRIBUTION IN DISCUSSIONS: Shantanu, Sajahan, Biki, Indu, Hasna, Rohit, Samrat

For EAGERNESS TO KNOW AND LEARN: Shantanu, Rohit, Neha, Sajahan, Hasna

For BRINGING A SEA OF CHANGE IN ONESELF: Priyanka and Samrat

For ART: Noor, Sajahan, Rohit, Babai, Mohan, Biki, Ador , Bijoy

For CRAFT: Babai, Rajesh, Boloram, Ador,

For DANCE: Chaitali, Rohit, Anita, Priyanka, Indu, Rahul

For ACTING: Rohit, Shantanu, Babai, Ador, Mohan, Biki,

For WRITING: Anita, Indu,. Pradip, Kakoli, Biki, Sajahan,

For HELPING YOURSELF TO GROW: Hasna and Sajahan

For OUTSTANDING PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: Biki

For PARTICIPATION AND EFFORT BY NEWCOMERS: Sahidur and Dinesh

Besides the beautiful dance performances that showed what the children have been learning in the dance class over the past few months, there were other acts that were noteworthy. Bikey and Mohan wrote and performed a small skit about two guys sitting at their local tea shop, talking about Rabindranath Tagore – his works and ideas – on his birthday. One of the two guys was preparing for his Class X exam through the open school system named after Rabindranath (Rabindra Mukta Vidyalaya), so the other was curious to know if the board was named after the poet and educationist known for his alternative and open school experiment at Santiniketan. Another performance, which almost everyone took part in was called "Noise in the Kitchen," and was created by the students based on a story a previous teacher had told to them. All the performances were full of fun and we witnessed some fine hidden talent too!

It was an evening of magic, everyone was smiling and feeling a sense of having really accomplished something. Let's hope everyone comes back after the Puja break ready to unleash this determination once again for the new session!

Changing Roles from Student to Teacher

The photo above is from two years ago, taken after an art class at our school.

Boloram is an older student who has been with Shikshamitra for several years now. He works hard at his studies and is serious about moving ahead. He is part of the afterschool bookbinding course and is quite an enthusiastic art student! Recently Boloram was asked to be in charge of the art classes for the younger students who now attend in the morning. He took his job seriously and came up with his own plan based on an art lesson he had participated in at our school and at a different school we were helping develop more creative classes at.

On the day of his class, he had small paper cutouts prepared – dove-shapes and wing-shapes – for each of the students. He asked his students to design and decorate their doves and wings using the various materials ( paint, crayons, etc.) he provided them with. He finished off the session by putting the pieces together, stapling on the wings and attaching a hanging loop.

Then, Boloram made a beautiful tree on the back of the door, also out of paper scraps, and he helped the children hang their birds in the tree. And as this photo shows, he fashioned a pretty cool bird's nest out of some string that was stuffed away in a corner as well!

Three cheers for Boloram's innovation and budding leadership skills!

The Math Class that Ended Up in Circles!

It was a Friday Math class. We were discussing exam results – not a very interesting topic. Toward the end of the session, I decided to change the mood a bit, have some "fun" to balance out the "exam" flavor.

A few days back, the children had been asked to cut some circles from paper, so with this preparation already done, I took one of the circles and folded it into one-eighth segments (fractions). I made some cuts along the two radial edges. I then unfolded the circle to reveal a very nice, fully symmetrical pattern. The children and Biswajit started to try the exercise using their own circles and many different patterns came out. Sometimes the students were encouraged to refold the circles back and make a few more cuts to bring out the designs. Gradually, we saw some very intricate designs develop. Soon they all started to use their second circles, as the first ones had no more space to cut out from. Next, out came their third ones, fourth ones, etc... The circles had now become a very prized possession for those who had diligently cut them out beforehand.

The children were obviously pleased with their designs and wanted to display them so they brought down a large sheet of paper that had been sitting around, and pasted their patterned circles all over it. They wanted to hang it right at the front entrance to our school and I let them!

After seeing this poster of patterned circles, the younger children naturally became interested and the activity was repeated in their own class, with some help from Biswajit. Some of them did even smaller sectors to begin with.

The next day, some children from Praajak came to Shikshamitra to watch a movie. As the domino effect took root, it seemed that they also wanted to try their hand at cutting patterns into the circles. With them, we also did some patterns on the long strips of paper that were left over from cutting out the circles. A few of the teachers also joined in and we found that some of the strip designs could be worn as bracelets. At the end of the day, every one of the Praajak children left the school with one of these bracelets around their wrists.

Soooo, how is this related to math? you ask?
Well, it was a good way to introduce and explain fractions to begin with; and the concepts of rotation (circular design) and translation (strip pattern) also came into play.

- Swati

New Movements

Following a very hot summer vacation, Shikshamitra reopened on 12th June to move into its fifth year. Over the past four years, many of the older students have been exposed to various forms of art but unfortunately, there has been very little scope for physical activities. We were excited to be able to plan out a two-day workshop on theater activities with Jahar Das, who performed with a renowned theater group called Naandikar for many years.

During the two days (18-19 June), Jahar led students through various activities; the main emphasis being on reducing the childrens' inhibitions about moving their bodies. The session began with self introductions where each child was asked to mention his or her name, pronouncing it clearly. Rahul had to repeat his name a couple of times till he said it clearly: R-A-H-U-L and not R-A-U-L , as he has a habit of saying. The names with consonant clusters like Shantanu, Priyanka, Pradip were also given special attention.

The children were also exposed to some basic rhythms (Taal) and Sargam from Indian Music. Jahar had the children practice them repeatedly. He also showed them how they can invent their own music by using various daily objects, such as a steel plate and a spoon, a glass tumbler, a plastic bowl – and integrate these with the music of any regular rhythm instruments. On the first day, Jahar asked the children to enact a small skit without words: Bikey posed as a person reading a newspaper and Pradip was washing his clothes under a running tap. When Pradip forgot to indicate that he was turning off the tap, Jahar immediately pointed this out. He explained to the children that paying attention to the details is an important component of drama. On the second day, they did a skit with words. After doing some rhythm and Sargam exercises, the children were taught a modern dance with an English song.

The workshop was really fun and challenging for the children – so much so that they have asked Jahar to come to school regularly to do more drama classes. We are all happy that he has agreed to take a session once every week from July so that we can finally offer Shikshamitra students a chance to see how their bodies and minds can work together!

- Malasree

INFORMATION SHARING

Sharing ideas and talents with like-minded people and organizations is something Shikshamitra considers to be an important goal. In February, Shikshamitra teamed up with the handicraft unit at Calcutta Rescueto share some of our skills and ideas. We organized two workshops between the groups and plan to do more in the future.

On 10 February, 2009 a group of about 6 Shikshamitra students and two teachers visited the Calcutta Rescue handicraft unit near Soba Bazaar metro station. Riding the subway back and forth from Rashbehari was an experience in itself! We warmly greeted by the staff and craftspeople there. Each of the children went through the step-by-step process of making a small doll with wire, recycled cloth and thread. We were surprised to see how much work goes into one small doll, that fits neatly into your pocket in the end!



Then, on 19 February we hosted a workshop at Shikshamitra to share our knowledge of bookbinding with about four Calcutta Rescue craftspeople and four of the administrators. The workshop was led by Bali and two student assistants, Bikey and Boloram. Bali teaches the afterschool bookbinding course twice a week and it is heartwarming to see how students have gained a natural sense of pride and confidence from learning this new, useful skill. They call themselves, "Chetla Bookbinders!" Bali had prepared a slab of paper to be bound and then torn into smaller pads, so that each person could take home their own hand-bound diary with a cloth cover that same day. He gave basic instructions on how to make the various types of glue that are needed and worked with craftspeople from Calcutta Rescue to put a gauze binding on, get the cardboard covers cut to the right size and then neatly covered in cloth. He gave a demonstration on stitching the binding as well. We all shared a nice lunch together before saying goodbye. Everyone seemed very satisfied with the interactions that took place from these two sessions and reports from Calcutta Rescue say the organization has already started producing diaries as part of their popular handicraft range!

Here is Charlotte, an administrator for Calcutta Rescue, proudly showing off her diary!

Taking the ART IN EDUCATION Exhibition into the Community

SHIKSHAMITRA “ART IN SCHOOL” EXHIBITION IN THE COMMUNITY
23 JANUARY, 2009 • 2-6 P.M.

It had long been our founding teacher/social worker, Sukhendu’s, dream to take Shikshamitra into the community by holding an interactive exhibition in the local club. Unfortunately, in 2006 we got involved in holding the huge Bal Vividha festival and this community exhibition had to be postponed. Last month (12-14 December 2008), after holding the highly successful exhibition at school, we discussed the idea with Kishore, the secretary of Alipore Junior Sporting Club (AJS Club) and the parents and everyone was very enthusiastic about holding such an event in their locality. As the exhibits were already with us, this was also the right time. So this became a joint venture between Shikshamitra and A.J.S. Club. The venue was the club courtyard. The community was notified through six posters hung at strategic points in and around the locality. Mousumi, our current social worker(Sukhendu’s wife), was in charge and received supprt from Sipra and Biswajit.

On 19 January, parents were invited for a creative session in the school. They drew, they painted, made attractive needle work pieces, and tried their hands at clay work. As they munched at their snacks and sipped tea, the initial nervousness vanished. Soon they giggled and commented on each other’s work. Maura, our art teacher, was approached and mothers requested her to take English classes for them! A bit reluctantly, the only father in the group made a drawing – perhaps the first since he finished schooling himself. All of these were displayed at the community exhibition and the mothers managed their exhibits by themselves.

By 8:30 a.m., everybody had assembled in the school. Ador, a Shikshamitra student, came with his rickshaw van and took all the exhibits to the venue. It was a great feeling to go together as a Shikshamitra team and start the preparations. Unfortunately the previous day, 22 Jan., was a Bandh (strike) and we had a serious discussion on the 20th about canceling the exhibition. Thanks to Kishore, the ever-enterprising Club Secretary (supporting us from the beginning) and the decorator, Sachin, the entire zone was cordoned off neatly on the morning of the 23rd and was available for us to work on the displays.

To our surprise, Bijoy Das (an ex-student who lasted six months) and Biswajit Das (a ragpicker who lasted 2 days) were the main people sweeping the premises. Biswajit even reminded me that he was one of the first students at Shikshamitra.

• It just took us (6 teachers and 8 students) 2.5 hours to finish putting up the displays; an hour more was spent in detailing and giving technical touches. It was an example of wonderfully synchronized team work.

• The feeling of doing the exhibition in the community was very different, as it was we, the Shikshamitra teachers, who were the outsiders. The insiders were our student community, their mothers, Kishore and his associates from the club. We were comfortably assisting them to make the show a success. They knew every nook and corner and were climbing and crouching everywhere to make the place look its very best. We tried hard to sense the pulse of the community – adding exhibits or canceling some.

• Although the program was intended to start at 2 p.m. we found that we had started a couple of hours early! In a happening community such as this, one cannot restrict children and adults. They just walked in when they got the time!

• From morning, adults and children queried about the Sit and Draw Corner, which they were very familiar with from previous events we have put on. We warned them, with our usual mottoe, that there would be “no prizes because everyone is a winner.” Groups of children in all sizes used the colours and drew til their hearts’ content with family members and friends urging them to do well. The show was staffed by our students, Samrat and Boloram, and teachers Biswajit and Mousumi. Simultaneously, children thronged together to shape things out of clay. Doing the artwork was contagious. Adults, men, and women tried their hand at claywork and some of their pieces were rather original. Mohon, Shantanu, and Shiladitya supervised. The pieces were all put on display and people seemed proud.

• The show was stolen by the enthusisasm shown by all the young readers. They were glued to the library book display we had set out. Colourful books, with 2-4 lines per page, were chosen on purpose. There were also some more difficult ones out. The sheer colour and simplicity of these books stole their young hearts. The attraction was that they could read easily, loudly and move on to the next one quickly. A small child (4-5 years) simply hugged a book, feeling it, and then … even smelling the book too!! Older children (13-14) also refused to leave the books. Children rushed in, dragging their parents and grandparents along. They had come with money. They wanted to buy the books. How dismayed they were when we told them that these were our library books and not for sale! We all knew what the next step would be –starting a weekly library at the club premises!

Many enquired about the school, as they gazed into the charts. Volunteers like Shantanu, Sajahan, Ador, Rohit and even little Neha, did a great job managing the people, especially all the rowdy children. Photographs displayed (from our interesting science classes and our vibrant E.V.S. classes at school) drew many visitors. It was a learning experience for us all. A community exhibition needs more hands-on displays, many more photographs and less written materials. Shikshamitra put up a mime show, dance performance and storytelling at the end of the show – compiled by Bickey, from our upper class.

It took us just about a half hour to dismantle the show – once again, teamwork at its best. By 6:30 pm, we were back at school with everything. Enjoying the evening snack, we called it a day just around 7:15 pm – a super success by all means .

Sudeshna Sinha

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

We had been dreaming about this exhibition for a long time. We wanted it to be held in our school or in the neighborhood – for parents, friends, well-wishers, teachers, anyone interested in seeing...something different. We wanted to show how at Shikshamitra, drawing, painting, sewing, stitching, doing claywork, book binding, various other crafts, watching art, listening to music, singing, theatre, dancing, watching and analyzing films was all just part of our daily classes. Art is everywhere, all the time, with any subject. And it involves the maximum recycling of used and waste materials.

Eventually it was decided that it would be held on 12 and 13 December (Friday & Saturday) in the school. For two weeks, all the teachers and students, and especially Sudeshna and Maura, were extremely busy. They needed to select pieces from the last three and half years of work, write labels, and think about How? What? Where? to display these. Some grungy looking walls had to be painted. An invitation letter and envelope designed by students out of used brochures had to be sent out in both hard and soft copies; numerous phone calls had to be made. Most of these preparations were being done while normal school sessions were going on. The last two days, 10 and 11 December, were really hectic with the teachers and students doing the final selections, and Maura just starting to put into shape what was till then only in her head. There was also some “damage” done, when Biswajit stepped on Sipra’s toe in the ensuing melee and it actually wound up broken! Sipra cried for not being able to attend the exhibition. Students did some last minute “touch up” jobs and the teachers designed a bilingual leaflet. It was touch and go as displays were finally completed at 8:45 pm on the evening of the 11th in all the five rooms; duties were assigned to students and teachers; and everyone went home excitedly tired.

For the inauguration we invited the local Chetla Ward Commissioner, Bobby Hakim. Instead of the usual flowers and singing, with the lighting of an oil lamp and cutting the string, we first asked him to have a look at the whole school. He was taken aback when we then asked him to do a drawing on a piece of paper for us. He drew a man’s figure holding up the Indian flag and wrote, “We are all equal.” Seeing this, our student, Shajahan, cheekily whispered, “this is not right; one has to add “un” before equal!” This set the tone of the exhibition – with most of the visitors over the next three days being pleasantly surprised at the originality of the children’s comments, stories, compositions, drawings, etc. Mr. Hakim also mentioned that he would like to see if Shikshamitra’s talents and expertise could be utilized in the government schools in the ward, which is certainly something for us to follow up on.

Some of the many highlights of the exhibition included:
● The mystical song, Gharer Bhetore Ghar, by the group Mokaam.
● The story of a fight between the moon and the sun.
● Illustrated renderings of the Maori film, Whale Rider
● A chart showing how to do various kinds of book binding.
● A sales display of colourful, hand-bound diaries in various sizes made by the book binding group (more than Rs. 1000 worth of diaries were sold)
● Vibrant paper masks made from papier mache.
● Two posters that we have printed and are selling as a classroom teaching-learning material: one has a quotation by Picasso and another tells a famous Cherokee tale in ENglish that has been interpreted in Bengali by our student, Anita.
● Creative Math activity sheets.
● A colourful time-line of major life happenings made by a girl student.
● A book on the history of the school’s neighbourhood (Chetla) written by the senior students and their teacher, Sandip Bandopadhyay, and now being used as a guiding text by other students.
● Art Switch murals: a colourful square collage made by many children using pencil, paint, and various interesting waste materials, etc.
● The children’s own English storybooks made after listening to Red Riding Hood. These were re-written in their own words, typed and printed out, then pasted into booklets with their own illustrations.
● Bengali storybooks where children have written and stored their own book reviews in pockets fitted into the inside of the cover
● Bengali versions of English stories that were narrated by the teacher in class
● A précis of the film, Children of Heaven, made by the whole class together, with illustrations by each of the children.
● Tagore’s Katakuti (where the cross-outs and corrections made while composing a poem are joined together to form a design). In the same style, children tried their own such Katakuti.
● Children’s drawings and comments on how they perceive Tagore’s activities and predicament.
● Clay ornaments made by the children
● A drawing based on Kabir Suman’s song, Ekii Thalae Charte Ruti, on how war declared by leaders forces neighboring friends to shoot and kill each other.
● Reports written by senior students in English on a visit to a local kiln and on the visit by a doctor to Shikshamitra
● Chart showing the various uses of maps
● Various quotes by children were mounted onto matching pictures drawn and painted by them
● One of the most attractive things, right at the entrance to the school, was the big board with children’s quotes on the relevance of art in school.

There were so many more such items that it is difficult to describe them all...

There were also two activity corners. In one room visitors who felt inspired by the exhibition were free to do their own drawings/paintings. Many parents participated in this. In another corner, people could throw a colour-dipped ball at a large sheet of paper that had a dark black outline on it. By hurling the ball, they “painted” the various large pictures! New designs were put up as soon as one outline was full of colour. Not just children (many friends of our students came to the event), but many adult visitors also thoroughly enjoyed this activity.

The children put up short performances of two dances and a small skit several times on 12th and 13th when a good number of visitors had gathered. In our library. Malasree, Nandita and Poonam were in charge of selling Shikshamitra products. In the staff room, Sujata and one student, Dolly were in charge of serving tea and cakes/biscuits supplied by Maura. Biswajit, Sudeshna and Maura were all over the place. Payel was welcoming the visitors and getting their comments; Maushumi looked after the kitchen and did all of the local invitations.

The exhibitions were open from 3:00 -7:00 pm on the 12th and 13th. An announcement ran in The Telegraph on three consecutive days (11-12-13), and several people came after seeing the paper. On the 13th, many visitors started calling up their friends to tell them about the show, and they then started requesting Sudeshna to keep it open on Sunday (the 14th) as well. The teachers were exhausted but as usual, the students were quite willing so on the 14th, (Sunday) the exhibition was held from 2:00 – 6:00 pm. Even now, some more people are asking to see it before it is dismantled so we have made a decision to have the exhibits remain up through this week, till 19 December (Friday).

In most cases, it was the students who were on duty in the various rooms who were explaining the exhibits to all the visitors. Apart from the usual “good” performers, the normally more reticent girls also did a marvelous job explaining the work. It was the teachers from other schools and organizations who were the most excited. Kirsty and her teachers from Suchana, a village school in Birbhum (near Santiniketan) took detailed notes. Alokenanda from Shamil detained us till the end and had to be pushed out at 7 pm on Sunday! Education researcher, Manabi Majumdar, from CSSSC spent a lot of time at the exhibition, and said she would write notes after going home. Swati, from Learning Network, came on the first day and sent her mother and others on Saturday. Professor Subhendu Dasgupta not only read and spoke to the children in great detail, but also pointed out to other visitors what to look for and what to read. Senior teacher, Madhuchanda, from Future Foundation (one of Kolkata’s leading innovative schools) was amazed at the quality and diversity of work, and also the creativity of the teachers. She commented that even in her school this kind of commitment and output was not possible. Our friend, Soumya Chakraborty, was shown around by the petite-sized Pradeep Giri. When they came to the “Drawing Room,” and Soumya playfully asked what he would gain by drawing something here. After a few seconds, Pradip replied that, “you will go back to your childhood.” Shravan, of AID –Austin, landed up and after seeing everything in detail said that he might come again to buy the greeting cards made by the children. Laltu, visiting from Hyderabad, dropped in on the first day and gave many pointers ( he has been associated for many years with Eklavya and other such creative children’s ventures). Many people wanted a copy of the book, A History of Chetla. Zul Kalam of Swanirvar Rural came and wanted this exhibition to be taken to the village for people there to see. To this our student Shajahan commented that this will not be effective as it will needlessly produce jealousy. Instead, he suggested that Shikshamitra teachers and students should hold a two-day workshop for rural teachers and students so that they can come up with somewhat similar outputs. And at the end, there should be an exhibition of those outputs! Our first art teacher, Atreyee, who now lives in Pune, also dropped in briefly; as did ex-teacher, Ankur, with some of his friends. He sent some others the next day. Police Divisional Commissioner of South Kolkata, Mr. Subbarao, spent quite some time looking at the show. The local Police Station Officer in charge also came in at the same time (coincidentally); and so did our house owner, Arup Mitra (a professor at St. Xaviers College), and his wife, who offered to teach activity-oriented Botany and Zoology to the children. Maura’s husband, Gautam, came and entertained the children with small magic tricks. Anshuman and Malini were so happy that they called and asked DRCSC staff to come over immediately. There were many other visitors and some of the exchanges were quite interesting.

Our film teacher, Moupia and her filmmaker husband, Shankho, have taken many still and video pictures. We will soon make suitable docu-materials from these. Many have asked us to quickly come up with booklets that assemble all this work to show the detailed process and outputs for the benefit of teachers regarding how to do integrated teaching in "Art in Education."

- Sujit

You are all invited!

Shikshamitra will be holding an exhibition of the children's schoolwork this coming Friday and Saturday. We look forward to seeing you there!

Materials FOR kids can also be BY kids

To be sure that the teaching materials you are using are appealing to the children you are teaching, why not ask your students to help you make them? The other day. we made verb flashcards for English but these can also be used for Bengali classes, etc. Activities such as this are a nice way to move away from teacher-centered classrooms where the teacher is only passing on information in a one-way stream. We noticed that the children had a good understanding of all the words after the session.

Art exam

The art exam at Shikshamitra had two parts. The first part was written. The children first listened to a short story about the life of Picasso and then were asked to think about and then write down in Bengali what they felt was the meaning of the quote,
"Every child is born and artist. The problem is how to remain an artist as an adult."

After that they had to work in small groups and develop a theme using cloth as their medium this time. We reminded them that use of the materials and theme development were equally important as how well they worked in a group, managed time, and put away things at the end. When all the groups were finished we sat in a circle and talked about the experience. This discussion revealed a lot about each of the final pieces. Many of the kids still feel they want to add to their pieces so we will pull these works in progress out again.

WALL NEWSPAPER

Every once in a while after there has been a flurry of activity at our school, it becomes time to create a wall newspaper. Children write reports on different "happenings" going on in their daily lives and these are decorated and glued onto one large chart paper which is put up on the wall for everyone to read and comment on.

To give you an example of the kinds of things that our students write about we have translated some of the wall newspaper articles into English:



Long Hair or School?
by Shantanu Naskar

One day I decided to leave school. The first thing I did was to grow my hair out. A few days later, I was passing by school. I saw Auntie standing outside. I thought Auntie would say something to me. She did not. I felt so down. I went off to have my hair cut. The next day, I went back to school.



Ranna Pujo
By Anita Sardar

I entered the room and found everyone cleaning utensils, with color all over the room. I asked an aunt, “What’s going on? Why is there color all over the room?” She replied, “We are going to celebrate Ranna Pujo, that is why there is color all over.”
I went to my room and fell back to sleep. It was already 7:00 when I woke up. Outside my room, I found everybody had started to cook. I wanted to stay awake all night. I asked my mother’s permission and she said, “No.” I asked my father, and he said, “Yes.”




Children Get Rowdy at Shikshamitra
By Rohit Naskar

For the past two weeks children have been out of hand at Shikshamitra. Who are the troublemakers? It has been the Juniors VS. the Seniors all along. It's like India VS. Pakistan. Boro Auntie is the umpire. When Juniors say something, the Seniors have some comment. When Seniors say something, the Juniors are ready with a snide reply...at least they try to. Sometimes they are unable to. It was like a game of cricket going on until Boro Auntie, the Head Umpire, called, "OUT!" on Saturday. The umpire called a meeting with the Seniors to say, "You are cooking up so much trouble. Don't you know that the Junior students are looking and learning from you?" The Seniors admitted their mistakes and promised to stop the fighting. The Head Umpire said I am going to watch you closely this coming week, now..."Go play ball!"

Shikshamitra Gift Shop

Did you know that Shikshamitra now has a small gift shop that is stocked with items made in the Learn and Earn Project? Some of our most popular items are the hand-stitched coasters, the eco-tote bags with brightly painted and stitched patches on front, unique terracotta ornaments, and our latest hand-bound diaries! If you visit, be sure to have a look. Many of the products make nice gift items. We hope to expand the space a bit so that we can help to sell some products for other like-minded organizations as well.

SUNSHINE ON THEIR PAINTBRUSHES!

We are deep in the midst of the monsoon season here in Kolkata.

Upon seeing the wall paintings that Shikshamitra art students did on our principal's walls at her home, a well wisher made a request for posters to be painted for framing. The posters would be for a new baby's room – the theme was Sun, after the baby's name.

I liked the idea of bringing the sunshine into our class on this particularly dark day.

I chose square paper since we have never really used this shape before and it had a certain appeal and would be nice for framing. With the help of Sudeshna, I introduced the task and the theme, briefly, so as not to cap up any possible inspirations. Once the materials were set out and paper was in hand, I put on Beethoven's Greatest Hits and let the kids take it away:










- Maura