Too cool for school

On a hot Tuesday afternoon I make my way to the Janabai amp Madhavrao Rokde Municipal Marathi School at Masjid Bunder As I climb up to the buildingrsquos second floor the words Prayatna ha yashacha paaha aahe try and try till you succeed welcome me I enter a hall that has been turned into two makeshift classrooms by putting up cupboards in the middle of the hall In the first classroom I see children huddled into five groups They are attending an art class But it isnrsquot just any other art class Here the kids are learning the art of crumpling wherein they crumple a piece of coloured paper and stick it inside an alphabet that is drawn on an A3 paper The exercise has threefold benefits The children identify colour alphabet and how to make the best use of limited resourcesu00a0 Gaurav Singh quit his job at Accenture to join Teach for India TFI in 2009 After teaching at schools in Pune and Mumbai Singh felt the need to start a school that would provide highquality education on par with elite schools at government costs by using government infrastructure After finishing the assignment one of the girls asks me ldquoDidi isnrsquot it nicerdquo Later they move to the centre of the room and pronounce the letters on which they have stuck the crumpled colour papers During the course of the next hour their teacher Lara Maria Velho plays them a song urges them to dance to it shows them a cartoon on a projector pins pictures of animals on the board and asks the kids to identify them She concludes the class by asking the kids to do padmasan Velho is one of the 10 teachers who is working with 321 the brainchild of engineerturnedTeach for India TFI alumnus Gaurav Singh He aims to run Indiarsquos first charterrun school privately operated and publicly funded network Its first school started operations last June in a municipal school in the Crawford Market area It was run on the publicprivate partnership model where the premises was given by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC and 321 brought in its own teachers and teaching techniques After the BMC declared the Crawford Market building as dilapidated the organisation is now operating from the Janabai amp Madhavrao Rokde Municipal Marathi School at Masjid Bunder Things have changed for the better since last year Today the organisation has 235 kids in senior KG and first standard the operations of which started this year After the BMC declared the Crawford Market building from where 321 started its operations last year as dilapidated the foundation now functions from the Janabai Municipal School at Masjid Bunder Pic Sayed Sameer Abediu00a0 The children hail from lowincome families in and around Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Crawford Market Seventy per cent of the kidsrsquo parents are daily wage earners while others are grade four employees of the BMC Most of these kids are first generation learners Chasing dreams Twentynineyearold Singh who hails from Lucknow got the idea for 321 four years ago after he quit his cushy job at Accenture to attend the first batch of TFI He says ldquoI didnrsquot join TFI for the education partI wanted to do something for the society We always have armchair discussions about the dismal state of affairs in the country But how many of us actually act on them Itrsquos high time we take matters in our hands and do somethingrdquo His friends and family members were appalled at his decision to quit his job for a teaching experience ldquoTheir reactions ranged from mild confusion to angerrdquo he says After joining TFI and teaching at schools in Pune and Mumbai Singh felt the need to start a school that would provide highquality education on par with elite schools at government costs by using government infrastructure He enrolled for the Fisher fellowship organised by the Knowledge is Power Programme KIPP the largest network of charter schools that work with disadvantaged communities in the US ldquoI travelled to schools that provide quality education to students and have a high reputation Most of them followed the Pygmalion effectrdquo explains Singh Conducted by a psychology professor Robert Rosenthal and a school principal Lenore Jacobson in 1968 the Pygmalion effect derives its name from the Greek mythology of Pygmalion In their study they showed that if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children then the kids showed that enhancement Parents at a ParentsTeachers Meeting colour write and prepare a book on what they feel about 321 Education Foundationu00a0 Singh visited nearly 40 charter public and private schools in the US and observed how they operate He realised that the schools focussed on high level of development for teachers and building a strong moral and value base that would seep from teachers to students ldquoThe extensive travelling served two purposes firstly it gave me a window to see how schools operate and secondly it gave me access to mentors whom we could call to India and who could share their knowledge with the teachers and kidsrdquo elaborates Singh After he returned he faced three major hurdles mdash finding donors forming partnership with the government and convincing parents to send their wards ldquoWhen we started raising funds we faced frequent rejections People told me the idea was not good enough I wouldnrsquot be able to carry it forward and so on Finally those people who had seen me teaching as part of TFI decided to donate fundsrdquo he narrates Singh got funds from Central Square Foundation a startup that supports school education and Corporate Social Responsibility CSR wings of organisations Singh was clear that kids wouldnrsquot have to pay for their education He knew that several rooms were lying vacant in municipal schools so he decided to make use of them by proposing it to the civic body ldquoAfter traversing the city and running from pillar to post for the formalities we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the BMC Finally we got a room at Crawford Marketrdquo he explains Nandita Shetty a 2010 Teach For India Fellow addresses the students The third challenge was to convince parents to send their children to the school ldquoWe actually went door to door to convince the parents On the opening day we got only 5060 kids but gradually word spread and more kids started coming in Finally at the end of the year we had 120 students We asked the parents how did they define quality education earlier and now And they said earlier they would associate quality education with high fees donation and Englishmedium schools Now they associate it with the fact that teachers care for kids as much as the parents and the children look forward to coming to school and their learning is visible at homerdquo elaborates Singh Never too late to learn The 321 team comprises 10 teachers eight of whom are TFI alumni while the other two hold BEd degrees Before the school started last year Singh held a fourweek training with his team where they had discussions on everything from philosophy to international education practices They studied the latest in cognitive science and behavioral psychology poured through the works of giants in the field of education analysed schools and school systems and then worked on creating all the resources required to set up a school Today the classes run from 10 30 am to 5 pm There are two teachers in each class The syllabus for both the standards comprises mathematics language and cocurricular that includes art science social studies and geography Teachers make daily lesson plans in their respective content areas Half an hour in the evening after the classes are over there is a debrief where teachers discuss how did the day go did the content plan work and strive to improve on a daily basis ldquoTeachers learn from each other We do assessments every six months to try and understand how are the kids coping MidMay to midJune the teachers undergo intensive trainingrdquo says Karishma Kotwani head of operations of 321 The senior KG kids at the arts class Singh adds that different kinds of evaluation are undertaken for teachers and kids ldquoTwice a year we conduct assessments for kids The child doesnrsquot know itrsquos an exam We make them comfortable and interview them on a onetoone basis We note down how they fare and enter it on a excel sheet Then we analyse the data qualitatively and quantitavely So for instance we give the child a book that he has read in class and ask them to identify the characters the central theme and so on Then we bring in a new book the teacher reads excerpts from it and asks the kid what will happen next This helps us understand the childrsquos critical thinking ability We undertake remediation and enrichment classes if we feel the kid isnrsquot picking up somethingrdquo he elaborates Singh also brings down experts from abroad who can share their knowledge with his team Last year for a week Dr Stephanie Smith of Georgia State University who has been working in cognitively guided instruction CGI an approach that helps teachers understand the ways in which children invent strategies to engage with the problems they face in arithmetic visited the 321 premises Singh aims to focus on problemsolving and understanding versus just memorisation method by using the Test of Everyday Reading Comprehension TERC Investigations Curriculum used in classrooms in the US This curriculum is designed to promote a deep understanding of mathematical concepts For example to teach math the teachers use the Investigations Curriculum by TERC which allows students to discover the concept of counting on their own rather being taught numbers through memorisation By laying this foundation of independent thinking students are better able to grasp more difficult concepts of addition division fractions etc later on Singh saw this curriculum being used during school visits in the US and knew he had to have it but was prohibited by its high costs TERC agreed to donate outdated copies to the school for free Changing lives Explaining the meaning of 321 Kotwani says ldquoWe believe the purpose of education is the journey to understand three things the self others and life On this journey we will be guided by two phrases mdash excellence is a habit and grace under pressure We will know we are successful when everyone asks one question mdash lsquowhat will I do about itrdquo The childrenrsquos lives have changed to a certain extent after enrolling in 321 For instance Ambran Shaikh whose father died of alcohol poisoning and whose mother works as domestic help was troublesome and extremely violent when he joined the class Gradually his behaviour improved and became helpful to fellow students and his teachers It has been a learning experience for the teachers too Twentythreeyear old Velho says ldquoI joined the school last year when I was doing the second year of fellowship for TFI Itrsquos been an eyeopening and challenging exercise and I have realised just how unfair the education system is I hail from Goa which has a fairly egalitarian system When I came to Mumbai I was shocked to see the disparity in the system and the great divide between the society Here I learnt how to interact with kids and how to teach themrdquo Looking at the future Singh says that next year they will launch a pilot project of training other teachers of lowincome schools in cognitive skills and imparting them the same knowledge that his teachers have By using research to shape their practice and technology to capture their methodology he aims to create lsquolab schoolsrsquo which like research and development centres will create test and share innovations in teaching with the education community ldquoWe want to ensure that the current school has classes till standard 10 in the future We are looking at identifying spots in Mumbai where this model can be replicated In the long term we want to open such centres across the countryrdquo concludes Singh u00a0