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Photo: K. Ganesan

winds of change Children studying at their own pace in a Corporation primary school

Hapless students often find themselves at the receiving end with both teachers and parents admonishing them for their failure to mug up lessons and reproduce the notes dictated in classrooms. Such a system may work in securing impressive marks but then students lose out in other aspects. For, they find it difficult to answer questions that test their analytical skills.

Such an approach over a prolonged period of time results in blunting even sharp brains, leading to more number of failures in examinations.

Quiz any educationist for a possible solution and the most likely answer will be “a change in the mindset of policy makers and altering the education system that will encourage a student’s individual critical faculty.”

To improve the image of the Government schools, the State Government had introduced two innovative teaching methods – Activity Based Learning (ABL) for primary schoolchildren and Active Learning Methodology (ALM) for upper primary students.

An initiative of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) wing of the School Education Department, the methodologies replaced the existing teaching-learning process focussing on learning by rote. In this new method, the teacher will cease to be on the ‘lecture’ mode. Instead, he or she will help children learn in a manner that students find simple and effective.

Says K. Sridevi, Chief Educational Officer (SSA): “It reduces the burden of syllabus and textbooks. Idea is to eliminate the practice of memorising. Instead, encourage a thorough understanding of subjects taught in classrooms. The objective is to put educational theories in practice by converting the learning processes of the children into individualised experiences embedded with innumerable reinforcement activities. The confidence enhancing creativity explores the potential in every child and brings out the personality.”

While ABL concentrates on students from Standard I to IV, the ALM is for students from Standard VI to VIII.

S. Jemila Bheevi, a labour in towel manufacturing unit, is extremely happy with the progress of her child, studying in a Corporation Primary School in Narimedu: “I can see remarkable change in my kid’s behaviour, her inquisitive nature is showing now. She is in Standard II and can read Tamil dailies with ease. She understands the subject and raises questions. She applies what all she learnt in classrooms to real life situation, which only shows that the system has helped children learn independently at their own pace with complete involvement.”

ABL enables the children to overcome various difficulties such as coping with the syllabus, the teacher, classroom restrictions, examination fear, attaining the skills and fulfilling the dreams of their parents. It provides equal learning opportunities to both the gifted and mediocre children and helps them learn together.

The ABL follows the ladder system of learning by crossing milestones. Competencies are inbuilt in the form of activities in each milestone. As the children go up the ladder they attain skills one by one. Lessons are divided into units and presented in the form of milestones.

Peer group teaching, recognition and appreciation after attaining the skills and close contact with the teacher motivates the children.

For teachers, the system works wonders as individual achievement of the children can be tracked easily and simultaneously.

Moreover, the everyday achievement of the children is displayed in the classroom. Children who have difficulty in mastering the competency can be supported with special attention and care. It develops the personality of the children by inculcating the values of honesty, discipline, punctuality, sense of responsibility, confidence and tendency to help others.

M. Geethayazhini, one of the district coordinators of SSA, exudes confidence on the success of the programmes: “Black Board becomes a powerful teaching learning material here used both by teachers and students. Besides, total dependence on textbook as the only source for classroom teaching has been replaced by colourful picture cards making learning a pleasurable experience.”

The Active Learning Methodology is seen as an extension of ABL. Since the focus has shifted from the teacher to the learner, teachers perform the role of facilitator.

For thorough understanding of the subject, students are encouraged to adopt ‘mind mapping’ methods.

Ms. Sridevi elucidates: “Each lesson is segmented into small unit so that it can be easily handled and thoroughly dealt with. Students express their ideas in the form of pictures with main ideas and sub ideas presented together. Once the subject is dissected into mind mapping diagrams student do not find it hard to understand the subject and finds himself or herself in a very strong position to answer any question on that subject.”

For quite some time, there has been a paradigm shift in the urban and rural education scenario with sophisticated teaching methods like Montessori prevailing mostly in urban areas with those in rural areas having no chance whatsoever to get the feel of such exclusive methods. But for the first time, the panchayat, Corporation, Government and Aided schools are in for a silent revolution with the introduction of these new teaching methods to create a pleasant, learning environment that ensures students’ participation.

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