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A serving of fun At the Poetry Café Isha Home School

They created a Poetry Café, complete with posters, chefs, waiters and menus with a choice of poems! There were servings of old favourites, Robert Frost, Wordsworth, Keats, Tagore and more. And, some new additions too. Shobha Viswanath, who teaches poetry at the school, explains how apart from learning the poems in the syllabus, she also insists that students compose one poem. So, while there is a splendid rendition of Frost’s Stopping by the woods, there is also a stirring account of Stopping by toilets!

The children and the teachers made it look so simple. “But, it is simple,” says Shobha who firmly believes that a little bit of interest and creativity goes a long way. “We were wondering how to make the poetry session interesting, and the café was the children’s idea entirely”, she says.

In another part of the world, a student writes, “Through your … lectures I have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple.” And one more says, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-coloured eyes.” Honestly, how many physics teachers do you know who receive such messages? Yet, Walter H.G Lewin Physics professor at MIT gets hundreds of them every day. An article in the New York Times sings his praise. And, why not. When he says stuff like “All of you have looked at rainbows…But very few of you have ever seen one. Seeing is different than looking. Today we are going to see a rainbow.” And, he creates a rainbow right there in the classroom with simple tools. “Your life will never be the same,” he tells his students. “Because of your knowledge, you will be able to see way more than just the beauty of the bows that everyone else can see.” And, a student acknowledges, “He made me see and …it has changed my life for the better.”

To do the same for students in Coimbatore, a resource centre was recently set up by Divyam Academy of Values.

“There is little joy left in education. Does it teach anything at all?” asks Academy founder P.R Krishna Kumar. Of schools and the students, he says, “There are great containers, but what about the content? Surprisingly, in spite of the huge syllabi, staggering workload and long hours at school, there is an abysmal lack of knowledge or awareness in students”.

The reason for that, according to educational consultant Hema Ravikrishnan, is the teaching method. “The attitude of teachers has to change, and with it their teaching methodology,” she says. “Integrated teaching is the key - where subjects are taught holistically and not in isolation.”

Divyam hopes to bring about this change. “We want to reach out, especially to the smaller schools and bring them into the main line,” says Hema.

“We want to help teachers evolve and grow and improve the lot of the students,” she says.

Hemalatha Ramesh, co-ordinator for the resource centre, explained the nuts and bolts of the entire process at its inaugural workshop called “Catch the Reading Wave”. Here, teachers discussed and shared their experiences and the tools they had successfully used. Hema, Nalini Shanmugham, Resource Head of Vivekalaya, and Sophia Varkey, the Director of ALG MHSS, gave practical advice and tips on how to spread the love for reading in kids. They urged the teachers to encourage children to have their own class libraries, write their own storybooks, and have a literary corner in every classroom. Music, colours, language, touch, smell … everything should come into play. Then the kids will love the learning experience. Education, they said, was about “heart to heart” not “mind to mind”. It was about “exploring and doing” rather than “sitting and listening passively”. Education will really work, says Krishna Kumar, only when “every teacher transforms into a guru”.

Membership fee for schools is Rs. 500. Its activities (on payment) include curriculum-based activity, project work, building libraries, career guidance, counselling, competitions, film shows, etc. DA can also customise workshops. For details, call Hema Ravikrishnan at 0422-2546180 (Mon-Fri between 10.30 a.m. and 1 p.m.)

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