Saturday, November 26, 2005

blessed to work with the kids

After getting a go ahead from the padmanabhanagar govt. school head, I was going to start the classes from 26th nov 2005. I had requested the teachers to pick 20 students with whom I could work with, for the 30 sessions (first step in the Theatre In Education - TIE activity that I am involved in).

I reached the school at 2:30pm on the 26th, saturday and I was given the list of sudents --> class V -Ananthalakshmi, Harshita, Naveena, Varsha, venkatesh class VI -Anand, Arun, Lakshmi, Santosh, Shilpa class VIII -Deepak, Kiran, Sharanya, Shwetha, Srilakshmi class IX -Chetan, Divyashree, Harish, Nutan, Shruthi.

We started the class by forming a circle. I just briefed them as to what was the whole idea was, what we would be doing in these 30 sessions etc. We started the first session with a shloka, "saraswathi namsthubhyam..."We then played the first game...simple one where we have to keep passing the "pat" to the next person in the circle by saying out a number in the order of 1 to 10. If we are about to say 10 and pat the next person, he is supposed to escape the pat. If he succeeds in doing so, the person who was supposed to pass the pat would be out and if he fails to escape, he would be out.

After this, I split them into 3 groups and asked them to show the mysore dasara picture to some visitor using themselves..It was interesting to note that one of the kids had devi bhuvaneshwari with 4 hands! the other group had a pujari performing pooja as the procession proceeded. in the other group, they had 2 people form one elephant as they wanted to show that it is huge!!

As I noticed that they enjoyed this very much, I asked them if they wanted to try out more and the answer was yes! So, the next topic was bangalore...this time I asked the other teams to interpret their representaion. it was fun...they were all enthusiastic to come up with new things. One thing that I observed was that they were not keen on doing it very well or perfectly...should be okay as they are kids and it was something very new for them to concentrate on such things!
After this, I tried one of the playback activity...I passed a book and asked each one to assume that the book was in a particular state and asked them to act accordingly...book being hot, cold, light, heavy etc...I did ask them to think of a state and act but I noticed that they were not able to get the meaning of state...may be i didn't convey it properly as some of them started reading the book! later, i gave them the myself like pricky, sticky, slippery...but atleast some could pick it up as one of them assumed that the book had a bad smell and acted it out...atleast on ecould catch it ...not bad!!

After this was dumb charades...I split them into 4 groups, gave them each a personality/phrase to act...pollution, gandhiji, lawyer and police... they were not all that good in guessing or probably the game was too new...I was concerned if they weren't thinking fast! I should find an answer to this...

We played the last game...stamping the balloons...I split them into 4 groups again...gave them colored balloons, yellow, orange, green and blue...they had to tie the balloon to their left/right leg. This was a timed activity...they were expected to start on time, stamp the balloons of the other team and at the same time guard their team balloons and stop when they were asked to stop. I bet they would have enjoyed this game like no other game...but they didn't stop on time :-) may be I didn't think of it...it took something for me to stop them!

At the end when I told told them that we will meet on next sat, I could see the happy faces :-) ...its amazing that kids get used to someone so soon!! and they just say it out without caring for anyone!

Also, some kids were treating me more like a friend than a teacher, they were taking me here and there holding hands, asking me to do what they were asked to do...when we formed a circle, they were fighting as to who should stand next to me ...may be beacuse I made them play a lot of games but it is true that kids accept you so easily :-) and what suprised me more is, expression of the acceptance...think it is very easy for the kids!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks like u started off on a good note:-) . nice.
Hope this works out really well.

--boda.

p.s - but i think giving them the playback excercise on the first day was overkill:-)

Supreeth Subramanya said...

Ash,
God! you're getting real serious on this. Really good work and I'm happy that you're enjoying this. Yella first day ne mugisibiTTre, what will you do for the remaining weeks??? Hey just joking, I'm sure you've many more interesting games for those children.

How good were those children? Don't take it as a sarcastic expression... I really want to know, if they were sharp enough to match their counterparts in private schools! And more importantly, do you enjoy being with not-so-sharp children?

Anonymous said...

Supreeth,

The sharpness of the kids does not depend on where they study . Government school kids are equally sharp. They have poor coaching and facilities, and may have lesser knowledge, but otherwise they are equally sharp.
--boda.

ashwini bharadwaj said...

preeth,
i think you wouldn't have asked this question if you had noticed how sharp/smart the kids are these days. i have found almost all the kids that i have met in the past 2-3 years very sharp! so, i don't think there will be any question of thinking if they are not sharp but to answer your question, these kids are also quite sharp and some of them did surprise me with their quesions and answers.

coming to the private school kids, one may feel they are smart (over smart)...i believe that it is because they have access to a lot of info'/activities etc as boda said!

why go to the kids...consider you and me...how were we when we were in school and how are we now...don't you think it is coz we have access to a lot of things now?

Harsha said...

just came across ur blog...nice to read ur article...carry on ur gud wrk!

MusicManiac said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
MusicManiac said...

Although I haven't read hundreds of blogs, this one will be one of the best ever to 'experience' if I may, just because of the kids and your gesture. I sincerely wish there are more of you in bangalore ashwini. Yellaru swalpa madidre tumba aagatthe. Matter of time n patience. Keep up the good work! Do drop a line via mail the next time you go. :)