Teaching the Teachers
By Anuradha Agrawala
By Anuradha Agrawala
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Teaching the manual: Teacher Training Day 1
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Amongst the confusion and chaos that accompanied the first day of
the three-day training in the Pratham Haryana office, an outsider’s focus
inevitably falls on Lajoji-the centre supervisor. Her words were few, her look
was stern, but her kindness and genuine dedication to her job was wordlessly
communicated. The teacher’s training for the day was meant to start at 10am,
but some of the village women were still trickling in minutes after- something
I wasn’t surprised about, considering being late is very much part of our
Indian culture; but at 10.14, Lajoji began questioning the latecomers and
scolding them for their tardiness- it was immediately clear that this training
was as professional, if not more, as any other.
The
village women, training to become primary school teachers intently listening to
the instructions of their trainers and eager to absorb any knowledge imparted.
The activites that they had to learn included teaching children through an interactive
method. The way the women enjoyed the activity made it seem like they were
visiting their own childhood, happy to be following the hand gestures and
sing-song nature of the rhymes; they were enjoying the process and re-learning
via this Pratham interactive method. But out of all these stakeholders, the
character worth mentioning the most is the incredibly overpowering sun-
everyone wiped their sweat, or fanned themselves with their manuals, but rarely
made a comment about the climate- there was a job to be done, so they did it.
The women’s expressions were simple and plain. They had come here to
learn how to be teachers, and that gave them a sense of direction; when they
stood to give their presentations, they were not shy or discouraged but did their
work confidently, not afraid to make mistakes. It was then that I realised that
Pratham is hitting two birds with one stone- not only are primary children
being educated, but the women who are trained to teach these children are being
empowered as well. In a relatively backward state like Haryana, for the women
to come and learn to be responsible for shaping the lives of many young
children added an important dimension to their lives. The best part about the
programme was that the Pratham staff did not treat the women like charity,
filled with pity- instead they were the trainers, and the women simply the
trainees; the supervisors that had already sat through the previously held
sessions took great pride in their knowledge. This is the right path to real
education- where the teachers were there to learn how to be better, and not
simply to get the highest marks. It all starts with them.
Written by Anuradha
Agrawala studying at King’s College London, doing a 2-month internship at
Pratham Mumbai and Delhi, 2012.
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