LEARNING TO TEACH AND TEACHING TO LEARN

13-year old Anjali lives in the village of Anwarpur, in the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh. She has been a part of the H-Learning intervention, where she has been learning to use the tablets provided by the Pratham teams. This is her story.

When you see a young school girl pointing to a tablet in her hand and explaining something to her mother, you cannot help but feel curious. “I am teaching my mother how to count with this game,” she says with a smile. Her shy mother keeps looking at the screen, waiting to get back to her daily lessons.

It all began a few months ago when Anjali saw two people in her village talking about studying with the help of a tablet. She wondered how one could study using something that looked like a phone. “Aren’t you supposed to study with books?” she said to herself.

Soon a large crowd began to gather around these two strangers, who then asked children in Grades 5 to 8 to form groups. Curiosity took over the children and they quickly formed groups of five. Anjali’s mother, who by this time had joined the crowd of interested onlookers, accepted the responsibility of handling and keeping the tablet with her. However, she first asked the Pratham mobilizers, “When should they have this ‘tablet’?” This naïve question amused everyone. One of the mobilizers explained to her that this was not medicine, but rather a device used for reading. The other one removed a tablet from the bag and showed the gathered crowd how to use it. Within a few days, Anjali’s after-school routine completely changed. Every evening she began getting together with her siblings and a bunch of other children from the neighborhood and studying with the tablet. While earlier, Anjali did not like to study, she now became eager to come back from school and work using the tablet. She began to understand complex scientific concepts with ease and started conducting her own experiments as well. Furthermore, with the help of English videos, she tried to listen to and repeat words and also began participating in role plays with the other children.

Today, Anjali’s parents see a stark change in her. The girl has become a source of inspiration for the other children around her. She forms questions based on the videos, looks for answers and tries to think and understand before moving ahead. Not only does Anjali learn herself, she leads and supports other groups of children around her. Furthermore, she often helps her older sister catch up on complex concepts. And now, she has even taken it upon herself to educate her mother! Anjali is learning, so are the people around her!