Thursday, August 17, 2023

Children conduct class at Doorstep settlement

1 August 2015

Batch2 went to a more underprivileged settlement and took sessions for the children there. They planned everything, took all the material with them and conducted the class on a footpath on the road near the temporary settlement. They didn’t have water and electricity. Temporary huts. Doorstep taught there. We went through them. Batch2 was later talking about so many issues. ‘We thought we were poor, diidii. But they are way poorer than us!’

Quick notes


20/02/10: Me and Sumeet. Guess who stayed back?! Irfan!!!

21/02/10: Sumeet started all alone! Zarna and Hemant later. Me at home.


27/02/10: Me busy surveying Patil Estate. Sumeet and Zarna conduct the class.



13/03/10: Sumeet + Gaurav + Gauri took the class.


21/03/10: Asim + Sumeet!

27/03/10: Lost down the memory lane!
28/03/10: Lost down the memory lane!
03/04/10: Lost down the memory lane!
04/04/10: Lost down the memory lane!
10/04/10: Lost down the memory lane!
11/04/10: Lost down the memory lane!
17/04/10: Lost down the memory lane!

24/04/10-25/04/10: Holiday finally! Exams done!



08/05/10: Sumeet + Zarna. Chess etc.

16/05/10: Continued by Zarna. Sumeet's games- cricket + chess. Madhura and Kushal, new CoEP volunteers attended this class.

22/05/10: Late class by me and Hemant. General chat with kids at their homes. Informed them about the Monday star gazing event.

23/05/10: Kheeeeeeeeeeeeer! The girls went to Zarna's place to prepare sweets! Came back with a dabbaa full of delicious kheer!

24/05/10: Star gazing activity on CoEP Istrumentation dept rooftop.

Awesome new teachers!



28/02/10: Sumeet is all that we ever wanted! He teaches so well! I must retire!

06/03/10: The number of kids coming is just going on increasing!! Sumeet was already teaching at the blackboard. Good class! "Siddha karaaycha"! Prove it, he says! Awe!

07/03/10: At BC. P. Estate has a vaccination camp by Dinanath in our room. All studied. Amrish is the new guy. Was teaching 6th std. Irfan, Akshay and Nasir at one variable equations.

14/03/10: Me + Sumeet. Pooja teaches Sham. She is so good a teacher! So intelligent! And all her intelligence is put to test by Sumeet! Wow!

20/03/10: Zarna + Sumeet! All play Scrabble! He plays three games with them these days- chess, cricket and scrabble!

Newspaper, suicide, early marriage


Marathi newspaper reading! Kids were asked to write about the news they found most interesting and the reason behind it. They wrote amazing things, as always! :)
11 - Jul - 2009 (Sat)


At BC. General chat about 10th board exams. They all agreed that it'll be better if the “board” nature of the exams was changed to a normal local exam. Why? “Because otherwise students may unnecessarily commit suicide if they fail in such a big exam”, they said. Upon my comment about suicides being foolish, Pooja immediately interrupted- “No Didii, it isn't foolish!” Great. Would you do such a thing if you failed in an exam? Poonam & Pooja- “Yes! Because we'd feel awful!” Priti- “All at home have big hopes for me. I'm the only one who's gone till 8th std. So it'd be great shock to them and me. But I won't commit suicide!” Irfan- “Fail toh fail! Big deal!!” Awesome! :') The discussion ended with the realisation that they're wasting their play time in unnecessary discussions! :-)
Drew a number line on the ground. Asked all of them to stand a little away from the line. Didii was to call out certain numbers and then they were supposed to come running towards the line and stand on the numbers announced. E.g. : Even numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, all factors of -9 (they were supposed to factorise themselves), etc. During each round, once they took positions on the number line, they were asked to do additions and subtractions. E.g. : Adding -0.5 to the number they are currently standing on and then jumping to the resulting number.
Ranjini had come to this class as well and was very much interested in the entire process of conducting a class.
19 - Jul - 2009 (Sun)


Vacation!
Puzzle solving and discussion and play!
2 groups. Solve one puzzle each before the other group. The winning group gets to solve the third puzzle! Once bored with puzzles, make some toys from the book. Once bored with this too, discuss. About early marriages of girls. Then we ran up and down the subway ramp. Clicked lots of photos, videos. Watchmen were watching! :')
Soon the groups were dissolved and everyone tried all three puzzles. Magnetism puzzle all could solve without realizing the principle behind it! Told them. Only Akshay and Sham were interested in making toys. Some wanted to solve the remaining puzzles. Irfan and Mahesh, as usual, started off with some other 'activities' soon. Pooja, Priti claim that they and their families are against early marriage. Early = before 10th. Sundar from Patil Estate is getting married on 25th May'10. She must be hardly 17. Kids know that it's a crime to marry off girls before 18 and boys before 21. They also know that in case someone complains, with money everything gets resolved. Huh. Priti failed this year. Good. She gets an extra year at home before marriage! :-| Anyway, before going home, we laughed a lot as we ran up and down the two slopes of COEP subway. Kids clicked lots of photos. Recorded videos!
01/05/2010, 3to5pm, at BC.

NCL notebook scanning.