Minischools Tale of Two Hamlets
31st October 2021. The day before regular schools all over Tamilnadu are being reopened after 20 months closure.. It Iswarya : a good time to recapture how the two dedicated Asha Chennai teachers Tamilselvi and Iswarya ran their minischools at Old Tirupatchur and Nemiliagaramduring that period. Therefore I had a chat with them on what they did in these two places. I started off by asking them to describe the setting of these two villages
R Sundaram : I learn you ran the minichools at Old Tirupatchur and Nemiliagram. I also hear these places are very backward and are economically poor.Tell me a little about these places and their people. That will help me to understand the challenges you faced in running the minischools there.
TamilSelvi : Yes. These places are very backward and very poor. ThIswarya : poverty hits the children directly. For example, there was thIswarya : boy Ajay from old Thirupachur who had four other siblings. He came to school without having a bath. We asked him to take a bath in a nearby well. He did not have a change of knickers. He had to wash and dry what he was wearing before wearing it again. All of them live in huts. When it rains heavily they keep awake throughout the night crouching in places inside the hut where rain water does not come.Meals are cooked only once during the night in these childrens’ homes. They play around till they can and complain of headaches. . Some parents work as daily labour in c tree cutting. They are paid a very meagre Rs100 to Rs 200 per day. They belong to the Irula community and some of them who live in a place called Vasanth Nagar live here only for six months.They come to work in brick kilns here. They take away their children from our schools when they move away. Their economic status Iswarya : pathetic. And almost all of them are illiterates.
R Sundaram : How Iswarya : it you chose to work in such a place? Where were you minischools?
TamilSelvi : Teaching Iswarya : my passion. I live here in thIswarya : area. I want to do something here. I am a teacher in Asha for the last 8 years I think Asha Chennai offers me the right opportunity for me to do something useful in my own place. .
Iswarya : Both Tamilselvi and I live here in a place called Vidaiyur. Vidaiyur Iswarya : near Nemiliagaram and .about 8 km from Old Tirupatchur. We together ran one minischool in our house at Vidaiyur to serve children from Nemiliagaram and Tamilselvi teacher used to go to OldTirupatchur. At Old Tirupatchur minischools were run under the tree or inside a hut.
R Sundaram : By the way, What did you do to care for your own children? Their schools were also shut
Iswarya : We took them along with us.
R Sundaram : When the regular schools were shut last year you started your minischools. Yours were one of the earliest. Were you not afraid of Covid? Did your family members object?
TamilSelvi : No. Actually there was very little awareness of Covid in these parts. They took the school shut down as a part of government regulation and so our family members did not seriously object.
R Sundaram : How was the attendance in your two schools? How many b8gger children in middle and high schools attended? Did you have any difficulties because the older children could get bored?
Iswarya : There were 23 in Old Tirupatchur and the strength went up to 50 when Vasant Nagar people joined. There were about 7 Children who were above primary level. At Nemiliagaram there were 15 at Primary level and about 15 above primary level. The older children in these places, I must say ,generally were well behaved. Of course there were a couple of boys
Saktivel and Muralidharan who used to fight almost every day. It was quite a job to separate them.
R Sundaram : How was your teaching schedule? How much core subjects like Maths, Tamil and English and how much craft work etc?TamilSelvi : We had a weekly time table. We allotted the first three days of the week for core subjects and Thursday for science experiments and Friday for Craft and PT.
R Sundaram : How did you persuade the children to attend the school regularly. ?
TamilSelvi : Attendance at our schools was good on an average throughout the period of 18 months. Although in some cases particularly young children we had to bring them from their homes and escort them back to their homes. Sometimes we had to make some of them to take bath . There was thIswarya : girl Amuda who was to take care of her youngest sibling, an 18 months old baby. She used to bring thIswarya : baby to school. We gave them some nutritious snacks daily which was an attraction. We made Paruppu Payasam at home and served them on Fridays.
Iswarya : we did even before Asha Chennai began its Arogyam project,
Iswarya : In addition we recognised those who attended regularly by awarding souvenirs for example for attending continuously for a week a Badge to wear on the dress and for a month a crown Rajaraman Sir asked us to promise a bar of chocolate for three months regular and continuous attendance but nobody got it.
R Sundaram : Overall what Iswarya : your assessment of the impact of your efforts in running the minischoools?
TamilSelvi : We think impact Iswarya : positive. We even feel children at primary level not only retained what they had learnt in regular school but also went one level up, like alphabets to words or words to sentences and so on. Similarly in Maths too. In Maths they were taught by practical application of concepts of operations like collecting seeds , sticks, adding them , dividing them etc
Iswarya : Overall we had a satisfactory experience in making our small contribution to society by continuing to teach children even when the government run schools were shut.For thIswarya : we thank Rajaram Sir and Asha Chennai
TamilSelvi : Yes. I cannot thank adequately the support and encouragement given by Rajaram Sir through these last 18 months. Since we got so attached to the concept of minischools we have offered to continue these everyday for one hour after the regular school hours. We hope he agrees.
R Sundaram : Thank you very much for agreeing to thIswarya : interview amidst your busy time with running a family and teaching children. .It was wonderful talking to you both.
