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Every year, as the final term ends and the vacations begin at all our supported schools, Asha organizes
its annual teacher training event called Rightstart in the month of May. For the last 20 years, except
during the 2-year hiatus during Covid, teachers at Asha have gathered for this 5-day event, where
external trainers train our teachers in subjects like Math, English and Science. It is time when all our
teachers not only have an opportunity to learn new things, they also have a chance to meet teachers
from all our projects. With more than 150 teachers sharing rooms and participating in learning activities,
it is period of joyful learning and fun.

Organisation

As every year, we received necessary permissions from IIT Madras to host the event at IIT campus and the training sessions at the Vanavani auditorium. Support from Prof Kamakoti, the director of IITM, helped smoothen this process greatly. This year we held the event from 13 – 17 May, 2024 during which 120 participants stayed at the campus for which arrangements had been made in advance. Teams from Thiruvallur, Thoothukudi, Thiruvanamalai, Thiruvarur and Pondicherry came by bus to the IIT campus on May 12 (late night) and early morning on 13 May.

Participants

The 159 participants this year included teachers, project coordinators and system admins. Five teachers from Gandhi school in Pondicherry and one more person associated with them also expressed interest in attending the training this year.

The Asha volunteers, Mr. Rajaraman, Mr. Venkat, Ms. Komalavalli, Mrs. Kasturi, Mr. Sundaram, Mr. Bhaskar and Mr. Sriram were also present during the training sessions.

Trainers and Sessions

Like we usually do, we planned to have sessions covering Maths and English. As our science trainer was not available during that time, we had to skip that this year. We also had sessions focused on child rights and learning challenges. Here are some details of the sessions.

Day 1 and 3 – Teaching Maths by Meena Suresh and Team

Mrs. Meena Suresh and team have been training our teachers every year since 2014. Our Math program has been shaped by her over the years. This year we changed the focus of the Math training a little bit. As our computer teacher program is now even larger than our regular teacher program, we have been focusing on what our computer teachers can do to improve Math, English and other subjects when they visit the schools.

The usual Math training has been focusing on the concepts taught to primary classes. As our computer teachers also visit middle schools, the sessions this year touched some of the topics for older children like integers, solving equations in one and two variables, basic geometry etc.

The other main focus was to give the teachers some discrete activities that can improve the conceptual clarity on various topics. The activities that were taught were mostly in the form of games. The teachers enjoyed playing them and would probably use them during their classes as well.

Day 2 – Teaching English by LeapForWord Trainers

LeapForWord is an organization that has developed a way to teach English through phonics and syllabification. They have been implementing this as a program at several government schools and conduct a grand spelling bee for these children which tests their ability. We have also been seeing these in some of the schools we work with. We felt our teachers can also benefit from these. While phonics has been taught in various ways to the teachers, syllabification was something new.

The teachers learnt how to break bigger words into syllables and read them. They also learnt how to hear the syllables in a spoken word and construct their spelling. We also introduced them to the whole approach of root word analysis and how the meanings of prefixes, suffixes and other parts of the words combine to give the word its meaning in practice.

Day 4 Morning – Child Rights and Protection from Abuse by Paripooranam

Paripooranam a volunteer of Asha Chennai and a teacher at the Marutham school in Thiruvannamalai conducted a session on child rights and protection. The session dealt with topics of child sexual abuse, how the teachers can identify them and deal with things they become aware of. The session also talked about the rights of children enshrined in our laws and in particular as it deals with education.

Day 4 Afternoon — Dealing with Learning Challenges by Madras Dyslexia Association

Ms. Devika from Madras Dyslexia Association gave a session in the afternoon explaining to the teachers about the various forms of learning challenges and how to identify them. The children could easily relate to the various learning challenges that she identified and could easily see them in some of the children the themselves have taught. Further Ms. Devika also told the teachers some methods that can be used to deal with specific learning challenges.

Day 5 – Teaching English by Karadipath Trainers

The Karadipath session was presented by Mr. Udhaya Kumar (Karadipath head), Mr. Poovarasan (Karadipath Senior Trainer), Ms. Arokiya Selvaraj (Karadipath Senior Trainer) and Ms. Aswini (Karadipath Trainer). The day began with Mr. Mr.Rajaraman, Mr.Venkat and Mr.Sriram speaking about the success of Karadipath program in Asha supported schools.

After this, Karadi path head, Mr.Uhaya kumar presented a speech on the success of Karadipath all over India. He showed videos of Mr.CP. Vishwanath, Co-founder and CEO of Karadi Tales. He played the video of the Karadipath story, Monkeys on a Fast. After this, the teachers also enacted the famous Karadi rhyme, Chai Chai Coffee Coffee through song and dance.

Mr. Arokiya Selvaraj spoke about Asha, Karadipath teachers at Asha and his two-year experience with Asha schools. He invited all Asha Karadipath teachers to talk about their experience in their schools. Some of our teachers shared their experiences. The teachers shared that their English knowledge has also improved by conducting the Karadipath sessions. The students also enjoy learning the language through song and dance.

Day 3: An evening at Kovalam beach

A part of the reason for organizing the function at IIT campus is that this provides a break from their usual life. They all get to enjoy the IIT campus for these days without other cares. The teachers see the deer and monkeys of the campus and enjoy themselves. Besides this we also organize a trip for them on one of the evenings.

Teachers and coordinators from all the projects, took some time off on Wednesday evening and set off to Kovalam beach. They went by van and had a jolly good time singing and dancing on the way. They visited the ISKON temple, offered prayers, and then visited the Kovalam beach. It was a windy evening, and the team tried their hand at balloon shooting and throwing hoops. They took a lot of photos and spent an evening of fun and relaxation and got back to IIT late evening after dinner.

Grand Finale

In their element
After all the training sessions were done, it was time to relax and let loose. The teachers had spent their time over the 5 days absorbing, interacting and learning from all the trainers. On the afternoon of the fifth and final day, the teachers had the stage to themselves.

The teachers enthusiastically put on performances after performances. There were song performances by Vignesh (Thulasi), Jayalakshmi (Poorna Vidhya), Srinivasan (Sangamam), Jhansi (Accounts), Tamilselvi, Meenatchi & Dhanamani (Sangamam teachers), Bhuvana Kriba Devi & Benazir Begum (Pearl teachers), Pondicherry teachers and Rajaraman.

Dances performances by Malar & group (Pearl teachers), Saravanan, Vignesh, Sathish, Selvam, Nethaji (Teachers for all projects), Najah & team (Sangamam), and Mahati, 3 yr old daughter of one of our teacher Ramya, added to the energy of the crowd.

Dhamodharan, Kavitha and Sarawathi Devi recited poems and Barkavi (Teacher Anandi’s daughter) gave an energetic performance with Silambam.

Valedictory Function and Service Awards

Prof. Kamakoti, the Director of IITM was invited as our chief guest for the valedictory function. He has been a longtime volunteer and supporter of Asha. It was thanks to him that we have been able to hold Righstart at IIT for so many years. Rajaram first introduced Prof. Kamakoti to the audience. Then Prof. Kamakoti spoke about his long and continuing association with Asha and how it is work like this that will transform India into the kind of nation we wish to see. Mrs. Meena Suresh and Mr. Arockia spoke about their involvement with Asha and RightStart and how they have had the pleasure of being associated with this great organization and event. Asha volunteers Rajaram, Venkat and Sundaram also spoke. Small gifts were given to the trainers and the chief guest Prof. Kamakoti.

Since 2019, we began the tradition of giving service awards to teachers who have completed 5-10 years with Asha. It is a pleasure to know that such hardworking and committed teachers have been a part of Asha’s journey over the years. This year 3 teachers completed 10 years and 11 teachers completed 5 years at Asha.

Testimonials

Prof Kamakoti, the director of IITM and a long term supporter and volunteer of Asha Chennai,”In 2003, Rightstart started in my lab at IIT. During that period, we had very few teachers. Lakshmi Ma’am from Olcott school guided us at the time and would involve in most of the coordination. Later in 2012, when I was the correspondent of Vanavani school, we began conducting Rightstart as a school related event in which even teachers from here also participated. For almost 20 years, except for the 2 years during Covid, we have conducted Rightstart here due to the consistent perseverance of the entire team of Asha. Teachers trained earlier, are now coming as trainers here. We have built a good legacy here. Teaching little children is a challenge, but everyone here has that talent to teach well. What you learn at Rightstart, you will be using to teach your students. The youth of today are in your hands; if you shape them well, the country will do well too. The service you are doing is very important to the society which is why IIT will do its best to support you. An institute that is run by the tax payers’ money should benefit the society. I don’t see a better use than this for the society, in my opinion. I have to thank Asha for it.”

Mrs. Meena Suresh, Math Trainer, at Rightstart 2024,” I look at Rightstart as an opportunity to improve myself as well. I have visited the schools of some of the teachers, but I really like all the teachers at Asha. I love their commitment towards children the most. All year round, I give trainings. I feel the teachers at Asha have much deeper sense of commitment than private school teachers where I train. We live this life once, and while we are at it, let us do something worthwhile. As teachers, we must leave a positive legacy behind. My proudest moments have been when my children come back to me. After so many years, I randomly meet my students in unexpected places and they still remember me. That is the kind of reward that every teacher gets. As teachers, you make a lot of difference in their lives.”

Saraswathi Devi, Karadipath Teacher from Pearl project, “When teaching English through the Karadipath program, we use very simple sentences, which the children are also able to grasp. When I play the songs, they keep requesting to repeat them over and over again. Children are very active during the class. Even after the session or class is done, they don’t want to leave. Children enjoy the music a lot. When there are external visitors to the class, the HM requests me to play the songs from the Karadipath program since the children enjoy them a lot.”

Lead Teacher Sasirekha, from Pearl project “According to me I used to know the concepts without understanding it practically. For example, tables; I have only memorized the tables before. Through Right Start I learnt how to teach the table practically. I have no words to explain the work of Asha for school students. They have spent a lot and their valuable time for this. Through their training we have also grown ourselves. So I am proud of being an Asha staff.”

M Kalaiarasi, Computer Teacher,” I learned a lot from Day 1 Maths activities for middle grade. I also learnt about child psychology in the sessions. This understanding will not only help us in understanding our students but will also be very useful to handle our children. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Kovalam Beach and Krishna Temple. I enjoyed the last-day program with my colleagues and friends. Thank you, Asha admins and management for the great opportunity.”

Financials

Here is a breakup of our expenses against the budget.

Of this amount Rs 2,62,794 was spent from the Amazon budget.