Week 3 - Weekly Round Up

 

The first fortnight of acquaintance with the children of construction workers with no access to education in Greater Noida where their migrant parents engaged in building mansions/flats and villas for the better-to-do fellow Indians helped to build bonding with them. 

The eldest kid, Pushparaj at 14 (he is doubtful of his age!) had been to school in Chattisgarh. He is not ready to reveal which class he was studying back home. It does not matter. A slow learner. On the other hand, 5-year-old Tejas and 6-year-old Dimple are sharp and have better grasping abilities. But the best student is Ekeswari. Intelligent. Quick grasp. She was studying class 4 before uprooted from Chattisgarh to Greater Noida on account of her parents' career in the building industry.

Once the rapport was established, I began to focus on helping them improve their personal hygiene. They attend the daily 90-minute class after bathing and some food. But their dressing was not good. They wore dirty clothes.  Buttonless, at times. Loose at the hips, making them uncomfortable and compelling them to hold the lower garment permanently. 

There were more girls than boys. Girls' hair color was brownish and curly. Unbundled. Unoiled. I began coaxing them to come oiled and combed hair. Those wearing dirty clothes were sent home to return in better clothing. Not that they don't have better apparel. They indeed returned better dressed. They needed a bit of coaxing. 

Similarly, kids without footwear were sent back; indeed they returned wearing chappals or canvas.  shoes. Luckily, their parents began to notice the subtle change in their kids' behavior and dress sense. Because kids began demanding oiled and neat dress! 

Fridays were marked as games day, followed by a ride in my car! That was a big incentive for them. A Kilometer drive. The condition was they need to be neatly dressed, wearing footwear and oiled combed hair. Bingo, they appeared much better on Fridays. 

I decided to visit their basti (hamlet)- a line of 20 odd single, low-ceilinged, tin-roofed tenements, hardly 100 meters from where our classes are held. Only a two-and-a-half feet height person can enter their homes without bending. 

I was curious to know about toilets. The kids took me to two toilets. Almost 100 people live in this basti with a large number of women. So privacy issues. But the toilets were not clean. The issue was whose responsibility to clean them! Not a single kid defecated in the open. 

Parents took time off from their work to visit the class to observe their kids on a daily basis. In Week 3, elderly boys began circling the open class. 

We sing. We dance. We exercise. We talk about five elements of nature. Various modes of transport. In English and Hindi. (They teach me Hindi equivalent words!) 

There is a reward for attending classes daily: a biscuit and iced Glucon water at the end of the session. And those who surface only for Friday games are kept out and not included in the car ride! This modus operandi is working.

Parents admit their kids sing songs they cannot understand in the evenings! That too in English.

Is it a rewarding experience for me? You bet. This interaction is helping me "how to teach" the basics of life -- not just alphabets, words, and numbers... But overall personality development.