- This blog piece has been submitted by Ms. Revathi Menon - a School Transformation Lead at MANTRA.
As I enter 7th 'A', my attention
falls on Maaz, a chirpy enthusiastic kid, blowing his lungs out into a piece of
straw. I shot a glance at the rest of the room only to find a bunch of other
kids doing a similar action; another set of kids were making tiny holes in
their tiny straws and trying to squeeze in another straw through it. I look
around for the teacher; she was silently observing the class. My attention is
then suddenly disturbed by a strong yet calm voice saying “are you doing it
correctly”, and from the crowd, I see a tall, thin gentleman rise from the bench
where he was seated and he was smiling amongst all the chaos and clearly happy
with all the attention he was receiving.
Suddenly,
Nadiya runs up to me and squeals with excitement “ma’am, look my toy is
working.!” and dips her straw into a glass of water and blows from the other end
and the toy squirts out some water in a circular motion that seemed like a
sprinkler to me. A few of her friends gathered around her to examine the toy
and questioned her on how it worked so perfectly! Nadiya replied with a clear
hint of pride in her tone, “did you not see sir place the straws? The angle
needs to be right, come I will help you” and she goes skipping with her friends
tailing behind her.
This is just one of the many happy
classroom stories. Science classes have gone through a radical change in the school.
Gone are the days where science classes were all about the million
definitions, the book back exercises and neat note books. The school always had
a vision to provide a holistic education to children and Mantra envisions to
make this a reality, hence Partnering with Innovation and Science Promotion
Foundation (ISPF), we have found the perfect way to make the science classes come
alive in the classroom.
ISPF is a foundation that helps children
learn the various concepts of science through their various toys. They set up
labs in school where they provide all the materials required to make these
toys. They conduct regular ongoing training sessions with the teachers to map
the curriculum with the toys and help them with instructional support.
Someone once said, “Science is a way of
thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge”. Science cannot be contained
within the four walls of the classroom or in their textbooks, science makes
sense when a child is allowed to experience it.
With the involvement of ISPF in the classrooms, science now seems like a
fun class to be in.
To Quote Shabir (a student), “ma’am lets
have 2 periods of science everyday”.
Now this is where I see my purpose of
education.
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