Whispering Shadow

The Ups and Downs of the TFI Fellowship in Jafari Off late, I have been thinking a lot about whether my students have made any progress at all . However, I think I was always asking the wrong question . I should have continued to ask myself "What have I learnt? How have I made others feel? What are the bonds that I have made?" I had this realization after speaking to one of the students who was a part of the Maya project in Pune . She told me, "When you think about where you are, you may feel you haven't done an excellent job . At this stage, I would ask you to think about how long and difficult the road you have covered was and what you learnt from it ." Children can unscramble life in the simplest of ways to help you rediscover the 'why' again!

I can't imagine how much more difficult the last two years would have been without each of you. You have been with me through each trial and tribulation and through every success and jubilation. You are the incredible 11 who I have had the fortune of working with during the 2 years of the fellowship - my co-fellows, my co-travelers and my friends. I am writing this post to deeply express my gratitude to you. Pritish,  I worked more closely with you than anyone else in the team. We had our backs against the wall with the children barely showing any progress at the end of year 1. We put our heads together to envision a classroom like Jafari hadn't seen in a long time. We saw a part of that vision become a reality, even though the reality was short lived. We were able to drive a sense of focus and a love of learning in many kids - sparks of which are still alive in many of the kids. We were consistent in our high expectations, which has forever made me believe that a...

For the first time, I took students out on a field trip, not on the basis of merit but based on them being members of the different groups of my class. I thought may be this is what these students need to understand how what they learn is directly connected to the larger world around them. It could help invest them more deeply in their studies. Seeing the aquarium, they would be able to connect with the levels of organization of living things they learnt about in Science. They would understand how the garbage they throw in the sewage drains directly impacts the lives of some of the creatures they see in the aquarium. Seeing the natural history section of the museum, they would be able to watch life sized models of different types of animals, that they learnt to classify in grade 6. Seeing the sculpture section, they will identify the relevance of the timeline in the context of our long history that runs into hundreds of centuries. See the artifacts from pre- and proto-history, th...