Class update

Sunday 13th November 2011

1. Only two volunteers- Ruby and Shivam. Very difficult to make kids come as the famous Marathi reality show "Home Minister" had come to Patil Estate. Went to every home and tried to convince parents and kids to come to class. 10 from 3A, 6 from 3B and 8 from Batch2 came finally. 
2. Escorting was made easy by not shouting at kids at all and by just telling them once to be careful while on the road. Batch2 kids- Naseer, Sufia, Khushboo, Ruksar- were requested to help in escorting both times.
3. 6pm- class starts. All kids were asked to sit in one class. There was only one rule- there will be no rules. Teacher sat on the podium and asked kids to sit wherever they like (Discipline is a relative term. It is we who attach a meaning of sitting straight on a particular bench to it. If kids concentrate better sitting wherever they like, then let that be the discipline!). 
4. Immediately everyone circled the teacher and all tried to fit on the podium. Few batch2 kids sat on the last row benches and studied Math and asked doubts in between. Remaining joined all the younger kids. 
5. Teacher asked kids what they would like to do today. "Story!" Thus started the story of one Diidii and one Bhaiyyaa. What do they do? "They teach us!" But that's only on Saturdays and Sundays. What do they do on weekdays? Do you know the weekdays? Can you recite all weekdays? Everyone shouted out the days of the week in their respective mother tongues. Are you smart enough to recite the days of the week in all the three languages that we all collectively know here? Then we all learned weekdays in Urdu, Marathi and English. 
6. OK, so the story must go on. So then kids answered whatever they imagined about these Diidii-Bhaiyyaa. "On weekdays, Diidii-Bhaiyyaa must be having lunch, washing clothes, going to college, working, ..." OK. So let's find out how much time Diidii-Bhaiyyaa spend in these activities. How many hours do you go to school? If you attend school between 11am to 5pm, how many hours are these? Thus we solved some clock examples. 
7. Story must go on... So then these Diidii-Bhaiyyaa who are just as busy as the kids during the week, have holidays on weekends. So they get up little late, do some pending tasks of the week and come to COEP at 4pm. Then they go to Pataangan. Then they go to every home and ask the kids to come to Pataangan. Somehow kids come and then they take the kids to COEP with some difficulty. By the time they reach the classroom, they are exhausted! Then they shout a lot, run around the classroom, teach something and get even more exhausted... So that's the dard-bharii daastaan of these Diidii-Bhaiyyaa.
8. Sorry to have told you a very boring story having a sad ending. Would you like this story to have a happy ending? Would you like to reduce the dard of these Diidii-Bhaiyyaa? "Yes!" Then do something about it! You will be given twenty minutes to think and design some action plan which can help these Diidii-Bhaiyya. You are free to punish these Diidii-Bhaiyyaa if you think they are going wrong somewhere. Make groups of 4-5 among yourselves quickly, sit anywhere you like, one bhaiyyaa/diidii from Batch2 will be your group leader and under his/her guidance, you've to write down your action plan. 
9. 2 kids didn't join any group and worked independently (Remember, no rules!). After about 40 minutes, everyone was done and we all huddled back on the podium. All groups read their list of rules. 4-5 kids had also written down 7 weekdays in three columns, in three different languages, without anyone asking them to do so!! 
10. As each group finished reading, teacher asked the group members to tell out their names loudly so that we could clap for them. Teacher noted down these names and thus marked attendance (no extra effort or time is required to note the attendance!). All of us together consolidated the list and then everyone wrote down the final common list. Thus 3A and 3B kids made rules for their class. 
11. A competition was announced for the coming class- During the week, kids are supposed to make a nice chart of these rules- using whatever resources they have- and bring it to the class on coming Saturday. The best three will be given very precious gifts (Teacher didn't tell the kids what gift it would be. It would be- the top three get to become the caretakers of their class!)! Naseer, Sufia, Khushboo, Ruksar from Batch2 were the ones who helped the younger kids. Pooja, Priti, Mahesh, Tushar studied Math. Class ended at 8pm. Kids were dropped back home by 8:30pm.