Civic school teachers with a mission for quality education!
Rajesh
D. Bujad, Principal, Bajaj Road BMC Marathi School, Kandivali West A teacher
for the past 24 years, Bujad goes from Aurangabad, Pune, Latur to Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu in search of the best ways to teach children in his school. His
school is one of the 200-odd BMC schools in the city which have started using
the activity-based learning method of teaching children.
His
chamber has a stock of materials needed for teaching in this method called
‘constructivism’. “We teachers mostly spend from our own pockets for getting
these materials,” he says pointing to jars full of colourful beads of different
shapes and colours. He has also made a blog which is useful for teachers.
Called ‘Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Palika Shikshak Mitra’, in the two months since
the blog has gone online, it has seen 5,000 visitors. It guides fellow
municipal school teachers on how to keep records – the municipal schools lack
clerks, and teachers have to carry out administrative work in addition to their
primary duty of teaching.
A
section in his blog guides teachers about the toys to be used to teach
children. A recipient of last year’s Mayor’s Award
given to model teachers, Bujad is continuously experimenting with technology to
develop new ways to teach children. Showing an app in his phone, he says, “I
have made all teachers in my school to download such apps in their phone.
This
app can be used to teach children to write letters,” The app works like a
slate, only children use their fingers to write the letter, instead of a chalk!
“This
way they learn better,” he says. Bujad also seeks corporate help to improve
facilities in hi school. “A company has promised us two projectors which we
will use for e-learning. My dream is that my school should be a digital
school,” he says.
Thinking
why municipal schools should lag behind in adopting e-learning methods as
compared to private schools, Zeeshan Sheikh took an initiative to start a
digital classroom in his school. The children now learn through power-point
presentations and videos. They also record their poem recitals. Explaining the
difference between the virtual classrooms that many BMC schools already have
and a digital classroom, Zeeshan said, “Virtual classrooms are handled by a
third person, children can listen to telecasts or interact using a microphone,
but in a digital classroom children can create their own media. My children
have started showing more interest in projects after the facility.”
Zeeshan,
who had been a supervisor in an Aadhar centre before coming into teaching and
had taken many computer courses out of interest. He says having a digital
classroom can help solve the problem of bogus student records. “Also when officers
come for inspection, children are a little afraid and do not speak. But this
way we have a record of all the activities children do for the officers to see
for themselves,” he said.
Zeeshan
was invited by BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta for a presentation on his digital
classroom. “Mr. Mehta said the BMC will try to make a digital classroom in
every school,” he said.
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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