Teaching at the Right Level (TARL): A Key Solution to Promote Peaceful and Quality Education in Bodoland- a place where uncertainty is one certain thing

Learning can be exciting

Life is filled with numerous possibilities. You just have to dream with your eyes wide open. Now what happens if you cannot communicate your dreams, aspirations and thoughts? Will your dreams ever get the chance to see the light of day?

This is where the importance of the foundation of education at the right time and level comes into play. Pratham Education Foundation has tried to deal with this issue through their Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach.

Physical development and awareness by children of the Early childhood Programme to enhance

their physical development

Keen to learn more

Most of us reading this article come from backgrounds where we have interacted with people, have social lives and are ofcourse educated. So, we cannot even imagine the situations which some unfortunate kids come from. In 1867 there was the feral child case of Dina Sanichar- codenamed

'The Wolf Boy'. He spent his entire life with a pack of wolves, after which he was found by a couple of people when he was six yers old. He was taken to an orphanage, where missionaries tried to feed him cooked food and tried teaching him to read, write and talk. But despite their efforts neither did he eat cooked food, nor did he learn how to talk. Science tells us that the human brain has the capacity to adapt to change and learn new things, but only at the right time. So if a child does not grow up in the correct environment and does not get the right education, he will never be able to communicate.

It is the human brain capacity which makes pre-school education so important. Without that a child will not be able to cope up with primary level education and so on. Every building block needs to be strong to ensure that the learning cycle does not break up or weaken down but become stronger with time.

I travelled to Guwahati, Bongaigaon and the Bodoland area in the 2 weeks that I was in Assam. Studying Pratham's unique style of teaching, inspired me to challenge my design thinking techniques. Bodoland is quite famous for their riots due to the ethnic tensions between the Bodos and Bengali-speaking Muslims. During my stay I observed that it was not only the ethnic tensions, but their were many communities where every community had their own mother tongue and not everyone spoke Assamese. So we needed to establish a method where on one hand everyone could communicate with each other and on the other had they did not forget their mother tongue. Some communities which Pratham teaches are the Santhali, Rabha, Boru, Nepali and the Gualpuria communities. Teaching in Kokrajhar starts with their 'Early Childhood' programme where all children below the age group of 6 are trained to be ready for the next phase. It is in the later phases that they start learning the other languages like Assamese, Hindi and English. But in the 'Early Childhood' programme, it is just in their respective mother tongues. Based on the communities, all the communities have their own areas and markets. The 'Early Childhood Programme' (EC) is a readiness programme. The children get prepared for class 1 through various activities which enhance their language, cognitive skills, physical strength and their socio-economic development. Simply it is for the all-round development of the child. The best part about Pratham Education Foundation is that, it is not level-based learning, but skill based learning. They have a few levels like letter group, word group, sentence group, para group and story group where the child advances from the letter group to the story group over time as their skills get enhanced. Now it can be a fifteen year old as well as a five year old in a sentence group. I realised the importance of such a group- you are actually working with people who are mentally, physically and intellectually your equal. It starts eradicating any issues of ego or bullying and promotes acceptance by a long stretch.

It is believed that real learning starts at home. It is not from books only. So Pratham has come up with various strategies for that. Most of their learning is by doing. Music, art and drama are a part of their teaching strategy. That is what attracted the children and makes them want to go to school every day.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/a0c547_fe223a7d528b4dc8a87345485ec2ab11/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Singing the same song in Assamese and Santhali

As a researcher and storyteller, I was looking for ways to broaden my horizon and learn new things in this quiet little place called Assam. I went to villages in Guwahati and Kokrajhar and researched the kind of education which Pratham provides and how it is different from the education provided in the schools.

Happy Smiles