A shy and mild-mannered child named Rubel was waiting in the office room of Amader Pathshala with his aunt. He was there to kick off his school life again. During his admission test, this timid 12 year old was unable to raise his head for even ten seconds. Nonetheless, he was determined to continue his education and build a better life for himself, no matter what.
At the beginning of a year, this is quite a common scenario at Amader Pathshala, a school for underprivileged children. Fighting the the idea of “poor quality education for the poor,” Amader Pathshala is providing primary education to children from 2008. Within a small span of time, the three classrooms were filled with young souls looking towards a better future. Due to a shortage of classrooms, another class is being conducted under the open sky on the rooftop.
Understanding their value in society
Ranajit Majumdar, assistant head master of Amader Pathshala tells us the reason behind working with this particular social class. He says, “A common phenomenon in our society is that underprivileged children remain ignorant, and ignored by society.” Being deprived, not only economically but also socially and culturally, often creates a psychological barrier and feelings of inferiority in these children. “Because their value as a human being in society is disregarded, this creates an environment where they grow up as confined human beings,” argues Majumdar.
Amader Pathshala is working to break this psychological barrier and construct the belief that everyone inside a society holds a certain amount of value as a human being, and so do these children.
Although initially most of the children carried the pain of suffering from similar kinds of stigma, within a period of a year they began to understand their self-worth and explored the world and society from a different point of view. “Gradually, they have realised that they hold a certain authority in his/her surroundings,” adds Ranajit Majumdar, giving all the credit to the system they follow in their school.
To make this happen, the school believes in putting great emphasis on building easy and free flowing teacher-student relationships. In this environment, the students are allowed to ask their mentors anything and everything without being fearful. The actual education takes place once the student is ready to be more outgoing and can engage in proper dialogue with their mentors. According to Majumdar, “Our teaching system isn’t linear but we prefer conducting teaching through two-party participation.”
Diverse teaching methods and practices
Instead of just teaching them what is written in the books, the teaching methods followed by Amader Pathshala is a bit unconventional. The teachers start with a word, then the students are asked to share what they know about this particular word to identify and understand their level of understanding. Afterwards, the teacher shares his/her knowledge to add value to their existing knowledge. After this, they progress to gathering more information from books and in this way, the students are made active participants in the process of sharing knowledge. Amader Pathshala also follows the SQ3R method for reading, which stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. Increased contact hours are also considered a must for providing proper education to underprivileged children, so even after school hours end, students are welcomed to continue learning at school for as long as they like.
On Saturday, Amader Pathshala becomes a hub of performing arts to enrich these children’s cultural knowledge and involvement. The entire day is dedicated to training them in painting, music, dance, theatre and more, and teachers from relevant fields come in to teach them. Some students are good at painting, some are better at music. Amader Pathshala also has an in-house band called Hojoborolo, which is a joint venture by students and teachers. On the day this reported visited Amader Pathshala premises, a sort of musical gathering was being held at the request of the sixth grade students.
Observing national and international days, facilitating performances and participation of students in different programmes, and organising outdoor learning activities are other segments the school focuses on. In the previous month, the school arranged a trip to the National Museum in order to participate in the International Children’s Film Festival.
Building a model for underprivileged children
Amader Pathshala also addresses health and nutrition related issues of the students’ by arranging periodical visits by doctors. Some support in the form of medication is provided and there are plans to build this department. Additionally, the management intends to revive the School Feeding Program, which had been shut down due to a lack of finance.
On the question of output from the entire initiative, Ranajit Majumdar replies, “The whole initiative aspires to build a model in society for the benefit of underprivileged children. Our main goal is to establish their value as human beings who are part of our society, and we think this can be achieved through education. We want to inform our students of their roles and responsibilities in society, so that they themselves can become agents of change one day.”
The school is running its operations with the support of regular contributions made by individuals, organisations and businesses. Amader Pathshala also organises different events and activities in order to be self-dependent.
