Them as teachers

Them as teachers

Aim: To empower the students and make them share the knowledge they have gained

Closing the loop

Trying to make them retain more of what they have learnt

I went to talk to Arzu about my project a few weeks ago and she told me about this three tyre system. A Political Visionary (One who is in charge of the larger politics and functioning- could be in the NGO or funders in this case), a Conceptual visionary (One who conceptualises the vision which could be me, in this case) and a Practical visionary (which was also me because I was conducting all the workshops and making it happen). Instead, she said, why don’t you empower the children to be practical visionaries? I thought this was a great idea because I saw for myself that I learnt most when I had to teach and work with these kids. This would just empower them some more and make them feel confident about what they have learnt and share it with their schoolmates too. So, I told the 9^th standard students to prepare an afternoon session for the 8^th standard kids. I told them to write down what they would ask them or say to them. Beginning from the basics of what fluoride is, what it is present in and what its harmful effects were and what they needed to do about it. I gave them all the visual aid I had and told them that I was going to be a student and they should take the class and not ask me what to do. We set up chairs outside and they went out to start their lesson. Boy, were they awesome! Better than me any day! They make the little ones jump up with joy and test their respective village’s water that they were carrying in their bottles and stamped them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ water. The standard 8 kids were so excited that they wanted to test their school rainwater for fluoride and found that it had zero fluoride. They loved it. They also told them about rainwater and how to maintain a rainwater tank by cleaning the top of the roof up 10 minutes before they feel it is going to rain. They told them that they have to help each other maintain the tank that is going to provide them with fluoride free water.

Some of them gave up after some time and went back to class while a few stayed back to finish the lesson. This made me figure how many of them understood what I was talking about! I was surprised to find out that even though they were all in the same campus and the 8^th std. Kids have been watching what I do with the 9^th, they had no idea about what it was all about. Fluoride and rainwater was as new to them as when I started off with standard 9. It was great that they were able to share what they had learnt, though they told me at the end that they were a much better class. ‘These 8^th standard kids are still small and irresponsible” they said!

Painting 'us' as the rain

I didn't want the kids to paint random things on the tank. One of the objectives of doing this was for them to have a 'space' for themselves on the tank, for them to feel the connect with the rainwater so that they would treat it like 'theirs' and drink it and help maintain it as well (though I hear it doesn't really need too much maintenance once its fully built). So, the previous day, I had handed out sheets to them and told them to imagine that they were rain. So the theme was "If I was rain, what would I do?" They had to think about it and come back with a drawing which they would paint on the tank the next day. The responses varied from falling into peoples mouths to going into rainwater harvesting tanks to becoming honey and falling on the flowers.

Translation of what is written above:

If I were rain,

I'd be life to plants.

I would rain on flowers,

By drops; sitting on them.

I pour from the sky and hide at the bottom of buckets and pots.

I am rain.

I don't have any colour, shape or smell.

If I am rain,

I'd come dancing from the sky.

Drop by drop, I fall from the sky,

laughing as I come to the earth

- Sushma

Translation of what is written above:

If I were rain,

I would jump from the sky and join the wells, seas and other water bodies.

If I were rain,

I'd be a lot of help to the people.

If I were a rain drop,

You can see me only during the rainy season.

Now it is summer!

So you can only see me in the tanks.

- Manjula

Aim: To bring about a feeling of connect and ownership for their water tanks and water

To get the community interested in what the students are working on by doing something novel that attracts their attention

To get the larger school community involved and feel a sense of ownership for something they are part of and have to maintain

Activity: All the students in school could come together with interested teachers and parents to just paint their water tank. An act like this allows them to personalise their plain, boring looking tank and also make them feel like it is a part of them, their work. Working together, with the community might give the community a feeling of joint ownership. They all can come together and help each other maintain the tanks that are going to provide them with clean water to drink.

Lokesh laying his foundation in chalk! Then they went over it using the paints.

Their own rainwater harvesting system

Sushma is falling as rain into containers that can hold her.

All done with Gopal falling down as honey!

Manjula getting drenched in the rain

We even got the principal to come and paint his rain! The next day, people in the neighbouring village asked me if I had painted the tank and mentioned that they had seen it as they were passing by the school. I felt so happy! I told them that it was all done by the students and they appreciated it. The students even marked their sectors with their initials and showed their 8th and 10th standard friends what they had drawn. They kept re-visiting their art work through the day.

Started building!

They have started building the rainwater harvesting tanks at the school! The students help already by watering the cement structure everyday. We all poured buckets of water to keep the tank wet. It will take another month to be fully done, then they get clean water! This tank's capacity is about 32,000 litres.Thanks to the students from Trinity college who decided to give their grant to build tanks in schools in this area. It would have been ideal to paint this tank, but while waiting for it to get done, we painted the other big water tank at the school.

Let's test

Using the fluoride testing kit, we went around a village (Killarlahalli) and tested various water samples and stamped the source, depending on whether the water was drinking-worthy or not.

Aim: To spread awareness about fluoride and the amount of fluoride in different water sources.

To make facilitators and students work together (Could even be an informal data collection activity)

To get the community interested in what the students are working on/doing

To get them to realise that rainwater is a good alternative and that they should drink that instead

Activity: The students could be split into 2 groups, or more- depending on the number of facilitators available. They get one fluoride testing kit each. They can walk around the village and neighbouring villages and test various water samples with the kits they are provided.(The previous exercise would have helped them identify various sources where they get water from). They could draw from this and test water from the taps in their homes, the kere’s, the well water that they all drink and even the water in the tank in the school. They can compare the fluoride levels in each of these water sources and see how much higher than the permissible levels it is.

To leave a mark and make it slightly more interesting (drawing from guerrilla art), each time they test a source, they can leave a smiley or a sad face sticker near the source, depending on weather the fluoride level is above or below the permissible level. This might be a small way to get the larger community attracted to this as well. If someone sees this, they might react to it and ask around what this is about. This might lead to in-direct awareness through the children and also create dialogue.

These are the water smiley stickers that I am going to ask them to stick on the different water sources, depending on weather they have permissible amounts of fluoride or not.

I first started a conversation on permissible fluoride levels (to see if they remembered- some of them did and some didn't!) and ask them what the positive and negative effects of fluoride are, and what they can do about it. I then quickly showed them how the kit worked.We tested the water that one of the students got from home, with had 2mg/l fluoride. So, they stuck a sad face on the bottle. (The symbol of thumbs up and down was new to them! So I had to keep pointing up and down with my thumb initially to say good and bad! Soon, the picked it up though and at end of each test pointed their thumb up or down accordingly!) Then I told them about the exercise and we set out to the neighbouring village.

We first tested the main water tank in that village which had 1.5mg/l, which is not too bad. So we stuck up a happy smiley. The whole village crowded around to see what we were doing and the kids explained to the community what they were testing and that their water had 1.5mg/l, which was good.

Lokesh sticking up the happy water smiley

Then, while walking around, we found a house which had a rain water harvesting tank! They decided they wanted to test the water the family used to drink before, in the open tank, as well as the rain water that is pumped out from this pump, which they use for drinking now.

The rainwater had no fluoride in it

This is the open tank the family used to drink from earlier. This had 2mg/l

The maximum amount of fluoride we spotted was 3mg/l in a water sample from a household. We told them about the importance of drinking rain water.

After we tested many household samples, two tanks and two rainwater samples, we went back and on the way, discuss the different levels we found.

Inference: Through this activity, the students were able to see for themselves how much the fluoride levels are in the water bodies they see every day. Since they are the ones testing it, it might have had a bigger impact on them (more than when it just spoken about in class). It also added a layer of fun to it as they imagined it to be a mini treasure hunt where they were little scientists and tested the water themselves and leave marks for other people to talk about. It also made it a novel idea around the village and was discussed by people who spotted these water smilies, thus spreading awareness. They asked the kids what they were doing and what it was for. It is also an activity that involves the teachers and the larger community, thus bridging the gap.

More images of this activity can be viewed in this slide show

Fluoride Testing

Discovering the village

However liberated I fee in such environments, it is weird, for me and the people around, if I just walk in and out of their space. They have seen me around, but I never got a chance to interact with the people whose village I was living in. This visit was long enough for me to walk around in the evening and document the water bodies. Here is where I met my new friends who showed me around the village. I went to photograph the open well where all of C.K.Pura gets its drinking water from.

Here I met Mounica, Asha and Siri, three curious little girls who had come to take drinking water back to their homes after school was over. I went upto them and asked them if I could take a photo, in my broken Kannada. They obliged and asked me what I was doing there. After I told them, they decided to take me around the village, since it was play time anyway! Mounica graciously lent me her cycle (one that the government had provided her with to go to school) so that I could go for a spin as well!

I asked them about their school and home and what their parents did. Asha insisted that I go to her house and her mother gave me ground nuts that she had harvested. It was all very overwhelming! We walked on the bund and they showed me the 'kere' which practically had no water in it. It was a beautiful view though. They told me that we wouldn't be standing where we were if it were raining. The water would overflow till it reached the fields. This water was mostly used for agriculture. They even showed me the marked stone which showed them how much water there was left.

On the way, the showed me many plants and explained to me, what they do with it. They were not aware of the names of the plants, but they knew the uses.

"These are the thorns that they use to pierce their ears and noses in the village" said Asha, pointing to her nose.

"These flowers are squeezed. There is some liquid that comes out. The make soap out of that!" said an excited Akhila

Asha uses these long stemmed plants as her skipping rope, something she plays with everyday.

After this, we visited the Kalyani, a tank they have a bath in before they visit the temples and on festivals. They also swim in it occasionally. Akhila poured a few pots of water on the new cement slab they had built for a god's statue. The water from the Kalyani was pure and clean, she said.