Hyderabad: Sometimes a breath of fresh air is all that is needed to free us of the rust caused by time. A simple initiative — Teach for Change — might well be the fresh air that children in the government schools need.
Volunteers for the organisation might just be teaching English and some extra curricular activities for a few hours in a week, but that is doing the children’s confidence a world of good. Volunteers, meanwhile, term it a life changing experience and some of them even want to become permanent teachers.
Young M.R.S.K. Chaitanya turned his thought into reality when he launched the initiative Teach for Change this June, with support from celebrities. But it’s not all gloss. In about three months, nearly 70 volunteers are teaching English and communication skills part time in about seven government schools in various parts of the city.
Housewife K. Shilpa, who volunteers for the initiative, said, “Otherwise bored students are so excited when we go there, even if its just once or twice in a week. We give them puzzles, do extra curricular work, so it’s mostly just interactive.”
Volunteers and school managements alike say that students are making commendable progress. “It’s baby steps for now. The students are at a very basic level. They are very weak in spoken English and students of Class VII don’t even know vowels and consonants. So it’s a lot of work still to be done,” said Sama Tej, a volunteer.
M. Narayana, headmaster of Film Nagar Government High School, said, “Different people coming to the school and teaching is always a nice thing, their way of teaching is also informal, which helps.”
But the effort is not without its share of impediments, Mr Chaitanya said, “There are several challenges. Some students are very notorious and there was an incident where some Class X boys were singing lewd songs when a female volunteer was teaching.”
