My journey with Annapurna (school & stayhome for underprivileged students )

This is my point of view :

Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning

Every child, including you and me is born curious, curious to know all the things around them. The best way to excel in any field is to learn in the stream which we are interested in. Learn what we love to learn and not what is forced upon us. As a child I always hated the subject 'History', but loved Maths and Science. Every one has some or the other subject which they hate and some subject which they love.

We all know that the education system in India is in such a way that more preference is given to memorise concepts rather than to learn, understand and use them in real life. 


Back in August 2014, 1 month after I joined Amdocs, I got to know about Mentor Together program and soon I opted to volunteer for teaching. I was asked to mentor a student from either class 8, 9 or 10 and that too for a particular subject say English or Maths. I am very thankful to them for giving me a chance to teach someone who is in need of knowledge. But what about other students who also are in need of quality education ?? I asked this question to myself and decided to teach all the students together and not just one student. I told about my initiative to Mentor Together focal as well as school officials at Annapurna and they agreed. It wasn't counted under mentor together program as this program is only meant for one to one teaching. 

It was a start of a happy plan of teaching.

a) Teaching outside the Textbook

From the first lecture itself I asked students from 8th, 9th and 10th standard to join my class, but only those students who are really interested to learn things which are not taught in school - Yes, you read it correct.
Many topics are never taught in the school which are actually very important to be taught. We all have faced and gone through this problem. When was banking taught to us ? so we could have learnt to save money before we start to earn it (parent's money). Most of us went to school on bicycles or by walking on the roadside, but how many of us were taught the basic road/traffic etiquette ?. Even today while coming to office I see employees, well educated, taking a turn without indicators, without going round the traffic circle and talking on phone while crossing the road. 
Basic manners are followed through life if they are taught to us when we are young. 

b) Understanding is more important than memorising : 

Did you ask a question yourself that why there are 12 hours in a clock ? why not 10 ? why there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, but no 60 hours in a day ? (If you think that 60 hours would have been too many, why you are comfortable with 60 mins ? - making an hour of 12 mins, can make 60 hours a day)why a combination of 60 and 12 ? why not 10 and 100 (as in case of money we use deca model)
If you could not find the answer to these questions above, you probably must have mugged up the clock lesson, or it must have been never taught to you in the way to resolve your "WHY" question. You simply had much confidence on whats written in the textbook or what your teacher has told you about the clock thing. You might have asked this question to someone but never got an answer on it. 
Students @ Annapurna knew the formula I=PNR/100 for interest calculation, but they did not knew how this formula could benefit them in their real life. Same goes with the Pythagoras Theorem. They all knew the formula but no one knew why it is used in mathematics. 
Only a few of you might be knowing how derivatives, integrations are used, not the formulae, and actual maths and physics relation.

c) Teaching in understandable language :  (Important point)

This is something which I noticed when I went for teaching along with some other volunteers. I saw that they were teaching Marathi medium students in fluent English. After the class, I asked those students in Marathi if they understood what they were taught and they said hardly anything !! 
From my first lecture itself I used to teach students in mixed language mode - English and Marathi. Yes, of course English communication is important, but student's understanding level is much more important. 
Students at Annapurna are more comfortable to ask questions, share their thoughts in Marathi or Hindi than in English.

d) Video and Demo : 

Most of my lectures to students included a demo or a video of the topic in study. This not only motivated students to get more curious about the topic, but it also helped to increase the number of students in class. It is a great trick which works to increase the number of students. I also take scientific stuff with me whatever is available, to show them a real life demo - example - I showed them whats inside an electric motor and how does it work, why does it rotate

e) All Study and no fun makes it a dull class : 

I never forced students to be seated in my class. I always told one thing at the start of every lecture that they have freedom to move out of class without asking me if they feel bored in my class. But to my surprise this never happened. Not because they are afraid of me, but because my lectures were so interesting that once students literally have stayed seated for continuous 3.5 hours without taking a single break even when I asked them to take a break. Jagtap Sir from Annapurna was surprised that day saying that such thing has never happened anytime before. Its good when teaching becomes FUN. If students are getting bored its actually teacher's mistake and not student's. We even watched the Gravity movie together one day - upon students request.

f) Computer : Need and future of Today's World : 

Computers and Technology was the basic topic of my every lecture. This is the need of the fast growing world where everything is going digital. I had taught students how computers work right from the binary calculations. Although they might not remember the concepts now because they are still under SSC, but they surely know what's the basic behind modern age computing. I have taught them how computer adds / subtracts in binary numbers - 0's and 1's

g) Give them what they NEED and not what we want to give them - Understand their need : 

Annapurna moved to Wadki area last year and the school building over there was still under construction phase when students actually went there for staying. There was shortage of some basic amenities in the classrooms - such as there were no Fans in some classrooms last summer. When I went there for teaching at that time, it was very uncomfortable to students because the building is east - west facing and the afternoon sun comes in through windows. At the same time the school was undertaken for a classroom painting activity. Frankly speaking, the basic NEED of the time was to provide fans and not to paint the classrooms. The same budget could have been used for a purpose which was more beneficial to the students. I don't remember exactly, but i had mentioned this in some feedback portal for blossom / Yammer / Facebook while the activity of painting classroom was going on. 

A few questions by Annapurna Students which were answered and taught by me with all basic concepts until they understand it.

1. How does mobile phones work 
2. How can we multiply numbers faster
3. Basic add / subtract tricks in maths
4. how tubelights, bulbs, fans work
5. how does GPS work
6. What is a satellite
7. Solar and Lunar Eclipse concepts (with video)
8. Size scale of objects : Smallest to Largest (with Video)
9. How are diamonds made (with Video)
10. How jet engines work (with Video)
11. What is exactly my work in Amdocs
12. What is Google and how does it look :) (shown them Google's data center video from youtube)
13. Google Assistant and its demo for calculating numbers over the voice
14. How do robot work - Kuka robotics, Cheetah and wild cat videos shown
15. Self balanced cycle by google
16. how would be the future with robots around us
17. Electromagnetic waves concept - Radio, light, infrared, ultraviolet, xrays etc and their uses
18. What is inside a sim card and a credit card - I literally bisected a SIM and credit card to show whats inside
19. How does a motor works - explained this with an in-class demo
20. How does a space shuttle works and how did we manage to send rover to Mars - (with Video)
21. How does rain fall and lightening occur

This is just a part of questions - endless such questions were asked and almost all were answered while teaching the concepts related to them


Please forgive me for the gramatical mistakes as this blog is written by me in just 3 hours while working in office :)

Thank you Blossom team for your support.

Thank you Jagtap Sir and teachers from Annapurna for giving me a chance to teach all three grades (8, 9, 10) together.

A BIG THANK YOU to Annapurna Students. Without their support all this was not possible for me


ALWAYS ASK THE STUDENTS FOR FEEDBACK. YOU MAY ASK ANNAPURNA STUDENTS ABOUT MY TEACHING STYLE.

Pankaj Thorat