Creative educational initiatives can be taken up using multi-media computers and internet. Microcomputer technology offers the interesting potential of bypassing several of the barriers that society itself imposes for a deprived learner. Besides, it is in itself something stimulating and enhancing the development of multiple faculties in the child’s brain.
Language education in such environments throws up challenges, since the sought after language (English) is very far away from the children’s social environment, and their own language, Urdu, is a second-rate or third-rate option, clearly understood to bring with it a second-rate or third-rate future. At the same time, through building a sound foundation through the mother tongue, Urdu, the felicity in language learning that young children have is something that should be taken advantage of. The possibility of new social and economic avenues and opportunities that the language ability opens up has also to be grasped.
Similarly, for science education. If education seeks to enable someone who is known to be heading towards a humble future to become a good human being – what is the ‘science’ he or she should know, and how should it be taught? What exactly is a scientific outlook in a humble, deprived environment and how is it to be inculcated?
The resources of the city - various museums, gardens, the zoo, libraries - offer rich potential to design live, action-based learning opportunities.
Music, drama and dance offer significant educational and child developmental potential. Developing a curriculum and teaching routine based on this could be a very creative effort. Talimi Haq School could offer a valuable opportunity for talented persons seeking an opportunity to work with poor children using music, drama and dance. Similarly with sport and physical culture.
It is hoped that Talimi Haq School can become a venue for serious action-research efforts in such directions by educational activists, even as the intensive, long-term effort at improving the social environment in PM Basti continues.
1 comment:
Creativity and language, two things that we can offer to children if we give them the opportunity to think with others around the globe on the Internet. It sounds like you live in a fascinating city, one I would love to visit sometime.
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