The Importance of Early-development: Educating the Educators
Shikharapur Community School has been committed to providing quality education to the community of Pharping over the last three decades and has been putting commendable efforts to achieve that. Recently, I had an opportunity to visit the school and held an interaction program with the pre-primary level teachers. I am grateful to the Rukmini Foundation and Mr. Nabin Aryal for providing me with the opportunity.
Group photo with teachers, foundation leader Kedar Sir and some interested young mothers.
Even though it was only a one day program, we covered a lot of areas, all thanks to the enthusiastic and very receptive group of teachers. We shared our experiences, discussed about the problems that the teachers face and tried to find creative solutions as well. The interaction began with introduction of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and the importance of early intervention in providing positive stimulation for the holistic development of the children. We further discussed about the ways of making a class children friendly and promoting child-centric learning approach. We covered things like why play is important to children and how incorporating play, art, music and dance in formal and non-formal education makes the learning process fun and easy for the children. These topics were new to most of the teachers and the subject was of great interest for all the participants.
The group was listening with great interest
The school is currently following a traditional teaching method and the curriculum for the preschoolers is very vast. We talked about breaking the curriculum into parts and imparting education with proper lesson plans and syllabus, while also involving art and craft works, group discussions and individual learning. We also discussed about the different learning methods such as, visual, auditory and hands-on method and how a teacher can recognize the learning pattern of each child and help every child reach his/ her potential by teaching in a method that he/ she understands.
Emphasizing the importance of reading at an early age
“Reading is a key to learning” that is why we discussed about the importance of reading to the children every day. The technique of reading aloud to the children with voice modulation and facial expression was demonstrated. We also talked about organizing parent education classes to involve the parents in the learning process of the children and also holding parents- teacher meeting as often as necessary to update the parents about the progress of their wards and the areas of improvement and the roles of parents in helping teachers achieve the goals set for every individual child. Child care is a cyclic process with the child in the center and parents and teachers should work together as a team.
The interaction was great as the group listened and asked questions.
The interaction program concluded on a positive note and the teachers showed their commitment to provide quality care and education to their students. I look forward to work with the teachers to develop lesson plans and learning materials in the near future so that we can take these ideas into practice for the kids of Pharping.
Sagun Poudyal
