[Educationsupport] Meeting of the Education Support Group on August 17th (Wednesday) from 5.00 - 6.30 pm

Wed Aug 17 15:40:46 IST 2022

Dear Anusha, Ranjani and Venita,

I would have really liked to attend, however, the time is not suitable for
me.

Instead to get the conversation going on the important questions raised in
the shared document, please find my thoughts below.

*Background*

I conducted fieldwork (as part of my PhD) with multilingual (Telugu,
English, Hindi, Dakhni) children (class 6th) in Warangal, Telangana ages
9-12 in an affordable private school. Children in these classrooms
identified themselves as Muslims, Hindu, Christians. Identity of caste and
class were also used by the school administration.

*Focus*:

   - To identify adolescents' literacy practices inside and outside school
   among family, peers and other spaces that children visit.

*Findings*

   1. Marginalised (SC/ST/OBCs) children with access to peers from
   privileged backgrounds in the neighbourhood have had some access to
   literacy practices. This includes reading text (on-academic) online on
   games, YouTube, example -Minecraft.
   2. In addition, children with access to religious institutions (like
   church, Madarsa) have had access to reading, writing and group work in
   religious text
   3. A number of children from all backgrounds have engaged in varied
   activities (that involved reading, writing and alternate understanding of
   numeracy) through phones with family members, peers and in some cases older
   siblings.
   4. Children also have access to public libraries, other books made
   available by parents and family members at home.  In some cases, older
   siblings have actively engaged in teaching younger ones.

*Implications for Education Support Group*

1. The 'idea of learning loss' is a myth. There is no doubt that school as
a space is enriching with teachers' input and that of peers. However,
'learning loss in itself is a myth'. Parents, family members and children
themselves from all backgrounds have been concerned about learning
during the lockdown period and have devised alternate means to support
learning. This learning needs to be acknowledged and supported.
2*. *We need to see learning in a broader context, outside the school and
understand alternate means of learning that children and community have
devised during this time.
3. In many cases, school as a space is unable to provide a critical context
especially for children from marginalised backgrounds, these out of school
context in that case can be critical to support children.

*Suggestions for Focus of ESG for next few 3 months*

1. Document alternate literacy communities and practices of children
outside school context
Some examples from my data include, google maps to measure distances of
buildings in local areas, Youtube videos to cook, make origami as well as
draw different kinds of objects from google images. We perhaps need to
understand children's engagement with technology (limited access to devices
and internet) better.

2. Find ways to support children's learning outside the school.
Example, in case of access to public libraries: workshops on storytelling,
science related exploratory workshops, among others

3. For adolescents especially, find ways to engage them in planning these
workshops and provide leadership roles.

Thanks!

Ekta

On Tue, Aug 16, 2022 at 12:38 PM Poornima Arun <poornima.arun12 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank u will be there.
>
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 13:30 Anusha S <anusha.sharma at itforchange.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Hope you've received our email regarding the meeting of the education
>> support group on *17th August between 5 and 6:30 PM*.
>>
>> To enable us to capture the breadth of work by all of us, we thought it
>> might be a good idea if we can all share some details/ideas prior to the
>> meeting. For this, we have created a short Google form
>> <https://forms.gle/JbPtpb6Eirdxwi467> with some questions about how the
>> school resumption has been in your region/state. We request you to take a
>> few minutes to fill this in and share. The form can be filled in any
>> language.
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you all on the 17th.
>>
>> The meeting link is - https://b3.teacher-network.in/b/gur-g94-hyn
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Anusha, Ranjani and Venita
>>
>>
>> On 07/08/22 22:17, Sriranjani Ranganathan wrote:
>>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> It is a little over a year from the time we formed this group to support
>> the educational recovery process. One of the primary objectives of the ESG
>> was to create and curate a resource repository of resources to support
>> school education departments in school reopening.
>>
>> Across the country, schools have now reopened and different state
>> education departments have begun different initiatives to resume education
>> after the disruption. While there is an acknowledgement of the learning
>> gaps for children, there are not many models of how to address these gaps;
>> it is clear that interventions are required on several fronts to support
>> schools and children and communities. We thought it would be a good idea to
>> regroup and look at some of the ways in which this group can support the
>> process of educational recovery.
>>
>> Attached is a brief note that describes the context and some ideas /
>> areas to work on. To discuss these as well as other ideas, as well as
>> define ways of
>> taking this work forward, we would like to convene a virtual meeting of
>> all the members on August 17th (Wednesday) between 5.00 and 6.30 pm. We
>> hope you will all be able to make it. The link for the meeting is
>> https://b3.teacher-network.in/b/gur-g94-hyn
>>
>> Looking forward to meeting all of you.
>>
>> Best wishes and regards,
>> Anusha, Ranjani and Venita
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Anusha S*
>> Program Assistant - Education
>> IT for Change, Bengaluru - 560041
>> In special consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
>> Mobile : +91-9731999533 *| *Office Phone : 080 2653 6890
>> Website <https://itforchange.net/> | Twitter
>> <https://twitter.com/itfc_edutech> | Instagram
>> <https://www.instagram.com/itfc_edutech/?hl=en>
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