Today, when I approached one of the Govt. schools in Bihar, with the plan that I had prepared as part of my fellowship SBI Youth for India, they invited me with open arms. They were curious to see what is that I wanted to do in their schools. However, this day hasn’t come with my share of failures.
The first school that I visited with my plan gave me important lessons in planning and management which I will remember for the rest of my life. I had almost everything prepared starting from the curriculum to the number of students. There was only one thing which I wasn’t sure of. My local mentor at my respective NGO suggested me to setup an enterprise model where the local youth be trained to provide computer education to the school children. I had a doubt regarding the payment method adopted for the model. A nominal fee is supposed to be collected from the students and the payment for the youth has to be managed from the same. I am always of the belief that education everywhere in the world should be on knowledge sharing basis. However, in today’s world, the amount of knowledge shared has become directly propotional to the money in your pocket.
So, here I was, sitting with the school teachers, headmasters and NGO officials with a plan of which I wasn’t sure of. But, I decided to give it a try. They all seemed to like the plan of combining Life Skills/Moral values education with Computer Education using storytelling as a medium. One of my storytelling session, Our Storytelling Class, also took place in the same school. Everything was fine until we came to the final point of discussion, the fee.
The Initial Level Talks in the first school!
Since the fee structure was the least important factor which came to my mind while I was designing the plan, I took it a little lightly. I believe in a concept of participatory approach to the solutions which I encounter in daily life. So, I tried to apply the same approach in this situation as well. I asked the school authorities to discuss among themselves how much can a single child afford to pay? I gave them a number, 100 Rupee per month for a 4 month course, and asked them to debate on the same. I just wanted to try out this approach. I knew it might go either way but I thought, let’s try.
I went to the same school on alternate days, interacted with the students and teachers there. The students were very enthusiastic about the thought of computers coming to their schools. Within a short span of almost a week, I became friends with most of them. I have always loved being with kids. It was an enjoyable week.
It was a day when we were supposed to meet NGO’s field volunteers (people who work directly in the field). In the meet, we discussed my intervention as well. Mr. Rajesh, who is working with the same school where I have been going, told me that my experiment has failed. He suggested that I go with a plan with even the minute details worked upon. Coming from a field worker, I could have ignored his advice. But, I couldn’t. I knew that he was right. I actually thanked him for the blunt truth that he told me. It takes courage to speak up the truth, no matter where you are.
Over the course of next few weeks, I went back to my original idea and dropped certain points in the plan of which I was even a little skeptical. After almost 10 days of turmoil and frustration of designing the plan again, I was ready.
The presentation today lasted almost 45 minutes describing as to what I want to achieve through my intervention. The teachers’ participation enthralled me with optimism. They were firing questions and I was ready for almost every one of them. It was an enriching experience, an experience which taught me how to plan well.
The Second School meet with Head Master and Teacher. One of the most fruitful presentation till date!
There are exciting days ahead. I am ready to fail; not ready to not try.
PS: Post written on 19th January, 2016.
