Regular class vs playful learning

Heera and Sunita took over the Kheldai Sikdai classes from Radhika after she left the school. Radhika used to run these lessons alone so when Sunita and Heera took over they had no idea what to do in these classes. But they managed by studying the guides and resources provided in the Kheldai SIkdai kits. I observed them conduct a lesson on Balloon-powered cars for the students of grade 5 and 6. About 40 students gathered in a large, empty hall with high yellow walls and a slanted tin roof supported by truss. The hall had several windows and a couple of doors. Located at the top of the school building, it was well-lit and ventilated. The hall had a small platform at the front, raised up to a foot in height. On the other side of the hall was a huge space with a dusty concrete floor. A piece of dirty-looking red carpet, small compared to the hall but large enough for the students to sit on, was laid on the floor. Towards the back of the class were two benches. The students sat on the floor.

Heera and Sunita, the teachers, had brought the Kheldai Sikdai kit box to the class. Heera distributed the materials for the lesson. There were extra materials in the kit so each student got enough materials to work alone.

Sunita distributed the student guides among the groups. The students, seated on the dirty, red-colored carpet on the floor, formed small groups sitting in a circle, facing each other. The groups had 2-4 students in each. They had already started exploring the materials and the student guide.

After some minutes, Heera tried to get the attention of the class to provide some instructions. He yelled but students didn't seem to listen as they were already engaged in making.

About 5 mins later, Heera got students to see lesson one in the student guide. The teachers told the students about the activity and gave some instructions on the making. Soon the students crowded at the front to get materials. Initially the teachers struggled to manage the crowd.

The teachers hand out materials to students without considering if they need it. Some students asked for straws and Sunita gave them, although they had enough straws already.

Heera went around the class, telling students that they could make any of the three designs given in the book. “Make different models,” he said.

Heera taught Science to the primary grades. One of the lessons he had taught recently was on the inner structure of Earth. He read aloud the English text in the science book and translated it in Nepali for the students. He often asked if they had understood. Students answered in unison, usually “yes.” The students remained quiet and sat straight in their seats, with very little movement. I assumed that they were afraid of Heera.

Heera stopped reading after a couple of pages and told the students that they'd continue the remaining lesson the next day. Now it was the students’ turn to read the text Heera had read earlier. The students took turns to read aloud and the others repeated after them. Heera stood in front of the class and looked at students reading.

Contrary to the science class, the students seemed unafraid of Heera during the balloon-powered car lesson. While the science class had a silent environment, in this class the groups were talking to each other and the room was buzzing with sounds of laughter, discussions, whispers, but they seemed to be concerned with making.

In a group of four students, they worked on four separate cars. They shared a pair of scissors. Two of them go to Sunita to get more materials. One of them returns happily with a mirror. Perhaps to try something new, they brought the materials that weren’t suggested in the guide. Most of the students were making their own car and working alone. One girl tried to blow her straw with a balloon at the other end. Sunita saw that and told her to stick the balloon to the straw with tape. Sunita also helped students cut shapes out of construction paper sheets.

In her math classes, Sunita solved questions on the board as examples and gave questions as classwork. Students often raced with each other to solve the questions. Within a minute there were calls from students, standing with notebooks in hand. Sunita drew the smiley faces in the reward chart for the students who first arrived at the correct solution.

The students were eager and engaged to solve more problems. While some students worked on more difficult problems, Sunita solved the questions for struggling students in their notebooks. Students sitting nearby also looked as she explained the solution in detail.

In the Kheldai Sikdai class, Sunita was able to step back. Students didn’t need rewards to work. There wasn’t only one correct solution, or one right method, and there was something the students could try to solve their problems. The student guide was also available for ideas and hints. Students test freely, grab materials and tease each other. This was in sharp contrast to their regular classes. Students snatching tape and scissors from each other was a common sight in the class. The two teachers didn't seem to intervene much.

At some point in the middle of the class, Heera came up to me and told me, smiling "The students are content in themselves." He seemed pleased to see the students immersed in making. The students were highly engaged in building their balloon-powered car despite the condition of the room. Having the large hall and empty space, however, had helped them test their cars more easily. The energy and engagement of the students in making was palpable. Perhaps because each student was building their own project, it was hard to spot a student who wasn’t engaged.

In his science class, Heera had stood with his hands crossed in front of his chest while his students had read the text. He corrected the student when they mispronounced. If they didn’t hear him, he didn't bother to correct them again. After a set of students had read the text taught in the class, another set of students repeated the text again from the beginning. The Kheldai Sikdai class didn’t allow Heera to cross his arms and stand. He often got busy with cutting cello tapes for the students as they had run out of masking tapes. When he got some time, Heera sat on the floor with a group of girls and made a car chassis out of straws. Sunita helped some students stick tapes to balloons and straw. Soon students crowded around Heera to get strips of tape. Heera, eventually fed up, handed the tape and scissors to a student. The sight of students snatching tape repeated again.

A student had told me earlier about making a car with 2 balloons. I saw him make something similar. Some students had completed their models and were starting to test and improve without nudge from the teachers, who got busy with helping other students and managing materials, especially the tape.

Two girls seemed stuck due to unavailability of tape. Heera was distributing tape again and a crowd was around him. These girls seemed hesitant to join the crowd to get tape. It was like watching people get tickets around a crowded counter without any line or structure. Later Sunita arrived with a roll of masking tape and distributed the pieces to students who needed them. A group of girls gathered around her. “Miss, please attach just one strip here,” she said to Sunita, frustrated. She had been waiting for her turn, holding her car in front of Sunita for a few minutes. Students who had come late but placed their car over hers had gotten their turns. The sight had gotten her impatient and frustrated. Finally she got their turns with tape.

By this time, students who had completed their work were actively improving their designs. One boy trimmed the sharp edges and the extra bits of tapes that didn't stick. Some had showcased their work on the benches at the back of the class. One girl was cutting patterns on her car, having gotten it to work. Another girl seemed happy at getting her car to work properly. Later she took scissors and trimmed the sharp edges of her friends’ car, and decorated her car with brown hearts.

The class had gotten quite chaotic and towards the end. Students were walking around and over each other's books and papers. They were engaged in making, testing and improving their projects. Heera was still busy with providing tape to students.

When it was time to end the class, Heera asked students to clean the area where their group worked. Some girls were still decorating their work. Some were modifying their cars, trying to make them travel farther. Some of them challenge each other to race. One girl asked her friend to launch their cars together. It was not a challenge though; just an invitation to do something together. They tried it, but one car didn't move due to some problem with the air outlet. They didn’t tease or make a big deal out of it.

Students started returning back to their classroom. I saw two girls scavenging the dustbin for balloons to modify their model.