Goals in Education Project

I want to see the quality of education offered in Bagar to return to that of its heyday. This goal will be achieved through the development and training of teachers.

Lessons Learned

While trying to promote parental involvement among the parents of the Piramal Boys’ Senior Secondary School’s sixth graders’ parents, I learned one of the most important lessons I have learned thus far – the value of building relationships. It’s easy enough to disregard this element – but sometimes your work will not get done if all you are focused on is the goal.

As soon as I decided I wanted to start a parents’ association, the next challenge was how to tell the parents. A few people had recommended that the first meeting I organized would have to be fun, so I decided to hold a father-son cricket match. Many kids came but no parents came.
And who could blame them? I was a random girl who had stopped by at their house to tell them about some random cricket match. I needed to gain some credibility in their eyes – but how?

After the cricket match, the kids had been spending quit some time with me. They wanted me to organize another cricket match; they wanted to hang out with us. I could see an attachment developing – them to me and me to them. At this point, I realized that I could gain credibility through the kids. Children talk to their parents about things that happen during the day. Most likely, my name would come up. In thinking about the next step – meeting with the parents – I needed something to talk about so that my credibility would not fade. I decided to teach the children English. This allowed me to continue developing my relationship with the kids and it gave me stuff to talk about when I visited their homes to speak with their parents. Now I knew if Rahul was having trouble reading and what kinds of things his mom could do to help; I knew that Abhishek was doing really well and that his mother should be extremely proud.

And I also found out that parents – especially mothers really want to talk – about their kids, about their family, whatever. When I told them that I wanted to work with parents, most of the teachers with whom I spoke dismissed the parents as being unpardh (uneducated). That many of the mothers did not study past fifth grade is true, but I realized that not only did I need their support for my work, but they also needed support – whether from me or any teacher – for their parenting work. Because the mothers began to trust me, I gained a lot of insight into the mother-son relationship, about the mother’s place in a family, about a mother’s desire for her children. From the time spent with the, I learned a lot about an issue that is a significant determinant of achieving quality education – the home environment. All those people who told me that parents do not care about their children’s education were wrong. From my experience and interactions – this is not the case.

Relationship building worked in my favor in another case – in dealing with the principal of the Piramal Boys’ School. Initially, I was determined to dislike him. When we first met him, he quoted Shakespeare – “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” He prided himself on the fact that all the students were frightened of him. I did not want to talk to him, let alone include him in my project. But obviously, I had to – he is the principal of the school at which I was working. After I went to his office a few times, I realized that he was not as bad as I had first thought. I began to include him more and more in my project – telling him everything I was doing. This proved useful because as I began to visit him often and tell him all my plans, I won his full support and trust.

I am now about to change my project – I have decided to switch my focus to teacher training and development. But, the lessons of this past year will continue with me into this new phase. I know that one of my challenges with working with teacher training and development will be egos and my lack of credibility. As with the parents (and the principal), relationship building will be a big determinant of whether or not I can go forward with my project.