Along the Mahanadi

Along the Mahanadi, a great civilization grows. Many small and big villages, forests and lives spread out like capillaries. Amidst these cultures – different and alike, I have grown too. This year around the Mahanadi I have been the quiet river sometimes, sometimes the bridge between its people and ideas, sometimes the running brooks and sometimes the deep forests. Wherever I have traversed, the Mahanadi has stayed closed by and inspired strength.

I have learnt ways of living here and many homes have beckoned me as their own. People here are as generous and loving here as the river is to human life. In this place of agricultural abundance, local customs and festivals I have seen the growing importance of education and the decisive place held by women in society. Also valuable are the hard work and contribution of all the family members to run their households.

Here I have understood the complex role played by various institutions, stakeholders and the community on schools and students’ learning. All roads and decisions have led me here to this civilization on the banks of a great river.

As I move to a nearby town after my Associateship I will hold close the memories and learnings from here. I’m grateful to all the people who have helped me grow.

Here’s to many journeys ahead and to passing the baton on,

~ Dharani

THE FOUNDATION

In our last meeting as the ARPs of Dhamtari districts, the eight of us were encouraged by our mentors to share our experiences of the past year. I was hesitant, being unable to compile and reflect on so many happenings in a short time. I said something but I knew that more thought was needed for doing justice to this year’s journey. Being a part of this freeing session added to the questions I could answer and the feelings I could articulate. Writing here will give detail and clarity to my thoughts. I have the misfortune of forgetting my work and experiences after the time has passed, so looking back seems difficult and hazy but with documentation from the past, I can tell my story here. That is the hope.

In October 2022, I visited the Teacher Learning Centre in Chamba, Uttarakhand for our first field practicum in Azim Premji University, as part of the MA in Education course. This is where I learnt about the ARP framework and was keen to do something like it. I wanted to live and work like the people I saw around me and felt strongly so.

Later from October to December 2023, I had my field practice in Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh. The Foundation was working in various ways and with every level of functioning to improve school education. I saw that TPD could bring effective change in a sustained manner. Here again I saw myself working in meaningful ways. In both field locations, the people and their work inspired me. They extended the work of people I had looked up to, like Peter McLaren, Paulo Freire, Krishna Kumar, Gandhi, Dr. King and Congressman John Lewis.

By the time of Campus Placements in January 2024, I had decided to apply for the Foundation and had no backup plans whatsoever. Fortunately, I got through the selection processes and was placed as an ARP in Dhamtari block and district in Chhattisgarh. Since then, I have more informed perceptions, theories have met practice, and my thoughts and decisions have gained valuable detail and strength.

After a year, these are few of the reasons I work here in the Foundation –I look up to the people here. They are the best I have met in the field work of Education. I have learnt as much from them as the courses of MA in Education. To work amidst such legacy and expertise is inspiring and humbling.I have the freedom to ask questions and learn here. Genuine solutions and engagements are sought, instead of any appeasement or quick fixes. This intelligent, committed work is needed to bring any change.The sturdy knowledge resources of the Foundation informs and strengthens our work. In my observation, the trickle down from Aims of Education to Teaching Practices has been an instrumental understanding in education.

Through my work here, I have been able to give answers to these questions with contentment -

• How will my work add value to people’s lives ?
• Who will be influenced by my practice?
• Where is my work needed the most?

I am glad that I get to do what I know well. By me working here some little need of this world is being met.

SCHOOL

August 8 - 2024 - My first day at school – Govt. Primary School Karetha was filled with nervousness, inhibition and fear. I had reached before time and the students were playing. It is unfamiliar to think that we were strangers that day. A few huddled around and asked me why I was here, a few quietly mocked me for my haircut and the others just didn’t seem to bother.

June 24, 2025

In contrast, my last day here was filled with love, a sense of security and belonging. As they all waved goodbye, I felt like I was leaving home. Now I knew them all – their families, quirks, strengths, insecurities and worries and they knew these about me. We had learnt and grown together, we were friends, and we reassured each other that there is always hope, peace and love in the world. I am eternally grateful that they befriended me with such closeness and honesty. I am not afraid of working with children now. My insecurities and inhibitions have faded amidst their love and laughter. My love for teaching and regard for education have grown strong.

In teaching and learning English, Hindi and Math, I have a better understanding of how children learn. Understanding a classroom through simple undaunting assessments, designing suitable lesson plans and TLMs, assessing the learnings again and working with individual students in smaller learning-level based groups have all become simpler now. It was a little triumph to see the teachers of PS Karetha use TLM and innovative teaching practices in their classrooms.

I initially understood teaching practices and classroom activities as being the same. Clarity came with consistent lesson planning and mapping between learning outcomes, teaching practices and classroom activities. Clear and detailed lesson planning has helped me teach well. The cyclical effort of need analysis and scaffolding to follow-up and effect analysis helped me distinguish between simple yet critical teaching practices and complex deliberate teaching practices. For instance, the routine built around storytelling in grade 3 was learnt from other field experiences and can be further implemented in other contexts as well. However, the plan made for independent reading and writing was informed by the students’ learning levels and took time to transact effectively.

In fearless classroom environments, I have seen children take ownership and participate in the process of learning with interest and curiosity. Their interaction with given contents, TLM and input becomes vibrant when they are attainable. With adolescents and youth, they like to take up challenges and explore on their own while working with familiar input. Across age groups and subject areas, TLM have enabled students to engage deeply with concepts by scaffolding, bridging knowledge gaps and enabling conceptual clarity.

I also feel that gradually giving responsibility to students, for classroom management, a positive classroom culture and for their own learning makes them responsible. This is regardless of their learning level and socio-economic background. With a close and well-educated relationship with individual students, the teacher can enable them to shine where they can. To make the school a positive learning environment, the agency and ownership of students on the infrastructure and resources is essential. Usage of the library, TLM and sports equipment by them was observed from early days. Here, I’m reminded of Girish and Dheeraj from grade four. They were able to learn addition and subtractions in the FLN module with concrete objects and through games and role-plays. Later in the school summer camp, they took lead of outdoor games and activities while also reading and calculating well.

Over the months, I learnt to organize lessons and concepts in an efficient way for the students’ engagement and learning. Asking relatable/contextual questions and balgeets encouraged all the students to take part in the class. Documenting students’ progress was done to some extent out of all the various kinds of works done. The importance of language classes rich in language input and literature was reestablished in these classes.

Organizing regular thematic writing, taking these works onto grade specific wall magazines and building the habit of reading has led to several changes. The students’ ability to observe details, read language input, express their thoughts, write simple to complex sentences and engage in other complex activities has improved significantly. This has been documented in the students’ profile over the months.

My students have thoroughly enjoyed worksheets, coloring sheets, drawing and craft activities. Film screenings, surveying their friends and family, classroom discussions and preparing role plays were some engagements which built rapport between me and the students. One classroom discussion which I remember clearly was in Grade 5 while reading the poem ‘हम पंछी उन्मुक्त गगन के’ on freedom. Here’s an extract from that week’s report -

We recited the poem line by line and then an interesting conversation unfolded. I asked the students to give words which they liked in the poem, then the word azadi came up. We spoke about this for some time while acknowledging that when they are fully free, there is a list of things they will do. Then I asked them who they were afraid of, they listed out a few names, after this we spoke whether or not we should create fear in others. It was concluded that we should not instill fear in people, especially children. When I asked for reasons, they gave a considerable list. The students’ ability to think, imagine and empathize with their environment was reflected in a beautiful manner. They were unique thinkers and knew more about the world than one could usually assume. We sang the poem together again and left for lunch with warm smiles.

Environments of togetherness can be built through songs and poems shared in simple understandable languages. My students and I would hold discussions based on what we saw, read and heard. There was a sense of freedom (seen not just through class participation but the vocabulary used) which we experienced collectively. Like learned citizens of this world they spoke about peace, inequality, freedom and non-violence across age groups and voiced their views. Such collective dialogue lends introspection and detail to thought. The essential habit formation of reading and writing added to our learning. Our love for language and literature has grown fonder. In all this, we also learnt turn taking and waiting while participating in the classroom processes. Earlier, what was a jumble of students huddling around me became small groups of students organized in suitable seating arrangements. They got used to peer learning and group work with different learning levels doing different work in the segment of the class.

encouraging simple attainable steps

In language, as well as other subjects, I learnt that asking questions which encourage the lived experiences and contextual knowledge of the students leads to more responses and longer language usage too. Encouraging class participation and welcoming all forms of responses has helped students attend and contribute to classroom processes. Simple questions, cues to sentences, queries and asking for repeating what has been said helps in classroom management. This experience also shows how effective lesson planning and the interest towards classroom processes gives non-violent alternatives to classroom management.

This was difficult initially. I remember Tanya in grade 3, to be a highly energetic child who used to play around the class, imitating me and creating all forms of chaos in class. Various approaches like giving her simpler tasks, ignoring her or silencing her disturbance failed. One day, I stormed out of the class in anger since other children had joined her frolics. I regained my composure after sitting quietly in the staffroom for some time. In the meantime, Tanya and her friends peeped into the staffroom, so I calmly asked Tanya and Shahid to stay. They stood there silently with their energies spent. I had the normal conversation on behavior – what they had done, whether it was fine to create trouble, and towards the end I requested them to learn something from the class and play at the end.

Over the year, I learnt several things about Tanya. Her family was poor, leading her sisters to work. They are unaware of the value of education and the parents are busy earning their daily wages. I have never been able to meet her parents, despite visiting her home more than four times. In class, she struggled with alphabet recognition and print awareness earlier. Now she recognizes most letters and is able to hold proper conversation with me. I am not sure how this is with other teachers since she was absent from the recent summer camps. I was very happy to meet and speak with her on my last visit to the school.

On the last day, I also saw an interesting improvement in Keval from grade 3. He has been in the below grade level group across all subjects and attended the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy module from August to January 2024. He had been interested in counting and addition, despite being inattentive in other classes. However, on my last visit to school, he copied questions from the board and began to solve them on his own. I checked his progress a few minutes later and he was doing his work quiet well without any mistakes.

Planning and organizing for the school summer camp in April was another initiative where we learnt together. This seemed like a mammoth task, and I went headfirst into TP and LO mapping. Doing this for all grades took time and effort and feels unnecessary now, but it gave me an understanding of what was to be achieved within Math and Language in the primary grades. My mentor also agreed that it was important for my understanding.

The first day was a total chaos! The plan was too complex; children ran about everywhere and nothing helped. I came back sad and sat with the plan, simplified it and made it more fun. Greetings, an initation song and games would be in the playground, creative and language time would be in the common classroom. Simple division of activities – within and outside the classroom. The first segment spent their high energies and the second gave us control and order on the day’s attainments.

On the tenth and last day of the school summer camp, here’s what I wrote in the daily report -

For days like today, I work every day and love what I do. Somehow today was so much fun and organized that my faith in the students was restored. Several of the objectives were worked towards and everyone participated enthusiastically. We began the day with some exercises (like the Saturday morning assembly), then in a circle we jumped and recited “laugh a little, jump a little…” then we played “bolo bhai kitne”.

After this we stood in two lines and played the dance Chinese whisper game. We laughed so much that it was repeated twice. Then I brought out the speakers and played the song ‘bum bum bole’ from Taare Zameen Par and from then we danced for an hour! Several other songs were recommended by the students. We danced with joy and freedom and the anganwadi students also joined us. There is no pictures or videos of this sadly since we were all lost in that moment, but we sat later and told each other to remember this day for a long time. We also decided to meet again on April 30 when they come to take their progress reports. Inside the classroom we read for some time, and I realized that today might be the last day of the summer camp till a long time, so we compiled the previous works into hastpustikas and called them – meri pustika. For the students who were absent we compiled their works into a common booklet for the school – hamari pustika. We all remained in the circle and worked in an organized manner. Before and after the lunch recess the students helped me clean up the space without asking to do so! At the end we took pictures and said goodbye. A few students thanked me for teaching them different things.

Looking back to the weekly objectives, I can agree that the students attending this camp had climbed together towards achievement. They had worked considerably well in groups and took ownership of the routine established. They were well involved in the daily activities and the time they spent showed their focus and meticulousness. I saw evident usage of words learned in the previous months. They were taking part in peaceful and meaningful manners – especially in reading and creativity-based activities. Their attendance was a concern but with time the wedding season will fade away and the students will return. I was seeing their joy while learning – while giving me many learnings and thoughts. By learning, painting, laughing, playing, dancing and spending time with them my inner-child found space to grow.

This familiarity later helped in organizing the community summer camp and the parents’ meeting. Students’ learning and the shared ownership from teachers and parents towards it is fundamental and regular opportunities of meetings and discussions in this direction should be enabled and encouraged by the relevant stakeholders (especially the teachers). This shared responsibility should not be a burden on the teachers or the parents.

It is not just the power dynamic between the teachers and students which stifles the students, its also the lethargy, procrastination and “off-limits” conversations which keep the students (and teachers) disinterested and disengaged from the learning processes at school. This lacuna is filled by other influences from the child’s context and culture which might not always be positive/beneficial to their growth.

In the case of a middle school, I worked in earlier, the disinterest of the teachers towards issues faced by the students was evident. This led the students to devalue their learning experiences from the school and be engaged in negative influences from the community. Instances of delinquency and substance abuse went unaddressed by the teachers as well as the community members. For this, I reached out to the HT, and he guided me to visit the Sakhi One Call Centre. From there on, we reached out to the functionaries from the Child Helpline, Ministry of Women and Child Development. With these contacts in place, we planned and organized an awareness program in December. Other such conversations before and after this were helpful in rekindling social awareness and empathy in several students. Around fifteen students participated in thematic writing and role play preparation with a sense of responsibility. Pointing towards a need and quietly bringing the stakeholder’s attention to it and convincing them to think and decide in a favorable direction has been a process I have practiced this year.

Being part of staffroom conversations helped me focus on the immediate needs of the school and students. Teachers’ dialogue with each other on specific students led us to the FLN module. Here the early identification of need led us to a five-month long FLN module with students from grades 3 to 5 whose learning level was categorized as being below grade. It is an evident learning that when the need arises from the teacher, school, or the department supporting these endeavors certainly leads to effective engagement and effects. This module, the role play, teaching English and conducting the summer camp in Middle School Rudri are a few examples to support this stance.

Through such discussions I understood the teachers’ higher education and beliefs about education and children’s learning. They found it difficult to recollect the courses they did but remembered that they taught as part of field practice. While understanding about students’ learning and their abilities, they had also looked at working with communities in their teacher education courses. This informed connect with the parents and community was left behind in their regular functioning. Their contributions to the parents meeting at the end of the community summer camp were effective and helpful towards bridging the gap. It is also true that their longer familiarity with the community members is an influential relationship which they can use for enabling a conducive learning environment across school and home.

Interacting with functionaries like the CAC, the BEO and an officer from the DEO office were opportunities of learning. Their perceptions of ‘quality’ education, understanding of the NEP and discussions with the teachers and head teachers were informative. Here the benefit of being from the Foundation gave recognition and a common-ground to talk about work. They encouraged my work and were content that I was working in the various schools in which I had met them.

Towards the end of May, other engagements like beginning to make a weekly cluster plan with three new schools and an anganwadi was effectively done. The focus areas of working in each of these was also identified and planned for. With my initial questions answered and insights gained through multiple processes I was able to plan effectively and clearly.

Spending a relatively long duration of time in specific schools and Karetha gave rich learnings. I was able to work deeply through community visits, anganwadi engagements and the summer camps. Working in-depth and building relationships in a gradual manner helped me see the innumerable spaces where work was needed. Out of this, reasoning with the relevant stakeholders and taking further steps towards betterment was tried and done in various tangents. Through school engagements an understanding was gained on how diverse students learn and engage with their peers, subjects and teachers. In this way, developing resources suitable to the learning needs of the students was also accomplished.

Teachers create conducive learning environments through simple, replicable practices that can be adapted to the interests and needs of relevant stakeholders. Enabling meaningful conversations and demonstrating replicable practices is a learning I hold as a result of these experiences.

COMMUNITY

Growing friendships with my students made it easy to visit their homes. They translated their grandparents’ Chhattisgarhi, showed me where their friends lived and often reminded me to complete visiting everyone in the class. Knowing their families and where they were placed in the socio-economic fabric of the society helped me understand their classroom. Later reflection, discussions and readings gave ways to enable them in their learning paths. In this years’ time, I made close friendships with a few families, whose importance towards education inspired me to work further.

During the Constitution Day celebrations, I was able to do a read-aloud of ‘The Boy Who Asked Why’ across several grades. This effort started the wall-magazine making and maintenance in MS Karetha. This rapport building with them led to efficient preparation and presentation of the role play ‘Deewar’ which further led this youth group to participate in the District Institute’s Theatre Workshop in June. The relationship with parents was helpful in convincing them to send their children for this opportunity. Over the week, I saw them learn and open-up in their own personalities. They had made new friends and begun to take part in integral conversations on the society they existed in. forming and connecting this youth group to the Foundation is one of the little triumphs from this year.

I was very apprehensive of working with children and teachers in anganwadis due to various reasons. Working or playing with children has been an inhibition for me. I always felt that I didn’t know how to communicate with or interest them. Despite being a subject area within education, I was not familiar with Early Childhood Care and Education. Added to this was a concern – how to plan activities and games with such young children without prior knowledge, experience or immediately attainable learning objectives.

With these many uncertainties I began to observe the processes in Anganwadi Centre, Karetha. The teacher was welcoming and supportive of my visits and engagement. She would do a few activities, but I felt that it lacked a sense of direction. Attending capacity building sessions, sector meetings, reading parts of the NCFFS and referring to previous lesson plans helped me with clarity. Theme-wise planning and execution of activities, appropriate to the age of the children was done by me since then. Focusing on emergent and early literacy came out of interest and the planning and observation continued in this manner. observing children’s responses and work as a result of engagements was possible. Soon managing them and bringing their attention together was possible through gradual, consistent efforts. Later the familiarity with SCERT Lesson Plans and implementation of these activities across many angwadis were significant learnings in this direction.

In my engagements, I ensured a fearless environment for the children. They emoted freely and I was able to observe that the anganwadi became a microcosm of the society around. There are always personalities of a diverse range. I was able to understand how they learn and how to interact with them. Anganwadi visits and sector meetings introduced me to the diverse roles and responsibilities of the teachers and sector supervisors.

I was able to see that along with the infrastructure and amenities of the AWC, the routine anchored by the teacher and sahayika are integral. More efforts need to be invested on pedagogical interventions alongside data maintenance and upkeep of other responsibilities. Habit formation of the children is essential here. It is important that the teachers venture ahead of anganwadi maintenance and progresses towards deeper involvement with her children. They also have the opportunity to work closely with parents and members of the community. If the effort is initiated and maintained from this foundation stage, the child will progress well through primary education as well.

Being a part of the supervisor meetings, observing initially and later facilitating gave clarity into ideas which could be implemented at a scale. The experiences from sector meetings added detail, and I was able to understand how the leadership of sector supervisors and the care of anganwadi teachers enhance the learning experiences of children.

Finding a foothold in the community of Karetha took up considerable time. A strong rapport with the teachers, students, parents and other community members was built gradually. Apart from home visits of PS Karetha’s students, I visited many other homes with the help of the anganwadi teacher. This was scaled up during the community summer camp, wherein we visited all the homes of Karetha for inviting their children to take part. In this process, we took support of the sarpanch for mobilizing children.

Being unable to teach in the Middle School in Karetha has been a drawback here. When the children think of their ‘cool’ peers not attending the summer camp, they did not see much value or interest in attending it themselves. Over 150 invitations were distributed and we encouraged the youth to attend the camp. This took more than three hours, and the parents understood that they could send their children to someplace safe for a few hours of the day.

Throughout the eleven days, the students took responsibility in managing the print environment and themselves. I have seen the value of work and the value of engagement in productive activities in the children attending the camp regularly. They taught me to work hard and be well-involved in my responsibilities. I was able to see the difference between the involvement and output of the students from PS Karetha and those of other schools. They spoke, read and wrote with freedom and took part in games with a spirit of cooperation and belonging. I could be biased but their participation in the eleven-day activities was better.

In April and May when I regularly visited the community, I found that the parents were not prioritizing their children’s education, due to various reasons. The youth are unemployed despite being skilled and qualified. There have been frequent incidents of substance abuse and delinquency from them. These concerns also widened the gap between the school and community.

After many discussions with community members and Foundation, I decided to fix a पालक बैठक on the closing day of the community summer camp. With this narrowed down idea, it was required to convince the busy parents and the village leaders. Twenty parents from all the पाराs participated in the meeting, they were influential people too. The teachers of Govt. Primary School Karetha also attended this meeting. The anganwadi teacher and sahayika were present who added their views to this session. I briefly spoke about the Foundation and its engagements. They were interested and asked a few queries. They also keenly observed their children’s work compiled in the presentation. Then the discussion began about their children’s future, what they dream about their future, what are some challenges they face in meeting this, and what they can do collectively to make it better. The meeting became a common platform to share their opinions and concerns. Enabling a positive learning environment and taking collectively responsible for the behavior of the youth were points which would be put forward in the next gram sabha meeting. Focusing on attendance of parents so that they influence the people around them was helpful.

Understanding the community bears fruit when the members share interest in bringing small changes in their village. I was able to learn how to mediate their viewpoints and continue the conversation. Being able to bring a few of them together is a good start for further conversations and action to take place. The need for transparency and constructive dialogue between school and community was felt. This can be enabled by teachers first as shared responsibility and not as a burden on the parents.

In block level engagements in the team, I was able to support in designing documents as needed. TLM making for events, preparation for supervisor and sector meetings, reorganization of worksheets and library were a few other responsibilities. Apart from this, I was able to facilitate EPC sessions – one with teachers and two others with youth. Having an engaging plan for this was memorable and interesting for me as well as the participants.

READING AND CAPACITY BUILDING

Alongside teaching and field work, readings, discussions, planning, facilitation and documentation have been integral processes in my work this year. I have learnt, unlearned and been shaped by these factors in a significant manner. Keen observation led to a journey of initial learnings and building up on them led to in-depth understanding. I also learnt the importance of having meticulousness and care towards my work. From vast descriptions to conciseness and precision, my documentation has evolved and improved - consistent field work has led to this. Facilitating and participating in group work with different members, learning sharings, capacity building workshops and courses taught new practices and diverse ways of understanding. In-depth discussions and feedback with mentor and other members enabled learning from their experience and expertise.

Reading other’s experiences, planning well, close classroom observation, understanding individual students, their emotions and responses, and giving clear instructions have worked well for me. I would like to mention the e-prints@APU online repository here. It has been particularly helpful in gaining knowledge before planning various engagements. Using the Foundation and SCERT’s resources, policy documents and the NCFs enhanced my content and pedagogic knowledge. Designing posters, invites, brochures and booklets for the district team for various events and purposes helped me add value and contribute to the team.

With the passing of time, I am trying to learn ways of managing time to suit the expansion of responsibilities. I can see an improvement in my ability of presenting points in a clear and appropriate manner when necessary. I have compiled a repository of learnings, experiences and resources this year which I will refer back to in my journey ahead.

CASE STUDIES

Interaction with Gajendra sir

Just within a month of teaching in our SUP schools, we were jittery and uncertain of what stood ahead of us. On September 27, the mentors of Dhamtari district brought us ARPs together for a session with an experienced teacher from the Azim Premji School, who had worked in the public sector as well. He knew both the worlds and helped us see hope. Gajendra sir shared his precious experience and insights of teaching while staying centered on classroom management and lesson planning. These were my notes from the day –

· I realize the need to develop and nourish a positive classroom culture on my own despite the culture and environment of the school and the community outside.

· Alternative activities and plans are essential for teaching-learning transactions to be effective.

· Keeping the students engaged in various activities every week with their willingness to participate is necessary.

· Having a clear vision of what to do in a class and having detailed lesson plans will be substantial.

· Building trust will be fundamental in taking the classes forward.

Interaction with Indu

In mid-December, we attended the pan-field workshop at the University. The last session was an open-house with Indu. After the hour-long question answer session, I got an opportunity to speak with her about a query I had about working in the Foundation. Her responses in the session as well as to my query held evidence to the vast experience and expertise she has gained over the years. “Take care of all my children,” she told us all at the end of all the questions. Humility, good humor and wisdom sparkled through her words and the workshop ended on a bright note thereafter. “Think with a clear mind and listen with an open heart” she told me, and I hold them close.

Sakshee and Saurabh - The Hope in Education

Saurabh in grade 2 had been very irregular to school, not attending classes for most of November. I went to his home twice with a teacher and twice on my own but was unable to convince him to come to school. His parents complained that he would run off to the riverside and other villages when they coerced him to attend school. After the first two days of our visit, his mother brought him to the school and sat with him for some time. When she left, he began to cry bitterly, and the teachers brought him to the staffroom and asked me if I could take care of him.

I was concerned at first since I am bad at consoling crying people, especially children! I sat with him and after a few moments said that we would go home when he stopped crying. He quietened down and continued to sob. Then slowly I tried to build a conversation with him and was fortunate that he responded.

We spoke about who all he liked at home (his parents and not his sisters, he mumbled), which teacher he liked in school (he said it was me!) and what he liked doing the most (playing in open spaces). I showed him two books which he read through images and as I was working on making a TLM I gave him a coloring sheet and colours to work with. He was engrossed in this work and when I went to grade 3, he came along with me and participated in the class. He went with his friends and stayed till the end of the school day!

It is relevant to note that Saurabh is on par with his grade level and is a participative student in his class. After being irregular, when the school reopened after winter vacations, Saurabh has been very regular. He took part in both summer camps also regularly and took responsibility in them beyond his age.

Sakshee was a bright child in grade 3, she is in grade 4 now. She used to add to my ease in the classroom, by asking appropriate questions and even suggesting ways of classroom management. Her reading abilities and attention in the classroom led her to grade level proficiency in English. If support is given throughout her elementary schooling, I'm certain that she will prosper through higher education to suit consistent employment in the future. Her mother was present during the parents meeting, one of the first times she had attended such a gathering for her child.

After working with students of grades 1 to 3 with the Hindi worksheets from TLC, and visiting the morning routines of the anganwadi, I had visited Sakshee's home at around 11:30 AM on February 15, Saturday. There was a small bougainvillea tree shading the little gate which leads to the front yard. Sakshee's mother was washing utensils and as I sat with them, Sakshee ran into the house and hid somewhere. She didn't come out the whole time and we were only able to hear the tinkling of her anklets occasionally. Later when her mother wept, one could hear Sakshee’s sniffles too.

I was able to understand most parts of the Chhattisgarhi spoken by Sakshee’s mother. She described about her family-proudly about her children (Sakshee and her two older brothers) and grieved about her departed husband. She remembered him as a loving and responsible man who had great love and ambition for his children. When Sakshee was little, he had been drugged and lynched by someone from the village and died a few days later, she shared. Now, her family owns little agricultural land, so they do odd jobs to make their ends meet. Sakshee’s grandmother sells vegetables in Rudri, her brothers study and work as painters, and her mother works as an agricultural laborer whenever she can.

Despite weeping briefly in her husband’s memory and their deprived condition, Sakshee’s mother conveyed strength and hope about her children and their education. She showed me around the house with a torch light since only one room had a little bulb shining. When I heard about Sakshee's brothers studying and working hard to keep the family going, I was applauded and supported her mother's hope. I offered to be of any help at the moment or later in the future, but she was assured that her children would take care.

Observing Sakshee as a student in the school, one could never understand the challenges her family faced. Getting to know a little about her life has made me realize their resilience and the efforts they put into prioritizing her education. Well, what else is to say except that I truly learnt strength from Sakshee and her family, I hope families like her benefit from education to be able to climb away from the peripheries of the society towards growth, freedom and empowerment. More importantly, I hope that there are systems which enable this accessibility.

- With peace, hope and gratitude

To conclude this year’s journey seems difficult. Whilst still reflecting on experiences and making sense of the work put in, I’m trying to wrap up this story. I will look back at this journey and truly cherish it. I have grown up in the real sense here, become strong, made memories and learnt to let them go. I am not an armchair activist anymore but a person harnessing education for change. I have a long way to go in this field to make any conclusions. I continue to learn. I am grateful to all the people who have led me here and those who inspire me further. The story now is to enable opportunities for those kept away from them. I dedicate this journey to my family, teachers and friends.

~ Dharani