Laying a different foundation

The Pune chapter with about 150 members has been similarly endeavouring to reach out to both English and Marathi medium schools by means of regular workshops for teachers where latest and more interesting teaching tools are conceived of, discussed and later implemented at individual teaching levels.

It was thus that their latest workshop held recently at the Dr Shamarao Kalmadi High School, in association with the Madhuban Educational Forum, took up the traditional subject of festivals only to ingeniously bring home the more modern and relevant lessons of environment protection through the celebrations.

“Festivals form an integral part of primary and pre-primary curriculum but usually they are used only to acquaint children with the country’s cultural heritage,” explains Tarapore.

“We decided to take up the four main festivals of Diwali, Holi, Ganesh Utsav and Nag Panchami and through them educate the children about the importance of environment protection. For example, how crackers other than bringing cheer to the youngsters are also responsible for noise pollution. Or how the colours and rubber balloons used for Holi are hazardous for the environment. Or the traffic and noise pollution issues that may surface during Ganesh Utsav.

“Contrary to the belief that pre-school children may be too young to grasp the significance of such issues, we find that this is the right age to develop a healthy attitude that will stay with them throughout their lives. These include the right attitude towards environmental protection, personal safety and a respect for others’ property and life.”

The main activities of the IAPE revolve around conducting research into early childhood, collecting information and making the findings available for use; holding seminars, lectures and workshops to focus on a particular aspect of pre-school learning; providing support and advice for the practical experimentation of the playway method and acting as an alarm bell, highlighting existing shortcomings, initiating public debates and awareness on all matters concerning children.

“For the past many years, we have been consistently campaigning for doing away with entrance examinations for the pre-school children and now we do find more and more schools in Pune adopting a similar attitude. Then we have been working on the need to reduce the academic pressure on young minds. Early pressure can only lead to instilling hatred in the minds of the kids for reading and writing. While if these are introduced later, when the children are ready for it, not only will they pick up the skills in no time but they will also do so with pleasure,” states Tarapore, touching upon the times the IAPE has made a laudable difference.

As Nalini Sengupta, principal Vikhe Patil Memorial School and joint secretary of the organisation, adds, “We are concerned mainly with a balanced and all-round development of the child, rather than merely an academic one.” The idea being to effect a change for the better, slowly but surely.