A Schools2030 teacher found linking school lessons to everyday life engaged students in his lessons

Mohammad Kaleem works in Bihar, India’s third most populous state, where there are high levels of illiteracy. The region is also affected by extreme weather conditions, in particular flooding, which is impacting students’ access to education. Schools2030 and Kaleem found that a lack of student engagement was due to low literacy rates amongst parents, who deemed education as a low priority. The lack of supportive learning environments at home, was reflected in the behaviours of students, who did not take their education seriously and were disinterested in learning. 

Kaleem found that moving away from typical classroom lessons where a teacher would stand in front of the blackboard and students sat behind desks, to a child-centred learning style, whereby students' unique needs and interests are prioritised, had a significant impact on his students' learning. Students who were typically shy, gained confidence and enjoyed having a say over their own learning. Students resonated with practical experiences that mirrored their daily lives, such as visiting local markets and local shops. In these situations, students were often using basic maths skills without realising. However, translating this into the classroom using books and a blackboard meant students struggled to make the same connection with everyday life.

“As a teacher, I realised that many students particularly have difficulty with measurement, units like litres and kilograms, metres and centimetres, addition and subtraction, and money exchange. To bridge this gap, I decided to organise an open market at our school, focusing on measurement and units.” Kaleem found that by setting up vegetable, book and fruit stalls in his school, children quickly increased their learning potential. They were suddenly able to discuss seasonal produce, understand market pricing, profit and loss, and use arithmetic in a real world context. He also used the opportunity to integrate other subjects, such as environmental science, focussing on naming crops, and discussing the vitamins and minerals they provide and the impact these have on our health. 

“I can’t believe this is my old school where we had to learn through rote memorisation in boring classes. My school now excites me to come every day.”

- Student, Bhojpur District at UMS Singhi Kalan, Bravery Middle School

Kaleem also found that by encouraging storytelling students improved their language skills, and were actively engaged in their lessons. Kaleem did this by supporting holistic skills development through collaborative activity-based learning that engaged both students and parents. He used a mix of activity based learning: 

• Picture narration, listening and narrating stories, story writing and role play to promote creative expression, and collaboration.
• Using poems to introduce the concept of measurement and shape, organising maths fairs and playing money games.
• Generating awareness of the surrounding environment through slogans developed by students during Prabhat Pheri (Community Rally).
• Leveraging parent meeting platforms to raise awareness and sensitise communities on environmental issues.

“I try to engage students through stories in my language teaching and it's really helped me to get the attention of the students, as well as allow me to encourage their confidence in speaking about their thoughts, experiences, imagination, and analysis.”

- Mohammad Kaleem, Teacher in Bhojpur District at UMS Singhi Kalan, Bravery Middle School

Kaleem has found that Giving Wings to Learn has impacted his students in numerous ways, it has improved:

• writing skills and sentence formation. 
• increased ability in understanding numbers through buying and selling activities.
• it has instilled confidence amongst the students, especially amongst the shy ones. behavioural changes among students, in particular, their confidence to share their emotions. 
• increased awareness about climate change and taking responsibility to work towards changing the views of their community.

Kaleem credits Schools2030’s work in Bihar with enabling the teaching community to feel like their work is being supported, and providing encouragement to educators to think about teaching differently. He specifically notes that educators are encouraged to think and reflect on what can be changed, and what can be integrated directly or indirectly to encourage students’ learning, like Kaleem has done by linking lessons with everyday life. 

“Working with Activity-Based Learning, I  realised how it is different from traditional teaching which relies on the delivery of knowledge and learners are considered passive. It dismantles traditional hierarchies by recognising and utilising each child's inherent capacity to learn based on his or her abilities. It makes learning fun and engaging while ensuring that every child is heard and included, building upon their capacity to exercise different ways of expressing and learning, so the knowledge does not remain secondary or decontextualized it is rather internalised”

- Mohammad Kaleem, Teacher in Bhojpur District at UMS Singhi Kalan, Bravery Middle School

Find out more about Kaleem’s work on his Faved page. Kaleem would love to share more about his work with other educators around the world and find out how his innovation could work in other contexts! Please reach out to him through the Faved platform by leaving a comment on his page. Kaleem has loved learning about other educators' work globally using the platform.