A Case Study of Avalahally Anganwadi 3
Author: Lakshmi Mohan
Author: Lakshmi Mohan
Inner Avalahally
Avalahally Anganwadi Centre 3 is in the Konankunte Circle in ICDS’s South Project. It is in inner Avalahally where roads do not go. The tracks leading there are muddy and slush-filled. People crowd in diminutive spaces, a room mostly, no more. It is a predominantly Muslim locality. The men are daily wage labourers, while many of the women roll beedis or incense sticks to support their families’ struggling economy. Education, viewed largely with cynicism, is not high on their life’s agenda, mainly because most of them have never enjoyed the benefits of schooling. They are, however, not averse to sending their children to the anganwadi every morning, where they get three nutritious meals a day, an education, and all-round grooming.
The Anganwadi – A Cheerful Place
The first-floor anganwadi here is vibrant, with patterned mats on the floor and the sun spilling in from the large windows, a cheerful centre of education, airy and pleasant. It i
s neatly organised, with a place for everything. The 10 charts that are a part of Akshara’s teaching-learning material (TLM) are up on the walls, surrounding children with knowledge that cannot be missed. Anita, the anganwadi worker, has 50 children, 3-6 years old, in her centre. The 35 children present that day, 15 less than the total strength, are orderly and disciplined, well-mannered and happy. Anita does deal with occasional absenteeism, but that is mostly because children fall sick with seasonal viral fevers or are otherwise indisposed. The children are loath to miss a day at the anganwadi. They find it a stimulus, with so many different things to do.
ICDS pays a monthly rent of Rs. 500 for the anganwadi space, but it is without a toilet facility. Children frequent the open grounds, accompanied by Tahseen Banu. The centre opens at 9.30 in the morning. Anita and Tahseen Banu come in earlier to sweep up the place, put out the mats and present a tidy environment as children start trickling in. Anita lets them relax and enjoy themselves for an hour with play material. She gives them the ICDS-supplied energy food in the morning, followed by a nutrition-rich wheat germ meal in the afternoon, which Tahseen Banu prepares. Children take a nap between 1.30 and 2.30 pm. The centre closes at 3.30 pm, before which children are served an entrée of pulao, bisi bela baath or ragi, supplied by Maya Foundation.
Anita – A Ray of Hope
For Anita, thirty years old, unmarried, the centre is her mother’s legacy. She is a second year B.Com student who did not appear for the final year of her course. She was working as an accountant when her mother handed over the centre to her with the injunction that she run it. The centre was then, as it is now, partly supported by Maya Foundation, an NGO in the field of education. Anita applied to ICDS, where she trained for a month to become an anganwadi worker, at a salary of Rs. 2250 a month. Her home is close by, so she is free from the daily stress of a long commute. Any hesitation Anita might have had about her new vocation dissolved once she started working with children. She says she has no interest now in doing anything else. She enjoys being with children, and teaching them is a special fulfilment. Her major challenge, she says, is to inculcate cleanliness in them.
Anita is a ray of progressive hope in her community. At her monthly meetings with mothers she stresses the importance of education for their children, the upward mobility and better life it confers. She talks to them about hygiene, nutrition and health, the need for immunizing their children against disease. She touches on personal issues like family planning and population control, and offers advice on contraception. The anganwadi is a kind of restorative nucleus for the community’s mothers. About 20 pregnant women and nursing mothers get a free meal and health inputs at this ICDS centre.
Tahseen Banu – Inspiring Discipline
Tahseen Banu has been the anganwadi helper at the centre for three years. A great help, says Anita of her. Tahseen Banu’s ways are gentle, her attitude maternal. She has no children of her own. She is thirty eight years old and is unmarried. It is not economic necessity, or her monthly salary of Rs. 1000, which comes in irregularly, that keeps her striving at the anganwadi. Her family with whom she lives next door is not doing badly. It is the sense of vocation she gets of being with children. One never sees her scolding or bullying the children. She secures their trust with love. Three year old Umai Zahiba melts in her arms, in need of solace, and Tahseen Banu hugs her tenderly. Her presence seems to inspire discipline. “If I am there they stay quiet.”
Tahseen Banu teaches children to be neat in what they do. The unerring row of slippers that children arrange at the foot of the stairs before climbing up to the centre is testimony to her training. That is not all. Tahseen Banu plays the dual role of a teacher as well, asking children to recite numbers or the alphabets, or getting them to identify words and pictures on the charts. She is confident that with Akshara’s TLM children will learn well, do better.
Akshara’s Training and TLM
The children in Anita’s anganwadi are all first-generation learners, from deprived backgrounds. Some of them take time to understand, but there are children who are inherently skilled and assimilate quickly. Before she received Akshara’s preschool TLM, she was using Maya Foundation’s kit for anganwadi children. Now she deploys a combination of both.
The Baseline Assessment for children was a mixed success. Anita herself is somewhat confused when asked about the 56-indicator assessment tool. She recognizes it as the question paper that was administered to children. Not all the children did well. Many language-related questions were left unattempted as alphabets are unknown territory. Only 4-5 children could answer the questions on geometrical shapes like squares, rectangles and triangles.
Anita attended Akshara’s one-day training for anganwadi workers in preschool education and the TLM. She learnt ideas previously unknown to her, she says. New rhymes, new storytelling methods, a new way of teaching. The training has improved her interaction with children and has taught her how to embed in their young minds the concepts she introduces to them.
The children in her anganwadi find the Akshara TLM a useful aid, Anita says. They have never had any kind of learning experience before, of using their minds to observe and think, she says. The TLM shows them a way. Children do and learn, in what is more an individual discovery than group instruction. “When I teach with the TLM I too get knowledge,” she says.
Anita takes the TLM from the shelf where it is kept and spreads the material on the floor. A group of about 10 chi
ldren gathers around. One by one they begin playing with the counting board, putting the red beads in the counters and trying to count, as Anita watches and helps them out. Some of them try stacking the learning cubes while others read the alphabet chart on the wall.
Avalahally Anganwadi Centre 3 is in the Konankunte Circle in ICDS’s South Project. It is in inner Avalahally where roads do not go. The tracks leading there are muddy and slush-filled. People crowd in diminutive spaces, a room mostly, no more. It is a predominantly Muslim locality. The men are daily wage labourers, while many of the women roll beedis or incense sticks to support their families’ struggling economy. Education, viewed largely with cynicism, is not high on their life’s agenda, mainly because most of them have never enjoyed the benefits of schooling. They are, however, not averse to sending their children to the anganwadi every morning, where they get three nutritious meals a day, an education, and all-round grooming.
The Anganwadi – A Cheerful Place
The first-floor anganwadi here is vibrant, with patterned mats on the floor and the sun spilling in from the large windows, a cheerful centre of education, airy and pleasant. It i
s neatly organised, with a place for everything. The 10 charts that are a part of Akshara’s teaching-learning material (TLM) are up on the walls, surrounding children with knowledge that cannot be missed. Anita, the anganwadi worker, has 50 children, 3-6 years old, in her centre. The 35 children present that day, 15 less than the total strength, are orderly and disciplined, well-mannered and happy. Anita does deal with occasional absenteeism, but that is mostly because children fall sick with seasonal viral fevers or are otherwise indisposed. The children are loath to miss a day at the anganwadi. They find it a stimulus, with so many different things to do.ICDS pays a monthly rent of Rs. 500 for the anganwadi space, but it is without a toilet facility. Children frequent the open grounds, accompanied by Tahseen Banu. The centre opens at 9.30 in the morning. Anita and Tahseen Banu come in earlier to sweep up the place, put out the mats and present a tidy environment as children start trickling in. Anita lets them relax and enjoy themselves for an hour with play material. She gives them the ICDS-supplied energy food in the morning, followed by a nutrition-rich wheat germ meal in the afternoon, which Tahseen Banu prepares. Children take a nap between 1.30 and 2.30 pm. The centre closes at 3.30 pm, before which children are served an entrée of pulao, bisi bela baath or ragi, supplied by Maya Foundation.
Anita – A Ray of Hope
For Anita, thirty years old, unmarried, the centre is her mother’s legacy. She is a second year B.Com student who did not appear for the final year of her course. She was working as an accountant when her mother handed over the centre to her with the injunction that she run it. The centre was then, as it is now, partly supported by Maya Foundation, an NGO in the field of education. Anita applied to ICDS, where she trained for a month to become an anganwadi worker, at a salary of Rs. 2250 a month. Her home is close by, so she is free from the daily stress of a long commute. Any hesitation Anita might have had about her new vocation dissolved once she started working with children. She says she has no interest now in doing anything else. She enjoys being with children, and teaching them is a special fulfilment. Her major challenge, she says, is to inculcate cleanliness in them.
Anita is a ray of progressive hope in her community. At her monthly meetings with mothers she stresses the importance of education for their children, the upward mobility and better life it confers. She talks to them about hygiene, nutrition and health, the need for immunizing their children against disease. She touches on personal issues like family planning and population control, and offers advice on contraception. The anganwadi is a kind of restorative nucleus for the community’s mothers. About 20 pregnant women and nursing mothers get a free meal and health inputs at this ICDS centre.
Tahseen Banu – Inspiring Discipline
Tahseen Banu has been the anganwadi helper at the centre for three years. A great help, says Anita of her. Tahseen Banu’s ways are gentle, her attitude maternal. She has no children of her own. She is thirty eight years old and is unmarried. It is not economic necessity, or her monthly salary of Rs. 1000, which comes in irregularly, that keeps her striving at the anganwadi. Her family with whom she lives next door is not doing badly. It is the sense of vocation she gets of being with children. One never sees her scolding or bullying the children. She secures their trust with love. Three year old Umai Zahiba melts in her arms, in need of solace, and Tahseen Banu hugs her tenderly. Her presence seems to inspire discipline. “If I am there they stay quiet.”
Tahseen Banu teaches children to be neat in what they do. The unerring row of slippers that children arrange at the foot of the stairs before climbing up to the centre is testimony to her training. That is not all. Tahseen Banu plays the dual role of a teacher as well, asking children to recite numbers or the alphabets, or getting them to identify words and pictures on the charts. She is confident that with Akshara’s TLM children will learn well, do better.
Akshara’s Training and TLM
The children in Anita’s anganwadi are all first-generation learners, from deprived backgrounds. Some of them take time to understand, but there are children who are inherently skilled and assimilate quickly. Before she received Akshara’s preschool TLM, she was using Maya Foundation’s kit for anganwadi children. Now she deploys a combination of both.
The Baseline Assessment for children was a mixed success. Anita herself is somewhat confused when asked about the 56-indicator assessment tool. She recognizes it as the question paper that was administered to children. Not all the children did well. Many language-related questions were left unattempted as alphabets are unknown territory. Only 4-5 children could answer the questions on geometrical shapes like squares, rectangles and triangles.
Anita attended Akshara’s one-day training for anganwadi workers in preschool education and the TLM. She learnt ideas previously unknown to her, she says. New rhymes, new storytelling methods, a new way of teaching. The training has improved her interaction with children and has taught her how to embed in their young minds the concepts she introduces to them.
The children in her anganwadi find the Akshara TLM a useful aid, Anita says. They have never had any kind of learning experience before, of using their minds to observe and think, she says. The TLM shows them a way. Children do and learn, in what is more an individual discovery than group instruction. “When I teach with the TLM I too get knowledge,” she says.
Anita takes the TLM from the shelf where it is kept and spreads the material on the floor. A group of about 10 chi
ldren gathers around. One by one they begin playing with the counting board, putting the red beads in the counters and trying to count, as Anita watches and helps them out. Some of them try stacking the learning cubes while others read the alphabet chart on the wall.Anita finds the alphabet flash cards a great help, since most of the children are slow with language. Kannada is not their mother tongue and they find it tough. They are delighted with the models of fruits and vegetables and identify them with alacrity. The colours and the shapes fascinate them.
A Confident Learner
Arbina, 5 years old, responds to the TLM with proprietary interest. She studies well, says Anita. When asked how old she is, Arbina smiles sheepishly and says she is two, fully aware of the misleading answer. She confidently confiscates the seriation set that some children are not quite comfortable with. She finds the right sizes and gingerly threads them, in the right order, through the thrust of the central rod. She identifies the colours in the process, but red seems an alien hue. Five year old Saifullah, the frontrunner of the class, chimes in supportively and sorts out her momentary confusion. Urdu is Arbina’s language, but she is at home in Kannada.
Setting off on her Own
Five year old Simran has eyes that sparkle. She has waited patiently for her turn at the counting board, watching from the sidelines. Setting off on her own has an excitement she enjoys. Seated studiously at the counting board, Simran drops the red beads into the cups, counting loudly and fervently in Hindi. She gets up to 6, falters, and looks at Anita for guidance. Anita tells her to count from 1 to 10 without looking at the beads or the board, which she does quite fluently. Simran identifies 7, the number at which she choked, and counts the beads into the cup. Methodical and organised that she is, Simran puts back all the beads in their box once she has finished.
An Unaccustomed Rite
Naveed, 5 years old, is one of Anita’s weak students. He has been attending the centre for a year, without much improvement. He does not get his number work right, or the quantities they represent – 2 red beads for the number 2, or 3 beads for the number 3. He puts one bead into the cup and mistakes it for 2. Saifullah, the unfailing instructor of his class, rescues him and tells him what to do. Naveed’s hesitant actions pick up some momentum, but then he puts 5 beads into the slot meant for 8 and looks at Anita for confirmation. Not for want of interest that Naveed flounders, just that learning is an unaccustomed rite.
In the Forefront
Four and a half year old Roshan Sameer who has been at the anganwadi for a year is in the forefront of his class, Anita asks him to read the alphabet chart on the wall. He stands up, proud to be displaying his learning, and rushes through, unstoppable. A for apple, b for bat, c for cat, d for dog, e for elephant…….. He gets all the big words at the end right too. U for umbrella, x for X’mas and Z for zebra. Q for queen was the only partial failure, that too more a difficulty in pronunciation, not identification.
Saifullah’s Learning Tower
Saifullah has been in the anganwadi for two years. He is happy with the Akshara learning material, he says. An extrovert, he is eager to demonstrate what he has learnt in the last month. He can identify all the fruits in the basket in English, lapsing only when the pear is shown.
Saifullah eyes the learning cubes before him, ready for the challenge. He cannot identify M, but recognizes, with vindication, the letters I and T, and the number 6. Anita tosses the cubes around randomly and asks him to arrange them vertically from 1 to 10. Saifullah puts 2 on top of 1, a bit unsymmetrically, then picks out 3, 4 and 5 and piles them on with practiced delicacy. A brief, confused silence follows, and Anita prods him to find out what comes after 6, then 7. Saifullah identifies 9 easily and places it on top of his tower, which teeters a moment and tumbles, much to his dismay.
Saifullah is a great trier, says Anita, as he attempts construction again. He adjusts the balance of the pile and, with some engineering skill, places 10 gently on top. Saifullah claps delightedly at his achievement and the other children join him.
Larger Questions
All the stimulation of learning. The pride in achievement. Will Saifullah and children like him go to school? Or is the anganwadi merely a temporary pastime, till they are seven, and dispatched to work to bring home some money? What is their future? Over the last three years that Anita has been running this centre she has admitted 8 promising children to Std. I in government schools around Avalahally. A bleak statistic.
It depends on the parents, finally, she says. Some of them, though genuinely interested, see education only as a remote possibility. Everyday realities intrude, like the lack of time, who will take their children to school, how they will cross the main road to get there or who will manage sibling care. In spite of these constraints there are parents who have admitted their children in government and private schools. Not a large number – 10-15 of them. Children go home from the anganwadi bearing that aura of learning, they repeat what they have learnt, and in parents it is beginning to awaken an interest in education.
But many parents are not inclined to send their children to school. What is the point, they ask? What prospects does education offer their children? What are they going to do with it? Are they not better off working and contributing to the family’s income? Questions that Anita alone cannot address. It needs the concerted will of the government, she says, the support of organizations like Akshara, deeper engagements with the community, awareness-building on a mass scale and an investment in the idea of education.
A Confident Learner
Arbina, 5 years old, responds to the TLM with proprietary interest. She studies well, says Anita. When asked how old she is, Arbina smiles sheepishly and says she is two, fully aware of the misleading answer. She confidently confiscates the seriation set that some children are not quite comfortable with. She finds the right sizes and gingerly threads them, in the right order, through the thrust of the central rod. She identifies the colours in the process, but red seems an alien hue. Five year old Saifullah, the frontrunner of the class, chimes in supportively and sorts out her momentary confusion. Urdu is Arbina’s language, but she is at home in Kannada.
Setting off on her Own
Five year old Simran has eyes that sparkle. She has waited patiently for her turn at the counting board, watching from the sidelines. Setting off on her own has an excitement she enjoys. Seated studiously at the counting board, Simran drops the red beads into the cups, counting loudly and fervently in Hindi. She gets up to 6, falters, and looks at Anita for guidance. Anita tells her to count from 1 to 10 without looking at the beads or the board, which she does quite fluently. Simran identifies 7, the number at which she choked, and counts the beads into the cup. Methodical and organised that she is, Simran puts back all the beads in their box once she has finished.
An Unaccustomed Rite
Naveed, 5 years old, is one of Anita’s weak students. He has been attending the centre for a year, without much improvement. He does not get his number work right, or the quantities they represent – 2 red beads for the number 2, or 3 beads for the number 3. He puts one bead into the cup and mistakes it for 2. Saifullah, the unfailing instructor of his class, rescues him and tells him what to do. Naveed’s hesitant actions pick up some momentum, but then he puts 5 beads into the slot meant for 8 and looks at Anita for confirmation. Not for want of interest that Naveed flounders, just that learning is an unaccustomed rite.
In the Forefront
Four and a half year old Roshan Sameer who has been at the anganwadi for a year is in the forefront of his class, Anita asks him to read the alphabet chart on the wall. He stands up, proud to be displaying his learning, and rushes through, unstoppable. A for apple, b for bat, c for cat, d for dog, e for elephant…….. He gets all the big words at the end right too. U for umbrella, x for X’mas and Z for zebra. Q for queen was the only partial failure, that too more a difficulty in pronunciation, not identification.
Saifullah’s Learning Tower
Saifullah has been in the anganwadi for two years. He is happy with the Akshara learning material, he says. An extrovert, he is eager to demonstrate what he has learnt in the last month. He can identify all the fruits in the basket in English, lapsing only when the pear is shown.
Saifullah eyes the learning cubes before him, ready for the challenge. He cannot identify M, but recognizes, with vindication, the letters I and T, and the number 6. Anita tosses the cubes around randomly and asks him to arrange them vertically from 1 to 10. Saifullah puts 2 on top of 1, a bit unsymmetrically, then picks out 3, 4 and 5 and piles them on with practiced delicacy. A brief, confused silence follows, and Anita prods him to find out what comes after 6, then 7. Saifullah identifies 9 easily and places it on top of his tower, which teeters a moment and tumbles, much to his dismay.Saifullah is a great trier, says Anita, as he attempts construction again. He adjusts the balance of the pile and, with some engineering skill, places 10 gently on top. Saifullah claps delightedly at his achievement and the other children join him.
Larger Questions
All the stimulation of learning. The pride in achievement. Will Saifullah and children like him go to school? Or is the anganwadi merely a temporary pastime, till they are seven, and dispatched to work to bring home some money? What is their future? Over the last three years that Anita has been running this centre she has admitted 8 promising children to Std. I in government schools around Avalahally. A bleak statistic.
It depends on the parents, finally, she says. Some of them, though genuinely interested, see education only as a remote possibility. Everyday realities intrude, like the lack of time, who will take their children to school, how they will cross the main road to get there or who will manage sibling care. In spite of these constraints there are parents who have admitted their children in government and private schools. Not a large number – 10-15 of them. Children go home from the anganwadi bearing that aura of learning, they repeat what they have learnt, and in parents it is beginning to awaken an interest in education.
But many parents are not inclined to send their children to school. What is the point, they ask? What prospects does education offer their children? What are they going to do with it? Are they not better off working and contributing to the family’s income? Questions that Anita alone cannot address. It needs the concerted will of the government, she says, the support of organizations like Akshara, deeper engagements with the community, awareness-building on a mass scale and an investment in the idea of education.
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