Website of the week - www.arvindguptatoys.com

Website: www.arvindguptatoys.com
Punchline: "A Million Books for a Billion People"

The website is simplest to browse. It has three options,
1. Books
English
Hindi
Marathi
Combination (of languages)
2. Toys
3. Films

One window to browse through all these sections. It has a help line, that reads,
Click once to open list. Click again to hide!

Request to all those who visit to this website and download books:
You can order most of these books. It is cheaper than printing on a laser printer. It would also nurture culture of buying books, thereby valuing the purchased.

Teacher Training College - an observation

1 Background

The District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) of the current study was established in 1975 as a Teacher Training Institute. In 1988, as per National Education Policy it was upgraded as DIET. The pre service training program was run as a one year program until 1999, when it was modified as per National Council for Teacher Education’s recommendation to a two year teacher training course.

The key objectives of the exercise was to gain an understanding of the following
- The organization structure, it’s intended role and functions and the role and functions actually being performed
- Infrastructure available, usability and the actual usage of the same, thereby,
- Capacity building needs of the institute that would enable it to be more effective in supporting the teachers and the schools in the district

The study was conducted by having face to face interviews with the lecturers (10 lecturers, 1 retired lecturer), class room observations, informal interaction with the students and observation of the various physical infrastructure and facilities.

This document is part of a report of the study (never published, would never see the light probably) and is intended for understanding about DIET. Ramgopal K and Pradeep Kumar deserve the appreciation for their efforts in writing the original report. I have synthesized the report to suit it for a layman’s reading.

2 Observations

DIET is as a strong resource center responsible for capacity building in academic and pedagogical aspects for the district. But over the years the DIET has not played the prime role in any capacity building initiatives but has just been relegated to playing a more reactive role, being used only on an ad hoc basis by the Sarva Shikshya Abhiyan (SSA) and the district education administration.

The following are some of the important observations made during our stay at the DIET and through interactions with the people there, observation of the facilities available and its use.

2.1 Pre Service Teacher Education (PSTE)

Overview of the course
The pre service training is the predominant function carried out by the DIET. The PSTE department runs a 2 year pre service teacher training program. The intake to the program is through a state wide common entrance exam (DIET-CET) and the qualification to appear in the exam is a pass in the 10 + 2 with any electives. The program is run both Telugu medium and one neighboring state medium. The course has a mix of basic subjects, teaching methodologies and field practice. Given below is brief information on the same, for details please refer to the detailed Trainee calendar (each teacher trainee would have one!).

Basic subjects (First year) – Consists of 5 papers which include Education in emerging India, Educational Psychology, Elementary education planning, management and teacher functions, capacity building (Computer education, work experience, art education, health and physical education)

Methods of teaching (second year) – Method of teaching for Telugu, English, mathematics, science, social studies

Practicum - School Experience Program (SEP) is organized for 4 weeks in first year when the trainees are exposed to different kinds of schools (pre primary, primary, Non Formal Education system, alternative schools etc). During second year the students are supposed to undergo 80 days of field experience (40 days in primary school, 15 days to pre-primary, 14 days to Upper primary school and the rest in school activities related to child development). In addition the students need to submit 12 different records.

Key observations
- Significant numbers of the students seem to have entered the course not as a first choice but as a result of not being able to make it to other professional courses (engineering, medicine etc), so the course is treated by a lot of the students merely as a means of securing government employment. There is a lack of pride or identification with the teacher profession.
- The course is affected by poor planning due to whom class schedules are decided in a lot of cases at very short notice (1 day, or even just a few minutes before the class!). This is again solely based on the availability of the faculty on that particular day, this leads to poor planning or preparation in conducting the classroom. This is ascribed to the shortage of resources and the need to take up other ad hoc tasks that are assigned by external entities (District administration, state education department).
- While the course design provides for sufficient field exposure on paper to the students, in practice students use less than half of the prescribed days for the teaching practice. The staff support and guidance during this period is also inadequate – again supposedly due to the staff being called upon to service various ad hoc requests
- The accent of the course (for various reasons) is on completion of the text book syllabus and preparation for the examination. There is very limited (or no) opportunity for the students to engage in discussions, reflections on educational issues to build their own views. The institute’s effort while taking the students through the examinations does not seem to be influencing the students in their attitudes to education or teaching, or creating any zeal for the profession
- Use of other facilities like the library and computers is very low as the access to these facilities is controlled by the staff and is limited.
- While the program produces batches of students who successfully clear the examinations and secure government employment, it can probably still go a long way in instilling in the students a zeal for teaching, building their confidence and making them sensitive and critical thinking teachers who can weather all the cynicism that they are likely to encounter once they are in the field and still be good teachers.

2.2 Other Functions

The pre service training is the main program that the DIET organizes; besides this the services of the DIET staff are used for various other tasks by the government education department. These activities are not planned or decided by the DIET but primarily decided at the state level or in some cases at the district education department level. Some of this activity is detailed below

Trainings and workshops – The education department and the SSA program office plan various trainings that need to be delivered to the teachers as a part of the various programs that it implements from time to time. For this first training is given to a set of resource persons that usually includes lecturers from the DIET at the state level, these resource persons, in turn conduct trainings to the teachers at the district level. Some of the trainings that the lecturers were involved in the last six months are

- Ongoing trainings related to the implementation, say, Acceleration Learning Program (ALP).
- TLM preparation workshop – Training for teachers on preparing TLMs
- Mathematics methodology – Training on usage of self learning kits
- Open school training - Training for instructors at open schools
- HIV Aids awareness training
- Program for encouraging story writing by children for children. This also compliments the Acceleration Learning Program (ALP) for reading/writing skill improvement
- Multi grade training – The DIET lecturers were involved in multi grade kit preparation and training of teachers from various other districts

Key observations
- The DIET does not plan, design or conduct its own training programs but only lends its resource persons for trainings conducted by the SSA or education department. The prime reasons cited for this are firstly the more dominant role that the SSA has taken and secondly the remoteness of the DIET location because of which conducting in house training programs evinces very poor response.
- The lecturers do not have a visibility of the trainings that they are expected to attend/conduct until a few days (in some cases just a day before) the activity

School observation - Since about an year the DIET lecturers have also been assigned the task of conducting school observation to support the SSA’s implementation of Acceleration Learning Program (ALP). Each lecturer has been allocated 5 mandals (having about 80-90 primary schools, 1 – 7 classes) and the lecturer is expected to conduct school observations in that geographical region. Each lecturer is expected to visit 10 schools, 2 Mandal Resource Centres (Resource Centre), 2 Cluster Centers (Resource Centres for a cluster of 15-20 schools) in a month according to the SSA directive.

Key observations
- In the last 6 months the maximum number of schools visited by a single lecturer is less than 5; on an average they have visited 2 schools.
- Most lecturers prefer to visit schools that are closer to their place of stay as the only mode of travel provided for is the public transport system and it is very time consuming and strenuous. As a result schools away from the DIET, are largely ignored.
- Since the lecturers are experienced academicians and have teaching experience they are able to provide much better inputs than Mandal Resource Persons (Resource persons for a cluster of 15-20 primary schools, classes 1 – 7), they conduct demonstration classes, provide advice on handling difficult topics etc. They also have the advantage of not having to spend too much time on data collection activity.
- There is no time for following up on the same school to evaluate if the feedback has been implemented.
- The lecturers compile information on the observation and hand it over to the principal who in turn sends it to the district education department; however the feedback information is not effectively analyzed or followed up on.

Other miscellaneous activity
Besides the above activity the DIET lecturers are called upon to act as resource persons for various other activities that the government initiates in those areas, not all of them necessarily related to academic support. Some of the activities that the lecturers were involved in the last six months are
- Guidance and counseling for District Selection Commission at the DEO’s office
- Counseling for handling district staff transfers – The principal is involved in supporting the district education department to handle the transfers counseling.
- Text book writing – Two lecturers are involved in the preparation of a mathematics text book based on the National Curriculum framework
- Television and Radio based lesson development – Two lecturers are involved in creating the radio based lessons for the pre service course.

2.3 Infrastructure

The campus is located on a 15 acre area about 30 kilometers from the district head quarter; the campus has adequate number of buildings to house the various departments and the classrooms. The campus also has a model school that was built 2 years ago; however the school just has 5 students currently.

Library
Library has about 10000 books and journals. It was updated three years ago with some NCERT books. Most of the books are more than 30 years old; the books are not catalogued or shelved into categories for easy retrieval. A lot of the books in the library are damaged by pests. Most of these books are in English. There are limited books in Telugu and virtually none in Tamil. Librarian post is vacant since the inception of the DIET. Apart from books and journals, the library also subscribes to three vernacular newspapers.
A staff lecturer is given the additional responsibility of handling the library, it is kept open during the office hours only (10 AM to 4 PM), but the students are mostly in the classrooms during this time. The library is closed whenever the lecturer is on leave or away on office duty,
The library is not used very actively either by the lecturers or the students

Computer Room
The campus also has a computer room. The computer room has 11 systems and has internet access. They are all loaded with digital content.
However the room is kept under lock, the key for which is in the possession of the principal.
The students do not use it on a daily basis but only when there are demonstration classes.

Other teaching learning facilities
The institute is also provided with other teaching and learning facilities like a work experience lab, LCD projector, OHP projector, audio video teaching aids and material.

Recreation facilities
The campus has very good facilities for sporting activity which includes a cricket ground, volleyball courts, and shuttle badminton courts. There is an indoor game room also but it is not well maintained or used regularly. It could be run as an auditorium, currently used as language teaching classroom!

Key observations
- The institution has been provided with good infrastructure and facilities. However they are not being maintained, upgraded or even used appropriately due to various reasons. Hence they are largely in a state of disuse and in some cases like the library deteriorating
- Facilities like the library and the computer lab are controlled by individuals of the staff hence access to these facilities is dependant on the availability and free time of these staff members who are in charge. This discourages the students from using these facilities more actively.

2.4 Human Resources

The DIET team consists of some very highly qualified and experienced lecturers. Individually most of them are respected for their expertise and have contributed valuably to various educational efforts. But there is an evident lack of cohesion as a team and as an organization. Below are some key points that emerged from discussions with the individual lecturers

- There is a shortage of resources due to the number of vacancies that have not yet been filled. This puts a lot of pressure on the other staff and increases their work load. Recruitment has not taken place due to unavailability of qualified staff (post graduates with M Ed)
- The DIET has become largely a resource pool for the SSA and the education department to pick from for implementation of their programs and not an organization that defines and runs its own initiatives.
- Lack of planning and a defined agenda and the inability of the DIET leadership to assert its position results in the staff being pressurized to service ad hoc requests at short notice. This is done at the cost of the Pre service training which is badly affected by the lecturers frequently traveling away on duty.
- Most of the staff feels a lack of clarity in their role and expectations. Tasks are handed out to them and they are expected to carry it out unquestioningly.
- There is a perceived absence of space and opportunity for open discussions among the staff members. A lot of the lecturers feel there is a lack of consideration for their opinions and points of view.

3 Summary

The following is the summary of the observations in the form of a SWOT analysis

Strengths
- Good infrastructure
- Qualified and competent staff
- Has the reputation of having being an eminent institution
- Experience and expertise build over a long time
Weaknesses
- Shortage of staff
- Lack of organizational clarity
- Forced to play a reactive role
- Lack of visibility and low motivation of staff
- Remoteness of the location – difficult to access
Opportunities
- Potential to influence teachers entering the government schools every year
- Playing a more influential role in capacity building of teachers
Threats
- Sending under prepared teachers into the government school system
- Can slip into a being a derelict entity
- Further marginalization of its roles – which is a waste of its resources

www.curriki.org (access to knowledge and learning tools is a basic right for every child)

www.curriki.org
We believe that access to knowledge and learning tools is a basic right for every child. Our goal is to make curricula and learning resources available to everyone.

Curriki is where all of us - our community of educators, parents and students -- can work together to develop interesting, creative and effective educational materials that the global educational community can use for free.

Goal of the website is to:
§ Develop curriculum through community contributors
§ Deliver the curriculum globally
§ Determine the impact by project and by individual
The initial focus is on K-12 curricula in the areas of mathematics, science, technology, reading and language arts, and languages.

On the top right corner it has search with Advanced Search and Browse Subjects options.

You can also be a member / volunteer and to the information, as on 1-April-’08 it has 37178 members.

Member has following options to create the following:
Profile <-> Favorites <-> Contributions <-> Collections <-> Blog <-> Groups

It has huge resources organized under:
§ Featured Resources
§ By Subject
Member can also browse resources by subject (The number in parentheses shows how many matching results are on the site right now, 01-Apr-08):

§ Arts (2390)
§ Career & Technical Education (2322)
§ Educational Technology (2505)
§ Foreign Languages (2282)
§ Health (2514)
§ Information & Media Literacy (1969)
§ Language Arts (3413)
§ Mathematics (3265)
§ Science (4195)
§ Social Studies (3629)
§ Uncategorized (1469)


Acknowledgements to www.curriki.org for the contents in this blog

Schools and schools, few observations

The present observations are part my four years of visits to schools for variety of reasons: understanding, training, teaching, exhibition etc. Biking to these schools was equally exciting, make a road from nowhere. I would have interacted with at least 1000+ schools and about 2000+ teachers. It is wonderful to interact with the rural kids; most affectionate ones, so far in my life. I just loved being with them, teaching, and most of the times learning from them, dancing, singing, imitating, humor. I have also learnt about jackals, snakes, scorpions, centipedes. I understood about vegetation, seasons, fruits, forests. I have also heard stories about ghosts, bhootam, dayyam, importance of muhurtams and raahukaalam etc. Observations are very much related to observables. No quality parameters have been used. One may or may not disagree to my observations. No recommendations, I hear this word very sarkari in nature.

§ The attendance, retention and achievement rates (90%:90%:90%, look at their registers) in the visited schools are impressive (score cards say that). But transition from class 7 to 8 to a new school is an issue of concern. Many girls opt out at this juncture, due to travel costs. Being girls, is the biggest barrier to get higher education. What a misfortune? I could not do anything except, convincing parents, typical to a sarkari babu.

§ Records and registers including cash registers, and pass books are meticulously maintained.

§ There is ‘order’ in distribution of free textbooks, release of TLM grants and school grants. However, schools would get required ‘number of textbooks’, number is ensured. It could be that a school may get 100 textbooks of same class and same subject. But it would have been: 5 subject textbooks for 20 children. But ‘total number’ is maintained. Confused about my presentation, please contact me.

§ TLM grants are received at the end of academic year. One would submit Utilization Certificate (UC), for preparing / not preparing thermocol models, charts, flash cards etc. If prepared, never meant for children use. If used, how do you show that TLM grants are utilized? Poor teachers, in a fix. Poor children, scapegoats of the system.

§ Most of the schools present good picture (it was drought for the last 9 years!), quality of classroom environment, be it cleanliness, seating arrangement for pupils, ventilation in classrooms etc. Schools up to upper primary (1-5 or 1-7) have no play grounds! Most of the schools have boundary with a compound wall. Most of the schools lack sports equipment. Some schools do have drinking water facilities and toilet facilities are non existence to the kids.

§ Midday meal is running successfully in all the schools. The hygienic conditions of serving meals are ok. Where is Village Education Committee? Midday meals.

§ There are fewer schools with shortage of teachers, hey! There are volunteer teachers are appointed with a meager pay of 1500 per month without any support. Salaries are less than that of labour employed under EGS. 40:1 ratio is maintained. One could argue how this ratio is relevant.

§ All the regular teachers have undergone 21 days in-service training program. Please do not ask about the training content, methodology, facilities, facilitators etc. Can you imagine, three day computer training program without computers. It is all ‘real’. What to do, 21 days is mandatory! Poor trainers!

§ There is no academic support from the educational functionaries, it is only inspection. DIET faculty is hardly visits to schools, do not blame, there are only 15 of them and there are 5000+ schools.

§ Progress of civil works is fast. It is because most of the builders are form the same villages, mostly contractors or apna sarpanch. Functionaries do visit and ‘very’ serious about releasing funds. Head Teacher of that particular school is a bakra between contractor and functionaries, release of funds.

Why and what kind of questions in the classroom - an analysis

The teacher-student interaction is supposed to be one of the most important factors contributing to the learning among the children. A main part of interaction in the classroom happens through the exchange of questions and answers. The present effort is to observe classroom processes to find out the extent to which teachers use questioning as a tool to ensure reflective learning.

In this regard, I have observed one session in the elementary school. Duration of the session was one hour; roughly forty five minutes were spent in conversation. The observation showed that much of the class time is devoted to the teacher talk rather than students talk. Also, it was observed that the majority of the questions asked by the teacher were of the testing knowledge and reinforcing the learned knowledge. Majority of the responses of the students were of the close ended nature or straight answers to the questions.

A question is any sentence which has an interrogative form or function. In the classroom settings, the teacher questions are defined as instructional cues or stimuli that convey to students the content elements to be learned and directions for what they have to do and how they do it. The teacher raises questions for various purposes. A variety of purposes emerge from analysis of the literature, including:

·To develop interest and motivate students to actively involve in lesson

· To evaluate students' preparation

· To develop critical thinking skills and inquiring attitudes

· To review and summarize previous lessons

· To nurture insights by exposing new relationships

· To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

· To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own

In the classroom, there are a series of questions that elicit students’ responses and sometimes teacher reactions. Within these responses, students follow a series of steps in order to respond the questions. These steps include:

· Attending to the question

·Deciphering the meaning of the question

· Generating a covert response (i.e., formulating a response in one's mind)

· Generating an explicit response; and often

· Revising the response (based on the teacher probing or other feedback)

The Pattern and sequence of questions

Teacher: What are the animals seen in your villages? Pupil: Dog, cow, bull, buffalo etc. Teacher: What kind of food dog takes? Pupil: It eats bones, rice,daaletc.

Most of the time questions were related to recalling their previous knowledge of the content. There were also questions that seem to be pre-planned to bring out required information suitable for that class. Most of the questions were aimed at recalling the facts or information, gathering information about the topic and checking prior knowledge.

Teacher: What is the difference between birds and animals; give some examples for the same? Pupil: Animals have four legs, tail, etc Birds have two legs, feathers, beak, etc Teacher: Dog is also animal. Pupil: Dog is carnivorous animal

The teacher questioned the pupils about what he had taught in the last class and what they remember about the topic. Questions were asked to broader pupils’ understanding. The teacher tried to make a link between the previous knowledge and the planned content for the current session. The teacher was expecting the pupils to establish the planned link for the desired learning.

Teacher: How does dog catches thieves? Pupil: Thieves don’t feed dogs. Teacher: How? Pupil: It has whiskers on the nose Pupil: By smell Teacher: By sniffing

In the midst of the classroom process, one of the pupils mentioned that dog can also catch thieves. The teacher had given enough scope for comprehension by asking related questions so that pupils could interpret the available information. In the process of questioning, the teacher facilitated the learning by fine tuning the vocabulary.

The classifications of questions are based on the Bloom-Turney model. Interpretation of the pie chart shows that the teacher had asked many questions to fulfil a wide range of functions that included:

• Knowledge and recall (66 per cent)
• Comprehension (30 per cent)
• Analytical (4 per cent)
• Application (0 per cent)
• Synthesis (0 per cent)
• Evaluation (0 per cent)

Following is the pattern of the questions raised by the teacher. Nearly two thirds of the questions (66 per cent) tested pupils’ knowledge and recall i.e. questions of fact. It shows that questions were aimed at accumulating knowledge than creating new knowledge. Nearly one third of the questions (30 per cent) were related to comprehending i.e. related to transform and to interpret the information that was learnt. There was only one open ended question (4 per cent) that tried to prompt deeper thinking response from pupils. These included speculative questions, which invited pupils to offer ideas and opinions for example, “Do you think chewing cud is also good for humans?”

Sequences of questions are supposed to move from recall to evaluation in an upward sequential manner. However in the observed classroom process, it was limited to analysis. There were no questions pertaining to application, synthesis and evaluation. It was difficult for the observer to find out whether children had learnt anything. The teacher provided planned knowledge through sequential questions. There was no scope for reflective learning through these questions.

Whenever pupils did not respond correctly to the questions, either the teacher was silent or diverted their attention towards the current topic or asked questions that could be easily answered. It could be that the teacher encouraged the pupils to give only right answers. Irrespective of any answer, the teacher continued with the planned lesson.

Teacher: Do you know what the difference between carnivorous and herbivorous is? Pupil: Don’t know sir. Teacher: Mumbles! Pupil: Yes sir. Teacher: Have you seen eagle? Pupil: Yes sir, we have seen eagle. Teacher: There are two kinds of teeth in carnivorous animals. Do you know what those are? Pupil: Yes sir, canine teeth. Teacher: What’s the use of canine teeth? Pupil: To chew

In few cases, the teacher did not answer the questions. It could be that the teacher did not know how to answer or to avoid distractions and to stick to the prepared lesson plan. It also shows the teacher’s belief in providing information as learning in a given period of time. From the context of pupils, unexpected answers show that:

* Pupil had misunderstood the question

* Pupil had misinterpreted the question

* Pupil was occupied with something else in the mind

* Pupil was not prepared to expect the question at that point of time

Teacher: Do you think chewing cud is also good for humans? What do you feel humans being ruminant animal? Pupil: No sir. Teacher: Why? Pupil: Mother says so. Teacher:

Sometimes the teacher used questioning to control the pace of the lesson. The teacher used questions to increase or decrease the pace of the lesson depending up on the responses from the pupils. There were some questions which required brief answers and worked as fillers to the topic. If pupil did not respond quickly or correctly, the teacher sometimes answered himself to continue the flow of the lesson.

Teacher: Cow is a domestic animal Teacher: What is cow? Pupil: Cow is a domestic animal Teacher: There are domesticate and wild animals Teacher: What is wild animal? Pupil: Wild animals live in wild or forests Teacher: Have you observed canine teeth? Pupil: Dog has canine teeth. Teacher: What kind of teeth / danthaalu (formal word: danthaalu otherwise it is pallu) dogs have? Pupil:

As part of the evaluation, the teacher asked the pupils to write few sentences about the animal that they had seen. It was observed that the evaluation was aimed at reproducing the learnt content or testing the memory.

It was surprising that all the children had written about cow in few sentences. It was interesting that answers provided by the pupils were part of the previous lesson they had mugged up. In the evaluation, the teacher did not provide enough scope to the pupils to think and analyse their ideas. Neither the teacher nor pupils were beneficial of the evaluation process. Neither the teacher could not assess how much pupils had learnt nor pupil received feedback on the ideas they had produced.

There was hardly any scope in these questions for reflective learning. There were no questions pertaining to application, synthesis and evaluation of the planned content. The classroom session was interactive in one way i.e. only the teacher asked the questions. No questions were asked by the pupils. The pupils either answered the raised questions or listened to the planned lesson attentively.

Website of the week - www.eledu.net (putting children and teachers first)

This is one of the best websites, I would like to ask my viewers visit and utilize enormous resources it provides. The one liner, putting children and teachers first, made me really feel comfortable. Moreover, their first look (attached as a image), gave me a glimpse of classroom - blackboard on the background. I felt really comfortable. Simple, yet effective in its presentation. Kudos to The University-School Resource Network (USRN) for setting up such a resourceful website.

Website says, "The Regional Resource Centre (RRC) is conceptualised to enable the creation of spaces and mechanisms, using the USRN projects as a starting point and proceeding to institutionalise some of the ideas and strategies with which the USRN is envisioned to function."

Website address: http://www.eledu.net/

You need user name and password to log-in. It's very simple to create one. Search, Help, FAQ and Invite are at hand.

Once you are logged in, it has plenty of options to view and use:

Home Resources Programs Blogs Email Groups News Feed Archives Search

As you log-in, it has following options under your user name:

My subscriptions
My Profile
My blog
Edit Profile
My Posts

If you want to know what kind of resources it has, please click on Resources, alas, it has plenty...

Library
Books (1)
Journals
Curriculum Materials
Translations
Children's Literature
Policy Documents & Reports
Articles
Research Reports

Web
Articles (88)
Teachers (6)
Children (13)
Schooling (4)

Curriculum/ Pedagogy (11)
Exclusion (5)
Adolesence (1)
Higher Education (4)
Assessment
Early Childhood Care and Education (2)
NGO Initiatives (1)
Gender (1)
Financing of Elementary Education (3)
Translations (7)
Books (1)
Policy Documents & Reports (36)
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
NCERT Positon Papers (20)
Curriculum Framework (9)
National Curriculum Framework (9)
National Commissions and Reports
Education For All
Constitutional Provisions for Education
Research Reports (1)
Children's Expressions (1)
Miscellaneous (4)

It has many more things that a teacher or teaching community can use.

PS:

Most of the content on this blog is taken from http://www.eledu.net/

Acknowledgments to http://www.eledu.net/ for the content

Teacher Resource Centres - helping teachers

as a student of political science, i understand that rights and duties are hand in hand. however when it comes to school and learning, teachers are blamed for everything. do they really have any rights or only responsibilities or none. i may not provide conclusive answer to this intellectual debate. however as a partner in helping teachers, i would certainly provide scope for discussion. everytime i visited school (it is been six months, i have not visited government school, living in urban place), my heart would ponder, wow, my teachers are doing an excellent job. pessimist would always question this. and one should always question, provided an answer in mind. yes, i stand by my statement.
what's tpr ratio in any given govt school, it is 1:40; children with varied backgrounds, with varied needs (hungry, sick, with sibling etc); teachers with distances to travel to school and back home; improper facilities for teacher (drinking water, toilets), even for the child - can you think of not going to loo for 8+ hours; am i raising silly question? it is basic human right, isn't it?
given the conditions to work, how many of us work in this kind of situation. NONE. at least not my own friends, who crib on teachers, for not doing their duties. then what am i asking for teachers or teaching community.
let me put it this way. somewhere i read, "engineers build houses, doctor cures diseases...teachers makes all these". then why is that we do not encourage a forum for teacher support. yeh, what's that i am talking about? teachers have good salaries, training, support structure, respect in the community, political backing, they are demi gods - is it so?

good salaries: which one of our rural government teacher gets a good pay, yes, if he would be the heighest in the village but not, in comparison to our class IV employee in state secrateriate.
training: teachers are taken for granted. they are trained for what not, but not for classroom transactions, some of you reading this wonder, what's happening in the name of training. please visit one of the training session. i would challenge, if you can bear the crab that is transacted. it under estimates teachers, assumes has no capacity... none of the trainings have scope beyond that session, lack vision of the education system, undermines teacher capacity, demotivates to attend any trainings thereafter.
support structure: there is something called induction in corporate world, for civil servants, clerks in our own government offices, for doctors, teachers have no induction program. yes, they have a degree. i hate not the system but people in the system who, ignore and ill treat teachers. there are structures in place for teacher to help but none do the needful. every one tries to bully the teacher.
here i propose, as an alternate to the existing structure a resource centre for the teacher, a place for

• need to show and make them feel being respected as adults (that is unlike where they are expected to huddle into classrooms that are designed for children [sic]).
  created with teacher at the centre where in the resources and the facilitator are directly accessible.
• being flexible to adapt to the diverse needs such as reading room, activity centre, laboratory, screening of shows etc (that is where one could adopt diverse strategies of interaction and not uni-dimensional)
• enables the interaction of teacher community among themselves and other educational persons
• shall promote resources of the following nature: local, low cost, environment friendly, and utilizable. (things like thermocol which seem to be infected the teacher training crowd shall be discouraged) shall function on schedules that are convenient for the teachers without disturbing their regular school timings

objectives of the centre would be, at the end of three years, to,

(1) Resources and materials, (2) Pedagogy practices and school management, (3) Networking with the local institutions for regular interventions, and (4) Issues surrounding Resource Centre[

(1) Resources and materials
To what extent the resource centre made any significant contribution to improved resources for teaching and learning in schools - qualitative and quantitative?
* Influence for quality material in the schools

* Availability and usage of learning material in the school
* Creating new demand for such resources

(a) To what extent resource centre stimulated the creation and development of learning materials by teachers? (Guide and facilitate at the centre for creation of new material)
Exhibit and influence such model resource material that would influence the system to adopt such processes while supplying material to the schools, effective in nature and efficiency in supply.

(2) Pedagogy practices and school management
To what extent are the pedagogy practices and better school management methods imparted in training programs are transferred in to schools and classrooms?

(a) To what extent are teachers have imparted suggested pedagogical practices into their classroom teaching? (Can be elaborated further)
(b) To what extent are the schools utilized suggested management strategies into their day to day running of the class / school? (Steps taken for better attendance, community participation, teacher-teacher support system -- Can be elaborated further)
(c) To what extent are students becoming a part of these activities incorporated at the centre? (Utilizing material that is developed at the centre, such as workbooks, etc-- Can be elaborated further)

(3) Networking and coordinating with the respective government / institutions at the district level and other resource agencies for sustained interventions at the district.

(4)What are the issues surrounding resource centre, how resource centre is influenced and how issues are influenced by the resource centre.

(a) How relevant is the content and methodologies imparted in resource centre, through courses and activities, to existing realities in schools? (high TPR, lack of facilities in the schools and classrooms, the way teachers presently teach and underlying philosophies, factors affecting teachers and children outside of school, etc)

(b) To what extent are resource inputs into resource centre training programs sufficient for meeting goals and expectations as mentioned in the national policies on education?

(c) How does resource centre fit into the wider strategy of in-service teacher training, and to what extent do they play a useful, strategic role in the effective implementation of in-service training? (There are existing institutional based in-service training centres; cascade systems; school-based training)

(d) What is the place of resource centres within a policy of decentralization? (Are these visualized as regional resource centres providing support to the district specific needs?)