News and information

By Dr Swaroop Rawal

Making-Magic in Gujarat
( MIG 2008-09)

Our mission statement:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

-Barack Obama


Phase 1:

Teacher training is almost completed and will be completed in the last week of March 2009. We started in Sept 2008.

Subjects covered:

1. Learning about Drama-in-Education- drama has the power to transform human behaviour. Drama in education is a learning medium and were mainly concerned in how drama as an art form could be utilized by educators to explore important issues, events and relationships

2. Learning life-skills: emphasizing education concerning life skills or psychosocial abilities that help people think, feel, act and interact as individuals and as participating members of society. Life skills education is a way to make children resilient, so they can confront the problems they face in life with strength.

• Emotional Understanding,
• Empathy,
• Understanding Self ,
• Communication Skills
• Creative Thinking

The above mentioned skills were dealt with in details. More complex skills like Critical thinking, Decision-making, Problem solving will be covered but not in details as they are skills for older children. Consider this course is especially designed for teachers of Std 1-7.

Coping with stress and anger are covered purely by the method we are working and teaching in. However, theory was dealt with to.

3. Learning Disabilities.

4. Reflective Practice- Reflection was a way to ascertain that both the process and the learning objectives could be clarified and evaluated by the teacher and the students in order to deepen the experience created during the drama lesson.

Reflection is the most important element in action research is reflection; it lies at the core of action research

5. Action Research (AR) as a Teacher-research Methodology ? The philosophy followed - ?Built into action research is the proviso that, if as a teacher I am dissatisfied with what is already going on, I will have the confidence and resolution to attempt to change it. I will not be content with the status quo...? & ?action research presents an opportunity for teachers to become uniquely involved in their own practice?

6. The teachers are presently following an AR project; collecting data while teaching and will be writing a paper each.

7. Completed a 10 day residential drama camp co-organized by the Rajpur School. 25 children from 3 villages and 5 teachers participated.

8. We are presently in the process of completing the teacher-training manual for future classes to be used in Phase2 and so on.

9. We manage a blog on which we post study material and interesting news concerning our work. mig2008.blogspot.com

10. Conducted a Introductory Session on Understanding Learning Difficulty for Senior Secondary students of TY level through Video Conference.

11. Planning of Phase 2- In the next academic year 2009-10 the present teachers (hence forth referred to as T-T) will be trained on how to facilitate the next group of teachers. This will be done in approx 7-8 sessions.

As planned we have request the GCERT to allot 90 newly inducted teachers who will participate from the following districts:

1. Baraoda district.

2. Baroda Co-operation

3. Bharuch

4. Panchmahal

5. Aanand

The teachers from the above mentioned districts will participate in the weekend training session and return home in the evening ( as in it will not be a residential training session).

An additional 40 teachers will be chosen from the remaining 20 districts of Gujarat. For these teachers the training session will be a two day residential one.

This program will follow the methods of Phase 1.

At present we have17 trained teachers and by Phase 2 we should have approximately 52 trained teachers. At the same time the training of the T-T (teachers in Phase 1) will continue. In Phase 2 we shall meet every month to review work done by them in their classes and the work done in training sessions. This will ensure that the programme does not go astray.



12. This programme will begin Phase 3 in April 2010. In Phase 3 ALL the 26 districts of Gujarat are the target. Phase 3 will begin with an Introductory Session via Video conference following which every 3 months new teaching sessions will be held. A team of 5 teacher-trainers + Dr. Swaroop Rawal ( as the chief facilitator) will address the 26 districts simultaneously. The TT from phase 1 and 2 will be on the spot in the districts and will supervise the class from there.