These children don’t have toys, neither at school nor in their
communities. They are brainwashed with the method of teaching that I call
rather indoctrination than education.
But they are children! And children’s job is to play! They love to
colour and draw but have no possibilities because crayons are locked in
teachers’ locker and taken out on special occasions. That’s criminal! I wrote a
proposal.
The very next day, it happen that a General Secretary came to have a mid
time chat with me. He already heard about my observations and remarks
concerning the school from other staff members (in India a word spreads fast).
Apparently they much valued my opinion. It wasn’t hard then to convince GS
about my proposal to establish some play stations. We were granted a nice sum
of money and encouraged to go immediately to buy all the toys. I needed to
“convince” (train rather) the teachers to use it… I have one week only.
It was great fun to go with the whole committee shopping for toys and
games in Madurai. Even the teachers were excited! I tired them out but we got
everything I needed. I created 4 stations: blocks, imaginative play (dolls, all
kinds of cars, doctor set, kitchen set, etc), games and puzzles and drawing and
books. For the lunchbreak we’ve got for them balls, skipping ropes, freesbeys
and hoola-hops.
I introduced a system of setting /tiding it up by 4 responsible
children.
You can imagine overjoy when the children saw all these toys!!! These
big sparkling eyes and a boy showing me a car that he hold in his hand maybe
for the first time in his life... In complete disbelieve of his happiness he said
“sister, car!”.
I must say that for the first 3 days they were like 2year olds – each
playing individually with not much of interaction. They have very little notion
of waiting, taking turns, sharing, imagining things, that a box can be a
garage.
They kept asking me every day if they could play again with cars.
By the end of the week they were calmer and knew that tomorrow they can
play again. The toys stay here. They were better in sharing and choosing the
play, asking for things (colouring page). Play became more interactive and they
were able to play a board game in a nice agreement, building blocks and puzzles
together.
It was such a joy for me :-)
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