SAIIER 2018:Isai Ambalam School

Ilaignarkal Education Centre		Kuilappalayam Cultural Centre
Isai Ambalam School

Isai Ambalam is an outreach school located on the periphery of Auroville, adjoining both Alankuppam and Kottakkarai villages. The mission of the school is “Creation of a learning environment in which the students and the teachers reach the highest mental and spiritual consciousness possible for one’s level, so as to live, learn, teach and function from there.”

Isai Ambalam was started in 1979 by a Dutchman, Ivar, with drop-out students. With the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Tamil Nadu (SSA), the school converted to a crèche, primary and middle school. This year there were 89 students at the school.

The school has been following the CBSE syllabus for the last four years, and in the coming school year all the children will be registered under CBSE as part of New Era Secondary School (NESS). There are qualified and well-trained teachers and many youth and volunteers, including 10 engineers who work with the children in science, technology, programming, electronics and mathematics. The medium of instruction is English and Tamil, and the children can continue higher education in NESS or any other school of their choice.

Activities of the year:

There are 5 Aurovilian and 4 non-Aurovilian teachers. Beside them there are 8 volunteer engineers from STEM Land and Aura Auro Design who work with children on maths and environmental studies through Education by Design (EBD) activities.

We have school from morning 8.30 a.m. to 4.15 p.m. We have increased our engagement with the children with sleep-overs and special programs on Saturdays.

The work on EBDs and integrating with the various activities in Auroville was supported by a grant from Bajaj this year.

Highlights of this year were:

Values and critical skills program by teachers.
Education by Design (Described in detail in this report).
STEM Land activities engaged with children beyond EBDs, with small products like a variety of torches and LED-based lighting and also materials to learn mathematics well.
Preparing Teaching Learning Material (TLM) for 1st to 3rd grades – we created a pathway that could be used based on a ladder system we had used with children in Tamil.
A Savitri play was created by the children, with the theme of understanding life and the sincere aspiration of one human being to bring light to earth.
Plan & outcome assessment – We created a software that could be used to create and track the outcomes.
National Knowledge Network (NKN) at Isai Ambalam – In the last quarter we received the NKN network, which has been useful to download relevant videos and software both for children as well as for the youth teachers at the school.

Values and critical skills program:

This year we focused with teachers to understand the ‘values’ concept deeper and practice it during the school day life. We have chosen 4 needed values for their teaching life: Goal setting, Perfection, Deep listening, and Time management. Both STEM Land and Isai Ambalam teachers have practiced and wrote their experience.

Education by Design (EBD):

Below are some examples of the EBD projects we did with the children this year.

India Map EBD: Students from 6th and 7th grades made a map of India using red soil, clay, bricks, pebbles, sand, alluvial soil, black soil. They created it in a 3m x 3m area. Each student was given a separate part of the country to draw. By using graph sheets they drew the outlines of the map. They made the topography of India using clay. But after a couple of days it had cracked. Then students came up with a solution that since the layer of the clay is so thin, it had cracked. We had some remaining soil left after another Education By Design (EBD) project where we had constructed a clay kiln, so students used that red soil and created another layer above the clay. By using bricks and red soil students built the mountains. In order to differentiate between desert, mountains and rivers, they used different materials. For the rivers, they mixed cement with water and built many rivers in the map. For desert, they used sand. In the eastern parts of the country, they used alluvial soil to demonstrate the rivers taking alluvial soil to the delta before joining the sea. Tasks were properly divided among students and it took about two weeks for them to complete the map. The final output of the map looked good with mountains, rivers and other geographical features. By doing this EBD they learnt the geography of India.

Kitchen wastewater treatment plant: The main objective was to reuse the kitchen wastewater for watering the garden. We decided to create a wastewater recycling system. To measure the height of the tank we used a bamboo stick. Children marked the height of the tank on the bamboo stick. We used a thread to measure the circumference. Children took the thread around the circular shaped ring and marked on the thread. The challenging part was we were not able to find the measuring tape and so used the metre scale instead. We found the height of the tank to be 3m and circumference around 3.14m. Through this we found out that the radius was half a meter. Finally, we found out that the tank volume was approximately 2355L. We fixed a motor to pump water from the pit. Eventually, the pumped water is used to water the garden. A circuit is connected to the water tank which indicates the rise in the level of the water in the pit.

Concreting (with iron reinforcement) the Pond: Children made a pond in their school as an EBD. After 6 months it developed a crack, possibly because of all the roots of the trees around it. After that we sat with children and had a conversation about what to do about the pond and whether we should just let it be, with the lessons learned. The children were not willing to let it go without further effort. One child asked about concreting the whole pond to make it significantly stronger. The idea came from some concrete bars (iron center with jelly and cement) which were extremely strong and very difficult to break through while finding rubble for the clay room. The bending and cutting of rods were done by the children. We bought 40kg of 6mm and 50kg of 8mm rods for the pond. Children made 100 TMT rings to make a beam structure around the pond. After the rod work was done, we bought 1 unit of sand, jelly and 10 bags of cement. We built a temporary wall to hold the jelly and cement together, which we removed once the concrete set. We hired a mason to guide us for mixing the jelly and and a smooth finish of the pond. While doing this EBD we paused at different times and had some discussions, and a session on questions that the children wanted to have clarified both with the teachers as well as with the mason.

Vegetable garden EBD: Children wanted to make a garden at their school. We had visited the Botanical Garden and Pebble Garden. We saw different ways of making a garden. We wanted to set up a drip irrigation system in the garden using sprinklers. We started planting in the beds we had prepared. Children from 6th and 7th grades took responsibility to connect sprinklers all over the garden. It was a new experience connecting sprinklers and routing the pipe to our garden. We are starting to see plants coming up. Children take turns to water the plants. Now they give all the vegetables that they harvest from the garden to the school kitchen.

Tree house: Josh, a volunteer, built a tree house with the help of 5th, 6th and 7th grade students. We had a long-term wish to build a tree house, but we had not had the right person to guide the children. With the help of Josh we made the tree house. The children enjoyed cutting bamboo in our school campus, according to the height of the tree house, and cut the pakumaram for the base. After cutting the bamboo they burnt it in the fire so that insects will not stay inside and eat up the bamboo. They tied it with the coconut rope and made it strong. The children were very happy with their work and spend quite some time up during break. All the teachers climbed up and felt enthusiastic about their children's work.

Tanjore Temple: A challenge was given to students that “Why does Tanjore Temple’s gopuram’s shadow not fall on the ground?” and “Why is Tanjore called a bowl of rice?” “How does the shadow fall on its surface? In what angle?” We converted this project as a maths project. Multiple challenges were given to them. The students went to Tanjore temple, and they found that the shadow falls on the ground and told their teacher that the challenge is in fact incorrect, and wondered why this saying (about the shadow) still exists and has been believed for such a long time. They studied the history and one of the theories found was that the king Raja Raja Cholan asked the architect, “Will this structure ever fall?” and the architect is said to have replied that “Not even its shadow will fall”, but this appears to have been misquoted and misinterpreted as various theories on the shadow of the temple. Then there were some design projects where children needed to construct a structure where its shadow fell within a certain area from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., which the children created and through it learned about angles.

English class and Time Zone EBD: How do you boost the Isai Ambalam 4th and 5th grade students’ English comprehension and expression? Simply introduce them to someone who doesn’t understand Tamil! Chris, a volunteer from the US, came to our school for two weeks and worked with Kavitha during the students’ English lessons. Many topics were discussed and Chris soon discovered that the students loved to sing. She introduced two well received new songs: “The ants go marching…” song reinforced the rhyming concept, and “If you're happy and you know it...” explored emotions.

But by far the most exciting events were the Skype calls to Barbara, Chris’ friend from the US. The students asked questions to get to know Barbara and her life a bit more. They were surprised when Barbara opened her window and showed them that it was dark outside while the sun was shining brightly here in India. This started the EBD about time zones. Eventually children figured out that when one side of the earth faces the sun it is dark on the other side.

They built clay models of the earth and sun (complete with LED lights) to demonstrate the concept. They learned about time zones and were able to figure out the times in different places on the planet based on where they were located and its time zone. When it is 2:30 PM in India, it is 5:00 AM in Virginia, USA – no wonder it was still dark at Barbara’s home during the Skype call!

And to top it off, the students were thrilled when Barbara showed up at Isai Ambalam a week later!

Both Chris and Barbara appreciated the opportunity to meet with Kavitha and the students, and to learn about the Isai Ambalam School’s learning through “challenges” methodology.

Events and interactions:

In June 2017 all the students went to the “Science Express Train” exhibition in Pondicherry.
Maria, a volunteer, helped the 5th grade students and the teachers to improve their communication skills.
Mr. Swami Dath Ananda Swamiji from Chengalpat hoisted the flag and inaugurated the new clay room on 15th August.
We celebrated Ganesha Pooja festival in our school. All the students learned the importance of Ganesha.
Brinda from the USA conducted a one-day workshop on EBD and critical skills.
Susan, a volunteer, helped in the crèche and kindergarten class for 6 months. She taught the children music with different instruments.
Mr. Ravi Alugandi, a resource person from Andra Pradesh, conducted a half-day workshop on origami and puppet-making for teachers.
We celebrated Deepam festival and lighted lamps.
We celebrated Christmas and one of the Aura Auro teachers, Naveen, dressed as Santa Claus and gave prizes to all the children.
Ms. Swathi, a resource person from Azim Premji University, conducted 2-day workshop on Maths and hoisted the flag on Republic Day.
Sri M came to the school and had a conversation with the students.
Sahana, a volunteer from Bangalore, stayed with us for 2 weeks and learnt the techniques of teaching values. She gave a seminar with powerpoint show about activities to understand the concept of perfection.

There were many trips to learn about initiatives inside Auroville (as part of EBDs) to learn about forests, bees, etc.

3rd to 7th grade children went on an educational trip to Tanjore and Pitchvaram.
Ankit, ‘India on my cycle’ from Rajasthan, came to our school and interacted with the children and shared his experience about traveling through 16 different states in India.
Anita walked with all the children (except pre-primary) to Matrimandir on 24th April and did meditation. They children gave feedback that they felt quiet and peaceful there.

Conclusion:

We hope we will have more volunteers in the coming years to retain the energetic environment that has been created at the school today.