Does it matter that children of today feel even taking notes is tiresome, Ah! Anjana Mistry, of Class 9, wants to have a camera in her spectacles so that she can take a snapshot of the blackboard to capture everything the teacher wrote. During Andaman and Nicobar shodhyatra, SRISTI, with the help of other volunteers, particularly Chanchal, a very dynamic teacher, discovered many creative children.
Anay Mistry, same Swaraj-gram village, had his feet on the ground and redesigned a paddy thrasher seeing the plight of his parents. He wanted thresher for leftover grains while Nitsh Das wanted to improve the same process for primary threshing itself. Aman Biswas wanted a wind-powered boat. Of course sail there are boats, but he thought of roving windmill generating energy could also be used. Bijoy Kumar Biswas, in 8th standadrd, wanted to redesign betel nut peeling machine. It is one of the most valuable cash crop of that region and yet there is hardly much mechanisation of the harvesting and peeling process. Tithi Grahami, of Class 3, was very creative. This is a high rainfall region. She wanted an umbrella which could be held by two elderly boys or girls and smaller kids could stand in between and go safely to school. Earlier, during Tripura shodhyatra, a young kid had given a similar idea but this time the visualisation was very well done.
Wouldn’t you like to have your snacks packed in leaves rather than plastic? Prabha Bhengra, studying in Class 10, suggested of doing exactly that with different kinds of leaves. In a biodiversity-rich island like Andman and Nicobar, there is no dearth of leaves.
Sukanto das, of Class 7, had played with remote controlled car, as million others might have done. But, then, tying a sweeping pad to these cars to clean the places where hands or broom can’t go, such as below Amirah or even under beds, this mobile duster can go. Ankit and Adarash, Class 9 and 8 , wanted dustbin in buses so that trash does not litter around. Should not ‘swachhata mission’ ensure that this idea is implemented soonest to aid the mission of clean India. How do we ensure that school teachers, particularly in government-run schools, take pride in seeking and spreading such creative ideas?
Why can’t local Vividh Bharati radio intersperse such ideas in their popular songs programme so that entertainment also becomes edutainment. Shouldn’t newspapers allocate a few inches of their column space for such ideas with cartoon-like illustrations?
A few days ago GIAN had organised a children creativity workshop with children from well to do families and also from Sadarbazar from disadvantaged families. It was so heartening to see that these little kids had sensed the problems of ironsmith, carpenters, clay workers and many other manual workers. Will share their ideas in future columns but suffice to say, that if we can help children do research into unmet social needs at a young age, then unlike our generation, these curious and concerned children will not learn to live with problem unsolved indefinitely.
