January 11 meeting

From Cmi Spark

Revision as of 13:58, 20 January 2007

Students attending the meeting

The meeting of Spark held on January 11, 2007, was attended by Bodhayan Roy, Kshitij Bansal, Jayanth T.N., Vipul Naik, Anirbit Mukherjee, Nivedita Bhaskhar, Arnabkar, Ravitej U, and Bhanukiran P. The meeting was in Lecture Hall 3 from 6:20 p.m. to 7:20 p.m.

Beginning of the meeting

Bodhayan takes the stage

Bodhayan Roy, the founder of Spark, began the meeting by asking for suggestions. This led to general confusion with people trying to figure out what the suggestions were meant to be for. Vipul and Kshitij insisted that Spark first clarify its aims. After a lot of debate and discussion, it was decided that the general purpose of Spark was to educate young children, preferably in the immediate neighbourhood.

Kshitij takes the stage

After it was decided to use the blackboard to document points agreed upon, Kshitij decided to take over from Bodhayan. He began by writing:

Aim 1: Education of children (aged 5-15) in (and around) Siruseri

Since Bodhayan had already asked Rajeshwari to obtain an introduction to a nearby school just outside SIPCOT, it was decided that the school was one possible means of achieving Aim 1. After some debate, it was decided that there was a natural dichotomy:

• Students attending shool
• Students not attending school

The thick of the meeting

Help to the most needy?

Anirbit said that maximum attention should be paid to students who are not attending school on the principle that attention must always be provided to the most deprived (in line with Gandhiji's Talisman). Though there was some general consensus on the point, there were also fierce voices of opposition which asserted that convenience and effectiveness of teaching were more important criteria than trying to reach out to the most deprived.

The hope for bad schools

On questions by Bhanukiran and Vipul on whether the local schools would require and accept our help, Bodhayan explained that it was possible that the schools were running short of teachers. In that case, we (Spark members) could volunteer for part-time teaching activities. There was general skepticism on whether the schools would like us to come in and teach. Ravitej, however, said that as long as we did not take over and merely played a supportive role, the teachers would look forward to our visits. He envisaged the typical situation of a single harassed teacher handling twenty kids, and predicted that even two Spark members around could make life easier for the teacher.

Bodhayan pointed out that if the school was bad, Spark was in business. Otherwise, we might have to hunt for more lucrative pastures.

What to teach

Having settled the aim of teaching, we all jumped to the question of how to teach. Anirbit brought us back on track by reminding us that we first needed to decide what to teach. He himself suggested the native language (mother tongue), English and mathematics.

This led to a side-issue of whether CMI students were equipped to teach native languages. Nivedita promptly refused to take responsibility for teaching Tamil. This led to some confusion about her origin. Anirbit then hunted for more Tamil people, but it turned out that Jayanth and Moulik were both from other southern states. There was general confusion for some time about native languages and mother tongues.

Regarding mathematics, nobody at CMI claimed not to know mathematics, but Bhanukiran raised questions on whether we would be able to effectively communicate. Jayanth said that he and Vipul had managed to impart basic mathematics education to Satish, one of the students under Spark's first endeavour.

There was a side-debate between Anirbit and Arnab. Anirbit said that mathematics education should begin with arithmetic, particularly related to counting money. Arnab said something similar, but due to a misunderstanding, they had a short heated discussion over the matter. The discussion was amicably resolved.

Whether to maintain Spark's identity

Nameless, faceless people selflessly serving society

This statement of Vipul's was written on the board by Kshitij and provoked much amusement for inexplicable reasons. The backdrop for this was repeated insistence by Jayanth that all we wanted to do was good and whether we got any recognition in the process was completely irrelevant and immaterial. Actually, nobody contradicted this but it still seemed to lead to a long debate.

Arnab raised a question of whether Spark should align itself with some missions or organizations, such as Ramakrishna Mission (simply as an example). This yet again raised the question of whether Spark should allow dilution of its identity.

The question of when

Since the school is open Monday to Saturday, one possibility for a time when everybody is free is Saturday. Unfortunately, most of the people who know Tamil (viz local students) flee for home on the weekends, and moreover, some first-year students have a topology class at IMSc. Keeping these complications in mind, Bodhayan suggested weekday slots, but this raised objections from the students who have hectic and constantly changing schedules.

Visits to planetaria

Skeptical of whether Spark could impart meaningful education, Bhanukiran suggested educational trips for the children. Bodhayan took up the suggestion and modified it to meaningful education plus educational trips. This suggestion led to some snippets of conversation but it again fizzled out.

Do it in the city

After being questioned by Vipul on her commitment to Spark with regard to staying back on weekends to help it out, Nivedita suggested that if we planned to work only on the weekends, then we could consider doing that in the city. Anirbit raised strong objections to going far and wide when opportunity knocked at our doorstep. Nivedita's suggestion, though, was taken up by Vipul and a few others and led to an interesting debate.

Final homeworks

Vipul decided that the homeworks for which people had volunteered should be explicitly stated. So he got up and began with Anirbit's suggestion.

Anirbit's homework

Anirbit volunteered to conduct a general survey of SIPCOT IT Park and neighbouring areas and determine the backdrop in which Spark could conduct its activities, as well as the possible target customer segments and the dynamics of engaging these customer segments.

Details of the survey (as it has been conducted so far) are available at SIPCOT survey: by Vipul.

Nivedita's homework

Nivedita was initially unsure of whether she wanted to take up her own suggestion of finding places in the city, and asked Vipul questions like what do you want me to do? She then requested Jayanth to be her spokesperson. After much discussion, though, she came up with the aim of locating sloppy schools in the city where the students would find use for Spark's services.

Nivedita later realized that she was not really willing/able to collect data on sloppy schools, though she did proffer the useful fact that there is a corporation school that appears sloppy somewhere in the vicinity of Alarmelmangapuram at Mylapore.

Ramprasad has now taken up the sloppy schools project. He plans to collect information on names and addresses of sloppy schools as well as information that could help us approach the schools.

Bodhayan's homework

Bodhayan agreed to follow up with Rajeshwari on collecting information and obtaining contacts for the local school.

Vipul's homework

Vipul agreed to document contents of the meeting on the Spark wiki. This page is the result.