January 30 meeting: the details: by Vipul

From Cmi Spark

Date of the event/events: January 30, 2007

This article describes events that happened in or related to a CMI spark meeting

This is a first-person article (or section of an article) by Vipul

This meeting was based on an agenda decided by Vipul Naik (the article writer) available at Agenda for January 30 meeting.

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Contents

[edit] Teaching programme and tools/aids

[edit] What to teach

Agenda points:

The following are likely to be the focus areas (as per discussions in the January 23 meeting):

  • Basic mathematics
  • English alphabet (reading, writing, speaking and listening)
  • Local language (reading, writing, speaking and listening)
  • Some basic spoken Hindi
  • Personal hygiene

We need to chalk out a more detailed programme in each of these areas. One possibility is to get lists for what could be taught from the Internet and books, and use that to formulate a teaching checklist. A better possibility is to talk to organizations like AID India to figure out how to evolve a teaching programme. However, we don't have to choose between the two possibilities: we can start on using web resources to get some idea even as we try to contact AID India for a more formal orientation.

Some sample checklists (from a homeschooling guidance website): kindergarten stuff, firststandard math and preschool stuff.

[edit] Anirbit's views on what to teach

Anirbit opined that it was obvious that our first attempts should be to teach the kids English, so that they could then be taught mathematics in English. I pointed out to him the following:

  • Given the mix of students and of CMI volunteers teaching them, it was now possible to teach all the (young) kids in their native language, hence English did not have to be the medium of instruction.
  • Kids could be taught how to write the Roman numerals and pronounce them without necessarily having to know the spellings of the words in English. I said that even English-illiterate people in Chennai know how to read and write numerals, perform elementary addition nad subtraction, and say the numbers in English without knowing their English spellings.

Anirbit also made the point that our educational efforts must be sequential so that we cannot hope to teach them English and mathematics at the same time. I pointed out that even we learn multiple subjects at the same time, and for kids, they are by definition learning all the time, so there shouldn't be any problem in teaching them multiple things at different times. In fact, having many things to learn helps the teacher switch topics and overcome the kid's boredom.

Anirbit's view did not receive general support but it led to further interesting discussion. Anirbit finally agreed that teaching mathematics without English might just be possible but that he was severely skeptical and it needed to be tested out.

[edit] What books to get

Agenda points:

In order to begin our teaching programme fast, it has been suggested that Spark students try to give a package of relevant books to the children soon and start teaching the children using those books. This has the following advantages:

  • Teaching from the books will help ensure that we do not miss out any basic things, and will lend more structure to our lessons
  • The students can take the books home and work on them. Even if they don't work on them, the presence of the books at their home will itself help motivate them towards learning. We had a very positive experience in this regard with Satish, one of Spark's earlier beneficiaries.
  • It may play a role in convincing the children, their parents, and the project office of our seriousness.

If we intend to get books to give the children next Sunday, we need to decide on what books to get soon (by Wednesday) so that we can make a trip some time during the week to purchase the book.

Decision: Ravitej and Anirbit will determine what books to buy and will go on Saturday to purchase those books. More on this later in the immediate purchases section.

[edit] Professional guidance and support

[edit] Agenda points

Padma had a discussion with Balaji Sampath, who is working in the Chennai wing of AID India. Some of the points raised in the discussion, which we need to decide upon, are:

  • Orientation: Dr. Balaji Sampath informed Padma that there will be a programme at Children's Park, Guindy on 3rd and 4th February and that interested CMI students could attend the programme.
  • Daily Programme: Dr.Balaji Sampath also said that it would be a good idea to engage a local volunteer to keep the kids occupied. (Note: 'We' will have to locate a local volunteer) This would make it easier to keep our project running on a daily basis. He said that AID India would arrange to pay this person.

Questions before us are:

  • Is it a good idea for us to tell him that we are interested in coming on 3rd and 4th?
  • Should we ask for further orientation by aking them to come over here and meet the kids?
  • Should we accept the daily programme suggestion?

Advantages of going with them:

  • They have greater experience and can thus give a professional feel to the thing. This includes both the specific educational programmes and other auxilliary issues
  • They also have better access to resources and can arrange logistics
  • Involvement of a big name like AID India might help in convincing the children's parents as well as the people at the Project Office

Possible disadvantages:

  • Tying our activities or making them contingent on AID India volunteers may slow us down in case these people are unable to arrange volunteers
  • The collaboration with AID India may dilute the identity of Spark (A phrase picked from the January 11 meeting)

[edit] Decisions

With regard to going for the Guindy programme, it was decided that it is very important for us to go for the programme, as this could be our first face-to-face interaction with AID-India and we can both learn about them and try to get them more on board with our activities. However, unfortunately, not too many people were both willing nad able to go for the programme.

Spark members can edit their constraint details at the Guindy programme page.

With regard to getting an orientation session from AID-India members, nobody had any principled objections, and we all said we were keen to attend any such orientation session. However, the problem of finding a suitable time-slot remained severe, considering that we were booked on weekdays and weekends, and it may not be feasible to ask a volunteer to come late at night (which was the only time we were free) considering the distance of Siruseri from the city.

With regard to getting regular financial support from AID-India, the following points were raised:

  • Nivedita said that if we take money, we might be obliged to perform. Many people agreed with this. This made us distinctly uncomfortable.
  • Anirbit clarified the matter further by saying that we may have to adhere to AID-India's rules and regulations and this might reduce our flexibility.
  • Kshitij further pointed out that the day should come when Spark is such a big entity that it could look at AID-India as an equal. However, we were all agreed that we were not quite there yet.

Anirbit said that although an orientation session was not a problem, regular support should be taken with a pinch of salt. He talked of the free sampler -- the orientation session may come for free, but later offers will have their own requirements and conditions.

[edit] Immediate purchases

[edit] Replenishment of teaching kit

The discussed points have been merged into the agenda points

We need to replenish our teaching kit, which includes:

  • Slates (Kshitij insists on slate slates) and cloth to wipe slates
  • Chalks to write on the slates: It has been decided that this is not very necessary since wqe can use CMI chalks
  • Pencils and crayons
  • Paper (we could use CMI junk paper for that purpose)
  • Notebooks for the children to write in

We may also consider procuring the following:

  • A big blackboard with chalk and duster for centralized control in the teaching process

Further points raised:

  • The age and maturity level of the child should be used to decide whether to give the child a notebook or a slate.
  • Crayons may not be a good idea

However, to avoid unnecessary feelings of inequality among the kids, it might be better to give every kid one thing.

Decisions:

  • Ravitej (along with possibly Anirbit) will go on Saturday afternoon to purchase the stationery equipment. He also has other work in the city.
  • The funds will be provided on a temporary basis by Vipul (that's me). I am also taking the responsibility of my own money in case Spark does not raise enough money to repay me. I have given Rs. 2000 to Ravitej (For both the books and the stationery).

[edit] Book set

We plan to give one book each in basic mathematics (numbers) and basic English (ABC picture book) to each of the children. We have to decide on a few books (perhaps ranging from 2-5) to hand over to the children this Sunday and then we need to procure these books.

Since there are around 20 children (16 who turned up on Sunday and a few others who had gone to the market) we might look at purchasing 25 copies each. The remaining 5 copies can be used by the teachers or reserved for future beneficiaries.

Discussion: Nivedita was skeptical about the idea of giving the books to the kids, pointing out that the older and stronger kids may take over the books from the others. However, others felt that this should not prove a deterrent. We also pointed out that in this case, we had a better idea of the kids and also that their living environments were better and mutual filching was less likely.

Anirbit felt that the localites (viz, Nivedita and Padmavathi) would be ideal for getting the books since they were always around in the city and knew the local markets well. I pointed out that even the local students were now staying in the hostel and would be as unlikely to be around in the city as we would. Nivedita said that she would not buy books without being given money for the purpose.

At this point, I intervened and said that that money should not be a consideration. This is discussed more in the Fundraising section.

Ravitej was finally the person who decided to take the responsibility.

Decisions:

  • Ravitej (along with possibly Anirbit) will go on Saturday afternoon to purchase the stationery equipment. He also has other work in the city.
  • The funds will be provided on a temporary basis by Vipul (that's me). I am also taking the responsibility of my own money in case Spark does not raise enough money to repay me. I have given Rs. 2000 to Ravitej (for both the books and the stationery).

[edit] Other equipment to make the teaching environment more conducive

This was decided to be beyond our scope.

[edit] Other issues

The ordering of these items has been changed from that in the original agenda, and is faithful to the order followed in the actual meeting. In particular, the item on payment to student volunteers has been shifted out to another section

[edit] How to attract the kids

Agenda points:

The general impression on Saturday and Sunday was that if the kids were sufficiently enthused, we could get them in large numbers. Mr. Rajesh distributed toffees after our session on Sunday, and said that toffees would provide an important incentive to the students. However, the eagerness of the students indicated that toffees were probably a very negligible incentive compared to the other incentives/issues.

It has been suggested that we try to convince the students and parents of our keenness and seriousness. This could be done in various ways:

  • By talking to the parents and gathering their feedback, trying to get them more on board
  • By giving books etc. to the children and offering the parents some concrete gain that the children have got out of it
  • By attaching to us an organization such as AID India

It has also been suggested that we offer a more substantial end-class incentive or reward than a toffee, something that could be seen as being of value to both the kid and the parent. No suggestions have yet been received as to what that reward could be.

Discussion: All the agenda points were strongly agreed with, and it was pointed out that books as well as association with AID-India could go a long way in convincing children, parents and the project office of our sincerity and (?) professionalism.

Bodhayan felt that though toffees may not be a major incentive, they may be a minor attraction that would keep the kids from leaving when their attention was waning.

Decisions: Bodhayan would be the toffee manager, viz he would arrange for the toffees. The toffees would be arranged from Spark funds.

[edit] Interfacing with the project office

Mr. Rajesh, the safety in-charge, said that given our ability to communicate in the languages that these people knew, we could help him in giving an orientation session to the workers on issues, of hygiene and diseases so that the workers could cooperate with the efforts to maintain cleanliness in the area. This way, we could also gather more feedback from the workers.

The project office was also keen to provide us other support, such as a better teaching area. It is up to us to convince the project office that our work is capable of producing real results.

Jayanth raised the very important point that CMI Spark members should be careful not to talk against the project office in any way, or appear to be sympathetic if the construction workers talk against the project office.

It was generally agreed that CMI Spark members had no reason to talk against the project office given the sincere efforts made by them to support us.

[edit] Fund-raising

[edit] Immediate cash

The issue of fund-raising first came up when we found that buying the books and the stationery for the kids could come to be in the range of Rs. 2000 - Rs. 2500. There was general skepticism on whether Spark could raise the required money.

I said that funds should not be a constraint -- they should not slow down the pace of Spark activities. I promised to put in an amount of Rs. 2000 for the books and stationery, and I said that it would be my responsibility to collect this money via a fund collection drive. If I collected less than Rs. 2000, then the difference would be taaken as my personal contribution.

Anirbit was uncomfortable with my idea of investing in Spark in this manner. He said that Spark could not accept this kind of donation from a member. But the others ruled him down and said that if I was willing to take the risk, so be it.

Jayanth did request me to show the same zeal for collecting funds for Fiesta. However, this issue was not discussed further in the meeting as it was after all a Spark meeting.

[edit] Fund collection drive

I promised to spearhead a fund collection drive to collect the funds. I pointed out that since my money was at stake, I had a natural incentive to collect as much as possible.

[edit] Unplanned-for points

[edit] Earlier batch

Bodhayan said that Spark should officially cater to the batch which had already graduated last semester viz Satish, Bhawani and co. (learn more of this at Educating the kids: the story) Though there were no objections, I pointed out to him that the matter was not in the scope of this meeting (Which was already stretching too long) and that he could perhaps raise it in a separate meeting later.

Kshitij commented that Spark's gradutes could now become post-graduates.

[edit] Organizing the volunteers

Bodhayan took full responsibility for getting Spark members at the site at least 15 minutes before the scheduled time of the sessions so that the children could be located and collected. Thus, for a 10:00 session, we could reach at around 9:45 (hence, try to leave CMI by 9:30).

[edit] Payment to CMI volunteers

This has been made into a separate section due to the enlargement of this issue during the meeting

[edit] Reimbursement

I raised this issue.

Should CMI Spark members be reimbursed for expenses they incur on account of Spark? Expenses such as these:

  • Printouts for the meeting (that I took)
  • Toffee expenses: Rs. 25 per session
  • Local call fares (e.g. I/Jayanth to Mr. Rajesh, Padma to Balaji Sampath): Say totalling to around Rs. 10
  • Local travel fares (e.g. Ravitej going around to buy books): Say totalling to around Rs. 20
  • Lunch money for lunch had outside on account of Spark-related shopping or attending outside events: Say totalling to around Rs. 30 per person

Many people felt that while big expenses should be reimbursed, small reimbursements should not be reimbursed. My point was that every expense should be reimbursed. Anirbit said that it is upto the person whether he or she wants reimbursement.

Kshitij pointed out that given Spark's growth as an organization, we would soon have to lay explicit policies on these fronts.

It was decided that all reimbursements would be made if asked for.

[edit] Principled issues regarding payment

When I raised the point of whether Spark volunteers should be paid for their teaching activities, Anirbit gave a groan and said that we should not even think about it.

Nivedita said that since her contribution to Spark activities were useless and werejust for fun, and that she did not want any responsibility for actually imparting knowledge to the kids, she did not want to accept payment if it placed an obligation upon her. However, she did not have any principled objections to others drawing payment.

I asked others whether they too shared the view that Spark activities were juts for fun, and they all hastily disagreed. Somebody else pointed out that if Spark started paying its volunteers, there would be pressure to perform. Another person said that the pressure to perform might actually be good for Spark members if it helps them teach better.

Padma said that money would not be an incentive for Spark members to teach better since we are already motivated to give our best to the kids.

Jayanth raised strong principled objections to paying for anything apart from good paid in the market. A catch-phrase that turned up was that Spark should not pay any service charges, it should only pay for goods. Anirbit took a more moderate stance: he said that Spark members should not be paid but any non-member could be paid for his/her services.

When I said that I would like to be paid, Anirbit said that qualified me to be a non-member. This raised the question of what membership means. It was soon clear that:

  • I would not be thrown out of the mailing list
  • I would continue to be in charge of documentation and conducting the meetings
  • I might even continue with the teaching activities

The only way being a non-member seemed to handicap me was that I would not have a casting vote. It seemd that the dichotomy between a member and a non-member was more conceptual than practical.

Jayanth was clear that nobody, member or non-member, would be paid, and threatened to resign if I was offered payment by Spark.

[edit] Attempts to redefine Spark

Amidst all discussion, somebody said that by its very definition, Spark members should teach the kids without getting paid. Kshitij asked Bodhayan to give a precise definition of Spark, and the following definition was first given:

  • We go up to teach kids, and we don't get paid

It them got modified to:

  • We teach kids and we don't expect monetary remuneration

This led to the question of whether a free lunch, or a toffee, was acceptable. There were interesting statements such as the one that a Re. 1 toffee was acceptable but a Re. 1 coin was not (high principles?). After some time, it was decided that there should be no remuneration

  • We teach kids and we don't expect remuneration

Anirbit clarified (?) that while Spark members could be paid if they wanted to (and become non-members) Spark did not expect its members to expect to be paid.

[edit] What if payment were forced?

I raised the question: suppose Spark was forced to pay its volunteers, suppose it was an obligation on the part of Spark. Then would the volunteers accept it. Anirbit said he would donate the money back to Spark. I pointed out that I was donating a much larger amount (Rs. 2000) which would not compare with the measly teacher charges. He said that until and unless the donation was directly linked with the payment, it was not acceptable.

[edit] Practical issues regarding payment

Once the principled issues had been settled (?), we turned to the practical side of things, which was: if Spark members should be paid, how much should they be paid? Who decides how much to pay them?

Arnab said that once Spark was a more established organization, with funds regularly pouring in, we could afford to pay our volunteers. But not now. I reiterated that funds should not be a problem.

I said that I 'demanded the following rates (negotiable):

  • Rs. 25 for each teaching session: This would include the two hours of teaching plus documenting for each kid on the wiki.
  • Rs. 20 per month retainer to me for documentation, conducting the meetings, and publicity

If these rates were followed, then the cost per week (assuming that there were two sessions each week and that each session had three volunteers) would be Rs 150 (for teachers) plus Rs 25 (for toffees) which totalled to Rs. 700 per month. This would be in addition to the regular expenditure on books and stationery as well as other reimbursements to Spark members (and not to forget the Rs 20 retainer for me).

However, even discussions of the practical difficulties kept returning to the principled issues.

Bodhayan (the founder of Spark) agreed to give the matter some thought and come up with his views.

[edit] Decisions and action points

[edit] Action for all

[edit] Individual responsibilities

  • Ravitej (with the help of Anirbit) is responsible for deciding what exactly to purchase and also for doing the actual purchase by Saturday night
  • Vipul will initiate a new fund collection drive
  • Bodhayan is responsible for coordinating who goes when. People can also put up their constraints and express interest on the wiki. The page for the February 4 session is here.
  • Bodhayan will also be the toffee manager.
  • Ravitej, Arnab and Bodhayan will prepare profile pages on all the people taught this Sunday
  • Anirbit and Padma will prepare an attendance sheet once the list of names is ready.
  • Padma will email Dr. Balaji Sampath requesting details of the programme at Children's Park, Guindy and will call him up by Friday if he does not respond.
  • Bodhayan will contemplate on the issue of volunteer payment. Members can also post their views on volunteer payment here.
  • Vipul will continue maintaining the wiki, document the meeting and remind the people of their responsibilities.
  • Bodhayan will consider how Spark's previous beneficiaries (Satish, Bhawani etc.) can continue benefitting from Spark members.
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