Fellowship Year End Reflections !!

End of Year Reflections



Questions and Answers



For Q: 1, 2, 3, 4,5

Let’s be realistic about it . Pride cannot be quantified !! But still I am extremely proud of the efforts the students as a group and as individuals have put into .



1. How proud are you of your accomplishments with Fluency, either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in Reading Fluency?



From a class which dreaded reading anything at all, they have turned into kids who give their best try at all the times .They are not afraid anymore . They recognize i) application of phonics , ii) use of punctuation symbols in reading , iii) using syllabication ,Over all ‘ desire ‘ to succeed as good readers is really intense . There has been a quantifiable improvement in RF Levels .


Did : Identifying their challenges , Giving the students ample time to work at their own pace, and encouraging Role of ‘leader readers ‘ and ‘peer teaching ‘


Did Not : Could give individual attention to the weakest of the students (namely 2-3 of them ) due to paucity of time .



2. How proud are you of your accomplishments with Writing, either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in Writing?


Writing levels of Kids have not shown significant improvement. We would be fooling ourselves if we expected the kids to become writers in 8-9 months time. The primary reason being the extremely poor knowledge of grammar and poor vocabulary .


Did : Put in efforts to stimulate their creativity by challenging them to do picture based writing ,writing letters to each other ,writing small messages to their parents ,principal etc . Putting stress to use i) phonetic spellings ( in case they did know the actual spellings ) , ii) use Punctuation symbols iii) Apply their new Grammatical awareness while writing .

Did Not : Could not conduct Writers Work Shops .Could not make them to be original writers having their own ideas to write (of course few of them 4-5 , have shown exceptional skills as good writers ) Could not churn in the importance of writing and being good at it !



3. How proud are you of your accomplishments with Speaking and Listening skills (including the level and amount of English spoken in the classroom), either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in Speaking and Listening?

It often amazes me , how a class which hard time comprehending “come here “ ,”please close the window “ “ face me “ is now confident enough to speak in ENGLISH to CEO of a company (in one of the field trips ) .They can understand a decent level of conversation in English and are able to respond to it .These students have been speaking increasingly better English & friendly Marathi .


Did : Story telling sessions were real fun with the kids , they enjoyed every bit of it and they have become very good listeners . Tremendous confidence building in speaking . Workshops were fun and they can now speak in front of anyone and everyone (without being shy and sissy :P) on topics of common interests .


Did Not : Could give them ample opportunity to test their skills . Moreover it would have been great if they could translate this ability to read their (speak out ) SSC text books to each other and enjoy listening to them .


4. How proud are you of your accomplishments with Reading Comprehension, either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in RC? (I will not ask us to think about Grammar, but if you want to, you can.)


Teach For India EOY (End of Year ) assessment class average in RC is 67 % , which should stand a perfect alibi to their increased ability to comprehend English .


Did : Lot of Reading Sessions in the Class (with age appropriate text ), Lot of fun activities based on “on stage reading “ , “individual reading corners “ , “group reading sessions “ , “finding out the meaning and explaining to each other” !! I think this has helped them to shed their fear to read and understand .


Did Not : Stress on Grammatical accomplishments , solely due to the fact that Grammar skills have to built over a time period .



5. How proud are you of your accomplishments with Maths, either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in Maths?


How indebted I feel to these Kids , My own inhibitions against this monster called Math have been shattered !! I almost feel to rework all my Math workbooks from K1-12 once again ! Please tell this to my Pa & Ma .

Lets be simple at this . They want more and more math homework. Math happens to be their favourite subject . EOY assessment results for Top 20 of class is 70 % .



6. For those of you in 3rd and 4th Standards, how proud are you of your accomplishments with Science, History, Geography, and Civics, either with the whole class or with individual students? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in these subjects?


Lets understand this through these two examples :


>> Ok . we grow . Plants grow . but most important is mud (Soil ). Without Mud - even if you put water , give the leaves sunlight -no food be cooked .... so ........... Aniket is - Thinking Star of the Day !!!


>> 3rd Grade Civics text book says " We should respect all religions " - I tried to find out if they knew anything about religion : they had no idea of being a Hindu , Christian or a Muslim , i explained Allah -Bhagwan-God are same people with different names . PRATHMESH asks .then why did stone age man decide to become ...


7. How have your students changed in their behaviour? How has the level of violence or conflict changed in the class? How respectful are they of you and of OTHER teachers? What did (or didn't) you do that did or did not enable success in behaviour?


What do you mean ?? What Violence ? They are just kids and they have all the right to be kids , and respect , they say has to be earned !

We are not great Psychoanalysts (the one we are trying to pretend to be !! ) .

Let them Bloom and flower without being mechanical !



8. What is your ONE greatest learning from this past year in your classroom?

These Kids can teach us more than we can teach them !!


9. Given the knowledge of yourself, your skills, and your students (if you're staying with the same kids), what are your expectations for next year (for yourself and for your students)? What will you do the same? What will you change?


Perhaps I would be more of myself without being bogged down by clerical ! Sorry sometimes I felt this way :P  I would let my Kids better themselves by setting higher goals but path chosen would be by them NOT me or them .


10. How has your experience this year influenced your leadership abilities? Think of a situation or anecdote that encapsulates this change, whether big or small. And if it hasn't influenced your leadership abilities, then why?

Leaders are born they cannot be made !  What leaders ?


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