Warmest wishes for health, healing, love, creativity and revival this new year!
Children’ s voices and laughter … a song from the distance … the thud- thud of running feet … the rhythms of a dance somewhere … an adult admonishing someone … the rustle of the leaves… a dog barking joyfully… a calf calling out to her mother… young voices chanting Thirukural loudly and enthusiastically… all these come floating on the breeze whizzing by…
Yes, the Thulir school was active and full of life again after almost two years of lock-down. Full time classes resumed from November 1st and were on until the end of December. The importance of a neutral space where adults and children can learn together free from the interference and pressures of the realities of village life was brought home to us vividly.
Children bloomed in learning much more over these two months than they did in the last two years of our village classes. There was more time for singing, dancing, playing and working with hands. And we got to witness firsthand just how much these activities really enhance a child’s academic learning after two years of their absence.
But sadly the return of the dreaded virus in its Omicron form is dictating the closure of schools again in Tamilnadu starting this January.
Village classes
During most of 2020 and 21 our teachers conducted decentralised classes in the villages. Children from government and other private schools too attended these classes.
Student Enrollment
Tamil Nadu government schools have during the pandemic been distributing their students’ free mid day meals to their families in the form of weekly supplies of rice, dhal, eggs and other groceries. Ten Thulir parents, who were economically affected by the pandemic, have removed their children from our school and have admitted their children in government schools in order to access these food rations. The parents feel that since we also teach government school children in our village classes, these children will still get education from us and food from the government school – the best of both schools.
But new children have also joined us this year and we currently have 49 students in our school this year.
Getting to school
Prior to the pandemic, parents took responsibility for the logistics and costs of transporting their children to school. But the pandemic has affected many of them economically and they are finding it difficult to bear the transport costs.
Currently, the children are using the public transport – a mini bus that shuttles between villages in our valley. The transport costs for the children is supported by the school.
Workshops for mothers
” I have never had a more relaxed day in my life.”
” Can we do this every weekend?”
” I wish I could have learned this when I was in school.”
These were remarks from mothers after a workshop in Thulir.
Most of our children are first generation learners. Their parents have tremendous aspirations that their children should get the most of the education they themselves missed out on. For many parents these aspirations translate easily into anxiety and worry. They don’t have a realistic idea of age appropriate learning and so put enormous pressure on the teachers and their children to attain outcomes that are far too advanced for their age. We have found that this parental anxiety actually hinders and thwarts a child’s learning abilities. Increasing parental awareness about their children’s abilities and progress and bringing them to the same page as us is vital.
We planned to have practical hands-on workshops for mothers, teaching them activities they can do with their children at home. The first workshop was held in October.
Greening the land
A young and vibrant team from Marudam led by Vinod and Shyam visited us, bringing indigenous and endangered evergreen tree saplings along with their passion and love for the environment. The teachers and students camped at school that night and went out for an early morning bird watching walk with Vinod. Other teachers and students from Marudam joined us that morning for a day long celebration of nature through tree planting. There is indeed immense joy in such life affirming work with Mother Earth.
Rain
In a rural agricultural community livelihoods and lives themselves revolve around rain. Rain can save or completely wreck entire families. So at Thulir we have been measuring and recording rainfall for the last 17 years.
After years of drought, 2020(965mm) and 2021(1010 mm) were years of abundant rain. The valley looks green and lush and beautiful.
But sadly most of the rain was unseasonal and very heavy and many farmers, our teachers and parents among them, lost their crops.
Children with special needs
We are privileged to welcome three children with developmental delays to the school this year. Two of them come regularly and the other comes occasionally. Interacting with them has been a valuable and humbling learning experience for all the teachers and students.
It all started when Dr. Sridhar, a pediatrician from CMC Vellore conducted a session for the teachers on how to identify developmental delays and autism in children and when to seek help. He also interacted with, and counselled, the parents of four such children. Through his help, these four children were able to go for consultation and treatment to the Development Pediatrics unit at CMC Vellore. Two of them stayed in CMC Vellore for a longer period to undergo physiotherapy and occupational therapy. One of our teachers, Ambika, too went with them for a week-long training in Development pediatrics. Special thanks to the Development Pediatrics team at CMC, Shikha Bhattacharji and Dr. Sridhar for making this possible.
Return of the Thulir Alumni
Abhay Regi, editor at The Caravan, and one of the very first students of Thulir has returned to teach our oldest students this year. The children enjoyed his classes exploring Geography through map making.
Rahul from Sittilingi, who studied Leather Technology in Anna University, Chennai and went on to work in Kenya and Malawi, visited and talked to students about Kenya and Malawi. He enjoyed coaching students in football.
Poovarasan from Sittilingi, who is now doing his PhD in Calcutta, donated notebooks and stationery to the school.
Sreyarth taught History online to the older students who discovered that History could be fascinating and not as boring as the textbooks make it to be.
These were proud moments for us as teachers , watching our earlier students, now grown up and giving back to the community. It was nice to see how they have not only imbibed our values and learning but also have learnt much more in their subjects and made them many, many times more interesting.
Tamilnadu education network meeting
Six of us attended the two day meeting hosted by Payir Trust where around 35 educators from all over Tamilnadu attended and talked about their work and the challenges they faced during the pandemic. We came back completely energised and inspired.
New ‘ Thulirs’ (‘sprouts’)
The Thulir family is growing. Lakshmi, Suresh and Sakthivel have baby boys and Rajammal has a baby girl this year. Rajammal and Lakshmi have been on maternity leave this year.
Trip to Marudam School
The teachers went to Marudam School, Thiruvannamalai, over two consecutive weeks to participate in their ecological projects. All our tribal teachers have always been near hills and forests and have grown up taking the incredibly beautiful surroundings and nature for granted. Seeing the urban folk of Marudam love and value nature and forests with a passion was very new for them. Many of them remarked , ” We have never valued what we have on our doorsteps. Our eyes have been opened now.”
Nature walks and nature observation have restarted at Thulir with great vigor now.
New construction
The children and students loved the newly constructed dining space.
Visitors and Volunteers
- Varun’s scratch classes resumed again.
- Sini from Kerala visited and conducted Toymaking workshops in October.
- Senthil from Marudam School had participated in the farmers’ protests in New Delhi. He visited and spoke about his experience.
- Shanti from Thiruvannamalai came to teach Music to all the groups. She held us all completely enthralled with her singing during a day-long music session. The 4- and 5-year-olds who normally can’t sit still for more than 5 or 10 minutes sat quietly mesmerized for more than an hour that afternoon listening to her sing.
Thank you each one of you for believing in us and standing with us through these difficult and unprecedented times.
Your support is truly invaluable!