What Did You Eat For Breakfast? — A Simple Question Helped A Teacher Retain Students In School

Chargawan (Gorakhpur), Uttar Pradesh

In September, 2021 , when the mass restrictions imposed to contain the COVID-19 outbreak were relaxed and schools were reopened after 18 months, Geeta Singh, a primary school teacher in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, realised she had a massive challenge on her hands.

“The students stared blankly. They barely responded to instructions. It was as if they had lost touch with the outside world… the pandemic had obviously disturbed them deeply,” the 46-year-old school headmistress of the Primary School Chargawan, told Gaon Connection.

But two years later, the primary school, which is deeply enmeshed in the bylanes of Gorakhpur, has transformed from sullen silence to chirpy classrooms where students sing songs and rhymes, and participate in quizzes and debate competitions.

And the credit for this, according to Geeta Singh, goes to the lesson plans devised under the NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) programme launched by the Union Ministry of Education, in July 2021. This programme recognises the importance of early learning and makes proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level the utmost priority.

“The programme is particularly detailed about the ways in which teaching could be made more efficient and also help bond with the students,” the primary school teacher explained. It came in handy to break the ice with students who had been away from school for so long, she added.

Also Read: Conversations in the classroom

Unmasking shyness

The Basic Education Department of Uttar Pradesh has strongly recommended the use of objective and subjective questions in the teacher’s guides it has provided to the primary schools in the state.

Two teacher’s guides - Aadhaarshila [foundational learning] and Dhyaankarshan [attentive learning] - help the teachers.

“There are two kinds of questions we ask the children. The ‘objective’ questions help them speak up in the classroom as the answer is usually no more than a word or two and therefore not intimidating. And the ‘subjective’ questions inspire students to express themselves in longer discussions and class conversations,” she said.

Pointing to Kalash Jaiswal and Priyanshu who were just promoted to class three, Geeta Singh said they were a handful when they joined school post the pandemic in class one.

“It was a task to keep them at school as they missed no opportunity to run back home. The boys had lost their ability to connect in a social setting. They wore masks all day long even when they did not have to any more. Such was the fear in these kids,” said the teacher.

Coming back after an 18-month hiatus had unsettled the kids. “Not only did they not answer questions in class, many of them did not even speak to their classmates,” she recalled.

But the objective questions that needed only short responses broke the ice.

Also Read: Spreading smiles in the classroom

“‘What did you eat for breakfast’, ‘which cartoon are you most fond of’, ‘what is your favourite fruit’, etc, helped them loosen up. And helped me make some headway in class,” she said.

The ‘runaway’ kid Kalash Jaiswal said he was so bored at home during the pandemic. And of all the dos and don'ts.

“I was scolded all the time at home… constantly reminded to wear a mask or wash my hands before eating. Mummy and Papa wanted to keep us safe but I was bored of having nothing to do. I stayed in my room most of the time and watched TV and played games on the phone,” Jaiswal told Gaon Connection.

He had gotten comfortable in the routine of staying indoors and watching shows and playing games when the educational institutes were reopened after one-and-a-half years and he had to return to school.

“I didn’t want to come to school. I was feeling comfortable at home but my parents forced me to go. I used to think of excuses every day. But, I made friends in class and after a while, I started enjoying coming to school,” he said.

Once the objective questions began to bear fruit, Geeta Singh graduated to the subjective questions that required longer articulation by the children. They now had to speak in full sentences and describe things in more detail.

The Road to Eloquence

As directed by the lesson plans, the subjective questions are aimed at enhancing the descriptive and imaginative abilities of the students.

“When I asked them about their visit to a temple or some fair or a picnic, they would get animated,” smiled Geeta Singh. It was a conscious decision to ask them questions about their personal lives and interests rather than try and get them to talk about something from the curriculum, she said.

The ‘Q&A’ sessions in the classroom gradually gathered steam and whenever a student fluently answered a question, the others were encouraged to applaud him or her.

“As simple and predictable they may seem, these group activities were vital to make students open up and participative in the classroom. Today Kalash and Priyanshu are the most talkative students in their class,” the teacher said with pride.

“I like coming to school now and miss it on holidays. There’a smartclass getting set up in my school and soon we will get to watch our favourite cartoons on a giant TV,” he said excitedly.

Khushbu Nigam, the 32-year-old mother of Aryan who studies in class three at Primary School Chargawan, is relieved. “Corona was a dark time, I was worried about Aryan. He’s bright but he was forgetting his lessons sitting at home for so long. We admitted him to the government school and were surprised at the quality of education there,” she said.