A school teacher directs short movies; his students & their guardians act in them

Mangalpurva, Sitapur (Uttar Pradesh)

When the blackboard and chalk were not enough to keep children interested, teachers of a rural school decided to innovate and try something else to get them back into the classroom.

The teachers of the primary school in Mangal Purva village in Sitapur district, Uttar Pradesh, began to make short movies with their students and their guardians acting in them. This sparked off a transformation like never before and now children and their parents from villages far and wide are clamouring to get admission in this school.

Admissions have gone up and the attendance that was a dismal 50 per cent has climbed to 90 per cent.

“When I joined this school in 2018, I realised how poor admissions and the attendance was. Despite the best efforts of our teachers, children would not come regularly to school,” Vivek Kumar, the headmaster of the school, told Gaon Connection.

It was then that the teachers of the school hit upon the idea of making short films based on the more inspiring stories in the textbooks of the children.

Class five student Anmol said that acting in the movie I Am Azad, gave him such a thrill. “When we get to live the lives of people we read about in our textbooks, it is a great feeling,” he said.

“We decided to make a total of seven films. We thought this would be a great way to bond with our students and their parents,” he said.

The first movie they made was called Parakh and it had students and their parents acting in it. “We uploaded that on YouTube,” the headmaster said.

“Acting, role playing and getting into the skins of the characters they played was a big hit. So far we have made two films, the second one being I Am Azad, which is based on the life of freedom fighter Chandrasekhar Azad,” he said.

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Class five student Anmol said that acting in the movie I Am Azad, gave him such a thrill. “When we get to live the lives of people we read about in our textbooks, it is a great feeling,” he said.

Once a particular lesson is chosen to be made into a film, the teachers write out the dialogues, select the actors and start rehearsing with them. Once they have learnt up the lines, the shooting begins.

“This way the students get up close and personal with the heroes of our country and will never forget about them,” Vivek Kumar said.

“Learning from the text books by rote and out of fear is not a permanent learning. Children forget what they have learnt,” Prashanth Shukla, an assistant teacher at the school, told Gaon Connection. But, he said, adopting the audio-visual approach to their lessons ensured the children remembered what they had listened to and acted out for a much longer time.

This novel approach to education has shot up admissions in their school that has 160 students now, said Shukla.

Gangasagar, a 60-year-old guardian, said it was a novel experience acting in a movie. “I came to the school and the teachers explained what I had to do. I got ready and acted,” he laughed.

Fifty-year-old Yashodha said she had never bothered with visiting the school where her two daughters studied. “When they came home one day and asked me to act in a movie, I went and did it. I would love to take part in more such projects with the children,” she said. Yashodha was also happy that her girls made sure they never missed school.