Pedagogical Approach and Processes
While recognising the limitations of a perspective that only views the preschool as a preparatory period for primary schooling, MAYA also perceives the critical need for an approach that offers an advantage to children from socially disadvantaged communities by facilitating a meaningful learning experience from an early age. It is well-known that enrolment to school is not a natural transition for these children, thereby necessitating an environment that supports learning that is relevant and useful to that context. Moreover, if enrolled to school, the argument of education for education's sake does not translate into a life support tool or empowerment for these children; since the quality of education accessible to them at the local Govt School is most often limited and disconnected to the existing market realities.
It is believed that for learning to be truly empowering, there is a need to focus on building capabilities of individuals and enhancing the relevance of education, rather than on promoting rote-learning in an instructive manner. MAYA has attempted to integrate this perspective of learning in its approach to early childcare; thereby redefining the process of training which forms an integral part of capacity building processes of teachers as well as the community. Having identified the local volunteers as teachers (a young woman from the community or a young mother) MAYA as the facilitating organization, supports them in a manner garnering their skills to be new age ECCE practitioners in their own communities of dwelling, taking care and nurturing their young.
Teacher:
The training of teachers, an ongoing process, includes three main aspects: Centre management, Health and Learning, is conducted on a regular monthly basis for every cluster, supported by weekly follow up sessions of teacher circle meetings. Ongoing teacher training also provides a space for teachers to reflect on how to better their skills and overall learning levels of their children. The varying background of teachers often ensures that we only begin from where they are and not at an externally determined level. For instance every cluster facilitator is also responsible for their own teacher training, knowing each teacher's learning level and where to begin from. Teachers during the weekly two hour session at the teacher circle get together at a cluster preschool to undertake planning for their preschools; sharing and problem solving; documentation and using it as a space towards learning new concepts with help of older or lead teachers.
Every cluster is supported by a lead teacher who has had the experience of organizing a centre with the community and is now able to share that experience with teachers who require support to do the same and have been newly initiated to the training programme. Every twenty five to thirty centres are supported by a lead teacher- a teacher who has been with the ECCE programme for a significant period of time and now supports and strengthens other centres by partaking in organizing community processes; regular monitoring and ongoing maintenance related issues.
The centre management related aspects are spread over first initial months; interspersed with sessions over health and learning which ensure expected learning outcomes and transactions of children within the classroom. The framework of training encompasses various concepts, practices and processes to be undertaken by the community in supporting the learning and care of their children. Every practice is undertaken as an aspect for the teachers to be trained on and to derive a framework for the process to be undertaken in the community jointly by the facilitator and the teacher.
The classroom:
On keeping with the parental expectations we organize the entire day in an eclectic manner deriving an organic approach which is appropriate to meeting these expectations. For instance, the theme of the week provides ground to help children recognize and make their own meanings of the theme and its related concepts. A typical day at the preschool flows through- free play, talk time, reading & writing, break, lunch, creative activity and group games which provides a framework for teachers to initialise work with thirty children.
The concepts though drawn from the list organized by parents and teachers together are initially structured into sessions to help teacher plan and prepare for better understanding about the concept. The classroom sessions are in effect an initializing tool for the teachers to get an understanding of how a classroom can be organized reaching out to as many as thirty young children. Progressively the teachers are encouraged to work without this tool and be more fluid (free flowing) in their approach at engaging with various concepts. Most teachers over a period of time are encouraged to take contextually relevant themes and organize activities and discussions around it in a manner which flows from one session to the other –the objective clearly being to enhance the ability of children to recognize and comprehend concepts, building their own meanings of concepts related to the theme.