Every afternoon has been exciting ever since I started going to Adult Literacy Campaign (ALC). Oh.. wait.. before you start speculating on my age, I am a teacher there.
A select few inmates at helL take time off their busy studies schedule to spread the light of knowledge in the lives of many illiterate daily wage/contract workers at the college. I belong to that select few who are interested not only in making our lives meaningful but others’ too.
The workers make a living by working as sweepers, room cleaners, safai karamchari, etc. They come from nearby villages and work under a few contractors. They can be seen at work in the mornings polishing the roads with the brooms and ensure that the campus is clean. The helL never sleeps, but we come to know its day when we see them on campus. They go home in the evening as satisfied as ever having done something good for people to live.
Some work in the mess as employees of the student owned mess. Mess workers stay on campus itself in the accommodation provided to them.
The workers take time off in their lunch time (12-1 pm) to learn something useful. They come eagerly to the classes murmuring yesterdays learning. Some are learning Hindi, some learn English, numbers and so on. Their age varies from twenties to fourties. Each one is learning the different levels of those subjects. So there are books available from preliminary levels to essay writing. The class starts by revising the previous days learnings, checking homeworks and then proceeding to the learning for the day.
The workers are enthusiastic to learn. They keep asking doubts though there are no class participation marks. They come to class on time tough there is no penalty for coming late. They do assignments though there are no marks for them.
A few instances have been there that have made me wonder why we, the educated mass, are not like them. They question every point that’s is taught to them. Their inquisitiveness needs to be applauded.
Once I was teaching an elderly student in her late fourties. I call her deedi. She is learning english. Till now she has finished the alphabets and is learning words. She is learning to spell at least 5 words for each alphabet.
English is a difficult language to learn for us Indians. We are accustomed to alphabets that represent sounds, i.e. a, aa, e,ee, etc. English is not so. It needs practice and a lot of by heart learning to write english. It is a very difficult task for a person in her fourties to mug up so much of spellings. I asked her to write ELEPHANT. she started enthusiastically by writing an A. She said this is A and elephant should start with it. I was amused and wanted to know what more surprises she has for me. So I let her proceed. She wrote L, I and then comes F, A,N,T. She says ALIFANT is elephant. I didn’t have words to speak. So huge is the influence of Indian language on learning English.
She was learning words like a for apple, ant, etc. She was finding it difficult to relate words and keep their spellings in mind. So I decided to make her study in a different manner. I let her group similar items and learn their spelling than going in an alphabetical order.
I asked her to write the names of animals. She went on writing the names of animals she knew. Tiger, lion, cat, dog, etc. Then I asked her to write fish. Then she started recollecting more names. Suddenly out of the blue she wrote carrot. I didnt find any logic why a vegetable should feature in list of animals. I asked her " what happened deedi?, how has carrot come here?" she said, we are writing names of eatables no? we wrote fish and next is carrot. I hadn’t believed when many people earlier said its difficult to learn when you are old, your memory will be short.
All these small instances have made my life a bit more spicy. Now I too go to ALC with great enthusiasm.
