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Ahmednagar school featured in NCERT manual for mixing art, games with academics
Incorporating art and games into academics has landed a small school from Ahmednagar a place in the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT)
Incorporating art and games into academics has landed a small school from Ahmednagar a place in the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) guidelines on Art Integrated Learning (AIL).
The Bandgar Wasti Zilla Parishad School in Karjat taluka, Ahmednagar, has been mixing drawing, games, performing arts with academics for the past 10 years, thanks to the efforts of Vikram Adsul, a teacher who has been working at the school since 2009. Most students of the school are from nomadic communities.
After looking at how the school’s methodology helped improve students’ learning outcomes, NCERT chose to feature its students in the guidelines and also trained Adsul in AIL.
“I was already using a lot of techniques to make learning more fun for our students. In 2018 I got to know that this [AIL] is a widely acknowledged and practiced method. I was lucky that I got an opportunity to work with others who have studied these methods in detail. It was a great feeling to see our students, who come from very backward areas being featured on the first page of the [NCERT] document,” said Adsul, who won the national award for teachers in 2019.
The 84-page NCERT guidelines document features an image of the school students displaying art work they made using ink and empty pen refills.
While the document has been uploaded online for teachers and practitioners to understand the pedagogy, it has also been made a part of the National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA), a training initiative of the department of school education and literacy.
Adsul said the methodology has helped the students. “It has made achieving learning outcomes for mathematics and science easier. For instance, we teach geometry formulae with the help of songs and history through role play,” he said.
Most students of Bandgar Wasti Zilla Parishad School have to walk a long distance to reach it and Adsul’s innovative techniques have made the school popular among locals.
