Selection of School

18/10/2014

Today I visited three schools. First I went to Nobiabad Primary School which I had selected as the experimental school. And then I planned to go to Nazarpur Primary School in search of a control school. But unfortunately I found Nobiabad Primary School in a not-suitable condition.

Nobiabad Primary School:
I was delighted to learn that the Headmistress contacted the members of the school managing committee for a meeting. But when I reached school I found construction work is going on in one of the buildings and the construction materials are piled at one corner of the school ground. Some road work is going on and  a heavy vehicle with sand and bricks is passing through the schoolground and thereby destroying the grassy field.

The Headmistress was very much enthusiastic but now she is quite sceptic mentioning about the play of politics regarding school works.

I had already collected the exam score of the children of this school. Later work requires thoughtful decision making whether or not to use this school as an experimental school.

Nazarpur Primary School:

I thought of it as a potential comparison school but after visiting Nobiabad Primary School I was quite hoping for this school. The teachers are very welcoming and friendly, eager to learn and also improve the present condition of the school. They are quite aware about outdoor learning but there is lack of resources where they ask for our help. But unfortunately the school ground is really small- it measured 127’x142’. But they have some fixed planters in front of the school building.

I was thinking of a larger school ground so that we can have all the behaviour settings and look into which ones are more helpful for learning of curriculum content. In case of a smaller school ground only the mostly used behaviour settings could have been implemented.

The important information that I learnt today is the grading of school. There is a upazilla based grading- A, B and C. The best schools in terms of academic results of students are marked as Grade A schools. We can use this grading as a benchmark to compare experimental and comparison school.

They have a woodland at the back of school and we can use that too.

I have observed the children during lunch break. Usually there is no recess period for children. The second shift class starts at 12:15 and the lunch break is at 1:30. Generally children are not allowed to play in the school ground as this is not valued by the parents who accuse this as idleness of the teachers and that students are not learning properly in school guided by the popular misconception learning occurs in the classroom.

The children go to their home nearby to have lunch and go straight to class after coming back. Today was a bit different as I was talking about the outdoors. The children were allowed by their teachers to play for sometime after lunch. The children are engaged in different types of play. Girls play ‘Rumal Chor’ (The Handkerchief thief) , Bou-chi (Rescuing the bride) etc whereas boys are more interested in running, chase and tag, football, cricket etc. The schoolground is not large enough to hold all these activities together. My experience tells that they play when the school is over and after the teachers leave.

The teachers sometimes take children outdoor to show them different types of plants in their science class. They seemed quite aware but they don’t have the confidence of doing it frequently because of lack of resources and also pressure from local people.

Nurpur Primary School:

The school ground is larger compared to Nazarpur Primary School. But the Headmaster was absent, so we could not talk about the project.

19/10/2014

Primary Training Institute

I went to PTI this morning to talk about the workshop I am planning to arrange with the teachers. I might give a proposal to Innovation Initiative Grant to work with BUET and PTI in the workshop.

The Superintendent is enthusiastic and she was in fact asking me to work with experimental school. However, I could access the library and collect some books for the instructors on how to train teachers to teach science. It might help in the workshop. The new batch of C in Ed will start for January, so we can arrange the workshop in January. However, The main thing is to select the school where we can work.

Kandapara Primary School

I visited Kandapara Primary School this afternoon to look into how the outdoor class is being used now. Its actually used for the pre-primary class and the teachers enjoy teaching there. They would have enjoyed more if there were a shed so that they can use it when it rains too.

I administered the questionnaire with class 3 (Age ranging from 8 to 12). This will be a part of the pilot that I am planning to administer among 100-150 children. Before that I will do a pilot with six children hopefully tomorrow.

20/10/2014

Thana Education Office

I met Thana Education Officer today to seek his opinion and support in the project. As this is a Government school we needed the permission of him as the supervisor of all the schools in a catchment area. He seemed very enthusiastic and promised to offer any help from his team. He voiced for one particular school- Jahangirnagar Primary School but I was un-eager. I will come to this point later on.

He then suggested for some other schools. He took some time to think- there are 201 primary schools under his supervision in this area and my parameters were- a big schoolground and enthusiastic teachers. He will let me know on the 22^nd about his selection based on discussion with the Assistant Thana Education Officers.

I then set out to visit the schools he suggested.

Khakchok Primary School

Nicely located by the main road this school has enthusiastic teachers, most of them instantly recognized my face which resembled their favourite teacher and my father. In fact this is the case with many of the teachers in this area who were once my father’s students in the Primary Training Institute.

Anyway, the teachers are very enthusiastic here but I was worried about the size of the school ground- a triangular shaped not very large (what is large according to this research or me is not defined yet?). But this school can act as a control school if we work with Tulatuli Primary School.

Tulatuli Primary School

1)      The school has a regular square shape ground measuring 90mX90m (approx.).

2)      The teachers seemed very enthusiastic; especially the Headmaster is a young energetic man. He assured to convey any help with the research if I implement it there.

3)      An important issue is the number of students. There are 97 students is class three. They are generally taught in two separate sections divided based on even and odd roll numbers (this is based on the outcome in the annual exam).

In case of such a larger sample what we can go for a random sampling for our experimental group and comparison (control) group from the same school. We can only work with the experimental group but the thing is the control group will have the designed school ground though they wont be using it for learning curriculum contents but may use for play which we cannot control.

Having the control group from the same school might neutralize the factors related to teacher quality (as the same teacher can take the classes) and also the checking of exam paper, the same teacher will give the marks.

I wandered if we need another control in that case too!!

21/10/2014

Sreerampur Model School (Piloting the questionnaire)

I pilot tested the questionnaire with six children from class three and class four. They read each question and answered them. I told them to ask me if they find difficulties to understand the meaning of any question. I also asked them what each question meant to them. They seemed to understand the meaning though they did not speak out much about what they think about the meaning.

They asked about one question- about being physically active and learning through movement.. This was the case with the children from Edinburgh too. I then tried to translate it into a more simple Bangla and they got it.

I also piloted the teachers’ questions with 5 teachers of the school. The teachers of this school are quite enthusiastic and in fact the Headmaster wanted to have an outdoor class in his school right after seeing my Master Project in Kandapara Primary School in the same upazilla. I asked the teachers if they find any question difficult for children to understand. The teachers also told about the same question the students mentioned- being active and learning through movement. I also asked them if they can suggest any easy Bengali synonym for that term. I gave them several options too. As both the parties agreed on the same issue now I can change the words to make it easier and understandable.

JahangirNagar Primary School

The reason I rejected the school at first instant is that a pilot project is already running in that school. Generally the Government Primary Schools has six classes- Pre Primary to Primary 5. Only in this school in this upazilla there is Primary 6 and Primary 7 based on the newer education policy. Thana education officer voiced for this school because in near feature all the schools will have P6 and P7 if this pilot is successful. I don’t know about the parameters of this project which I can ask the Primary and Mass Education Ministery. This might be a good reason for choosing this school thinking of near future and also introduction of outdoor learning in a school where the new education policy is implemented.

The school has some added qualities too-

1)      The school ground measures 41mX44m, bigger than any other school I visited (thinking of easy communication, school ground size and teacher quality)

2)      Efficient Headmaster about whom the TEO highly spoke of

3)      The number of students in P3 is 78 who we can divide randomly into treatment and control groups.

If we need to have an additional control school I wondered whether we can choose another primary school here as no other school has P6 and P7.

23/10/2014

Thana Education Officer called me today to let me know about his choice for the work. His first choice is still Jahangirnagar Primary School, yet he has given it a thought and come out with a name which has a bigger school ground and enthusiastic head teacher.

Its Rahimabad Primary School. I came to Dhaka yesterday and the school is closed tomorrow. I need to visit this school before I take any decision about the school. If the school ground is bigger than Tulatuli Primary School and I am convinced after talking with the teachers about their enthusiasm and concern for the development of outdoors as  a context and tool for learning we might go for this school.

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From the above observations I shortlisted Jahangirnagar Primary School and Tulatuli Primary School. I will visite Rahimabad Primary School to make a decision over Tulatuli.