Your Zakat transforms 12,000 students' learning

Dear friend, 

Hello! Ans and I are Fellows teaching at a public school in Bara Kahu on the outskirts of Islamabad. We teach Science, Geography, English, and History to 86 bright and inquisitive 6^th and 7^th grade boys. Our goal has been to improve students’ academic and social-emotional outcomes, alongside a deep focus on creating a joyful and engaging learning experience for our students. In just 6 months, and with your help, our students learning has grown by 2 academic years! 

We’re all in this together! 

Upon entering our classroom, Ans and I found that our students were 3 years behind their actual grade-level. They would not work in collaboration with others, and were bogged down by low expectations of themselves and their future. Knowing that team-work and a welcoming environment is instrumental in a positive classroom culture and subsequently improved outcomes, my co-Fellow and I got to work. 

Through your donations, we purchased resources such as stationery, chart papers, story books and printed materials, which we used to create a Classroom Management system based on positive reinforcement. We incentivized students each time they displayed positive behaviour – especially team-work – and linked this to our Leader Board which delegated responsibilities to students. The reward system along with increased ownership in classroom management pushed them to work harder, and in no time 22 out of 58 students had made it to the Leader Board! Our students learned that team-work and discipline are rewarded, and now work together to create a positive class culture. 

Reaching for the stars

Our school, like many in underserved rural communities, experiences a dearth of resources and supplies, especially for teaching and promoting STEM subjects. Students were unable to take part in competitions simply because they did not have access to basic learning materials and science kits. With the funds that friends like you have given to Teach For Pakistan, Ans and I purchased materials to help students conduct science experiments.

As our students’ confidence and interest grew, we decided to enter the 2023 STEAM Competition in Islamabad. The materials you helped provide enabled them to create the Nail Bed project and win the competition! 

Previously, students were unable to avail these opportunities due to lack of resources – now, however, they do not see this as an obstacle in their growth and learning. Initially, our students were three grade levels behind in Science, but have now progressed by one grade level, all after a few months of teaching and access to basic supplies. This access has also changed our students’ attitudes: they now want to learn as much as they can through experiments and projects, and push themselves to create them independently knowing they have the support of resources to enable them.

Your support to Teach For Pakistan has enabled over 150 other teachers like us to open up new opportunities for thousands of students. It is as a result of your contributions that our students can dream of what they wish, and believe that they will be supported in every which way. 

With hope that your support to us continues, 

Teach For Pakistan Fellows Muhammad Ali and Ans Iqbal

March, 2023

• Full report in PDF (PDF)
  

Dear Partners,

With the New Year fast approaching, we hope you are able to look back at the past one with joy and delight, and the new one with renewed vigor and hope for all it could be. The past few months at Teach For Pakistan have been incredibly exciting, and have shown us the potential of our community on several accounts. We currently have 155 Fellows teaching 10,167 students across public schools in rural communities on the outskirts of Islamabad. With our presence in around 14% of the capital’s public schools, we are enabling a system-wide change in the quality of education that our most marginalized children receive. This is made possible through your support. Owing to your contributions, Fellows are able to procure materials and resources that transform classrooms into spaces of learning and multiple opportunities, tying into their larger pedagogical strategies that ensure excellent outcomes for students.

Many of our Fellows have identified innovative methods to overcome learning barriers within their classrooms by leveraging materials and resources made available through your support. These methods also solve for other challenges within the classroom, ones that must be addressed to create a conducive learning environment for our students.

Below is a look into some of these initiatives taken up by our Fellows.

Enabling positive behavior for a culture of excellence

Fellow Hafiz Shahbaz teaches 9^th and 10^th grade boys in a school in Nilore. When he started teaching, he noticed a lack of discipline among his students. Concerned about how to approach the matter with a senior class, Shahbaz decided to reinforce and reward positive behavior instead of punishing negative behavior. He understood that lack of discipline is not an issue within and of itself but part of a larger classroom culture that affects student motivations and outcomes. To address this, Shahbaz purchased medals and trophies that would  be awarded to students based on their discipline and academic progress. Shahbaz noticed an immediate shift in his students’ attitudes and saw the power of encouraging and fostering positive aspects of classroom culture instead of relying on fear and punishment for the negative. He saw that his students were now more disciplined and had also improved their academic outcomes, effectively tackling two challenges through one intervention. His students have now also started to hold one another accountable for their behavior, and students not taught by Shahbaz have requested the same be done for them in their classrooms!

With access to just one kind of resources, Shahbaz was able to create an environment reliant on encouragement and that would supplement his teaching methods.

Learning a language – resources to improve literacy

Fellow Shakira teaches English to eager 6^th and 7^th grade girls in Tarnol, and she found that her students were curious and motivated to learn more of and about the subject. Shakira decided to engage her students in an activity to cultivate their curiosity and desire to learn. Aware that the most effective way to learn a new language is through auditory aids, she purchased a speaker through which she would play jingles and short conversations that students could learn from. This allowed her students to learn new words and expressions faster than if they learned them conventionally. To grow students’ interest in other areas, Shakira used the speakers to play audio as an accompaniment to mindfulness and reflection exercises meant to help students focus, and has also showed them a documentary on Samina Baig – the first Pakistani woman to climb Mt. Everest – as a supplement to curriculum work from their textbooks. With the addition of just one extra resource to her classroom, Shakira noticed increased engagement from her students in classroom activities!

Creating a vision for a better tomorrow

Fellow Pallavi teaches the 4^th grade in a school in Bhara Kahu. She noticed behavioral and discipline issues among her students, and thought to combat these through activities to engage and instill a sense of responsibility in them. Pallavi created a classroom vision and song that was meant to reorient students towards their learning journey and promise of growth. Having these resources in her classroom was a constant reminder for students to anchor themselves in their vision and to set the tone for the day. As a result of this, Pallavi noticed that her students have embarked on their journey to becoming independent learners with a strengthened degree of confidence, curiosity, and empathy. Her students are now more engaged and ready to learn, and start off each day by grounding themselves in a hopeful vision of what could be.

The academic year has only just begun and our Fellows have already found ways to support their students in improving their academic and non-academic outcomes. Their work is sustained by your unwavering support, and we hope to take you along many other Fellows' and students' journeys in the future! 

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Dear Partners, 

I hope you've had a blessed Eid with your loved ones. On behalf of Teach For Pakistan, I thank you for your generosity in ensuring that over 9,700 students have access to the learning resources they need. Our students, with whatever stationary, reading material, and learning resources they have, are already on the path to participating in an excellent education. With your help, they will learn without the worry of limited access to basic learning resources. 

Teach For Pakistan is working to expand opportunities for our children and to also expand and deepdn our impact across schools  and school systems in Islamabad. In June, 37 second-year and third-year Fellows successfuly completed their Fellowship and joined our Alumni movement that is working across Pakistan's system to bring the voices of our most critical partners - our students and their parents -  to the most important decision-making platforms of the country.

Meanwhile, our now second-year Fellows are gearing up for the new academic year to begin in August. These  34 young men and women will continue their journeys in 21 of Islamabad's schools to teach their bright and brilliant 3,370+ students. 

This report provides an overview of Teach For Pakistan's work since April and also give you, our partners, a peek into three of our classrooms. 

The 2020 cohort's Community Partnership Projects 

Community Partnership Projects are small scale initiatives undertaken in the second year of Fellowship and are designed to address the most salient barriers to learnings in classrooms. This time around, given the exacerbation and accumulation of learning losses due to COVID 19, a large proportion of the Community Partnership Projects focused on building literacy and numeracy in their students, the benefits of which extend to the communities and schools in which the Fellows are placed as well. 

The 13 projects targeted numeracy, literacy, independent learning and critical thinking in students, and included classroom, school and community libraries, remedial support for students, student extra-curricular clubs and specialized support for teachers. Many of these projects continue beyond the Fellowship and have been handed over to community members and school staff for implementation.

Girls conquer the STEM Olympiad!

On the 16th of April, Teach For Pakistan conducted a first-of-its-kind STEM Olympiad where 800+ students were in attendance. The day was packed with intense competitions where teams from 28 FDE schools showcased their confidence and academic prowess in English, Math, Science, and General Knowledge. Our participants had spent months in preparation with their Teacher-Fellows for the Grand Finale of the Olympiad. Since our students do not get the opportunity to competitively participate in academic competitions, we witnessed excitement, joy, and confidence among our students. The participating students were cheered on by their peers, parents, teachers, principals. After some nail-biting buzzer round competitions coupled with incredibly amounts of support, two teams emerged victorious at the STEM Olympiad. 

Welcoming 110+ Fellows to the Movement!

As the 2021 cohort prepares to begin their second second year in school, Teach For Pakistan welcomed its largest-ever cohort to begin their Fellowship. These bright and inspired young men and women are engaging in an immersive and intensive six-week induction training with Teach For Pakistan before they are placed in their schools. This cohort is the most diverse one in Teach For Pakistan's history, hailing from over forty districts across Pakistan and over 39 universities within and outside Pakistan! This will mean that Teach For Pakistan supports and partners with more students, schools, and communities than ever before. 

Fellow Sheeba's students inching closer to realizing their dreams

In August 2021, when Sheeba first stepped into her 9^th grade classroom, she was welcomed by 162 bright young women eager to learn from their new Math teacher. When she first began teaching, she conducted a vision exercise with her students for them to set goals for where they want to be at the age of 25. Many of her students set ambitious professional goals for themselves but did not know the steps that led to realizing them. Given that Sheeba teaches higher grades, her students’ dreams seemed closer and so she set out to enable her students to get on the path to achieve them. She invited a couple of students from National University of Science and Technology (NUST) for a day-long career counselling session.

The goal was to break down their ambitions into achievable and realistic steps that they must start taking in the next couple of years. Through this day-long session, Sheeba’s students learnt how they could become pilots, scientists, journalists, teachers, and in turn requested their teacher to create more opportunities such as this. She consequently planned for deeper and more frequent counselling sessions for her students in the second year of her Fellowship. 

Nilore's writers-in-the-making

Ushna Fawad (2021) teaches English to 6^th and 7^th graders in IMCG Nilore. As she was working on grammar with her students, she noticed that her students would routinely share stories of their daily lives with her, except that they did it verbally. This is when she decided to give her students a prompt in each class and ensure that they express themselves on paper. By the close of the academic year in June, Ushna’s students use pen and paper to express themselves and one of her students even wrote a story about Ushna, complete with 5 chapters, and all she’s learnt from her. Moreover, the young writer requested that her teacher give feedback on the story so she can improve even further. 

Maria, Oneir, and Syeda’s ‘favorite student’ 

In IMSG Sangjiani, Fellows Maria, Syeda, and Oneir taught 4^th and 5^th graders for two years. Throughout their Fellowship journey, they were asked routinely by their students who their favorite student was. In anticipation, their students would predict this periodically based on who had performed academically or otherwise better than others in the classroom. On their last day at school, much to the students’ surprise, the Fellows told their students that they would finally disclose this information to the whole class. As part of the last day of their Fellowship, packed with activities, the Fellows had brought a box with candies and a mirror inside that the students would observe one at a time to find out who their teachers’ favorite student was. The picture below revealed their favorite student!

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