By Hamna Aamir | Senior Associate, Development and Partnerships
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 9th and 10th 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 6th and 7th 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 4th 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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By Sahar Gul | Program Associate
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