Teach India Campaign - some thoughts

My experience

I recently went to the Teach India induction session. While I was surprised by the unprofessional attitude strewn everywhere in a campaign supported by a newspaper that I hold in such high esteem, a few things made me question the concept for its true value. 

The professionals who came were treated like laypeople, which was completely appalling. Sloganeering and basic instructions are meant for general public, and not professionals. While I agree there were quite a few laypersons, the organizers should have atleast done some homework & segregated volunteers on basis of their skills.

When running a non-profit campaign, one needs to utilize manpower to its maximum efficiency, to the point of exploiting it. Here, everybody was on the same table, with ideas being thrown at random, and motivation being provided by sloganeering. I would hardly be encouraged, if not thoroughly discouraged to participate. That is a fact on which Im still undecided. I would very much like to contribute to the campaign, and I do not think that the organizers can afford to provide the volunteers with any support. The volunteers better own up & support the campaign with their funds / manpower. But it is higly imperative to channel resources (read volunteers) on basis of their skills.

Skilled volunteers may be utilized for planning, phasing, curriculum development, etc. while general volunteers may go on field. It is not to say that everybody shouldnt be allowed on the field. On the contrary, the planners should go to field first in order to understand WHAT to plan for.

I found quite a few highly skilled professionals who could have contributed much more in their time, if they were not simply herded into the field with no idea of what to do.

Teach India: A wiki?

The second point that i am trying to make is that while there will be documentation of the entire campaign, it will be in bits & parts. What the organizers could have pulled off as an achivement would be to pool all the collected knowledge and post it on the internet, just like Wikipedia. The experiences of volunteers, teaching methods, course / curriculum, management and umpteen other things, when collected like a wiki, by original contributors / volunteers in their own words, would create a true revolution.

In addition, the organizers would then have an ever expanding document which they could discuss with the right authorities in order to challenge / improvise / contribute to the current education system at large. This, I believe, must be the true aim of the campaign.

I felt that the ultimate aim of the entire exercise was NIL. It may be a blue-hearted campaign, but to an audience, presented in the way it is right now, it looks just like a publicity stunt, where any layperson can gain some media time by teaching a few hours here & there. The entire direction of the campaign seems lost, and skillsets are being wasted.

The campaign does have a website, which is down most of the times, and when it is working, there is hardly any activity. I would blame the organizers, for they are hardly advertising the fact that the website is not just an information source; it is a place to interct with others during the campaign. The loss of this crucial information in the advertisements renders the website  useless for the said purpose.

Focus

The third point is that every person is skilled to handle some particular exercise / knowledge. While the campaign provides freedom to choose whatever one wishes, it fails completely to provide support in order to channel that knowledge in a way that volunteers may successfully teach it. They said in the induction program: "We are here to make teachers out of you." At the end of the session, i was still struggling to understand why I had spent 2 hours, and what had come out of it. I was only told the basic set of instructions, and told I would be contacted later to be told where I have to go. I was in no way told how my specific skill may be utilized, what could i add to the pool, where would I be better suited, and so many other questions that i had.

The organizers might allege that i could have told all this to them, but i did not find any audience, simply because they were overwhelmed with the number of volunteers; and more importantly, at no point of time did they make an honest effort to let everybody be heard. The entire question answer session lasted the length of filming, and I dont have to tell you what feeling it gave me....

While i completely respect the institution and the effort, i have seen many a campaigns go awry because of incomplete / unprofessional planning. I hope this one does not go in the dumps...