Stepping into Odisha is an ambitious outreach for Ganitha Kalika Andolana. Balangir and Rayagada, the programme’s terrain, are two backward districts where learning indicators are not so strong.

Setting the course for GKA’s Odisha chapter was the Master Resource Persons’ (MRPs) training that Akshara conducted for 50 teachers from the two districts. They gathered in sylvan Chikkaballapur outside Bangalore, determined to pursue their new course material as a teaching-learning opportunity.

They were GKA’s MRPs who, as master disseminators, will cascade the training to batches of teachers in Balangir and Rayagada. Surya Narayan Mishra, Deputy Director, Planning and Training, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), hand-picked them from amongst the best and brightest in the districts.

They were Mathematics teachers, youngish, enterprising, with an open mind. Most of them had a BSc and quite a few an MSc with Mathematics as their specialisation.

Akshara’s Master Trainer those five intensive days was a seasoned veteran, – her speciality, Mathematics, training, engagement. The teachers were near-perfect trainees, diligent as students, poring over Akshara’s Training Manual, experimenting with the kit, and listening. Profuse note-taking filled square-lined notebooks, the grid and calculus coming up with speedy precision. GKA’s methodology received extensive treatment. They wrote explanations, underlined crucial points, worked through sums.

By Day 2, they had a deeper sense of the value chain they could create when GKA reached 4600 classrooms and 1,98,000 children.

The training content contained the GKA sweep, with the Trainer explaining the methodology in detail. The CRA Cycle – C for concrete, or the teaching-learning materials (TLMs); R for representational, or procedural clarity; A for abstract, or the ultimate conclusions of Mathematics. The 5E Model of Learning – Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate. Group Learning Strategies, and concepts in the class 1-5 Mathematics syllabus.

“Take children in stages,” the Trainer said. “The first two stages are transit places. You can’t have C, R and A going in different directions. So how will you build your bridge? You develop a relationship with the three stages.”

“I teach in a hinterland school. Children don’t understand how many 10s there are in 100,” a teacher despaired. “Teach with colours, take the abacus, take the number line, the base 10 blocks,” said the Trainer. “Linger over the representational stage, that’s where understanding comes. Reinforce.”

The mood had lightened in the first two or three hours of the training. The unfamiliarity with GKA and its TLMs, the unknowing, had dissolved. Participants erupted in the delight of figuring something out or probed further and questioned, groups of them talking together. The Trainer encouraged it. “The energy of excitement is a positive vibe. If children exult in your Mathematics class, it is a eureka moment. It means they have discovered something.”

The days went by in camaraderie, unlearning and learning, and a spirit of inquiry.

In their feedback forms, teachers marked a vigorous Yes for parameters like: usefulness and effectiveness of the GKA TLM kit; group learning; and training content and design.

They felt they were privileged to be a select group that had mastered GKA’s teaching concepts and understood the importance of the andolan, or movement, they could unleash, and were ready to hit the ground as soon as they reached Odisha.

– Lakshmi Mohan