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One of the most significant activities which we had planned for our trip to Nagpur was a visit to a central, government middle school in Turia. This visit gave me and my classmates a chance to interact with the students of the school, and to share our perspective on various topics we had learned in school. In order to do so, we divided ourselves into groups and created lesson plans for topics based on our strengths. While some groups were assigned the subjects of mathematics, biology and chemistry, my group was given the opportunity to teach some of the fundamental laws of physics. We created several visual aids, in the form of posters, in order to effectively communicate our understanding of the subject to the students. This activity was essential as it gave us a glimpse into the lives of students living in a rural locality. We learned a great deal about their daily lives as well as their classroom dynamics.

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During the planning stage of our activity we focused only on what we would teach the students. We utilized all of our time searching for topics that we could teach in a simple and effective way, in order to connect with the students of the government school. Another challenge was communicating with them in Hindi. Since I am not fluent in Hindi, I knew I wouldn't be able to teach and interact with the students for longer than five minutes. Therefore, the bulk of the teaching part was given to the students who were articulate Hindi speakers. Aside from assigning the teaching roles, our group did not do any other planning for how we would teach.

Since, we were thorough with the course material, we assumed that the teaching bit would come to us naturally. This proved to be a serious mistake on our part as teachers.

When the time had come for us to visit the Middle School, we were all quite timorous. The idea of speaking in front of a group of forty students was quite nerve wracking, but we reminded ourselves that we were well prepared with our teaching material.  On entering the classroom, we noticed that all the boys and girls sat separately, each group occupying a halve of the classroom.

We began the session with a very brief introduction of ourselves in Hindi, and explained the activity that we had arranged for the students. Looking back, I think that we should have spent more time introducing ourselves and asking some of the students about their backgrounds as well. Talking to the students about our school, and our trip to Nagpur, would have made them more comfortable to ask questions, which would have given us some insight into their lives as well. After the brief intro, we dove straight into the topic assigned to us. We realized immediately that our visual aids were not large enough for the students at the back of the class to view. We all knew very well that we could not compromise on the visual element of our teaching session, because our explanation alone would not allow us to engage our audience in a stimulating, yet enjoyable informative session. What we did have was a large blackboard at our disposal, which we could use to draw diagrams and write formulae. Explaining these diagrams and formulae in Hindi was a tough task. We did not know the Hindi translations for a lot of the jargon used in physics, which caused the presenters to stammer while teaching. Although this did reflect some lack of preparation, we used depictions of physical phenomenon to compensate for this blunder. In addition to this, we made sure to ask questions to our audience to see if they were understanding what we were teaching. The students' enthusiasm to answer our questions, gave us the confidence we needed to continue our lesson. It was incredibly motivating to see their response to our lesson. We encouraged every member of the class to answer a few questions. Although a few of them were a bit hesitant, some were confident enough to come up to the board and write their answer or explanation. It was wonderful to see all our students encouraging one another to go up to the board, and to see equal participation in the activity from the girls and the boys.

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In order to ensure that the students find the teaching session memorable, we put our best efforts into creating visual aids that would make the lesson easy to follow and captivate the students. One thing that we had to keep in mind was that the students of this government school were comfortable with only Hindi and Marathi. We began the process by determining what topics we would teach at the school. My group chose to teach some of the fundamental laws of physics, as it was a topic in which we all had sufficient experience. We made sure to do additional research on the topic, keeping in mind the age group of our audience. This research included going through our current as well as old physics textbooks and watching introductory videos to physics. Websites like Khan academy not only served as a good reference for the content we could add to our visual aids but also gave us a good idea of how to go about explaining the topic in the most simple and clear way possible. Since we would have to do all the explaining in Hindi, we limited the content on our posters to only visual elements (graphs, formulae, etc.) and very few definitions (written in English).

Collaborating with a group of six of my peers, to create just two posters, proved to be somewhat challenging. Initially, the clash of everyone’s ideas, input, and perspective detracted from us as a group. Each member seemed to have a different idea for the content and layout of the poster. In the end, I figured that I would have to compromise, and be more open to some of the others’ ideas, while also making sure that at least some of my ideas were implemented. In the end, we all cooperated and were able to complete our visual aids.

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The main areas in which my team and I required improvement were our Hindi  communication skill and our ability to plan and strategize for an activity as such. If I had practiced teaching in Hindi ahead of time, I would have been able to identify which words I needed to learn. This would reduce the number of times I stammer while teaching, making the lesson more cohesive.
Lastly, putting more time and effort into planning or brainstorming would have made the session more interactive, and comfortable for our audience. In the end, I was quite pleased with the keen response we received from the students.

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This activity taught me a multiple of valuable lessons, including the difference between having knowledge and imparting knowledge. It can be easy for any individual to gain knowledge. Today the internet gives us access to a plethora of resources, making it increasingly convenient for a person to learn new things. But oftentimes, we don't realize how strong our understanding of a certain topic is until it is tested. The best way to put your knowledge to the test is by teaching it to others who have no prior knowledge of the topic. A person who understands a subject almost perfectly can talk about the subject for hours, while also being able to teach others the techniques involved in understanding the subject. Contrastingly, a person who has not yet fully understood a subject, or thinks that they have understood something they haven’t, will have a difficult time explaining it to others. This type of individual will be able to identify what it is that they don’t know by trying to teach others. Therefore, imparting knowledge is the best way to gain or have knowledge.

I’m very grateful for the opportunity to get a glimpse into the lives of students living in a rural locality, through this activity. Some of the most notable aspects of the school we visited include the following. Minimal space was allocated as the school’s sports grounds. In addition to this, the student had to use water pumps to get clean drinking water. Lastly, I noticed that the girls and boys were asked to sit separately in class. This made me realize that there were probably thousands of other rural schools, including this one, that required development to ensure that the girls and boys are receiving equal opportunities in class, and the facilities required to develop their athletic abilities. By visiting, interacting and contributing financially to similar schools, I could help children slowly get the education they deserve. However small the impact may be, it could still make a slight difference in the lives of a few students.