Ever since the pandemic struck, every day has been an opportunity for the Meghshala Sikkim team to grow, find new strategies, and continue trying to support our teachers and students.
These last few months, we have witnessed a series of drastic changes in our implementation plans, and though there have been some disappointments, we also have personally been able to experience the beauty of community.
Earlier this year, the Meghshala Sikkim Team had conducted a refresher training across all four districts. In a bid to maintain the bond we had worked so hard to create with the teachers of Sikkim, our team came together to show their support and grow our community this month with what would later become the highlight in these dark times: virtual training sessions.
The training was designed to support teachers in elevating their online classroom experiences by showing them new resources for teaching and assessment; provide a platform where teachers could share their concerns and problems and find appropriate solutions; and ensure continued incorporation of the activities from Meghshala lessons from offline to online classes. Though each session was unique, it showed us, as facilitators, one common thing- how much our teachers needed a safe space to share, listen and learn from each other.
Despite the challenges of inconsistent internet connectivity owing to the fact that many of our teachers lived in rural areas, we had a total of 80 teachers sign up, with a few more trickling into our online community even now. So far, in the last two weeks, we have successfully trained over forty committed and passionate teachers who’ve reinstilled our hopes in trying to form nurturing relationships between Meghshala and the people of Sikkim.
During the pandemic, it sometimes feels like the creativity, ability and progress of the entire world has been put into cold storage. It has often been very difficult to analyze one’s impact and contribution towards making this era more supportive and bearable for all. After a rocky start due to a few failed attempts, my team and I did struggle to find motivation, purpose, and value amidst all this. Nevertheless, we decided to keep on trying, without worrying about the result. Looking back, I feel like it was this uncertainty that really helped in keeping the team together, making possible the results that we are proud to share today and ensuring our success was all the more sweeter.
Teachers have reacted to the virtual training by repeatedly reaching out to us for support, implementing our training material into their classrooms, recommending our services to colleagues and sending us positive comments. For example, teachers were excited to learn about platforms like Google Forms and how they could be used as tools of assessment.
Receiving this positive feedback has been instrumental in building our community here again and our next goal with these trainings is to take them further to more teachers in Sikkim.
As a community, we are all trying to figure this out together and our team in Sikkim has only gotten more confident that we will be ready to continue providing our support; so that when all this ends and schools reopen again, Meghshala has already become a familiar and comforting supplement in classrooms across our tiny, Himalayan state.
- By Simrin Tamhane, Implementation Manager - Sikkim
Meghshala