Her place under the sun

Educationist Geeta Dharmarajan on her recipe to promote critical thinking in children

February 11, 2015 08:19 pm | Updated 08:21 pm IST - New Delhi

Geeta Dharmarajan, writer and founder of Katha, at Shangri-la. Photo: V. Sudershan

Geeta Dharmarajan, writer and founder of Katha, at Shangri-la. Photo: V. Sudershan

During these gruelling winter months in Delhi, one has forever prayed for a spot of sun. Café Uno in New Delhi’s Shangri-La’s Eros Hotel has sun dancing on its sprawling sit-out overlooking a lawn at lunch time. Well, what more can you ask for!

I am with Katha founder Geeta Dharmarajan, yet another reason to feel sunny about. What more can be uplifting than hearing someone talk so excitedly about bringing our children forward, particularly the slum children, for a better tomorrow through education that is focused on creative and critical thinking. I particularly want to talk about the road map she charted out two years ago with Katha’s one-of-a-kind initiative I Love Reading by joining hands with the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE). But first things first. Lunch has to be ordered. Sanjeev of Café Uno presents himself at the table with a smile. The youngman shows his customer care skills, by first organising for us a sun umbrella, then suggesting what we should go for after considering our taste and appetite.

Dharmarajan is all for a light bite, “something that you can eat while talking.” Sanjeev suggests she goes for the Mediterranean vegetarian mezze platter along with a soup. She puts her finger on a vegetarian minestrone soup. The conversation easily swerves to how starting the day with a good breaker makes a working lunch really work, and Dharmarajan says she is a good South Indian that way, “Two idlis and molhahai podi in the morning and I am set for the day.” How we are so much a product of our upbringing!

In terms of children’s storybooks too, she points out that kids tend to relate to what have been made available to them. Same as what food is regularly put on the table at home. Initially, the stories the participating children wrote for the I Love Reading initiative, she relates, “had an Enid Blyton tone.”

“This year, we saw a marked change. We have been encouraging our children to look around them and write stories about things they can relate to, our own stories. It seems to be working,” she says. Though this initiative, Katha promotes creative writing and translation among students of the CBSE run schools. Students are selected on the basis of their story-telling potential and helped to hone their skills further, first in a regional workshop and thereafter in a national workshop held in New Delhi under the guidance of professional authors and illustrators. This year also saw six international authors and illustrators mentoring the participants along with their Indian counterparts with help from the Ministry of External Affairs.

Dharmarajan says over 600 schools are making use of the initiative. “An Oman-based CBSE school also took part in this year’s edition. The idea is also to encourage Bhasha writing in children. We are conscious of the fact that sometimes we end up appreciating the use of language more than that of noticing creativity in children or their critical thinking. We want to bring out their creativity hiding under grammar and syntax, under concepts like adverbial clauses and gerunds,” says the Padmashri, between sips of the warm soup delivered at the table with a basket of bread rolls, cheese, virgin oil and tomato salsa.

Katha’s approach has been two-pronged. Publish storybooks that tell stories from across the country, and help hone not just the reading habits of children through “their own stories” but also “give them a platform to learn to write and get published.”

Publishers of quality children’s books in English are few in India. Katha is one of them. Alongside running schools that reach out to 70,000 slum children across Delhi, and help hone creativity in 50,000 children in MCD schools, Katha — now on its 27th year — has hundreds of titles in children’s books section brought out in Hindi and English through its wing Kathakaar.

While one can buy these books from its bookshop on Aurobindo Marg and also online through its website, they are made available to underprivileged children through book clubs in their community schools and the MCD schools they collaborate with. “The aim is to introduce reading for pleasure in a school environment. Each child is given a passbook where h/she has to write two lines about the book read,” she informs.

In between arrives the mezze platter. Pita breads, baba ganoush, hummus, pickled vegetables, beetroot curd, falafel, taboulleh…it looks sumptuous! Dharmarajan likes the taste too. She recalls there was a time she would cook regularly. “I am not even a weekend cook now; I hardly get time. My children and husband say I was good,” she smiles.

The conversation returns to I Love Reading. In the coming edition, more and more North East schools will be included in the programme.

“So far, we have been able to reach out to other parts of the country. We now want to concentrate on the NE schools, also the Andamans. For some reason, we have not been able to highlight our island culture,” she says.

The initiative also focuses on teacher training. Sipping a frothy post-lunch cappuccino, Dharmarajan gives an example of what should change in our education system,

“While standing in the voters queue on February 7 at a primary school in Adchini, I saw a letter on the blackboard addressed to the principal seeking leave from school by a student. It starts with, ‘I beg to request’ and ends with, ‘yours respectfully’. If we train our teachers well, they will stop teaching such archaic language to our children and that itself will go a long way.”

Till the coffee gets over, the banter continues, from effective teacher training to plans for Katha’s Chitrakala festival this July, to the dedication of the 20,000 women volunteers of Katha in Delhi slums “who ensure that their children attend school”.

The upshot of it is a handful of hope basking in the warmth of that afternoon sun.

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