India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) found it apposite to celebrate Teachers’ day by listening to stories from teachers working at the grassroot level. Grantees under the Art Education programme of IFA presented their unique projects aimed at broadening the horizons of knowledge through arts and community activities in primary schools across Karnataka.
With a series of visually captivating sketches, Arpita R.G., a visual artist who currently teaches in a private school on the outskirts of Bangalore, presented her observations working with government primary school children of Ramalingapura, Sira, Tumkur. In a photo essay titled ‘ Ramalingapuravemba Bharata ’ (An India called Ramalingapura), Arpita captures food recipes, patterns, processes and socio-cultural dynamics resulting from food habits of various communities in the village.
It was difficult to get a complete picture of the food habits of the region initially for Arpita as children hesitated to disclose their non-vegetarian preparations. They worried it would reveal their caste. “However, when I started talking about it,” she said, “each one came up with various preparations from birds, rodents, cat, rabbit and pork.”
Students were then asked to sketch their favourite food item and its journey from farm to plate. Some of their sketches carried enlarged images of corn, groundnut etc. Pointing at a large tortoise, Arpita said, “this boy has purposefully drawn this tortoise larger than the tree because, for him, the focus is tortoise alone.” She feels it is important to retain these unique ways of representation in visual arts as it brings out creativity naturally. Arpita’s experiment to map food patterns of a region taught students: ‘How food can be an entry point to understand the socio-cultural practices of an area and how art can be an effective medium to express it.’
The second story was from Nagaraja M. Hudeda, a government school teacher from Yellapura. Most children to whom he teaches everyday come from the Gowli community who possess a distinct culture and dialect of their own.
“We as teachers were finding it difficult to communicate to these children in Kannada and the lessons often went off their heads. Translation became necessary but none of us knew their language. I thought it best to compile a dictionary that translates words from Gowli to Kannada,” said Nagaraja, showing the final draft of the document. “Along with my students I went from village to village in the Yellapura-Mundargi region after school to talk to people from the community to gather words, meaning and their usage. On most days this exercise would go up to midnight,” he added.
Singing a range of Kolata padas the third grantee Mohan Kumar N. explained how history, myth and ethical principles are ingrained in folk songs.
“Learning these folk songs is fun. It helps children get a peep into the diverse vernacular culture which hardly any textbook details,” said Mohan, who is working with a government school in Haveri.
“I want to explore what these tribes, who we call illiterates, get right which modern education system hasn’t yet understood” Mohan who travels widely throughout the State documenting Kannada folk songs said, “there are 70 different kinds of Kolata padas which, if neglected, the future generations will be deprived of them.”
The three exercises by IFA grantees which have tried to impart education through local language, music and food seem to have touched children’s hearts, making the art of learning easy, fun and relatable.
