“There has been no revolution in how we teach; change has only crept in with the reach of education and use of technology,” says Vaibhav Devanathan, an ex-student of IIT-Mumbai. He, along with alumni from his alma mater and St. Xavier’s College, have set out to initiate this change.
“I was very interested in the non-conventional uses of humour, because in India, especially, it is uniquely positioned to solve many problems,” says Vaibhav, CEO of the start-up LaughGuru. Their website, laughguru.com, introduces humour into education with an aim to take content, and how it is consumed, to the next level.
“During a discussion, we realised that those of us from an arts background had forgotten many mathematics and science concepts from middle school, while the engineers in the team couldn’t remember the rules that govern grammar,” explains Antara Telang, head of content. Three years of research, reading published academic papers on the subject and ideating, helped develop an interactive curriculum, rife with humour, to help children understand and retain information.
The recently-launched web portal already has around 2500 users, and offers English, Mathematics and Science lessons, besides games, for students from classes 1 to 8, customised according to boards — ICIC, CBSE, SSC, IGCSE and ID.
“Lots of kids are intimidated by books and spend a lot of time with gadgets. So we realised that if we created interactive content on a digital platform, the kid is likely to approach it with less intimidation,” explains Antara.
Basically, they weave a story around a concept and use animated characters with quirky characteristics to help understand a subject. For example, for a lesson on perimeter and area, they introduce a penguin on an ice-berg and give him the problem of having to figure out how many friends he can fit on it for a party.
“We show them the logic behind the formula as opposed to just giving it to them to memorise,” says Antara, adding that punctuating the story with humour, through pop culture and daily life references and dialogues, also helps commit it to memory.
“The biggest challenge,” explains Vaibhav, “is to find out what would be both funny and educative for a child.” As many as 2,500 children from Mumbai, from diverse backgrounds, were tested in different settings — alone, in the classroom, with a teacher — to determine the best way for a child to learn and retain concepts. “The default mode of usage is letting children handle it themselves, with the parent directing lesson plans,” he says, adding that the programme comes with worksheets and score cards to keep track of progress. Though it is intended as a self-study software, Vaibhav says schools and teachers can also adopt it to make traditionally dry topics fun.
The programme, for one academic year, costs anything between Rs. 800 and Rs. 3,500. Signing up for free on the website offers a demo of the breadth of content available, which can be unlocked after payment.
