THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: They could give you tips on cauliflower cultivation, how to turn into a good blogger and on ways to make soaps in that perfect oval shape. They tell you what goes into the making of a detergent, how to feed chicks and the difficulties in the post-production business of film-making. Children in our schools are a basket of skills and ideas and not textbook-mongers anymore. They are enthusiasm-packed when it comes to learning new things and being part of the ‘project culture’ mooted by experts in the education field. They have realised that real learning happens outside classrooms. It could be attributed to an alarming drop of students or an effort to reinvent itself in an age where students love computers more than teachers, the schools in the city have no dearth of activities to engage the little ones. And the kids have lapped it up all. From poultry-rearing and paddy farming to making soaps or creating designs in fabric paints, with a gentle push, the children do it all. It was the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) that kicked off a season of ‘projects’ in schools. The ‘Earn and learn,’ ‘Galileo Little Scientist,’ ‘Ente maram,’ ‘School-il oru pachakari thottam,’ ‘Thelima’ and the biggest of the lot, ‘Mikavu’, where schools competed with their own projects, added spice to the drab classroom hours. Though SSA turned idle later in prompting schools to do more, many of the schools had by then tasted the enthusiasm these activities offered. In the heart of the city on the MG Road, at the oldest English school in the capital - SMV Higher Secondary School - the children vie with each other to show off their vegetable farms to a visitor. But a couple of children are engaged in a rare occupation here. The State Poultry Development Corporation had given them a few chicks which the children are rearing at home. They are learning the first lessons in earning by selling the eggs. “The boys are so excited that they have been inspiring many others to take to poultry farming,” says Vasanthakumar, staff secretary of the school. At the Cotton Hill Higher Secondary School for Girls, the farming experiments are very much on. But how many people know that a small unit of girls here makes and sells soaps, lotions and detergents for use in the school and for students to take home. “It was a project under the SSA’s ‘Earn and learn’ scheme. The Gandhi Darshan club of the school took classes from the Swadeshi team of Gandhi Bhavan and started making the items. We can’t meet the demand now in school,” says a beaming Priyakumari, teacher in the school who heads the unit.
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