learning

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Learning with limited resources

Café Swotha near Patan Durbar Square, Nepal

I’ll never forget a meeting over tea in 2016 at Cafe Swotha near where we stayed in Patan. 

Collaborative Schools Network in Nepal (CSN) was just getting underway with a novel approach to improving the poorest schools. We’ve since tried to support CSN, mostly as cheerleaders on the side, but also through visits to CSN schools, video meetings, collaboration on writing, editing curricula, as well as donations. This year marked the tenth year of operation for CSN and our collaboration.

Collaborative Schools Network

CSN works through a unique partnership agreement with local government. It manages all the day-to-day operations. Local government pays for up to 50% of the costs. Two of the team are appointed as School Leaders, who work in each (primary level) school as full-time members of the staff. School Leaders teach, coach, and lead a school improvement plan alongside the existing teachers and school principal.

The plan has four priorities: improving the quality of teaching, management, community relations, and infrastructure. It achieves systemic, scalable, and sustainable change by working within the existing public education system, alongside government and at a low cost.

This year CSN managed nine schools – six in Kathmandu and three in Abu Khaireni, a rural town four hours drive from the capital.

Impact

I’ve attached the latest CSN Impact Report. It shows that CSN has provided high quality education to around 10,000 children. Students make progress at almost twice the rate of students in comparable public schools. The impact is especially noticeable among the weakest students. 

Projects like this give me hope in the darkest times.

CSN Impact Report 2024-25 FINALDownload
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Karkhana, a factory for learning

20161105_110713Karkhana, which means “factory” in Nepali, is a place where people make things and learn through doing.

The teachers are engineers, designers, artists, and scientists, but in contrast to some traditional models of learning, the environment is a teacher as well. The Karkhana site is filled with marvels: home-built antennas, a laser cutter, colorful child-designed posters, musical instruments, and more, which make the visitor ask questions and want to touch and make things.

So, it’s an education company and makerspace, one that turns the classroom into a lab for discovery. There’s an excellent slide show with many photos explaining their approach and an overview brochure describing the variety of classes they run.

20161109_164243Karkhana works directly with learners ages 8-14 through an after-school program. They also do teacher professional development. I’ve been fortunate to participate in both of these.

There were several good things I noticed beyond the general idea of learning through hands-on inquiry. One was an interesting mix of design though felt pen and whiteboard (or more precisely, whitetable), through physical construction, and with the aid of computers. The point was not to let the medium control the activity, but to let each medium offer affordances that could further the goal–planning a school fair, designing instruments for use on a space station, or building a musical instrument.

20161105_104138Another was the concern for making the Karkhana approach accessible to the ordinary school and ordinary teacher. In addition to workshops for teachers, Karkhana develops a special technology: ziplock bags filled with simple, low-cost materials that can be used in a low-tech, minimal skill situation.

Karkhana already makes new kind of learning available to many children and adults. But it also stands as an example of what could be done someday in Nepali schools, or for that matter, schools anywhere.

 

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Tales & Trails

Yet these sweet sounds of the early season,
And these fair sights of its sunny days,
Are only sweet when we fondly listen,
And only fair when we fondly gaze.
There is no glory in star or blossom
Till looked upon by loving eye;
There is no fragrance in April breezes
Till breathed with joy as they wander by.

Heidi Clemmer and Marisa Picariello

Heidi Clemmer and Marisa Picariello, creators of Cape Cod Eco-Tales

In his 1857 poem, An Invitation to the Country, William Cullen Bryant celebrates the joys of April. But more specifically, he invites his daughter Julia to return for a visit:

Come, Julia dear, for the sprouting willows,
The opening flowers, and the gleaming brooks,
And hollows, green in the sun, are waiting
Their dower of beauty from thy glad looks.

For Bryant, the sweetness of nature appears only when we “fondly listen” and its beauty only when we “fondly gaze.” At first glance, he contradicts Keats, who had told us that unheard melodies are sweeter. But actually not, since both call for our loving eye to be part of the beauty we see. Both poets conveniently conclude that it’s the poetic imagination that imparts real meaning to what we see or hear.

L1140375In any case, the idea of bringing our gaze to nature is central to the Tales & Trails: Nature Walks for Young Explorers program, sponsored by the Wellfleet Conservation Trust (WCT).

I was lucky enough to go along on the latest walk last Wednesday along an ephemeral pond beside the Walker Trail. It was a beautiful April day with clear skies and fresh breezes. There were no fragrances other than fresh clean air. We heard, or rather interacted with, Vernal Pool Visitors, and compared it to what we observed.

Walks through some of Wellfleet’s conservation areas are led by Heidi Clemmer, author of a new series of nature books for children called Cape Cod Eco-Tales. After 21 years as an elementary school teacher, Heidi retired and began to focus on teaching children about nature in informal, specifically, natural settings. She launched Eco-Tales with illustrator and collaborator Marisa Picariello. The target audience is children aged 6-9 and their families, but everyone from infants to those well into the their quatrième âge enjoy it.

Each walk focuses on a different ecosystem and is paired with one of the books in the series. Children explore the ecosystem, hear a corresponding nature story read by the author and illustrator, and then create their own souvenir of the experience in art, writing, or photography. The event combines fellowship, keen observation, story-telling, art, experiencing the beauty of Wellfleet’s conservation lands, speculation about science, and learning.

41Hk2UPq4FL._SX398_BO1,204,203,200_Last fall, Heidi led a trip to Hamblen Park, where she read from her book Salt Marsh Secrets. There will be five more walks this year. Next up is “Heathland Habitat” in May, followed by“Barrier Beach Bums” in June, “White Cedar Swamp Gang” in September, “Tidal Flat Friends” in October, and “Dune Dwellers” in November (more information).

Tales & Trails is funded by WCT and supported in part by a grant from the Wellfleet Cultural Council. Wellfleet Conservation Trust is a non-profit organization established in 1984 to assist and promote the preservation of natural resources and rural character of the town of Wellfleet. There is no cost to participate in Tales & Trails, but advance registration is required. To inquire about the walks, email Heidi Clemmer.


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Walker Trailhead

Walker Trailhead