A Notebook, A Pencil and the Everyday Essentials Behind Learning
We could have all faced a situation in school where we rummage through our bags and realize that we do not have a pencil with us. Maybe we had broken it, or maybe we had forgotten to bring one from home. Someone passes us one, or we sit waiting, or we struggle with the first few minutes of class with the rest of the class a little ahead. It ends, and we go on. But for a student who regularly faces this situation, it is more of a routine that defines his learning. Learning requires a lot of everyday essentials, and we all have become a little blind to it.
Pehchaan The Street School is an NGO that teaches as well as mentors marginalized sections of society to help them find an inner identity. The various learning centers run by them see volunteers, as well as college mentors, coming to teach and counsel the students. Academics as well as a caring approach are what make the NGO’s approach noteworthy, and one special part is the fact that the students are provided all essentials to sit down and learn
And hence, here comes the story of Diwali.
The Rotaract Club of DUSC had organized a Diwali donation drive at the Rohini Center of Pehchaan The Street School, where all the students received a donation kit with a notebook, colors, a pen, a pencil, an eraser, and a sharpener. All of this may seem like the bare essentials, but it is this bareness that makes the gift so thoughtful.
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Let’s dissect the notebook first, as it holds the most value to a student. It provides him/her with a space to store all personal work, to practice calculations, and to revise them right away. The page from a month ago can be compared to one from yesterday, and progress can be measured by simply looking at the two. By enabling this, the student can take ownership of their own progress. The pen and the pencil are more or less self-explanatory, except that the eraser is a tool that allows the student to take failures back and attempt again. And the sharpener? It ensures that the pencils are always prepared to perform. This almost seems too obvious, but a student who has to struggle with a blunt pencil for an entire period will never realize how much this little tool matters. And finally, the notebook comes with colors, allowing the student to let his creativity, as well as his playful side, run wild.
Finally, we come to the simple matter of equality. With every student having their own set of writing materials, there is no shame in asking for or borrowing from a classmate. Everyone can sit down and begin working at the same time, on the same level, with equal resources. Equal resources lead to equal opportunities, no matter how minuscule, and this plays a huge role in a student’s mindset for the following days.
And that brings us to student-based donations.
A learning kit is something that will be required every single day, in every routine session that a student will have following Diwali. While the mentor volunteers at the learning center have something to work with, community-based donations ensure that the student feels cared for, that he knows he is not being forgotten about.
Festive donations mostly talk about quantity, but what if we looked at quality instead?
A notebook is something that a student can use to write, while a pencil is something that can be used to attempt and attempt and attempt.
https://pehchaanstreetschool.org
https://instagram.com/pehchaanstreetschool?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=181sger2fozl7
