‘Coming Home’: An Immersive Reading Experience

What happens when two empathetic educators approach the principal of a school to permit them to immerse children in reading a book over the entire COVID period? How does the collaboration between teachers and Principal of a school create space for a profound and unique learning journey? It all began in the month of February of 2021 when Jayshree Murali an educator and library educator, Smitha Nair an educator and storyteller, Deepika Lakhera a teacher from DWPS Tumkur Road and Vidhya Nagraj, the Principal of DWPS, Tumkur Road huddled together to plan a never before innovative reading journey for the students at her school. Let us not linger here, come let us speak to the collaborators themselves.

The coversation gives a glimpse of learning opportunities and experiences that educators can create when they collaborate and facilitate safe spaces in an immersive Reading Journey with children. The reading of Parag Honour List 2022 book, ‘Coming Home’ written by Priti David and published by Karadi Tales (based on story from PARI) led to a lot of reflection as children looked at life in rural India with joy and wonder, curiosity and empathy.

Nivedita: Jayshree, what is PARI and why did you select the story ‘Coming Home’ for the Immersive Experience of Reading?

Jayshree: ‘PARI’ is an acronym for People’s Archive of Rural India. In just those four letters ‘PARI’ opens up the mosaic of plural identities, ground realities and exposes the struggles of rural India. PARI in collaboration with Karadi Tales has brought out a wonderful series of books. Each of the books touches the reader’s heart and offers hope and courage, resilience, and empathy in the backdrop of rural India.

Curiosity and wonder, friendships, imagination, and dreams for a better future run through the book. ‘Coming Home’ from the ‘PARI’ series is written by Priti David and published by Karadi Tales in Partnership with ‘PARI’. It is a story about migration and home, seen from the eyes of 11-year-old Selva.

Nivedita: Jayshree how did the idea of reading the book ‘Coming Home’ in a school over 6 months of COVID occur to you? And how did you collaborate?

Jayshree: When Karadi Tales invited me and a few other educators to a deliberation on how the PARI books could be taken to schools, it opened a window of immense possibilities. India with its multiple realities is a complex melting pot and in our limited day to day transactions, we shy away from groups with whom we are not familiar. When I read each of the PARI books, as an Educator, I wished I had such books in my reading journey in childhood. PARI opens up a diverse world view for all, teacher included. Each of these books gives agency to the children and treats them with dignity. The scope for socio-emotional learning is immense too. As I was looking out to collaborate with fellow Educators with empathy and passion, in came my Reading Co-Host, Smitha Nair. We then approached Delhi World Public School, Tumkur Road Bengaluru who were open to bringing innovative approaches to learning and whose vision matched ours.

Nivedita: Vidhya, how does your school organize learning experiences for the children in alignment with the school vision & mission?

Vidhya: At the beginning of the year, each department plans the various teaching-learning experiences that it would like to implement in the academic year. There is a conscious effort to design, plan and execute all the scholastic and co-scholastic programs in alignment with the school vision and mission. The school uses story-based pedagogy and art across all subjects. Each year the school takes up reading programs and projects that integrate multidiscipline and art with the objective of making the students connect the subjects rather than study in isolation. The book, ‘Coming Home’ enabled the students to experience learning beyond the prescribed text. It provided an opportunity for children studying in urban schools to get a closer look at rural India and life. The immersive reading program was designed as an experiential reading to help children discover layers to reading.

Nivedita: Jayshree and Smitha, of the Five Books in the PARI series – Why did you choose ‘Coming Home?’

Jayshree: ‘Coming Home’ seemed to be just the right beginning to bring to the children the richness of rural life with its traditions, knowledge and celebrations. It also exposed the harsh reality of young people dropping out of school to bail out families with farm loans. The book offered a huge scope to think critically, creatively, collaborate and engage in hands-on learning. The focus on environment was seamlessly woven in. And most importantly it brought in empathy and hope that if we all worked together the children’s dreams for a better future could be made possible.

Smitha: We wanted to offer children safe spaces for engagement, (especially during the traumatic times of COVID) that are non-competitive, a space to voice their ideas, bring in lived experiences, debate and discuss, disagree but not be disagreeable and find joy in working with hands: independently and together. ‘Coming Home ‘gave the children an opportunity to look at the diversity of the country be it geographical, socio-economic, linguistic, gender etc., garner multiple perspectives, build appreciation for skills/labour, and value the contribution of the community.

Nivedita: Deepika how did you look at each chapter?

Deepika: We looked at the possibilities for engaging the students with multi-disciplinary approach and kept the core learning towards empathy and reflection. Since this was a Multilevel Reading Group (Grades 5 to 9) activities were structured accordingly.

Nivedita: Smitha and Jayshree, what was the structure of each session?

Jayshree: We facilitated 12 sessions of 2-hours each, on a weekly interaction basis with the children. The sessions involved read aloud by facilitators and children, conversations that led to making connections with self, text/s, and the world at large, thinking routines that spurred critical thinking, collaborative exercises that nurtured team spirit, hands-on activities that encouraged creativity both during the session and at home. The debriefing sessions with teachers kept us in alignment with the learner needs and course content whenever needed.

Nivedita: Jayshree and Smitha, how did you make the reading interactive and interesting? What is the core of Immersive Reading?

Smitha: We used many collaborative practices, bringing in resource people, teachers, students and Reading Hosts across India through technology. But the best move was the collaboration with the teachers. During the book reading, the students had the opportunity to meet people from various walks of life such as artisans who work on Lambadi embroidery, sculptors, migrant labourers, farmers and the author herself.

This gave them exposure to the wider world. One such interaction with Ms. Nirmala, who runs a women’s group for Lambadi craftspeople, created an impact on students and helped connect the story with real-life situations. When the children learnt that embroidery skills had a market and it helped rural artisans earn a livelihood, their understanding and respect for artisans and crafts people became evident. It also helped them connect it with their Social Science topic on ‘Gender and Financial Empowerment.’

Nivedita: Vidhya, I wonder whether a simple book reading can achieve a mindset change in children, you must have done something more. What are the highlights of the educator’s reading strategies that created the sweeping wind change?

Vidhya: I have never seen a book reading exploring a whole range of multi-disciplinary aspects which kept this multi-grade cohort of students engaged and thinking. Some of these activities were: learning about soil, growing microgreens, seed collecting, bird watching, designing eco-friendly decorations and learning about growing organic crops from the farmer educator! We also did creative writing, scientific exploration, poster making, art integration, and stitching – Lambadi Embroidery! It was heart-warming to see the boys take up needle and thread.

Nivedita: Jayshree and Smitha I understand that this engagement took place in the online mode. How was it possible to garner resources when the children were confined to their homes?

Nivedita: Deepika, what effect do you think such an engagement with artisans and workers had on the children?

Deepika: The discussions during the Reading Program worked as cues to understand the students’ thoughts and emotions towards people from under-resourced backgrounds and the challenges of migrants. The discussion on migrant labour, triggered one of the grade VII students to engage with his vendor who delivered eggs to his house. He got to understand the challenges, and this left him wondering what solutions could emerge for such a problem. It was observed that in the reading sessions students stepped into the character’s situation, allowing them to visualize their life. Had it not been for this reading experience the children would have probably been deprived of interaction with other sections of society.

Teacher Speak: Participating Teachers of DWPS-Deepika Lakhera, Ananya Bhattacharya, Soma Chakraborty and Basavaraj Achar During debriefing sessions, two questions flashed in our minds:

i) How can we make reading sessions different and interesting for students?
ii) What difference can we make as educators? Along with the reading, we focused on extension activities based on student experiences. The students brought in multiple perspectives, experiences in the classroom and as teachers we observed that we cannot work with an approach that ‘one size fits all.’

There is a popular saying that “Two heads are always better than one”. The group discussions, brainstorming helped students to listen and engage with one another. We noticed that students who had learning difficulties began to show improvement in reading, writing and began to express their ideas while interacting with the diverse group.

For example: a student of grade 6 mentioned, “in their village the migrant labourers are treated badly and because of the financial illiteracy their salaries are spent on paying loans.” Such perspectives that emerged from these discussions enabled students to connect newly acquired knowledge from the book with their prior knowledge and look at real world problems with concern.

The students discussed disasters and natural calamities in the story. They spoke of strategies to prevent/minimize the loss of life and made posters to create awareness of the same. Learning and working together with multi-level classes made students dig deeper, explore each other’s ideas and fill in the gaps while learning collaboratively. A student of grade 6 very beautifully explained rural life and challenges using the thinking routine – SEE /THINK /WONDER. He mentioned the village life is very simple and relaxing yet challenging, wherein people must walk long distances.

There was a lot for him to think and wonder about rural life, “Why are resources very limited in the rural areas? Why do people migrate to the city for their livelihoods?” The benefits of collaborative learning could fulfil the purpose of providing students the pedagogical framework shown below:

Student Voices: In one of the sessions related to challenges and illiteracy among farmers, a student from Grade 7 raised a question: “If farmers get higher education will they stop growing crops and if they stop growing crops how will we get food?”

Students’ Activities: Asking Questions/ Interview skills/ Podcast/ Speaking/ Joyful Reading / Creative Writing / Craft/ Art/ Listening with empathy and understanding/ Self Confidence/Teamwork

Nivedita: Vidhya, as Principal what were the memorable moments in the journey of Immersive Reading?

Vidhya: This was the first time the school took up a reading program of this magnitude. It was a learning experience not just for the students but also for the teachers who were part of the Reading Circle. The school has always tried to nurture young readers; the immersive reading program helped the students to discover the joy of reading a book. I am certain that ‘Coming Home’ has found a place in the heart and mind of the teachers and students. Coming Home was a journey for each of us involved in the Reading Experience. This journey would have been incomplete without Author Priti David who was always there as a springboard and generously gave her time and experience and shared valuable resources.

Nivedita: How do we make the reading program sustainable and scalable?

Vidhya: It begins with the school fraternity of Principals and Teachers. Each summer the teachers read one book and the book that is read is taken up for discussion through the course of the academic year. Teachers have also had sessions on how to do book reading, poetry and storytelling. These sessions have equipped the teachers with the skillset to plan activities such as literary week, authors week, poetry writing. ‘Coming Home,’ was taken up during Covid, the following year, Grade V students took up, ‘A Big Splash,’ from the PARI series and Grades VI to X took up ‘8563 One Story Four Endings’ by Soumitra Ranade and this year the school has introduced picture books in kindergarten and taken up three books from the PARI series for Grades V to IX.

Jayshree: We believe robust library programs can do this. Reading for enjoyment and reading with enjoyment both for the children and the teachers is key. Libraries with their inclusive and democratic nature offers spaces for engagement for the reader/non-reader alike and the community at large. We need thriving living libraries that offer spaces for conversation and engagement with children.

Smitha: For a sustained and scalable reading engagement, the reading programmes at school should offer ‘Out of Classroom Experiences’ that take the child out of regular classroom set-up of rote-learning and provide them opportunities that will involve them in reading related extended activities at home as well. The continuum of the programme is what we envisioned for the school in the years to come. It is evident from the principal’s response above that sustainability and continuity are essential cornerstones for the scalability of the reading programme. This reading programme complemented the crosscurricular experiences among children sparking curiosity, providing safe space for children to talk without fear, judgement or concerns about failing to express aptly or present alternate perspectives.

Interviewed by Nivedita Bedadur, academician, storyteller and a resource person who has worked as a teacher educator at Azim Premji, University, Bangalore.

Educators & Reading Hosts: Jayshree Murali & Smitha Nair (who may be reached on jayshree.murali@gmail.com and smitha.n.anu@gmail.com). Smitha is a recipient of the Parag Honour List Book Box.

Deepika Lakhera, Teacher DWPS lakheradipikag@gmail.com

With inputs from Ms Vidhya Nagraj, Principal, DWPS School.

Coming Home is published by Karadi Tales, in partnership with PARI. It features in the Parag Honour List 2022.