Mentor Mondays with Madhumita R
Madhumita joined Reap Benefit in the middle of the academic year as a mentor, almost towards the end of September. We asked her to reflect on the year that was and share the highs, challenges and learnings.
New Kid on the Block
I joined Reap Benefit towards the fair end of September. I remember feeling anxious about meeting children after a gap, and the online mode was definitely daunting. Mentors Vimal and Thresy in particular helped me feel comfortable in the initial days.
I took my first Webinar for grade 11 students of CVM, and Vimal was in the meeting to support me. It was a unique experience, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Students were responsive, but not as much as I had hoped for. Reflection on the meeting with Vimal helped me identify small errors in my delivery and he shared hacks with me on using Google Meet to increase student participation: In a situation where it is difficult to present a screen and view responses on chat from children, one could use two devices — a simple solution, but one that hadn’t occurred to me.
It’s all in prep!
Our team has two meetings every week where we discuss everything — objectives for the upcoming sessions, operational procedures to be completed, setting Solve Ninja Challenges, challenges faced etc. This was crucial for me to understand the expectations for the upcoming week. Team members have always been proactive and step in to take up work and help each other. I had a running mate for developing session plans, which was imperative in getting perspective on how the sessions might pan out. As a team, we have always focused on building on past experiences and learnings, which helps us course correct when a certain theme/challenge is not receiving the expected outcome.
In the latter part of the year, we spent time on Rapid Prototyping our session plans every week. This helped everyone visualise the session plan better and we had time to incorporate feedback to improve it. The learnings during these meetings were useful in anticipating responses from students and coming up with 2/3 different approaches which we could use on a particular topic.
Facing and overcoming challenges: The sound of silence!
Not all classes respond the same way to a session. I had some sessions go for a complete miss and have had to bear total silence in a session when I’ve asked questions. It is hard, no doubt, but I heard in a seminar I attended a few months ago , “The person who owns the pause, owns the next move.” From then, I tried getting comfortable with silence and stopped forcing responses from students. I’ve come to think that having confidence and owning my delivery completes 50% of the job.
Putting a high price on perfection means that the experience of mentoring becomes less enjoyable.
When I relaxed and focused on building comfort and rapport in the classroom, the students opened up more.
Houston we have a problem: Operational Difficulties
5 of our schools had their timetable changed as per the state government’s orders to reduce the duration of online classes in the month of January. Reformulating our bootcamp timetable became a hard task, and there was added strain because every school sent their revised timetable on a different date. It took about 8–10 days to resolve conflicts and come up with a working timetable.
This lead to a drop in actions from Solve Ninjas. When Reap Benefit sessions happen every week, we were able to engage students better and the continuity helped them to resolve any doubts or share ideas regarding problem solving. With exams and winter holidays, our actions took a hit. In the last two months of the engagement, I found it hard to build the momentum back up in the sessions and nudge students to take action.
Three highlights of the year!
1. Harshitha SL from grade 7, CVM Karur has been an active Solve Ninja — passionate about the issue of water. She conducted a water audit at home, and with her findings as a base, she formulated several techniques to reduce water consumption — marking a reference water level in the bath bucket at home, grey water harvesting and using aerators. In CVM Solvers’ Fest, she made a water filtration system after prototyping several models on paper. She was in constant touch with Joseph and myself asking for feedback and sharing her learnings. To see that she had come up with a multilayered functional system to purify water was gratifying. She was awarded the “Promising Solvers’ Award” in the event.
2. DAV Solvers’ Fest: We had several teams across 6 schools participate in this event. Two solutions stood out for me from the event. One was “Green the Red” campaign of the students of DAV Girls School, Gopalapuram which focused on sustainable menstruation and the other was a prototype for an Air Purification System by MC Super Solvers team from DAV Boys School, Mogappair.
3. Culmination week: We have been having our Culmination events with various schools this week, and I am so proud and happy to know that our mission and values have resonated with the Solve Ninjas. The feedback from the teachers and parents has been positive. One parent said that she was learning so much from her daughter on being an active citizen and their family is now addressing problems they see together — by reporting to the authorities or coming up with their own hands-on solutions.
The last year has presented unexpected challenges for all of us. Despite this, our Solve Ninjas have solved small and large issues in their homes and neighbourhoods, and also taken initiative to support those in need.
It fills me with hope for not only the future, but very much the present, to see that young people have empathy in their hearts and a resolve to make the world a better place.
Planning ahead
In the next two months we will be planning our engagements for the next academic year and developing new games and other content for our curriculum.
I am looking forward to meeting Solve Ninjas in person and taking on-campus sessions! I am especially eager to build hands-on solutions with the solve ninjas. We intend to take them on field trips and try to solve community problems as well.
