Pascal Law & a Teacher’s inclusive step behind the innovation by Girls from Telangana Govt. School

The culture of innovation took a new leap across the globe in the recent unprecedented times and proved that to innovate, one needs exposure to problems and enablement to their mindsets. The Government School Innovators from the Telangana state of India in the recent School Innovation Challenge 2020 organised by Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) for Govt. Schools across the state, time and again proved that, age, region, and academic standard cannot prove one’s ability to innovate.

Innovation Challenges not only brings out the ideas resting in the minds of children but also gives a scope to improve and nurture them, says 9th class student Basheera who along with her team members Shameem (9th class), and Zainab (10th class) from Government Girls High School of Nalgonda district in Telangana recently devised a Hydraulic lifting & Rotating Wheelchair for partial mobility people. She adds, “We do pursue ideas but tend to not speak about them because of certain resistance on being associated with Govt. Schools and how we are looked at. But challenges like these are necessary as they can become the voice of our idea.”

If it is agreed that innovation comes with exposure to problems, it can be conceptualised only when the problem is felt by the innovator. Innovator Basheera’s father has been affected by a partial mobility problem that made her tinker to ease his effort. She adds, “From the time we shifted him to the wheelchair, he found it exceedingly difficult to reach out to things placed at a height. So, I realised that it could be of great help if the height of the wheelchair is increased.”

Inclusive Innovation

K. Purnima, the guiding teacher to the student-team says that children keep coming across problems daily for which they recurrently think of ideas, but they do not tend to go beyond the idea. Like any other innovator, Basheera and her team did face a problem. While they knew that the height of the wheelchair could be increased, they also realised that the increase in height can make it difficult to sit initially. While Basheera and Shameem decided to address this using some textbook topics, they rediscovered the topic of Pascal’s Law in their Physical Science subject, the principle behind lifting & pressing techniques. Basheera said, “While we theoretically understood that this could be applied, we needed a validation. The validation came in the form of Zainab in our team who is currently in 10th class. She was the one who said that this concept works because she already performed experiments in 9th standard.”

The above situation is an ideal example of Inclusive Innovation. As we dialogue upon Inclusivity, we should not just look at every individual’s or community’s participation separately, but the collective participation of all. This inclusivity is an establishment by teacher K. Purnima who decided to include a different degree of students in one team for holistic development.

Teacher’s Role

Looking beyond the students’ sustaining interest, the guiding teacher Purnima played a crucial role in diffusing the ownership of solving a problem to the students. When she heard about the challenge, “I spoke to other schoolteachers to understand their view on the challenge but all I could infer was that they just wanted to replicate an idea from the internet. I waited till last day of deadline to hear more ideas from the students. The reason I agreed to the problem statement is that it is personal, and innovation can happen only when the problem is felt.”

Speaking about such platforms, and the outcomes, she said, “I am so elated to tell you that our school name is being heard a lot now after this challenge because of the team’s innovation. People are surprised to know that Govt. School Students could innovate. My own sister’s son who is studying in a private school is taken aback knowing the culture of innovation in the Govt. Schools of Telangana.”

What do we need in the curriculum ?

Stressing on sustaining the culture of innovation, K. Purnima says that until Design Thinking becomes a part of larger teacher training, and a focused subject in the School Education curriculum, we will keep scouting for creative minds but not nurture minds to be creative, and the dialogue of innovation becomes an occasion.