Using Theatre to teach Maths, Science & English

Welcome to an exciting world of classrooms where students as well as teachers have a tremendous amount of fun and where learning is a fantastic process. At a local government school of District Barmer, Rajasthan Cairns India is using theatre tools to teach Mathematics, Science and English.

Theatre is a powerful tool that can ally itself with any subject and make teaching a pleasurable thing to do. It is a very very exciting process and facilitates better learning for the student.

When schools take students to the theatre it is usually to see a particular production. TiE, on the other hand, starts with an educational topic or debate and develops a show around it. Because these groups specialise in educational work, the performances have been designed with particular aspects of the curriculum in mind. Some will always link their work to a particular Key Stage, whilst others will design various projects for different ages.

Cairn India has tied up with local NGOs and communities to offer a variety of educational initiatives such as theatre in education, Science Play Ground and Activity Centre, Support for School Library, especially in backward and rural areas.

Cairn serves as the overall project facilitator and provides financial support and continuous supervision, with employees also volunteering their time and resources.

What does this project do?

The aim of this project is to help build children’s personalities through theatre. The group focuses on children from class 6th to 8th. By enacting famous folk tales of India, the children are taught how to use their body language for communication. The end result of each workshop is a show ready to be staged to an audience.

The children get involved with a wide range of activities such as theatre games to improve concentration; designing and making sets, costumes, props and music; making masks. Cairn CSR team realized the need for providing the schools with a compilation of scripts for all the chapters of the given subjects to foster a better implementation of the programme by the TiE trained teachers, in their respective schools. Hence, an initiative was taken to prepare the scripts for all the chapters of the subjects in the curriculum and was compiled in the form of a book

Shiksha Mein Rangmanch’ (Theatre in Education)

What was achieved?

Recently, before the school’s closed for summer break, the book was jointly released by Padmashree Shri Magh Raj Jain and District Education Office, Shri Naringa Ram Meghwal in a smallfunction organised in Barmer. The TiE. This is the first ever book published on the subject in the country.

Until now 27 schools have been covered under the programme in 27 villages around Cairn’s operational area benefiting more than 1500 students. The current intensive programme will be expanded to all 68 key villages in phased manner over the next three to four years.

How impactful was the TiE programme?

A detailed assessment report show that the programme has had tangible positive impact on the learning level of the students and has helped in generating their interest in otherwise ‘boring’ subjects besides having impact on the positive change in attendance rate and reduction in dropout rate. The assessment report indicates impacts on the following:

• 16 percent growth in learning levels
• Ability to write English words and sentences
• Ability to speak small sentences
• Positive change in attitude of students and their families towards education
• Increase in the power of expression of the children (increased participation in extracurricular programme)
• Improvement in attendance rates
• Greater self confidence