At the start of this, March 2019, we received a Grant from the British Council under the English Language Training and Mentoring Scheme to pilot a ‘ teacher – training’ program for primary school teachers. We have organised these trainings along with our Cipla Foundation supported work with schools and are piloting a Training and Mentoring Program ( TMP) this year at Bookworm.
Almost seven months later, we have completed three workshops on this cycle of design and learning and it has been a journey of discovery and affirmation.
Ownership of the Project
We set out to share core ideas around library practice and hoped in this process that we can form a vision for library work for all participants. One of the most delightful and powerful learning opportunities afforded by this Grant is that our Research Team has grown at Bookworm. It presently comprises of almost nine team members. For many of us, the act of a more formal research project is new and so quite naturally it was met with a fair degree of concern about ability, competence, time management and such. All our concerns were valid and formed the bed rock of our collective concerns as we moved forward together.
Being equally committed and equally inhibited enabled us to work more closely together than imagined. This was a startling realisation where people picked up pieces that were dropped off by others, empathised deeply with each other and with our participating teachers about time management concerns, deliverables, journal writing and then set aside time to make the project happen.
The sense of ownership on the project and the role of each person in mentoring and supporting learning was evidenced in our 3rd workshop.
Teacher’s Response
It delights us that even though the participating teachers have been to Bookworm multiple times in the year, they are still excited to come again and look forward to the learning opportunity. It reminds us that the library can always be a space for refreshment and excitement and it is upto the facilitators to enable that. The visits of the teachers compel us to time table fresh exposure to library activities and the nature of the Research project compels us to also focus on our learnings and observations and shape activities accordingly.
What has been most powerful thus far is the learning we have experienced from teachers. In the 3rd workshop, we assigned teachers in groups to design Treasure Hunts in the library for the Bookworm team. We learnt so many new ideas and ways of opening up the collection from this experience and it was so good to have the tables turned and all of us experience the joy of finding books based on clues.
Documenting and Record Keeping
At Bookworm, we talk our way into reflective practice and find record keeping a hard thing to do. One of the biggest learnings and opportunities of a research project is the need to keep records in a systematic and organised way and to review our documentation when planning and moving forward. This has helped initiate better observation notes, better record keeping systems and thereby better communication in writing that will greatly benefit our practice. In asking our participants to maintain Journals and share ‘entries’ from time to time we hope to have begun a relationship with reflective writing for many more.
The ELTRM grant is enabling us at Bookworm to pilot a training and learning program that we hope will strengthen library practice in schools as well as strengthen us as mentors and facilitators on library work. The sense of joy and success we feel at this point is in no small measure to the remarkable teachers who have partnered with us here and who embrace the learning and experiences this program provides and we thank them all and look forward to growing together.
