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February 25, 2007

Home schooled children

In parallel with the technology course, 5-10 of X grade children come to Tulir and study through the morning. They find Tulir a conducive environment to study and can also get their doubts clarified. Apparently, having worked with other teenage children in Xth grade and helped them pass Tulir has got the reputation that any Xth class fail child who goes there passes. (The local school now goes to grade X and all children pass till grade X irrespective of their learning levels). This is also a time to train the two new local teachers to make their fundamentals strong.

Additionally, Chutti and Bharathi are two children who are getting schooled at the center itself. Chutti is being home-schooled at Tulir this was our first introduction to children who were being schooled at home. He was exceptionally well read for his age and had a knack of picking up books and reading them whether in English (LOTR) or history or mathematics (probability). He also got along amazingly well with other children. Bharathi had attempted to study in local schools, but was never comfortable in the environment. When his parents attempted to take it a notch further and put him in a private school where for the benefit of the children they are whipped he would fall sick every week. His parents asked for him to come to the center till the age for his fifth grade.

I’m not clear how long he has been here, but he is exceptional at Tamil and guides Chutti in the same and is amazing with 3D puzzles. He solved the Navarang is 10 mins flat. He can’t explain the math behind it, but can do it quite easily.

Additionally, another home schooled child Badri (Chutti’s friend) was visiting him for this week. The previous week Chutti had spent at Badri’s place. This way the parents form a small community and help the children continue socializing and interacting with others.

I had my little pottli of puzzles and games and the younger group was quite interested in them. The got busy solving them one after the other.

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