Curriculum Outline for Instructor
- 1. Curriculum Outline and Guide for Instructor Including Design Thinking Resources Goal: This curriculum is designed for students to develop English speaking and reading skills while providing a place to talk about issues facing them and their communities. Current primary education is too often focused on students having corrects answers to questions, but this curriculum aims to get kids to think for themselves, recognize that many questions have no clear answer, and vocalize those thoughts in English. Points to Remember: ● Do not punish kids for any topics they bring up or questions they have, even if they are taboo. ● If you are not sure how to answer a difficult question, it is ok to tell the child that you are unsure. Not knowing is important lesson for children, and you can provide them with an example. ● Never strike or raise your voice to children who misbehave. ● Make the kids feel like the classroom is an open, safe space by telling them that they are safe, and encourage them to speak up. ● Ask kids how they feel (there is no right or wrong way to feel). ● Don’t only focus on the kids who tend to usually have the right answers. Be sure to engage each child, ensuring they all have an understanding of what is being taught. What to Look For in Children’s Books: ● Characters who express their feelings. ● Characters who address social issues, talk about social injustices (poor education, poor treatment of girls and women, poverty, etc.). ● Female characters working outside the home, having dialogue with other women. ● Indian culture in books is important for the kids to understand their own spaces. Try to find Indian children’s books, preferably not with religious themes to be conscious of differences. ● The moral of the story, the lesson they can take away from the story they have read. ● Picture books that explain science concepts in simpler terms. Design Thinking Toolkit: There are five steps to the design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. The Stanford K12 Lab has excellent open source resources on teaching design thinking concepts, with a link below. Here is a walk through of the purpose of each step, and the skills students should be learning. Step 1 Empathize: Students understand that other people experience things differently and discover deeper humancentered insights. Focus on emotions, thoughts and feelings. This can be done through an empathy map, as shown below in Module 1. Step 2 Define: At a beginner level, pick one issue or problem to focus on. Higher level students can focus on multiple insights and develop understandings of several problems. Step 3 Ideate: Brainstorm ideas on solutions to the defined problems. Think of the strengths and weaknesses of each solution. Choose a few of the strongest ideas.
- 5. social issue play. Each roundtable will have a subject, and children will talk about the things they have heard or have been told about that subject (women being allowed in all parts of Hindu temples, poor quality of government schools, exploitation of ragpickers by those who buy their recyclables). Purpose: Children are introduced to increased levels of media every year. Children who live in cities, even children who live in slums, are subject to even more media. Children need a space to make sense of the world around them, ask questions about what they are being told/have been taught, and voice their anger about the things that upset them. Remember: Children should never be shamed for the questions they ask. Curiosity must be rewarded. Many children live in homes that are not safe spaces to talk about taboo subjects or ideas that challenge traditional values and beliefs. For very controversial issues, the instructor must evaluate the safety of the children in performing their plays publicly (in the case of street plays). Conservative parents who are upset by their child publicly talking about sensitive topics may prevent their child from coming to future lessons. Girls are specifically in danger in some public spaces. If the instructor decides that the risk is too high to perform a play in public, they should explain to the children why it would be unsafe for them to perform outside, but encourage them to share their play and ideas in other ways. Typing Skills This module allows the teacher to project one image of a keyboard in order to show the kids its basic functions. The teacher will project the image of a keyboard in the below link, as well as distribute a printout of the image. Then, the teacher will explain (via the colors displayed on the picture) which fingers are used to press which keys. After explaining which fingers are used, then explaining how to utilize the top characters on the number keys and punctuation keys by simultaneously pressing the shift button in conjunction with the key. For example, if they would like to type an exclamation point (!), they should press the shift button with the “1” button at the same time. Additionally, the teacher will explain some of the other key functions. Key Functions Include: ● The “tab” key is used to indent a new paragraph ● The “enter” key is used to start a new line of writing below the current line of writing ● The “enter” key is also used to actually enter something, example is a weblink may only load if you press “enter” after inserting the weblink name ● “Caps lock” makes all of the letters you use capital ● The “shift” key pressed simultaneously with any letter will create a capital letter