TED Talk Review: Shukla Bose “Teaching One Child at a Time”

After 26 years in the corporate world running non-profit organization, Shukla Bose wanted a change.  Without academic training or social work experience, Bose dove directly into the field of service and education by starting the Parikrma Humanity Foundation in 2003.

Her first focus of this new venture was to visit the slums.  After visiting nearly all of Bangalore’s 800 slums, she identified houses where children would never go to school, talked to their parents, and tried to convince them to send their children to school. The numbers they discovered proved to be very discouraging. 200 million school age children do not regularly attend school, 100 million children who go to school cannot read, and 125 million cannot do basic math. 

While it would have been easy to get overwhelmed, Bose sat down and reminded her organization that, "We're not in the number game. We want to take one child at a time and take the child right through school, sent to college, and get them prepared for better living, a high value job."

With that very philosophy, the first Parikrma School started in one of the poorest regions on a roof top of a building inside the slums.  Without a ceiling, one hundred sixty-five children started their first Indian academic year.  Through rain storms and heat, these students bonded and learned together.  Flash forward to today, with the organization now having four schools, one junior college, and over 1,100 children being educated from 28 slums and four orphanages.

As Shukla puts it, “Our dream is very simple: to send each of these kids, get them prepared to be educated but also to live peacefully, contented in this conflict-ridden, chaotic globalized world. Now, when you talk global you have to talk English. And so all our schools are English medium schools. “

However, for students that have never grown up in an English speaking environment, learning to speak English can be a seemingly impossible task.  Bose was forced to face the myth that no student from this region would ever be able to speak English.  In Graves’ Chapter 14- Reading Instruction for English Language Learners, he shares ways to empower students to challenge racist views diminishing their competence and worthiness.  As Graves puts it, building self-worth and helping students realize that their success is under their own control are all important in keeping students motivated.  Promoting positive attitudes and supporting an “I can do it!” atmosphere are both important in keeping morale high (Graves 418).

Shukla’s students have a variety of different interests from Alfred Hitchcock and Hardy Boys adventures to informational books on cars.  Whatever their interests, one thing Shukla’s students share is a passion for reading.  Shukla sees it as her duty to provide students with books that fit their interests in order to promote their reading and discovery.  This is an idea that directly aligns with Graves’ Chapter 12- Encouraging Independent Reading and Reader Response (Graves 354).

Regardless of the background of the student’s parents, these schools give every student the opportunity to succeed. Some of the most talented students are children of roadside salesmen or have parents who never attended schooling.

When told her English-centric, ICSE curriculum was too difficult for her Indian students, she was firm in responding, ‘Not only will our children cope very well, but they excel in it.” Sure enough, the results of her schools prove if you challenge students, they often rise to the occasion. In Graves’ Chapter 3- Motivation and Engagement, Graves speaks about the topic of appropriate challenges for students.  As Graves puts it ,”Unless readers undertake some challenging tasks, unless they are willing to take some risks and make some attempts they are not certain of, there is little room for learning to take place (Graves 61).”  Bose wants what is best for her students, so she presents the challenge of learning English because she believes learning this skill will best prepare them for success.  Bose is willing to offer her students the support structure needed to accomplish this challenge.

She also responds to the myth that parents from the slums are not interested in their children going to school by telling her audience that  all parents all over the world want their children to lead a better life than themselves, but they need to believe that change is possible. Shukla’s organization makes them believe.

With 80-100% percent attendance for all Bose’s parents-teachers meetings, parents are engaged and ready to help their children succeed.  In return, many of the children have taught their own parents how to read and write.  In many regions of India, ninety-eight percent of fathers are alcoholic, which has a very negative effect on Indian households. Providing these fathers with rehab and even employing them in the school kitchens are all services this organization offers.  With over 90 percent of our non-teaching staff being parents and extended families, these schools give back to the community.

Students take pride in receiving an education as the environment supports them socially as well as academically.  This formula has yielded great results for these schools as students who were once working as maids are now attending Duke University to become neurologists.  The school’s success goes beyond academics as the students are also excelling in sports receiving the distinction as the best school in Bangalore award three years in a row.  These start-up schools are so successful that kids from elite schools are asking about admissions.

Why has Parikrma seen so much success? In Shukla’s own words,” It's the content that is more important. It is not the infrastructure, not the toilets, not the libraries, but it is what actually happens in this school that is more important. Creating an environment of learning, of inquiry, of exploration is what true education is.”

As a future educator, The Parikrma Model is a truly inspirational story.  The fact that education can thrive in the most economically deprived regions of the world truly proves the point that under the right system, any child can succeed.  Remember, this movement started from the motivation and desires of one woman.  Shukla Bose’s story is one all educators can be inspired by!