A government school teacher has found an innovative way to teach Tamil culture and traditions, which is received well by his students and teachers.
In Tamil Nadu, a new syllabus has been introduced from this academic year for 9th standard students in English subject regarding Tamil culture and traditions.
English Teacher from Government High School, Poondi, Thanjavur District has used the technology as well as practical demonstration to teach Tamil culture and traditions to his students.
In addition to using SMART Board, he arranged a practical demonstration (LIVE Performance) of traditional arts like Nadhaswaram, Karagaattam, Silambaattaam, Parai, etc., in his school campus. The icing on the cake is that he identified the talents among the students and their relatives and invited them to school to perform these tradition arts in front of the students.
Indira Gandhi of 9th Standard and Priyadarshini of 10th standard played Nadhaswaram and Silambaattam in front of their fellow schoolmates and teachers.
In addition to giving a practical flavour of our traditional arts to the students, this initiative has also boosted the confidence of the students who performed LIVE in the school.
Both Indira Gandhi and Priyadarshini felt very happy and commented “We received many accolades from our friends, when we performed here. We feel like we should learn more and more from here. The other students have told us that the rest of the students in our class could learn more from us and they would invite us for their family functions to perform these arts.”
The English teacher Jaiprabhu, has to say this :
“Bringing the LIVE art to school environment and performing it using the students who are skilled in that, will make the students understand better”.
He added that this method is reaching the students faster and they show more involvement in learning the arts.
The principal of the school was proud and had commented saying “Instead of students studying it through usual theoretical lecture classes, learning it through this method would make it easier for the children. Instead of memorising it, they could understand it and learn the concept. It also creates interest for the students to study as this method is not pressurising them to memorise. It gives them a chance to understand on their own to write or read.”
On one hand, while this method made the students more enthusiastic to learn the topic, it also developed a new interest for students to learn to play these Tamil instruments on their own and to learn these Tamil arts.
