About Me:  My name is Paul Wullenweber, I am from Germany and now very close to completing my third month here in India. I left Germany in early August to join FSL India’s home-based-project “Environmental Education” in the course of my year in the German IJFD-programme.

My Host Family: At the moment and for the next eight months, I am living in a host family a little outside of Kundapura. Although only my host mother Prathiba speaks English quite well, I also get along fine with the other members of my host family. Spoorthy, my younger sister (she is three years old), tends to be a little naughty sometimes, but she is still a pleasure to live with. As long as she is around, there is always something going on. My host mother and the others really help me a lot with any problem that I have and make me feel very well integrated into their family life. I’m looking forward to living with them for a few more months.

 

The Project: The project’s facility, FSL-India’s “small office” (it really isn’t too big) is situated in Kundapura, Karnataka, about 35 km north of Udupi, the district capital. This is where my colleague Ferdinand (who is a fellow German and an IJFD-volunteer working in the “Eco Clubs” project) spend most of our time working on new and exciting school sessions for students ranging from the age of twelve up to 22. So far, we have prepared and conducted ten sessions in ten different Govt. Higher Primary Schools surrounding Kundapura as part of the “Environmental Education” programme and some five more in various Govt. High Schools for the “Eco Clubs” project. As of now, we have also hosted two little more sophisticated lessons in the Govt. PUCs of Basrur and Uppunda, teaching students of our own age.

The Experience: The efforts I put into the project have been very rewarding. It is wonderful to see how the children interact and cooperate with us during our sessions. From my own experience and that of other volunteers working as regular teachers in Indian schools, I learnt that our lessons differ very strongly from the tuition the kids normally receive (or have to endure). It seems to be quite common for children to be beaten in class if they do not follow the teacher-centred approach and therefore often boring and passive classes.

In our lessons, we try to make a difference. Our lessons are built around our student’s interests and motivation from the ground up. We rely on a lot of interaction (which is phenomenal especially among the younger students) as well as games and a decent use of “energizers”, quick games to minimize distraction. The positive response we receive at the end of each of our sessions shows that we do things not only differently, but right.