By Suprasanna Aryal

“I can see L-A-U-G-H.”

“There is P-L-A-Y.”

While some of the students were busy locating verbs from the word puzzle (it was made on a chart paper and pasted on the wall), other students were trying to see cells under a microscope. And providing information about these exhibits were their own friends, actively inviting the visitors to have a look at their respective stalls.

It was the first time an exhibition of English, Math and Science was held at Shree Buddha Bhagwan Secondary School in Manikhel, Lalitpur. Teach For Nepal Fellows Ruma Maharjan and Ram K. Thapa had taken the initiative to organize it, and with the help of other teachers, they had encouraged their students to lead the exhibition on their own. Students had created various models using locally available resources and demonstrated their theoretical learnings from Science, Math and English classes in those creations.

“It took over two weeks for us to prepare for the exhibition. The students worked very hard to make it happen,” shared Ruma. She added, “There were so many things that they were not being able to understand in the classroom. But when they were taught to use the learnings in the form of puzzles, word games and pictures, they became clearer and could explain it to others as well.”

Ram informed that students used simple resources like plastic bottles to make the models. “Through the exhibition, we were also trying to prove that we don’t need a huge budget to organize events like these, we can easily make the best out of locally available resources and demonstrate scientific and mathematical theories,” he said.

Teach For Nepal Fellows from Shree Baghbhairab Higher Secondary School, Kaleshwor (Rupsha Nakarmi and Dependra KC) and Kali Devi Secondary School, Bukhel (Ranjana Gautam and Subodh Ghimire) also came to see the exhibition along with their students and co-teachers.

“Our students were very excited to see the exhibition. Since most of them are shy, they initially had some difficulties asking their questions to the exhibitors. But after looking at the stalls for a while, they started interacting openly,” Ranjana said. Now that they have seen the exhibition, they have got some motivation to do a similar event in their school too, she observed. Being a new cohort Fellow placed in a new placement school, she also said that visiting the exhibition proved to be inspiring and encouraging for her to do something innovative in her own school.

“I have received messages from teachers of many schools in Southern Lalitpur, appreciating our efforts. We are planning to make the exhibition an annual event and do it on a larger scale next year,” shared Shree Buddha Bhagwan Secondary School’s Head Sir Dilip Kumar Syangtang. He also shared that the Fellows have taken a great initiative, since the students learn faster if they learn things practically, rather than studying theories inside classrooms.

The exhibition coincided with World Environment Day so plantation program was also organized. Students, teachers and other community members had participated in plantation in the school’s compound.

Suprasanna Aryal is the Communications Associate at Teach For Nepal.