The Edifier

 

The phrase “Each one, teach one” is an African proverb that originated in the US during slavery when Africans were denied education. When someone learned to read and write, it becomes their responsibility to teach someone else. The idea is to spread knowledge for the betterment of the community. This phrase was applied to the work of Christian missionaries. 

 

‘Each one, teach one’ is the project, I have been wanting to do for underprivileged students and workers too. Thus, I have been doing a community outreach programme in villages, where students and illiterate people are benefitted. 

 

“Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Until all are taught”                                       - Mark Victor Hansen

 

“Each one, teach one and give someone the precious gift of literacy!”                                      - Adiela Akoo

 

Dr Frank Laubach used this concept to address poverty and illiteracy in the Philippines. The slogan Each One Teach One was given by “The Communist Party of Great Britain”. The Smile Foundation runs the ‘Smile Twin-e-Learning programme’ to increase the employment of underprivileged adolescents by equipping them with English and computers.

 

The main objective of “Each One Teach One” is to make the educated and literate members of society aware of social and moral duty towards, the uneducated and semi-educated.

Robert Heinlein said, “when one teaches two learn” concerning the learning process by interacting with students. (e.g) Help the underprivileged for instance, the watchman, housemaid, or vegetable vendor, to read and write. Also, one can teach those who are willing to learn. The strategy involved is imparting education (reading and writing) to one student, which in turn can empower the other one.

 

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world”                                     - Malala Yousafzai

 

“Each one, teach one. Don’t just aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference”           -  Karimzadeh

“Each One Teach One”, is a charitable foundation established in 1983. It is committed to enhancing the schooling experience, grooming and strengthening the intellectual abilities of an individual. Training the underprivileged, to carry on this mission of educating others and moving forward to become socially responsible citizens is the foundation or base for this kind of learning aspect.

 

Five steps of Each One Teach One

1. Introduction - Group session listening to the subject. 

2. Teach One - The teacher works individually with the student with little information.

3. Observe student teaching - The teacher watches the student teaching first.

4. Students teach each other - The

so-called “New teacher, teaches ‘2 minutes’  to the other student.

5. Wrap-up / Revamp - Once reassembled, the group discusses the subject and the experience of being a teacher.

 

In School- Each One Teach One

It combines listening, speaking and group instruction skills and creates exciting and active outdoor learning. It caters to many learning styles. Time management helps students to move in an orderly procession from one to the next. Only one is student involved at a time, so no pressure on the students. Encourage students to add information taught. It not only deals with teaching the downtrodden to write and read but to share knowledge, talents, accomplishments, success, and failure too.

 

“Each one. Teach and reach ONE… Live your LIFE…. Be good to yourself and others….. Don’t worry BE happy….. Love lifts….”                                 - Lashea M. Johnson

 

“Each One Teach One” is a motivation for educated people to understand their social responsibility to teach one person deprived of it to make a difference and change in society. Though the government has opened many rights for children in education, not many get them. Even though many NGOs, semi-governmental, and non-profitable organizations are working for this, the en-mass of an educated society must contribute to bringing positive change and improving the rate of illiteracy. Children of a low-income group like maids, and daily-waged employees, miss out on quality education and children turned labourers can be educated by this method.

At St. Britto’s, the concept of “Communication outreach” - with the extended support of Seek Foundation, various activities are done as a community outreach programme visiting many villages by our students.

 

“The capacity to learn is  a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice”  

                                 -   Unknown

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”                                              - Mark Twain

 

The students devote a couple of hours to teaching illiterates in villages or local areas. They visit the village schools and provide notebooks, books, stationery and uniforms. Library and toys are provided to widen the knowledge. Yoga, meditation, and martial arts like karate, and silambam are taught. Extracurricular activities like art and craft and indoor games like chess and carom are taught. Insisting on a healthy environment with good drinking water and sanitation can be improved. “The Seek foundation” organised health camps to check if they are having any ailments.

 

Through literacy, the students under the guidance of teachers instructed people about personal hygiene, nutrition, child care and life skills. Steps were taken by them to remove blind faith, superstitions, communalism, religious bigotry, and narrow-minded thoughts etc., Street play staged about various superstitious beliefs helped the local people and uneducated children to come out of it. They were taught about logical reasoning in general issues and analysing them to be safe from unscrupulous and crafty people. Understanding moral values and social responsibility was stressed as part of the  “Each One Teach One” programme.

 

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”     - Aristotle

 

“Mathematics may not teach us how to add happiness or how to minus sadness. But, it does teach one important thing. Every problem has a solution”

 

“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think”                                              - Socrates

The future of  - “Each one, Teach one”

The main aim is to educate the weaker section of society on basic subjects like English, Mathematics, Social Science and language. Computer education was also provided. Coaching classes were given. Necessary measures were adopted for providing scholarships to encourage the students to study further. “Each One Teach One” also stepped on educating adults to become proficient in basics like learning alphabets, and pronunciation and slowly rising their levels to some extent to teach their kids. 

 

Through our students, when the mission of Each one teaches one is fulfilled by empowering each other, it is a positive sign of promoting social responsibility to make a change and take it to the downtrodden for improvement which gives me inner satisfaction.

 

Testimonial

 

Hi, I am Pavan Kumar.M, doing my B.Com at SRM Institute of Science & Technology. In my school days at St. Britto’s MHSS, I learnt a lot of things, not only education and extracurricular activities but also great and simple values in life. Through the Seek foundation in our school, I and my friends have taught the underprivileged people in the nearby areas, the basics of education so that they also learnt to write the signatures on their own. For a couple of weeks, we taught them the basics of languages like Tamil and English and also some basic mathematics too. This knowledge was very useful for them. Later, they informed us that this knowledge helped them when they stepped into banks for loans and opened bank accounts.

 

Now, even at college, I am continuing this kind of activity based on “Each One, Teach One” along with my friends and family.