Music for environment awareness (Gorkhapatra)
Playing the guitar, Feb 20
Playing the guitar Mikito Yoshioka started to sing in Nepali ‘Timi Lai Kasto Shahar Man Prachha?’ (How the city should be for you to like?) in a classroom and the students replied ‘Clean’ before the singer had a time to sing the next line-Safa Khola, Safa Bato, Safa Hawa Vayeko Shahar? (A city with clean rivers, roads and air?). Obviously, the prompt answer of students was an evidence of their excitement to learn with music. Yoshioka finished singing in a classroom in five minutes and asked the students to sing with him for another five minutes, and then he explained them the meaning of the song – that we have to keep our city or environment clean by not throwing the wastes here and there. At last, he asked the students to show him how they could keep the school environment clean and the students stood up and they came out of the class to collect the pieces of plastic bags, pouches, dried leaves scattering around the school compound.
Standing before the heap of the wastes, the JICA volunteer teacher started to sort out decaying and non-decaying materials, telling his curious pupils that plastic takes some 500 years to decay while lead is almost non-decaying. The teaching-learning process continued. He showed them some photographs and explained how dirty environment affects both human and animal health. Before his 45-minute period was over in class four of Ganesh Primary School of Jhaukhel, Yoshioka suggested the students not to throw wastes every where and keep in mind that it is us who make the environment dirty and if we change our behavior, we can keep it clean.
“I have been teaching about environment using music for the last one and a half years so that the students are more interested,” he said coming out of the class.
Saying that he had been to schools of districts like Palpa, Dhangadi, Ramechhap, the bachelor graduate of environment from Rakuno Gakuen Univeristy of Hokkaido said that he could converse with the students in Nepali and that he started to learn the language as he passed the exam for JICA volunteerism.
“I have also produced a CD with the song,” he said, adding, “I have opened a web-site, mikito.webs.com, to show my activities and get feedback.”
When asked why he chose Nepal for teaching as a volunteer, he said, “I had heard of beautiful Himalayas and good trekking routes.”
Yuki Oura, another JICA volunteer teacher who has been working for Changu Narayan Resource centre, shared his experience that the students in Nepal were disciplined and enthusiastic to learn. “In Nepal, the students do their homework as soon as they return home, and they listen to teachers.”
He said that although he was to visit fourteen schools under the resource centre, he usually visited the schools where teachers were on leave. “There is a need of improvement in teaching styles and methods here,” he pointed at shortcomings.
Laxman Aganja, the headmaster of the school, lauded the teaching styles of the JICA volunteers. “For the last four years, we have different JICA volunteer teachers. As they focus on activities and new ways of teaching, the students get interested.”
It has been 40 years that the JICA volunteers started to serve in Nepal. So far 986 such volunteers have worked here in fields like education, medicine, agriculture, sports and rural development.
Source : Gorkhapatra
