Coming from a privileged background, I had the opportunity to work with computers throughout my childhood that has proved as one of the most essential skills in everyday life. My school took an initiative to conduct sessions for unprivileged students from government schools. These sessions gave these students options of learning sports, cooking, dance, art or computers. On my first day of these sessions, I was overwhelmed by how much the kids already knew about operating the computers and the new skills taught were quickly picked up by them.
L4-commitment to and perseverance
I came across a few issues that were overcome during the sessions. During each session, at least 7 out of 25 computers were rendered useless due to hardware issues. This was a major problem as 2 children were assigned to each computer, as a result, we had to accommodate one more child per PC. One more issue was the language barrier. Most of the kids were accustomed to learning in Gujarati, whereas the majority of Fountainhead school students were comfortable in speaking either English or Hindi. We tried teaching the kids in Hindi but the students were unable to fully understand. Therefore we came up with a strategic solution to the problem by teaching the students as a whole at the beginning of the session providing them on the whiteboard in Gujarati and then let the students practice on the PCs. Then my peers would help them with the mistakes they made as rectifying the mistakes did not need much verbal conversation.
L5-Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
The already long curriculum was difficult to cover as the rate of each student completing a course was longer(due to shortage of PCs) but with the help of our IT supervisor and a fabulous team of students, we were able to finish the course on time. We all took up different areas of the syllabus like myself taking up teaching Microsoft Word while others took Spreadsheet, video search and using Google Maps. This division of work allowed us to be both in leading roles and supporting roles making it a win-win for all the students volunteering. During the course of the session, not even one of us hesitated in helping out the kids and showing enthusiasm while teaching them as we ensured each question being answered.
L6-Engagement with issues of global significance
The issues that these sessions could help towards were-Quality Education and decent Work and Economic Growth. As we live in a world that gets more competitive by the day, these skills could inspire kids to learn more about computers and if they do, they would gain an edge in the corporate world. This would allow them to provide a better life for themselves and their family.
