Teach for India welcomes 479 individuals into the movement at the 11th Training Program
Delhi: Teach For India, is hosting for the first time a virtual training program of eight weeks for its 11th cohort of Teach For India (TFI) Fellows. Since 2009, the organization has built the largest movement of committed and driven talent in the Indian educational ecosystem to address the challenge of educational inequity in India. In the last 10 years, over 97,000 people have applied to the Fellowship, and over 5000 have been selected. TFI Alumni serve at all levels of the educational ecosystem, from leading change in the education and social sector to pioneering transformations in governance and in the private sector.
Over the past week, as we inducted the 479 Fellows, they had the opportunity to learn and be inspired by leaders from around the world. We had Mike Johnston, talk about his journey as a Teach For America Fellow, followed by his experiences as a Principal and a US Senator. We had our CEO Shaheen Mistri recount her journey in the education sector, Aakansha Gulati our Chief Program Officer hosted Alums from the past decade like Madhukar Banuri from Leadership For Equity, Shivani Agarwal from Boston Consulting Group and Jagnoor Grewal who works with the Government of Punjab. Sandeep Rai, our Chief of City Operations took our Fellows through the journey of Teach For India. We also had Suchetha Bhat and Vishal Talreja from Dream a Dream Foundation interact with our Fellows.
Every year, Institute is hosted in Pune at the FLAME Campus. This year with the growing threat of COVID-19, the training has moved to a virtual medium. 479 Fellows will participate in the 8-week training virtually. Virtual Institute 2020is a first of its kind for Teach For India. The organization will cover a spectrum of topics including best teaching practices, understanding educational inequity in India, envisioning one’s role in the social sector, bringing innovation into classrooms, and blended learning and leadership forums to name a few. Resources like Teaching as Leadership help guide what it takes to become a brilliant leader in the classroom, experiential activities including connecting with a child, and classroom training boost Fellow learning, sessions tailored to push for reflection and question one’s purpose allow Fellows to envision their role in the larger picture.
Sandeep Rai, Chief of City Operations, shares, “Institute is where the Teach For India Fellowship begins. Over the next eight weeks, we’ll be bringing 479 Fellows from across the country together to learn, get inspired, and get challenged. They’ll explore leadership. They’ll learn how to teach. They’ll form their first community. And they’ll hear from industry leaders and experts from across the world. It’s all going to be virtual and will be different. But we’re hopeful that’s a constraint that has only opened up more opportunities .”
Virtual Institute will focus on a blend of asynchronous learning through Firki courses – our online teacher training program, Google classrooms – an online space that will aid Fellows to facilitate lessons in virtual classrooms, and synchronous learning through Zoom where an instructional trainer will facilitate sessions. This provides Fellows with first-hand experience at teaching some of our Students.
“#Whatif students took ownership and leadership of their learning?” This is a question asked by Samyukta Shinde a Grade 12 student from Mumbai currently studying at United World College in Pune. This year TFI wants to push its Fellows to think of what reimagined education means. The Fellows of the Future track is a project at Teach For India initiated to push for commitment towards personal transformation, collective action, educational equity, and all this while operating with the 7 C’s of Compassion, Courage, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Communication, Curiosity, and Collaboration. Teach For India has worked extensively with the Kids Education Revolution (KER) in understanding a redefined education and wants to bring the same lens to Fellows through Institute.
Alpana Mallick, Director, Training & Impact at Teach for India shares, “Institute is very special to all of us, and our Fellows are trained on various aspects of the Fellowship from basic teaching, pedagogy, understanding education inquiry to name a few. This year with the changes we are facing and seeing, we also see a deeper purpose as to why we do what we do. The virtual medium will see us operate with a high sense of creativity which we hope will instill the resilience and agility that the Fellowship will require this year so that Fellows can take this back to the classrooms and make them as successful. We want to ensure that our Fellows walk out of Institute feeling confident and equipped with the knowledge and skills to take on their Fellowship journey.”