This former teacher is bringing educators on-board to help revolutionise education in India
Rakhee Chhabria-led Facebook group Teachers Help Teachers has over 6,700 members, where educators learn, support and find solutions to address issues in the field of education.
The education system in India has not been changed much in decades. While the world around is changing, not much has evolved in the school and university curriculums in recent years.
However, few individuals, state governments and NGOs have come forward to change the perception and bring education at par with the current scenario. Rakhee Chhabria is one such educator, who started an online community on social media platform Facebook called ‘Teachers Help Teachers’, which has currently over 6,700 members.
Rakhee Chhabria (Image: Facebook)
The community offers educators from across India on board to learn, support and find solutions to address issues in the field of education. Besides, teachers can also read about the latest trends, developments and other interesting things like job opportunities.
According to The Startup Journal, the profile of each member is checked, verified and accepted, making sure that each member added would contribute to the community.
Interacting with fellow students (Image: Facebook)
Keeping teachers updated is also quite important for which, Rakhee keeps posting TEDx videos related to teaching, which helps in understanding the behaviour of students in a class. Recently, she also launched her own website with the same name.
On her website, Rakhee organises sessions where educators get together and discuss strategies and share their own methods of practice.
Speaking to the Indian Women Blog, Rakhee said,
“When I started my journey as a teacher, I had zero ideas about how to handle students in the classroom. The coaching that is available for teachers just trains their mind, but they don’t teach you anything practical or help you develop your skills to manage the parents.”
One of the major issues that bothered Rakhee was the absence of parents’ involvement in their children’s lives.
Rakhee with educators in one of the group sessions (Image: Facebook)
Stressing on the same, Rakhee says,
“The first thing is showing trust in the educator and the school. When there is trust, there is respect, and if these two are in place, learning is enhanced, and students also develop respect towards the community and the system. When teachers are talking about children, parents need to be open, but they often become defensive. I would say that parents need to keep the channels of communication open between the teachers and themselves”, reports Indian Women Blog.
In 2016, Rakhee was invited by the Facebook group for its first group summit held at New Delhi, where she met Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook, who quite aware of the group.
Advising on the student-teacher relationships, Rakhee believes there should be student-directed learning, with student’s independence and choice being the centre of learning.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
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