Book Review
“Diwaswapana”
Written by- Gijubhai Badheka

  About the Book-

The book “Diwaswapna” is written by “ Giju Bhai Badheka Ji”. We can say that it is a product of his imagination. It has described the real meaning of teacher, not only teacher but it presented a systematic model of teaching system. This book has one character, named “Laxmi Shankar”. This book shows a journey of Laxmi Shankar, who went in the government school to experiment new practices on students.  He was fresher and wanted to teach in government school to do some experiments in teaching. This book shows his efforts to deal with the present scenarios of teaching-learning. Also, it shows the reality of education system, the ways of traditional methods, the ground reality of the functionaries as well as teachers & students. This book shows that how teacher “Laxmi Shankar” started making changes in his classroom practices and activities, by align everything systematically, and at last it brought the positive result and changed his students. There was a great positive impact of his practices & the result on the functionaries and other staff, when they saw that his efforts are working out, but earlier they were demotivating him and even trying to bring obstacles in his work.

  Summary-

This book is a story of an Imaginative character of “teacher”, who did not believe in the orthodox culture of education as well as disregard the books of syllabus and he used to remain experimentative towards children.

Writer described each and every effort as well as obstacles comes in the path of the teacher who want to change the traditional approaches which are followed by everyone over there, either they are teachers or functionaries. 

This is the imaginative story of the teacher “Laxmi Shankar”, Who took the permission to do the experiment with children in the school. When he went there with his idea of experiment, everyone was making fun of him. 

In the starting days, he used to play “Shanti Ka Khel”, where he was seeking the attention of students, as well as building the new habit of sitting consciously. 

Then after this he started telling stories to his class, one after the other. So, gradually children developed the interest, hence they started enjoying the stories.  

Now every day children started asking him to tell the stories. 

He saw the children of that school used to wear cap, but usually, it used to be dirty, the teacher Laxmi Shankar decided to ask children to come without cap. He thought it is better for children, not to wear dirty cap. 

After this, Laxmi Shankar ji took all the children of his class to play “Kho-Kho”, Children were enjoying very much. Then at last one team won the match and another one lost it. The winning team boys were teasing the lost team, one of the lost team boys, was very angry, he thrown the stone on that boy who was teasing him, his head got injured and blood started flowing.

The other teachers who were passing from there started commenting on the teacher Laxmi Shankar that “You should focus on students’ academics, not these games, as we have to complete the prescribed syllabus also. Principal and other teachers said that these children do not deserve these games and all, they are like Monkeys, they should be kept inside the four walls.  

These all comments made him demoralize, and bringing so many more challenges, but still, he was dealing with such situations very confidently. 

Somewhere down the lane he felt bad also, still he promised to himself that, “It’s okay, but again I will try and at very first I will explain the rules of the game to the students, and I will also organize the parents meeting, where I can convey the importance of games to the parents.”

After making some basic arrangements, He sent letters to 40 parents, among then only 7 parents came. Again, he got disappointed. Even the teachers who were sitting there and listening his speech were also criticizing him. 

The thing is that from all the directions he was getting disappointments only.

How he developed the interest of reading among children?

After a few days, as he told many stories to children, so now he thought that its time for children to read. He arranged a few books, around 15 books by collecting amount from children only. He started “आदर्श वाचन”, As this was creating lot of noise in the class, He asked children to read silently “मूक वाचन” by sitting at different places.

Laxmi Shankar ji spent 2 to 3 months in these activities only. The activities include "कहानी का खेल”, “पुस्तकालय”, “आदर्श वाचन”, और “स्वच्छता और व्यवस्था” । 

After this he recalled and reviewed his activities. He did some self-evaluation also, which gives him feedback and accordingly he planned further activities.

When 3rd month started Laxmi shankar Ji, he thought of taking each subject one by one and start work on them. He started from “Dictation”, children were making different excuses, as they did not want to write the dictation words, there were various reasons behind this, one may be the shortage of study material, then the teacher borrowed some material from another classrooms. 

After this he continued his experiments with children by taking different subjects, one after the other. He was using different inductive methods for teaching grammar, different new methods for teaching history, for instance, by extracting short stories from history book, by making the history stories in recreational ways. If we talk about Geography then he used some practical methods to make the children understood about the different directions, and similarly for other geographical knowledge also. He used to take students for playing, they also play some drama on the stories of literature, so that children learn things joyfully, and impact lasts forever. 

So, in this way he experimented with children. Once there was one program in their school, the other teacher’s children were doing preparation for that program specifically, then Laxmi Shankar Ji said to all that this is not the way to present ourselves, in this way we are lying to ourselves and others too. The real meaning of presenting something is what we performed in the whole year. When Laxmi Shankar’s class performed the drama in the program, all functionaries and Head teacher liked that. They all were asking him that how did he does that? Even suggesting other teachers to see his teaching practices and learn from those, then apply in their class.

This time the Laxmi Shankar’s work was recognised, He was happy and thinking that his hard work was recognised by other teachers also, so now at least the other teachers can also implement this in their classrooms also.

At the time of the exams, he used different strategies to take the exam of his class students. By this the principal was very happy to see and was also excited to see more practices like this. Then the Principal asked other teachers also to follow the same practices. 

  Reflections-

• A teacher should be self-reflective and a good thinker, because generally we limit the definition of teacher till teaching through textbook only, which is not sufficient. Therefore, a teacher should be a thinker also.

• There should be three major steps involved in the teaching process, they are thinking, planning & making new strategies with their execution. They are needed to teach the children in a proper way as it should be.

• Setting up an atmosphere, as in this Laxmi Narayan Ji, made some strategies to seek the attention of children, which matters most. By telling different stories, poems, playing games, antaksharies, drama, shanti ka khel etc. 

Through this he was making the systematic environment where children can acquire the knowledge without even knowing that they are learning something, it was a joyful process for them.

• So, when children adapt that systematic atmosphere, they automatically enjoying that process of teaching-learning.

• Teacher should do group work with children so that their team-skills can develop, as in this story a great coordination was there among children.

• Teacher should be self- motivated also, because many times it happens that the teachers come with different ideas, but the other colleagues discourage them.

• One thing which I can convey is the Time invested by teacher and the commitment done by them, If the teachers themselves realise the value of time and commitment, then they are the one who can bring a better social change in our society. As they are the one from whom a large number of people can be inspired. 

• There should be a discussion among teachers regarding the new ideas, problems facing by them, social issues etc, it enhances their level of thinking, gradually it will bring broadness in their thinking and practices.

• Teacher should have patience and tolerance.

• It sets an example of the scaffolding, here it tells what one teacher can do when given a chance and a little help.

• If a teacher wants, then he/she can make learning fun and interactive.