Interview of the week: Mathematics teacher with a green initiative : Lomas Dhungel

Lomas Dhungel, aged 35, Maths GT at Makha SSS is perhaps the youngest National Award for Teachers from Sikkim. He is inspirational, enthusiastic and has a desire to work towards the betterment of the society; and believe me, his work speaks. Meet the person whose unique mathematics classes and green mission initiative of Hariyo Makha is trending on social media.

Many congratulations for this year’s National Award of Teacher from Sikkim.

Ans: Thank you so much for your kind words

 

Tell us about your family. Also let us know about your education.

Ans: I live with my father, mother and younger brother at Shantinagar, Singtam. I completed my class 8 from East Point School, Singtam, class 9 and 10 from Govt Sr Sec School, Singtam, and finally Class 11 and 12 from Sir Tashi Namgyal Senior Secondary School, Gangtok. I did my graduation from Siliguri College under NBU IN 2007. Thereafter, I completed my M.Sc. Maths from Madras University in 2015. I have also done a PG Diploma in Environment and Sustainable Development from IGNOU.

 

How do you see this recognition in your growth as a teacher?

Ans: The National Award earned by me was due to the blessings from my parents, my relatives and the good wishes of all my students, colleagues, mentors and motivators. Thanking everyone I would like to mention that I am highly motivated to work even harder and with full dedication in near future.

 

You are a Maths GT at Makha SSS, Why do you want to be a maths teacher?

Ans: Previously, I was working at the prestigious State Bank of India. Since my childhood I was deeply interested in science and motivated by the lives of hard working scientists like Jagdish Chandra Bose, Michael Faraday and many more. Hence to continue my pursuit, my interest in scientific research, I cleared the interview of Graduate Teacher (Maths) conducted by Sikkim Public Service Commission and became a teacher in 2012.

 

How do you use technology as a tool for learning in your classroom?

Ans: In today's era technology has become a major tool in learning. I take the help of smart classes, YouTube, Google and other technological platforms to provide additional supplementary to the school education. During this lockdown, teachings in audio-video mode were done mainly through Whatsapp, and tests conducted through Google forms. It would not be wrong to say that education is supported and enhanced by the use of technology.

 

What strategy do you adopt while teaching mathematics?

Ans: I teach mathematics that is one of the most feared subjects by the students. To ease the learning process complex concepts are broken down into simpler and easy-to-retain explanations using a mixture of poetry, story-telling and playful activities. This will help in attracting the attention of students and make them confident specially dealing with formulas and other difficult areas.

 

How do you usually maximize classroom participation?

Ans: I usually follow the concept of "Grouping & Re-grouping". Students are mixed in heterogeneous groups that contain all types of students. They learn in groups, helping each other, and once the concept is cleared then two or more groups are again merged into one, and the process continues until the whole class understands the concepts.

For the few who are reluctant to participate or ask questions to me, a special "Audit group" is prepared from among the fast learners who go deeper into problems faced by their classmates. They discuss and solve the queries or bring the problem upto me if required.

This saves a lot of useful time and helps in group learning and better communication from within the class. I also have kept a motto in the class "Once you finish understanding, always maintain a habit of helping your nearby friend".

 

How would you encourage the practical applications of mathematical thinking in everyday life?

Ans: I think the best application of mathematical thinking is to help in reducing the fear of mathematics from the hearts of children. Students from higher classes can help their juniors in this process. The main aim of learning mathematics is development of aptitude and logical reasoning. The more we practice mathematics, the more we develop our analytical and reasoning ability.

 

Tell me, what are the changes you would like to see in the students you have taught?

Ans: I strongly feel that I have been blessed by my teachers who have inculcated practical human skills in addition to regular education. Being enlightened by such enigmatic Gurus, I also want my students to consider lessons in human values like value education and environmental liability at par with concepts from textbooks.

 

You are earning through plastic and paper wastes, how is it possible?

Ans :

There had also been time when I had failed to bring out any sustainable output to my research – particularly during 2013-14. However in 2015, a new idea of up-cycling plastics for book covers was developed. This led to the starting of the Hariyo Makha project. We have thus been upcycling plastics for covering the books and copies of nearby school Adarsh Vidhya Mandir out of which revenue is earned.

We have so far upcycled 85,000 plastic pieces into 6100 book covers and earned gross revenue of ₹ 35,000 out of it. We have also converted 1,00,000 semi-used A4 pages into 1000 copies and earned ₹ 20,000 out of it. In all 7,50,000 pages of all sizes have been segregated piece by piece, out of which more than 4,50,000 utilised as rough copies, and 1,00,000 sold after being converted to notebooks.

 

 Why Hariyo Makha, why not on a larger scale Hariyo Sikkim ?

Ans : Hariyo Makha is a small gratitude towards Mother Nature. We have been sharing our ideas to many schools across East, North and South districts, and also to few states outside Sikkim also. It would be a humble welcoming if everyone would join us for a greater Hariyo Sikkim.

 

How do you see the success of Hariyo Makha?

Ans: All the initiatives under Hariyo Makha are mainly for earning small revenues that are "completely" utilised in helping needy and drop-out students in education. We feel humbled and happy to have helped 8 students so far. We are supported by over 30 schools, 300 student volunteers and more than 100 public intellectuals. We feel satisfied to find that our message on environmental liability is slowly being inculcated into the minds of everyone, especially the students.

 

What next now?

Ans : We have always been guided and motivated by the Education Dept, RDD Dept, ENVIS Dept, and State Pollution Control Board in various initiatives. Presently there are 10 initiatives under Hariyo Makha. Few are in their experimental phases to be added soon.

We have already earned more than ₹ 56,600 out of our works, including an amount of ₹ 21,000 earned by the Ajambari Self Help Group at Singbel, East Sikkim. The story had also been published by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Govt of India. Motivated by this success, we are looking forward to training more SHGs and NGOs for similar success stories.

 

Any message to the readers.

Ans : Mathematics is a very easy and interesting subject. However the fear of it has prevented many students from exploring the beauty within it. So let us all spread the word that maths is as easy as any other subject.

I would also like to mention that Hariyo Makha is a very small project where we have taken a pledge to work for just 15 minutes on a daily basis. As most of our works are start-ups, we expect common people to guide us with their valuable suggestions. We have a Facebook page and a blog, and we would be glad if we could get feedback so that we can improve our work in near future.