Inception

PenPals : A top-secret conspiracy to trick our kids into improving their skills
Date: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:23 PM

Hi All,

A friend of mine had shared this with me on FB and I'm trying to take it forward with the kids at my school : A Pen Pals venture. I'm listing my ulterior motives here; please ensure this email doesn't reach the students:

1. Emotionally blackmail these brats into putting their well-established peer-to-peer conversational skills (which otherwise give us so much trouble) into written/typed words, hence tricking them into improving their writing and synthesis skills while they're naively connecting with another kid from a distant land.

2. Get them to actually type out their letters in their computer class or on my lappy after school, in the process fooling them into internalizing keyboard layouts, improving typing speeds and figuring out how to use the mouse, the desktop, the GUI, file system, Word processors and the works.

3. Make them more familiar and less intimidated by computers, which in my view, comes next to English as an opportunities-multiplier skill.

4. Get them to take their minds out of their own little worlds of family and neighborhood and look beyond.

So, here's putting it out there : Can I have a holler (pls don't reply to all, some people have very serious work to do and we must not disturb them) if you want your kids to be part of a pan-TFI Pen Pals Club? (a place where we can match kids up to each other and make them pen - pals )

Looking for enough responses to justify time spent in setting it up during this month's holidays; and looking for enterprising individuals to take ownership or collaborate and take this forward.

Here's the link that started the dubious conspiracy; I've pasted the contents below it for your benefit: @http://www.aoltribal.org/new/befriender.html

TRIBAL KID BEFRIENDERS' CLUB Tribal children are taught English and Hindi, but they have very few opportunities to speak and write with both these languages outside of the classroom. At home and in their villages, they speak their own local languages. As there have no friends, other than their teachers, with whom they could practise English or Hindi, their language proficiency remains very low. These tribal children simply have NO friends outside of their school and villages. Most have not even stepped foot in their nearest city, travelled in a train or even seen the ocean! The Tribal Kid Befrienders' Club is set up to help these tribal children establish friendship with children and adults from anywhere in the world who are keen to send them love and concerns. By regularly communicating with them using emails written in simple English or Hindi, it would greatly help them to develop their language proficiency, and allow them to feel cared for by friends from afar. To befriend these tribal children, just email them at. Our Befriender Angels (volunteers) will ensure that only genuine email messages are passed on to the children, who would then reply your email. As there is no Internet access and computers at most of the schools, the children will respond by writing a note for their teachers to type and email out at the office's computer. So be patient with the reply from your tribal child friend. Befriend Us! Class 7-9 students of Hindoljuri Middle School are keen to be your friends. Sunanda || Jamuna || Sanjih || Joshna || Barsa || Babita || Rina || Sonia || Baishanti || Charan || Kamala || Chandan ||
 * [[image:http://www.aoltribal.org/pics/befriender_sunanda.jpg width="125" height="175" caption="Sunanda"]]
 * [[image:http://www.aoltribal.org/pics/befriender_barsa.jpg width="125" height="175" caption="Barsa"]]
 * [[image:http://www.aoltribal.org/pics/befriender_baishanti.jpg width="125" height="175" caption="Baishanti"]]

Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250       Lt. Smt. Shantabai Ladkat School, Nanapeth Pune, India

**TEACH FOR INDIA Fellow, 2011-13 ** http://www.nikhilsheth.tk @http://www.facebook.com/nikjs