Water,water everywhere....

I was in a school with an ETC facilitator, who was supervising the practice teaching of the trainees.
The teachers about eight of them, were supposed to make teaching aids. As you guess they stated
cutting paper to make alphabet and number cards. Each one was doing the same. I watched them all doing this for some time. Then the ETC facilitator asked me if I could give them some suggestions. Appreciating the task being done by them I asked if they could use any material available in the room as an aid. They all
looked at each other and went on to say ,’Madam, you come from places where lot of materials are
available to teach. See, there is nothing here’.Quietly, I walked to a corner picked up a glass of water , gave it to a person and asked ‘ can you tell me some thing about this?’ ‘Why, it is only water.’he replied. “OK good , pass the glass to the next one please” I said. The glass was passed. Now I said ‘Tell me one thing you know about water.’ There was a response. The glass was passed on to the next person and there was another response. This act went on for a whole 15 minutes amongst the teachers and there was full excitement .The group was thrilled to see how a glass of water could lead to inclusive and participatory learning. I then pitched up to say how this aid could be used in any class depending upon the age and subject focus, be it language or science or art When all this was happening there was a person standing afar and watching all the fun. After the show he spoke to me. When I asked him who he was, he quietly replied that he was the science teacher of the school!!I did a similar show with the children in a school. Spontaneity in the use of materials goes a long way in making people think that learning happens everywhere and with any thing even as insignificant a thing as a glass of water!!It is also important for them to know that we , volunteers from privileged conditions also most of the time resort to such aids to bring in meaningful learning experiences.