The teacher’s learning curve

Sitting in a largish room of a Block Development Office in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh at 3 pm in 41 degrees Celsius heat was not quite a pleasant experience. However, neither the high temperature nor the irritating sound of the fan really mattered as the conversations unfolded over the next two hours. There was intense debate on several suggestions for teacher development and other such initiatives to contribute to improving the quality of education in the block. The group included teachers and government academic support functionaries of the block, such as the Block Resource Coordinator and Cluster Resource Persons. My colleagues from the Azim Premji Foundation were facilitating the meeting. This was one of the preliminary meetings under the ‘Voluntary Teacher Forum’ (VTF) to be initiated at the block level.