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Rhymes that reason with Indian kids

Montessories and a few English medium schools are now increasingly teaching children Indianised rhymes.

BANGALORE: It is finally a full stop to the old mother goose rhymes. Montessories and a few English medium schools are now increasingly teaching children Indianised rhymes written by the schools themselves.

The Indian child who once sang ‘Twinkle Twinkle little star’ or ‘Hickory dickory dock’ has now begun singing ‘Raju Chacha went to the cow shed…’

“Ever since the British era, English medium schools in India have been following western rhymes. There was no great change in their content until recently,” said Srikanta Swamy, former professor for advanced educational studies at RV Teachers College.

But times are changing. A few montessori schools in Bangalore are creating rhymes with a local flavour, something that the child can connect to. And they don’t end up always singing rhymes such as ‘Ba Ba ba black sheep’ or ‘London Bridge is falling down’.
“Indianised rhymes are about the place, colour or fruits of India,” said Prathima, founder of Sprouts Montessori. “The rhymes are Indian in content. They connect to the surroundings the child sees and the ones the child can remember.”

“Children between the age group of one and six years have a very good memory power. They tend to believe in what ever is told to them at that age. Hence we have made an effort to give them real information through rhymes,” said Laxmi R, a teacher at Joshika Montessori School.

A music teacher at St Joseph’s School pens and composes rhymes for children that address environmental issues to make them aware of incidents that take place around them. “This is done so that a child develops awareness about the environment at an early age. We compose music for these rhymes turning them into songs for children to sing,” said principal Celestine Sera.

Rhymes are the first thing taught to a child at school. “The basic purpose of teaching children rhymes is to help them learn vocabulary. Though we have the age-old English rhymes as part of the curriculum, we have brought out our own library of rhymes in a book,” said Princess Franklyn, principal of Bishop Cotton’s girl’s high school. “Every topic is related to a rhyme,” said Varisa Johnson a nursery teacher. “For instance, if we teach the child about numbers, we also teach rhymes with numbers to make learning easier,” elaborated Johnson.

“At the same time rhymes are made interesting by adding choruses to them,” added Franklyn. According to Shobha Managoli, a child psychologist, “Indianising rhymes is definitely a better attempt at teaching children things they can easily relate to and understand. This will help the child grow more culture and environment friendly. Teaching them abstract issues from age-old rhymes and songs will not help them connect to the issue and hampers their learning.”

According to Dr Swarnalatha Iyer, a counsellor in child psychology and head of the department of psychology at Christ University, “Values taught to a child at the age of montessori training remains with himfor a long time.  The best way to do it is through rhymes.”

Mythili S Sharma, a child psychologist and therapist at Aadhihara clinic, said that children today have adapted themselves to the mother goose rhymes.  “Creating environment friendliness in their attitude through Indianised rhymes is an innovative concept. That would help the child understand and react accordingly to issues as it grows, she added”

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Chauncey Koziol

Update: 2024-07-22