Project FUEL founder Deepak Ramola.

By training kids to interview their teachers, film them, and elicit their wisdom, Deepak Ramola is helping them gain valuable new skills and new appreciation for their elders.

At a primary school in northern India, the tables have been turned on the typical teacher-student dynamic. As a student sits across from her instructor, she gently asks, “Are you comfortable? It’s okay to be nervous.” She is conducting an interview for the Out of the Syllabus Project, an uplifting initiative that trains students to capture the wisdom of teachers and share it with everyone in their school.

Out of the Syllabus was launched in July 2018 by Deepak Ramola (watch his TED Talk: Everyone has a life lesson to share), an educator and founder of Project FUEL (Forwardly Understanding Every Life Lesson). He wants to deepen connections by using teachers and their personal stories as tools for students to learn. “In schools and colleges, teachers have been reduced to a source of passing inspiration or as a vehicle rather than as the inspiration. I want to change that,” says Ramola. “I had some phenomenal teachers who helped me grow and learn.”

A life lesson shared by teacher Reshu Dora, collected as part of the Out of the Syllabus Project.

Collecting and sharing people’s life lessons is a passion of Ramola’s. His mother was a major source of inspiration. He explains, “She didn’t go to school, yet she knew so much. I remember questioning her, and her reply was ‘I have learned from life.’ And I thought if she’s learning from living, then that means everyone who is living is learning something.”

He began documenting people’s wisdom in 2009 as a hobby while he was a college student in Mumbai, and he expanded the idea into Project FUEL, an educational organization based in Dehradun, four years later. Its mission is to create a tangible, memorable experience from life lessons so other people can be inspired by them. For example, the population of Saur, a once-thriving village in northern India, had dwindled after many inhabitants migrated to live in cities. Ramola collected life lessons and folktales from the remaining villagers, and in 2017 he and his organization covered some of Saur’s abandoned buildings with words and pictures, sharing knowledge and lifting spirits.

Through the project, students get to learn many skills — they become interviewers, directors, cinematographers and designers.

The Out of the Syllabus project is Ramola’s way of transmitting his enthusiasm to schools. Here’s how it works: In a school, teachers select 10 to 20 students to participate in a Wisdom Club. These club members are trained by the Project FUEL team and by volunteer professionals in filmmaking, data documentation, interviewing, recording and design (the professionals also share the necessary equipment). Then, the students ask teachers about their life lessons while filming and photographing them. The process, according to Ramola, “provides the children with amazing new skills in film, research and the art of conversation. It also allows the teachers to be more honest and authentic with their students.”

Afterwards, the students design posters that capture the life lessons. The posters are framed and hung in school hallways in what Ramola calls “wisdom corridors” so that the lessons can be accessible to everyone. (Schools that have resources pay minimal fees to Project FUEL to cover the costs of filming, design, printing and framing; with under-resourced schools, Ramola’s team raises funds to help them.) “For me, the project celebrates the wisdom of teachers outside their curriculum, “ says Ramola. Instead of spotlighting educators for their abilities to explain chemistry or literature, they have a chance to be recognized for their humanity and their qualities and skills outside the classroom.

Students look at teachers’ life lessons displayed in a “wisdom corridor” in their school.

For the inaugural Out of the Syllabus Project, Ramola’s team collaborated with the Purkal Youth Development Society in Dehradun, a fee-free school that assists children from impoverished families. Watching the students — who weren’t accustomed to being in charge — film their teachers and work together was “phenomenal,” recalls Ramola. “Seeing that beautiful choreography of conversation and that dance of emotions happen between these two generations was moving and empowering for me.”

When the wisdom corridor is complete, the project enters its second phase. As Ramola explains, “The Wisdom Club students coach their classmates to do the same, to document life lessons from staff members, parents and visitors, and to share them using creative tools.” He and his team provide the students with monthly check-ins. “We support and guide them until they can take it up on their own,” Ramola says. “I’ve gotten messages from one of the teachers on Instagram explaining that students now come to them saying, ‘I read on the poster that you suffered from a drug problem, and I’m going through that. Can I speak to you?’”

A life lesson from teacher Shalini Gupta.

So far, Out of the Syllabus has been brought to five schools in India, each with a distinctly different student body. “We’ve worked in all-girls government schools where the girls work and help support their parents. Then, we’ve been at a school with girls who come from economically sound backgrounds. Their passion to learn was the same, although their resources were different,” says Ramola. “The last school we did was a community nonprofit that serves children from slums. Imagine them getting to interview their teachers — and to be directors, cinematographers and designers all in one project and to be taken seriously in those roles.”

Ramola is full of anecdotes about the impact of their work. He says, “In one school, we had a girl who was very shy and would hardly talk. Interviewing a teacher was beyond her imagination.” Over the course of the project, he watched her gain confidence. He continues, “One day, she had to interview a teacher whom everyone dreaded. With shivering hands and voice, she faced her fears and managed to do it. After listening to her teacher’s story, she was so moved and said she understood why her teacher behaves the way she does. Seeing this girl find her voice and embrace empathy was one of the most meaningful outcomes of the project.”

Project FUEL founder Deepak Ramola works with students in a classroom.

Ramola shares an experience from another school. For her life lesson, “a teacher talked about a homeless person from her college days. She said that everyone, including the teacher, called him ‘crazy.’ One day she saw him with pieces from a broken glass bottle. She was afraid he might hurt himself, but she didn’t have the courage to stop him.” He ended up with cuts, and she went to him with cotton, bandages and antiseptic lotion. Ramola says, “She was very scared, but she felt it was her responsibility to help. He let her wash his wounds, and he was very quiet. When she told him he shouldn’t play with glass, he told her that he had been removing it because he knew dogs came to play in the corner and the glass could hurt them. The lesson that the teacher shared was you shouldn’t label people unless you know their side of the story.”

One student was immediately touched by the account; he told her he also labelled people as “crazy” or “mad.” He pledged from then on to listen and to help, and the other boys there did, too. Ramola finishes, “Witnessing that label get shattered in this powerful sharing was another fulfilling experience.”

Many schools have written to Project FUEL to get involved. There are nascent plans to bring Out of the Syllabus to other schools in India and beyond. He says, “We’re collaborating with a school in Antwerp, Belgium.” While he acknowledges the many difficulties posed by expanding, he strongly feels the benefits of sharing stories and creating strong teacher-student bonds will be more than worth the effort. Ramola says, “I believe that when you learn, you become a star, but when you teach, you become a constellation — not shining on your own but finding other stars, connecting with them and their stories, and becoming something much bigger and more meaningful.”

All images courtesy of Project FUEL. 

Watch Deepak Ramola’s TED Talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carly Alaimo is a writer and content specialist living in Atlanta, Georgia.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas.

BIO

Shameka Williams is the academic coordinator for Horizons at Georgia Tech, and a project-based learning coach at Charles R. Drew Charter School in Atlanta, Georgia. As a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, Shameka is frequently sought out for her innovative classroom solutions and excellent advice. Recently, she piloted a curriculum approach that helps teachers take project-based learning to the next level. Below, learn more about Shameka’s “projects worth sharing” — and find out how to try this innovation at your school.

IDEA

Project-based learning can help students engage with important content in new ways, yet students are often left out of the initial project design. To increase student motivation, involve them from the beginning in creating hands-on projects that teach content standards.

INNOVATION PROJECT

In the spirit of project-based learning, Shameka developed “projects worth sharing” — student-designed projects that are driven by a current events and relevant content. Her students chose to create lesson plans and classroom activities for other classrooms around the question, ‘What is culture?’ Throughout the process of creating these projects, her students received feedback from peers, teachers, and TED-Ed Innovative Educators. Once complete, her students successfully implemented their lesson plans and classroom activities with a select group of younger students. To try Shameka’s student-created “projects worth sharing” in your own classroom, follow the links below:

Lesson plan: What is culture?

• Project worth doing #1: Food and culture
• Project worth doing #2: Clothing and culture
• Project worth doing #3: Art and culture
• Project worth doing #4: Social interactions and culture

Shameka’s tips:

• DO develop project norms with students to create an atmosphere of open communication, trust, and respect. (You may want to use a project group contract, like this one.)
• DO help students incorporate content standards throughout the beginning, middle, and end of their projects?
• DO be realistic about time. Project calendars can help students create an accurate timeline.
• DO find opportunities for students to present their work to an authentic audience.
• DO build in time for student reflection throughout the process.
• DON’T give up!

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers. Art credit: iStockPhoto.

BIO

Pen-Pen Chen, M.S. CCC-SLP, TSSLD is a bilingual speech and language pathologist at PS 503 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and a speech evaluator on the Central Speech Evaluation Team in the NYC Department of Education. She is also an English language instructor at the United Nations, an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College, and a professional voice over artist. (Listen to Pen-Pen narrate TED-Ed Lessons, including The benefits of a bilingual brain and The myth behind the Chinese zodiac.) Previously, Pen-Pen also taught Chinese at Columbia University, Teachers College and China Institute. As a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, Pen-Pen is passionate about inspiring a love for life-long learning in children, with a focus on English language learners and students with special needs, in low-income communities. Below, learn about her innovative curriculum, codenamed Game Changing Kids.

IDEA

Games, by their very nature, encourage active learning. Making games lets kids take charge of the learning process by engaging their passion and vision to create a tangible, playable end product. By designing a board game together, students take initiative, construct knowledge and grapple with problems, and learn design thinking and how an iterative process works. They also work collaboratively to share ideas, give feedback and succeed as a team.

INNOVATION PROJECT

The Game Changing Kids board game design project curriculum fosters a collaborative student culture of:

• creativity and innovation
• sharing and respect
• learning and growing

Through this project, students learn to take an idea from inception to execution, and to collaborate with their peers in meaningful work that is fun and engaging. Want to try it out with your students? Download the Game Changing Kids board game design project curriculum here.

Pen-Pen’s tips:
DO reach out to some colleagues for help. You can also do Game Days together, which makes it more fun.
DO give students time and space to explore their seemingly fanciful ideas.
DO get students to share their work with family, friends, and other teachers.
DO trust in the process. You will learn and grow with your students, and you’ll be amazed at what their creativity can achieve.

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers. Art credit: iStockPhoto.

Community service learning projects can teach lessons that last a lifetime. For students, these school projects build character strengths like leadership, gratitude and kindness. For community groups, they bring an infusion of energy and resources. Ready to start a community service learning project at your school? Below, check out Shannon Brake’s TED-Ed Innovation Project notes on how to make it a success:

Gary Haugen’s TED Talk, “The Hidden Reason For Poverty the World Needs to Address Now,” made me realize that we can never assume that we understand the reasons behind the hardships of others, unless we take the time to listen with the intent to learn. This project took that idea further and introduced it to students in my school’s TED-Ed Club through the exploration of a pressing social issue in our community: substance abuse. To explore the issue of substance abuse, our TED-Ed Club partnered with Omega House, a local community organization that assists people recovering from substance abuse. Our aim was to be of service and also to learn: to progress into the deeper and more “hidden” reasons beneath addiction, going beyond assumptions and surface biases. [Read more about this TED-Ed Innovation Project here.]

5 tips for a successful community service learning project at your school:

1. Schedule time in class each week for students to discuss, reflect, and work together on the project.
2. Encourage students to seek a deeper understanding of the issues involved via research and observation.
3. Plan a field trip for students to meet and talk with people helped by the community organization.
4. Guide students to develop meaningful interview questions for their field trip.
5. Incorporate student input throughout the project cycle — from identifying small ways to help the community organization each week, to scheduling a field trip.

We must remember, we are only a sunset, a heartbeat, or a coin toss away from being ‘the others.’

Closing thoughts

Brake says: “We must remember, we are only a sunset, a heartbeat, or a coin toss away from being ‘the others.’ Giving and walking away from an issue isn’t enough. As educators, let’s strive to create a generation of students who can recognize and resonate with populations different than their own.”

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+ TED-Ed Innovation Projects designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under this Creative Commons license to meet the needs of students and teachers. Art credit: Shutterstock.