Students learn through puppets in this school

Yakshagana takes place through puppets

Different forms of stick toys

Children playing and learning through puppets

Siddappa Biradar, a science teacher at Chibbalageri Government High School in Haliyal taluk of Uttara Kannada district has become popular for his unique teaching methods. Siddappa teaches lessons by using various models to teach mathematics apart from using pictures and toys. He also trains children in making these toys.

One of the ways he engages students is by using puppets. His students, numbering about 250, make puppets, play with them, and learn during the process.

Paper mache, gum made from tamarind paste, bamboo sticks, cotton rags, cardboard and sticks are used in the making of puppets. The school has over 500 puppets that are used in teaching the syllabus of classes eight, nine and 10.

Learning while playing

Siddappa enables children to encapsulate the gist of the lessons into a song or a story. Children then prepare the required puppets for the story or the lesson. They develop their own lesson plans on various subjects, thereby bridging folklore, traditions, rituals, puppetry, ballads and short plays.

Armed with all these, students stand behind the curtains, swing their puppets using the text as a plot, and play and learn in the process.

While learning languages, the puppets are used to teach metaphorical lessons. The children learn to concentrate and are sensitised about critical matters relating to that language. When they stand behind the curtains and deliver dialogues, they also are introduced to the meaning as there is action involved.

While teaching a history lesson, puppets are turned into historical characters that depict the events that appear in the lesson. This makes an otherwise dull history class interesting.

Siddappa prepares puppets in his free time. "It takes 10 days to make a puppet. I soak old newspaper in water and rub it with fenugreek seeds, making a paper lump. Then I apply tamarind paste to it and give it the desired shape and colour. Then they are dried in the sun and decorated," he says. Children are experienced enough to make puppets using the blueprints.

Teacher with many hats

Siddappa attended a workshop in Hyderabad in 2005. The 13-day training on the 'Role of toys in education' was conducted by the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training. This changed his teaching style. After returning, Siddappa mastered the techniques of making a variety of puppets — stick dolls, arm-bending puppets, string puppets and finger puppets.

Fifteen years later, his school is now filled with dolls. There are more than 400-500 dolls of animals, birds, plants, human beings and mythological characters. Using these, Siddappa's students have performed plays on global warming, environmental protection, health, Ambedkar's childhood, flowers, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

"With puppetry, teachers can experiment with teaching methods in the classroom at their own discretion," says Krishnamurthy T N, Kali-Kalisu programme manager, India Foundation for Arts, Bengaluru.

Siddappa is building a team called Hongirana that plans to perform puppetry across the state. He is now one of the national resource persons on teaching with puppetry. He has also authored a book 'Dolls in education'. He has also participated as a resource person in teacher's workshops in Sikkim, Guwahati and Assam.