Nagas have long been accredited for their natural flair for poetry and music and we have many poets and musicians from our state who have gone to gain recognition in both national and international arenas. While these forms of art, like every genre of creativity, have their own object, our attention is drawn to the recent announcement that a group of teacher trainees have roped in their modest knowledge about these art forms and have composed rhymes aspiring to make learning more interesting and lively in the classrooms.
This group of teachers, from the District Institute for Education and Training (DIET) Chiechama, have been reported to have creatively composed some original nursery rhymes, through an idea conceptualised by one of the senior lecturers of the institute, as part of the training syllabus.
It has long been argued that nursery rhymes set to music aid in a child’s development. Various researches support the assertion that music and rhyme increase a child’s ability in spatial reasoning, which aid mathematics skills in particular. Songs and rhymes are considered to have a hugely positive impact on a child’s language and literacy development.
According to experts, children love Rhyme, Rhythm and Repetition, and these three things found in songs and rhymes can naturally help to boost a child’s language, literacy and learning skills.
The DIET Chiechama trainees have, under the guidance of their lecturer, have finally grasped this theory and have taken the stride to apply it in the classrooms as a tool for learning.
The brain behind the concept (at least for Nagaland), was stated to have wondered why the talented Naga musicians have not given a thought about composing nursery rhymes of our own while our school children have been singing western composed rhymes all these years.
The trainee teachers have composed 10 nursery rhymes which can be incorporated in teaching maths, science, environmental studies and English to make teaching and learning process more interesting and lively with a different concept. The rhymes were recorded at Clef Ensemble and will be officially released in the month of October coinciding with the 25 years anniversary celebration of DIET Chiechama. The collection, it is learnt, have already been introduced to a few schools in Kohima.
The popular English nursery rhymes are traced back to the Middle Ages and many people know this collection of rhymes as ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’, so named for a fictional character who appears in a rhyme and who is often depicted as an English country woman. Though no one knows for certain if Mother Goose was a real person, she has been credited with writing several hundred classic nursery rhymes that have been popular with young children since the 1600’s.
Nursery rhymes are not just for children; they are also considered an excellent writing exercise for people of any age.
All in all, this new venture of DIET trainees should encourage and inspire young musicians to produce original rhymes which could become a catalyst of change in our education system.
