A 17-Year-Old Entrepreneur Is Creating Wooden Study Materials to Simplify Learning

Little boy Akash hates going to school and likes to play and paint. He likes to go to school only on Wednesdays as he has games and art and craft on that day. He finds other periods boring but his parents consider this as his excuse and sent him anyway. This is almost the story of every other child we come across.  Have we ever wondered why?  Why children run away from going to school?

Children like to play or paint because they enjoy doing it but when it comes to studies, they find it boring. Most of the time they face a hard time in understanding things at school but instead of questioning the learning process, we raise questions on kids and it is not at all surprising to see students worried about their performance and grade and amidst all this, the thinking process of students gets deeply affected.

A 17-year-old boy from Bengaluru, Karnataka has come up with unique study materials to engage students and simplify learning.

Vivek Kondajji, a 12th-grade student is trying to change the mechanical education system by making creative and learning tools for children. As a child, he couldn’t understand what was happening around in his school. The teachers were just teaching like robots and he hardly understood a word and started homeschooling in 8th grade. He eventually realized that many students are going through this same situation and their potential is just being wasted.

Akash’s unique initiative   

Vivek started carpentry as a hobby when he was 12. Initially, he used to make stuff of the house but it was his mother who identified his talent and he began to think that everybody is full of creative ideas so why not use them. So he started his Facebook page “Kingwood Carpentry” a platform where educators or anybody could help him design customized tools and toys for the learning process.

These creative tools enhance the learning process.  two to seven is a crucial age of learning.

The impact

Global research shows that 90 percent of brain growth occurs by the age of five. The quality of early childhood education has a crucial impact on the development and long term schooling of a child. If children can use this to their advantage, a lot of progress can be made.  These tools not only help in education but also help to develop logical and rational thinking. The work of Vivek has reached more than 10,000 people.

“There was a child who was facing difficulty in Mathematics, so I along with a friend had made this machine called “Maths Machine”.  In  schools, we are taught 2*2 = 4 but it is not explained how,” says Vivek

The tough road to follow

Vivek struggled at school but gathered the courage to come out from it. While he is working hard to make other student’s lives better there are some of the challenges that he is facing.  

One of these is the high prices of materials required for building tools. To make big projects, a huge investment is required. Certain projects also require a big space. So he is also in need of big space for his work

The future

Vivek looks forward to extending his project so that more and more students can benefit from this. He is planning to get into production designing so that he can design more things using his creative ideas.

We live in a world of cut-throat competition and it is hard out there, just don’t give up and enjoy what you do is the mantra that Vivek follows.

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”  Margaret Mead

 ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) 2019 argues that a focus on cognitive skills rather than subject learning in the early years can make a bigger difference to basic literacy and numeracy abilities. 

The report further states that only 16 percent of children in class one in 26 surveyed rural districts can read the text at the prescribed level, while almost 40 percent cannot even recognize letters. And suggested that focusing on play-based activities that build memory, reasoning, and problem-solving abilities is more productive than an early focus on content knowledge.

So the next time you see a kid having trouble in studies, find ways to make it interesting rather than forcing the kid.  Teachers, parents need to understand this. Let’s all focus on “quality education” rather than just education. Just Good grades don’t mean education so next time a kid passes a test or exam ask him what did he learn instead of his grades. A child is capable of much more, help him achieve his potential Let’s create an environment so that kid like Akash won’t have to run away from school.

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