When my children were young it took everything I had to raise them, and I can't think of a more important way to have spent my time.
~ words from Manasi that keep us thinking and wondering ~
Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
Notice what you notice. Wonder what you wonder. There is no quiz, no right way. Read until something stays.
this film has no words. notice what you notice. notice what you wonder. wonder out loud. and don't forget to notice what you feel, too.
Wonderful Work
There was excitement in our community here in India – amongst all the ladies, anyway. I had seen women shuffling up and down our street and whispering to one another all afternoon. Some organization was coming to provide work to everyone – or so I had heard. Unlike many of the other women, I didn’t have to attend this meeting. I already had a job. Many of my friends have never really worked outside of their homes. Looking after their family is enough to keep one more than busy. But this doesn’t count as “work” to some people. It doesn’t generate any money for the house. Often times, when women don’t earn an income outside the home, they are looked down upon by others.
Being a housewife can be one of the most demanding jobs.
When my children were young it took everything I had to raise them, and I can’t think of a more important way to have spent my time.
Why do you think people in my community look down upon ‘housewives’?
Is this a common sentiment in your community?
How can we recognize the value of this role and restore its dignity?
My curiosity got the better of me though, and even though I had a job, that evening I slipped away to the meeting. There were many women from our community gathered there, craning their necks to see what the two men in front were up to. They looked young, excited, and one looked like he was holding a bundle of old newspapers. I thought of leaving – what use would these boys be to me? But my feet seemed glued to the floor and I stayed.
We soon learned that these boys, Rohit and Sudhir, started an organization, and they were there to train anyone interested in making paper bags. They sell these paper bags to stores to use instead of plastic bags. Their eyes lit up as they spoke with passion for the environment and the need to reduce the use of plastic. They spoke in a way I have never seen anyone speak before. It was nice to see, but what got me hooked was when we started making the bags. I’ve always loved arts and crafts and this bag making process was actually quite fun. We learned that we’d be able to make these bags at home, at our own time, and that every quality bag we made would be bought by the organization. I was glad I came, and glad I stayed.
Do you use plastic bags?
Have you ever considered alternatives, like the paper bags I mentioned here, or even cloth bags?
Do you know how plastic affects the environment?
Nowadays, when I am not looking after our home or my children, my time is spent between tailoring and paper bag making. With Diwali coming up, everyone has been purchasing new clothes and the never-ending pile of blouse pieces and sarees sitting lopsided on my sewing machine seems to grow. I’ve received over 100 orders this month (November) and had to decline some. I just don’t have the time. But this is how it goes: as soon as Diwali passes, so do the tailoring orders. In December I still get around 20 - 30 orders, as it’s a popular month to get married, but come January and February, I often don’t receive more than 10 orders. The amount of work changes often depending on the time of year.
In what ways do you see how my job is seasonal?
What challenges does that create?
What could I do to ensure I have a more stable income?
You’d never expect to find this in a tailor’s house, but in our home, you’ll find piles of newspaper lining most of my shelves. Our cupboards are brimming with half constructed paper bags, often lacking a handle or final reinforcements, and tinted bottles that unsuspecting visitors expect to be filled with water, but are actually filled with glue. I have a little paper bag making operation in my very small home, and creating these bags has done wonders for stabilizing my income and helping me save money.
In my most recent batch of bags, I have made 320 Home Delivery Bags which I sell to EcoAd at 2 INR each, 15 Grocery Bags which sell at 2.50 INR each, 15 Laundry Bags which sell at 3.25 INR each and 150 Pharmacy Bags which sell at 1.25 INR each (INR= Indian Rupee). How much money can I expect to make from each type of bag? In total?
When I’m making the bags, I have to think a lot about angles when cutting out the pieces and attaching them to each other.
Can you explain what I mean by angle, and imagine why it is important?
Maybe you can try it out!
I’ll give you some dimensions, and you can use paper materials, tape and a protractor to make the bag!
Can you also help figure out the area and perimeter for the pieces you use?
Make sure you end up with right angles when you attach the pieces to each other.
Here are some of our common dimensions:
Grocery bag: Width 10.5mm, Height 10 mm, Depth 4mm Home delivery bag: Width 10mm, Height 12mm, Depth 5mm Pharmacy bag: Width 6mm, Height 11mm, Depth 4mm
Once I have made a good number of bags, I bundle them together and head to the homes of the other women in our area to collect their bags. Many of the women I visit are my friends, the same women I saw shuffling along the street that day long ago. Now, we’re working together to support our families and to end the use of plastics in our community.
It is really empowering to work at something that also has a positive impact on my community!
Do you think it is important to contribute to your community?
Why?
What are some initiatives in your community to which you might like to contribute?
Have students stand up and stretch before beginning this lesson!
“How do you feel about getting a job someday?” Pose this as a casual question, gauging to what extent students have thought about work and their attitude toward it.
If they hold a negative attitude, try asking something like, “Now, what if you loved your job so much, it didn’t feel like work? Or what if your job was making a positive impact on your community?” Try to challenge their assumptions about “work,” encouraging them to dream big. This lesson will dive into a micro-enterprise endeavor in India that provides work stability for local women as well as moves the community away from plastic bag usage.
Watch the video, I am Manasi, asking students to consider, “Why might paper bags be important?” After brainstorming as a class why something as simple as paper bags may be important, read the story, Manasi Tai Makes Bags.“What are some of the reason’s Manasi shares for the importance of these paper bags?” To check reading comprehension and delve deeper, add these to your list and see how far out you can imagine the effects.
“How does this bag project impact Manasi’s family? Her community? How might it impact the whole country? What might happen if everyone in the world started using paper bags instead of plastic?” You could choose one branch of effects to delve into, or think of all of them broadly. You could go into the negative effects of plastic on the environment, and point out how this project also reuses a common item and repurposes it into something useful and impactful. “What are some other common items we could repurpose for a good cause?” You could choose to go into the economic side of the project, pointing out, “Just two normal guys started this project - and see what a difference it has made! What type of impact have they had on others? On the environment?” Encourage students to be inspired by the ‘ripple in the pond’ effect. Suggest researching socially innovative micro-enterprises in your community. It could even become a field trip!
Practice multiplying with place value and thinking about decimals greater than 1 by helping Manasi calculate how much money she makes from her bags.
Then try out making bags to work with angles! Near the bottom of page 3, Manasi outlines how much money she makes per bag and asks for help calculating how much she can expect to make total. Begin by using money as a tool for understanding decimals greater than 1. You could use your currency’s equivalent to the amounts outlined by Manasi (for example, a quarter in USD to represent .25). “How many “quarters” make up a whole 1 dollar unit? If there are two quarters left over, that is worth ½ a dollar, and therefore .5 can be tacked on after the 1.” To help Manasi make the calculations she wanted, consider rounding the decimal numbers to just whole numbers. From there, you can practice multiplying with place value to solve for the amount of money/bag. You could also experiment with the area model. Encourage students to come up with a clear way to display the information for which they solve, “Pretend you have to present this information to your future boss to demonstrate how much pay they owe you.” Manasi also provides a little information regarding how the bags are made, which entails thinking about angles. Begin introducing angles by looking around the room and asking students to point out angles they see. Next, practice measuring angles by providing students with a contractor and encouraging them to find angles of different sizes around the classroom. Then, suggest, “Now, let’s try our hand at making bags like Manasi and see where angles come into play!” Using the dimensions provided by Manasi, let students cut out the sizes of paper they need and experimenting with how to attach them. This is a good step at which to calculate area and perimeter. They can practice constructing angles as they attach the pieces to each other. “Manasi gave us the tip to make a right angle, what does that look like? What is the numerical value? Why might that be helpful for these bags?” Encourage them to try out acute, obtuse and straight angles to explore how they affect the bag.
Facilitate a free-write activity in which students respond to the question, “What do I customarily throw out that I could actually repurpose and reuse?
Why do we tend to just throw things out?” Invite students to share openly with the class, perhaps with you leading first - no shame, just a time for learning!
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Education Relation
“Mayuresh, come here beta (child). Wear your clothes quickly, the van will be here soon.” He put down his books and slipped into my arms. I could feel the sweat on his forehead against my neck as I held him close and tight. My two sons mean the world to me, Mayuresh and Atharva. Everything I do is for them. These two boys give me reason to make every sacrifice and the strength to cope through every hardship. I pulled the creases of his shirt, combed his hair to one side and applied kumkum (red powder) to his forehead. “How smart my boy looks,” I thought to myself before he left for school here in India.
I don’t know of a stronger bond than that between a mother and her child.
Even when they are adults, I will still think of them as my little children.
Which relationships do you think will remain with you for the rest of your life?
How do you think they’ll change over time?
Giving my children a good education has been a lifelong dream. As a child, my family struggled financially. I got pulled out of school at 10th standard (grade) to work, and we hardly ate two meals a day. After my marriage, my life was still a struggle. For many years I was the only one who worked in our home, and it felt like whatever money I earned kept slipping through our fingers. Nowadays, both my husband and father-in-law are working and our situation has certainly improved - especially since I started making paper bags to supplement my tailoring income. The goals for my family have never changed, and my boys and their education continue to be the top priority in my life.
I used to earn an average of 5,000 INR per month from tailoring, my husband earned 8,000 INR, and my father-in-law earned 5,000 INR per month (INR= Indian Rupee). Nowadays, I earn 8,000 INR on average and my husband earns 12,000 INR per month. What was the total amount we used to earn? What is it now? Assuming that our costs have remained the same, how much more can we save now? How much of that am I able to contribute through the bags I make?
I heard the school van pull up and halt just outside our home. Before I could get up, both my boys were out of the house, greeting their friends and jumping into their seats. Both of them attend an Affordable Private School (APS). Even when I was the only one working, I was committed to saving enough money to send them to a private school. I believe this will ensure a better quality of education for them both.
I wish the public education system was of higher quality here, but our government schools just don’t work.
How is the quality of education in your country?
What about in your community?
Why do you think that is?
I have also been saving to buy a home. We’ve been renting our place, but it has been my aspiration to have a home to call our own. My family lives in the villages of India, and it would bring the greatest pride to them to know I own a house. What a symbol of success that would be. To help save up for a house, I joined a women’s savings group. Each month, each of the 20 members contribute 3,000 INR. Every month, one person receives the collective money that we all put in. For us, this is much cheaper than using a bank because we don’t have to pay any fees. Because I am part of the group, it also forces me to save each month; without the system I could have easily spent all the money.
The down payment on a new home will be about 6 lakhs (lakh = hundred thousand).
Can you help me work out when I will have enough money to make the down payment on my house, based on how much I am contributing to my savings group each month?
Do you save money?
How?
How can we help people save more often so they have enough money when they need it?
I’m curious, how much money is this where you’re from?
You can use conversion rates to figure this out.
Below I’ve shared a few of the most common currencies, but you could also look up your currency.
Encourage your students to close their eyes and take deep breaths for 1 minute.
“Why is education personally important to you?” Here is what you might ask: “Schools were designed to support student learning, but often students aren’t asked about their needs, desires, and ideas about what they want to get out of their schooling.
In what ways do you feel like our school does and does not respond to your needs and desires?” If students need support in understanding and responding to the “Big Question,” ask them: “Why do you come to school everyday? If it wasn’t required, would you still show up? What things are you learning that seem valuable for your future?” Give students a choice to draw or write down their responses.
Watch the video I am Manasi and then read the story, also called I am Manasi. Manasi saves her money and works very hard to send her children to a private school in India.
“Why do you think education is so important for her? How important is it for you?” Ask the group to break up into pairs or small groups and discuss these two questions. Encourage them to put themselves in Manasi’s shoes. “As a mother, why would she care so much about education?” Then, look back at their responses to the first “Big Question” and consider how their thoughts relate to Manasi’s. They can put Manasi and themselves in two center circles and draw images or write their ideas for why each of them believe education is important. Then reconvene the group and share responses with each other. You may hear answers like, “I want to get a good job.” Support students in thinking about why they want a good job. “What is a good job? What does a good job mean to you? Why is schooling important for that? Is it at all?” Then step back and ask students, “Do you think schools around the world are the same? Really different? Why do you think that?” You could ask the group to consider the look and feel of different schools and classrooms as well as the role and activities undertaken by teachers and students. Look at photos of classrooms from around the world as a visual aid. Think about both the similarities and differences observed, maybe using a venn diagram as a visual aid. Students may make assumptions about the other classroom; encourage them to focus on aspects of the classroom that they can see. If they make an assumption, ask them, “How do you know that for sure?” Support them in coming to their own conclusion about their assumptions. You might even choose to research the education system in a country pictured.
Think about budget with Manasi to practice a variety of math concepts. Start on page 2, where Manasi introduces her family’s income. Here you can practice adding and subtracting numbers within 1000.
Ask students to practice writing out the amounts in expanded and written form, pointing out, “This is good practice, because someday you may need to do this at the bank or on a check!” Also, consider sharing with students that the average price of an APS in India is 1670 INRs. Move on to the bottom of page 3, where Manasi describes a community savings fund in which she participates, saving up to buy a home. She asks for the students help determining how many months it will take her to save up for a home. This presents a great opportunity to practice division with place value and area models. Check reading comprehension by asking, “Why is buying a home so important to Manasi? Is it important to you as well?” And finally, practice curiosity by wondering, “How much is Manasi’s INR currency in our own currency?” Take this learning moment to answer any questions students have about different currencies, prompting them by asking, “Why might different countries have different currencies? What are some benefits? Some downsides?” Use the conversion chart or research your own currency’s conversion rate with INRs to practice converting money.
DEBRIEF ACTIVITY As a creative way to debrief this lesson and promote critical thinking, ask students to come up with a creative plan for an educational approach based on what education means to them.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Garbage Island
As I walk along the streets of Pune city here in India, I can’t help but feel ashamed of the amount of garbage I see. Piles and piles of bags filled with food scraps, electronic waste, and even human waste rot on numerous street corners. No one bats an eye toward any of it, apart from dogs and crows who nibble on their meals. I worry about the way we humans have taken control of Earth and begun to exploit her for our own selfish interests.
Is there a garbage problem in your community?
How do you contribute to our Earth’s waste?
What do you throw out everyday?
Have you ever imagined how much trash you produce each week?
Would you keep a tally of how much you use and show it to me?
Throughout my life I have always sought opportunities to get involved in work to help our community. My biggest passion has always been for our environment. After finishing my engineering degree, I was looking into various jobs when my friend Rohit approached me. His contagious passion convinced me to join an organization he was starting with a mission to reduce the use of plastic bags in India. Whilst I could have taken the more safe and secure path of engineering, I decided I needed to work with Rohit on his idea.
After beginning this work, I began to understand just how many plastic bags we use every day. And beyond plastic bags, how much single use plastic we consume – lolly wrappers, chip packets, bread bags, water bottles, everywhere we look we see plastic in some form. Usually, we just open it once and throw it away. What I soon realized when I first joined was how harmful this can be for the environment. Over a hundred thousand mammals and seabirds die each year from eating plastic in the ocean! There’s actually a giant soup of plastic known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which people claim to be over half the size of India. Can you even imagine that?
What kinds of plastic do you and your family dispose of regularly?
Have you ever thought about where this ends up?
I wonder what would happen if everyone in the world cut back on half the amount of plastic they use.
Do you have ideas on how you could cut back?
How about you make a list of everything that comes in plastic, and ways to avoid it!
Our mission is to replace plastic bags with paper bags and eventually with cloth bags. Unlike plastic, no fossil fuels are used in the production of paper and it is recyclable. Our bags are also very sturdy and can be used for at least 1 month, sometimes 3-4 months if there are well taken care of. We are beginning to see more people switch to using reusable bags.
Cloth bags have the least environmental impact; however, they are the most expensive to make.
Because of the cost, people don’t want to buy them.
Why do you think people often value price over the environmental impact when making their decisions?
How can we encourage more people to choose products that are better for our planet?
Before we started our work, we wanted to estimate how many plastic bags are used in our city of Pune that we could potentially replace with paper bags. Our estimations are as follows:
Can you help me calculate about the total number of bags each type of shop uses per month?
How does this vary for your city?
How could we reduce these numbers?
What would happen if everyone brought their own cloth bags when they went shopping?
We choose to work with women to create these bags, like our friend Manasi. Many women in under-resourced communities here do not have paid jobs. Because they don’t earn an income, they are looked down upon by their families and have low self-esteem. When they engage with our organization, they earn a livelihood. They are treated better at home and become more confident. We believe that, through their work in the community, their dignity can be restored.
Our target is to replace 14,000,000 plastic bags with paper bags in Pune by 2017. Women usually make 13 bags an hour and work for about 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. How many can each woman make per week? If I told you that in one week, we made 1,872 bags, how many women were working? What impact do you think this work might have on their families and communities?
Overtime we hope our society produces less and less waste. We just cannot afford to use and dispose of things at the rate that we are. There is just nowhere for it to all go. There are communities and organizations around the world that are pushing themselves to live a zero waste lifestyle. It feels like we have a long way to go, but I think we must make this shift in the way we live. We just cannot afford not to.
Begin this lesson with 2 minutes of collective silence to encourage focus.
Watch the video, I am Manasi, and ask the class to pay close attention to what she is making.“Why might she be making these?” In this story, you’ll read about one of Manasi’s employers and the mission behind the bags she makes: to reduce the amount of plastic garbage in Pune. Be ready to discuss waste reduction with your class!
Read the story, Sudhir Works with Manasi, and engage in the reflective questions he presents. Sudhir tells us that there’s a giant soup of plastic known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is said to be over half the size of India.
“Unbelievable, isn’t it? Well, you better believe it!” As a class, read this article about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to learn more. “Pollution doesn’t have to be an issue that we just deal with. Just as Sudhir created EcoAd to reduce the use of plastics, there are ways that we can take action as well. Let’s explore the possibilities!” Ask the group to shout out as many answers as they can think to the question, “What are some of the challenges that individuals face as a result of pollution?” You may hear everything from health issues to dealing with foul smells. “Let’s imagine. What are some of the challenges that schools face as a result of pollution? Communities? Countries? And the world?” These are big and complex questions that might inspire thoughtful conversation in your classroom. Support students in thinking about why they imagine these different challenges at each level. By considering different levels of the ecosystem, the group can learn how individual actions can have a global impact.
Help Sudhir think about the plastic bags vs. paper bags, all while practicing multi-digit multiplication and division, and multiplying by 10s, 100s and 1000s .
On the bottom of page 2, you’ll find a chart of Sudhir’s estimations of how many plastic bags are used weekly by each type of shop. Ask students to help fill in the chart, practicing multi-digit multiplication and multiplying by multiples of 10. “Why might it be important for Sudhir to estimate the number of bags being used?” For more multi-digit multiplication practice, go to page 3 to help Sudhir calculate about how many bags each woman can make weekly. He also presents a multi-digit division opportunity by asking students to calculate how many women were working based on number of bags produced. Help students connect the dots between the word problems by asking, “Now, what could Sudhir calculate with all the numbers you found?” You’re looking for them to recognize that, by knowing this data, Sudhir could figure out how many women to hire to meet their target goal.
“One way to inspire change is to share our learnings with others and work collaboratively to make a difference. How can we share what we learned from Sudhir about plastics and the reading on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to decrease the amount of pollution in our community?” As a group, create a campaign to raise awareness.
Here, you’ll find a half-page print out with recommended steps.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
If a moment stayed, follow it. If a question rose up, hold it. The quiet teaching is still teaching.
Three or four real stories woven into one lesson, your topic, your time. Manasi is one. The weaver finds the others, threads the math, the literacy, the values, the reflection.
Open the weaver →