‘Bal Geet’ and ‘Chetna Geet’ as an Art Integrated Learning Approach to transforming the school Education: An Action Research

The current paper is an outcome of one of the ambitious project of investigator while doing his Gandhi Fellowship in Piramal Foundation, the School Ecosystem Immersion (SEI) Programme which was carried out by the investigator at UMS Rampur School in the Katihar district of Bihar. In this project, two interventions, ‘Bal Geet’ and ‘Chetna Geet’ were used in an art integrated approach. The key objectives of the SEI process is to create an effective and joyful learning environment for children, as well as to see if it aids in increasing the student attendance and retention in school. For this study, an Action research method was used. Both the interventions were first shown by the investigator, and then it was conducted by the teachers and students. The whole data was collected through participatory observations & interviews and analysed using the thread-ware discussion. The findings of the study indicated that both the intervention, ‘Bal Geet’ and ‘Chetna Geet’ not only create an engaging and joyful learning environment among students, but also aid to increase their attendance and retention in school. It has developed in pupils a sense of collaboration, coordination, communication, and responsibility. The intervention ‘Bal Geet’ was found to be an effective pedagogy for interactive teaching learning process, where teacher was connecting the students from ‘Bal Geet’ to other academic content. One central implication of the study will be fruitful for both pre-service and in-service teachers in terms of how to make the teaching-learning process more effective and enjoyable by adopting such art-integrated learning approach. Both pre-service and in-service teachers should be given training in this regard to implement such practices in the classroom.