For making science fun, Bicholim teacher earns praise from PM Modi

PANAJI: It was in the late 1980s that Santosh Gaonkar began teaching at Poira High School in remote Mayem-Bicholim, surrounded by iron ore mines. It was unimaginable then that students of such a rural school could compete at national science events, let alone bring home accolades.

But Gaonkar single-handedly made this possible. And 30 years later, Gaonkar, now headmaster at the school, found his recognition and how. On Wednesday, he won the national teachers’ award and praise by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his official twitter account.

“Shri Santosh Gaonkar is the principal of Poira High School in Goa. Under his leadership, the school saw significant improvement in class X results. He also worked to make the sciences popular among pupils, with his students even taking part in the Children’s Science Congress,” Modi tweeted after an interaction with Gaonkar on Tuesday evening.

After the interaction with Modi and Union minister for human resource development, Prakash Javadekar, and after accepting the national teacher’s award from Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday in New Delhi, Gaonkar told TOI, “This is the biggest award for a teacher.”

Sharpening their knowledge of science was the last on the priority of students at Poira High School, that was until Gaonkar arrived and decided to reintroduce science to them.

“I began having science magic shows for the younger students from class V to VII. I used to perform simple magic tricks with everyday objects like lighting fire on water. And then I would explain the scientific reason behind it. They found this exciting to watch and grasped the concepts better,” said Gaonkar.

Similarly, using everyday household objects, Gaonkar began preparing teaching aids to teach scientific concepts like electric current and Newton’s third law or magnetic current. This began translating into improved results at class X for his school, and soon word about Gaonkar’s knack to make science fun spread quickly. Gaonkar soon found himself passing on his skill of creating simple science teaching aids to teachers of other schools in Goa.

“I then began participating in national and western zone science competitions for teachers. And then I was invited as a resource person for science teaching aids at the National Science Congress held across the country,” said Gaonkar.

In 2016, Gaonkar’s students’ science project on the ecological importance of crabs to khazan lands beat 30 entries from Goa, and then 1,500 entries from across India to win the Wipro earthian prize. The project won Rs 1 lakh for Poira High School from Wipro.