Futurekids as I remember was like candy land. It was in the third floor of a very old building at a very busy traffic junction, dubbed the 'Roundtana' at Anna Nagar. The building itself was unaesthetic and shabby. It however had an elevator, which was a luxury back then, only the richest and most sophisticated places had elevators. On reaching the third floor which was the final stop for the elevator, one could automatically dread the excessive heat of the Madras sun. All that changed once I entered the Futurekids learning center, the cool blast of air from the air conditioners (which again was a luxury back then) was very welcome. Everything in the office from the carpets to window blinds, from the furniture to the stationary was either painted grey or pink, now you know why I called it candy land, because of all the pink. I had reached about half an hour early and since I belonged to the first batch of students for the day, most of the computers were unused. I also noticed that a couple of kids had reached early like me and were dabbling with MS paint. On closer inspection, their artistic skills were superior to mine, which was a default conclusion on my end, because I assumed that all the kids who came here excelled at art. After comforting myself that I am no lesser than them in art, I realized that the software was not actually MS Paint. It was actually Broderbund software for kids. I quickly occupied the adjacent computer and booted the game and found that it not only had a variant of MS paint, but also various puzzle games. Since this was not DOS based the colours and the resolution was pretty high in comparison and hence more enjoyable. After playing for a while, all the attendees had gathered and Ms. Bindu addressed us on our learning curriculum. We were issued a bronze coloured book called passports which had a lot of empty pages. This was their version of a report card, to monitor the progress the students achieve during their sessions here.
Ms. Bindu was a very short lady, but also a tad beautiful (I always had a fascination for fair women who wore bright red lipstick), she reminded me of air-hostesses. She introduced us to Ms. Mathini who was taller and darker, who was supposed to be our teacher. In comparison I liked Miss Bindu better since she was prettier, the only striking feature of Ms. Mathini was her big bright eyes (my judgement might have been biased since she did not wear prominent makeup). The curriculum encompassed the entire Microsoft package, at various levels of proficiency. At bronze level, students would learn how to open the applications (an entire day was dedicated to this, navigating the taskbar and the start menu...trust me it was harder than it sounds), basic commands on the menu bar, essential icons which were commands like Cut, Copy and Paste, and key features and application of each program in the Microsoft package.
Each session had a milestone, a task or a series of tasks which had to be carried out to ensure that the student had understood what they were supposed to learn. Upon successful completion, Ms. Mathini would affix stickers (usually silver stars, up to 5 per day) in our passport and stamp the date and time over it. In addition the student who completed the milestone first got a gold star which turned the entire learning process into a competition. Ms. Mathini was unlike any teacher in my school. Most teachers in my school handled the students dispassionately, maybe to avoid favoritism. Even though I was many a teacher's pet, the relationship was strictly formal. Ms. Mathini was however informal, which in turn made her a very warm person. From verbal jabs to tickles and from hugs to kisses, every form of positive reinforcement was in her arsenal. I grew very fond of her over the year under her tutelage as opposed to my initial reservations against her.
When the next year began, we were issued new passports which were upgraded to silver. Earlier Our classes were short in the bronze level and we usually goofed around or played computer games after we got our daily stars. This was not to be in silver level, our tasks grew harder, complicated and time consuming.
Ms. Bindu was a very short lady, but also a tad beautiful (I always had a fascination for fair women who wore bright red lipstick), she reminded me of air-hostesses. She introduced us to Ms. Mathini who was taller and darker, who was supposed to be our teacher. In comparison I liked Miss Bindu better since she was prettier, the only striking feature of Ms. Mathini was her big bright eyes (my judgement might have been biased since she did not wear prominent makeup). The curriculum encompassed the entire Microsoft package, at various levels of proficiency. At bronze level, students would learn how to open the applications (an entire day was dedicated to this, navigating the taskbar and the start menu...trust me it was harder than it sounds), basic commands on the menu bar, essential icons which were commands like Cut, Copy and Paste, and key features and application of each program in the Microsoft package.
Each session had a milestone, a task or a series of tasks which had to be carried out to ensure that the student had understood what they were supposed to learn. Upon successful completion, Ms. Mathini would affix stickers (usually silver stars, up to 5 per day) in our passport and stamp the date and time over it. In addition the student who completed the milestone first got a gold star which turned the entire learning process into a competition. Ms. Mathini was unlike any teacher in my school. Most teachers in my school handled the students dispassionately, maybe to avoid favoritism. Even though I was many a teacher's pet, the relationship was strictly formal. Ms. Mathini was however informal, which in turn made her a very warm person. From verbal jabs to tickles and from hugs to kisses, every form of positive reinforcement was in her arsenal. I grew very fond of her over the year under her tutelage as opposed to my initial reservations against her.
When the next year began, we were issued new passports which were upgraded to silver. Earlier Our classes were short in the bronze level and we usually goofed around or played computer games after we got our daily stars. This was not to be in silver level, our tasks grew harder, complicated and time consuming.
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