Supah Stahs

Today I went in search of statistics and demographic information about Madhi High School, and in the process I got to spend some quality time with my fellow caste-member (he never fails to remind me!), the very sweet and endearing Darshenbhai Shah, head secretary and expert on all the things Madhi. With only a few language related barriers, I found out lots of information that is really very interesting.

I was surprised to learn that all of the teachers keep an exact tally of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students in each and every classroom; this information is required by the government so that adequate financial assistance can be offered to the students and families, and while I had learned from Nanubhai orientation that the schools we work with have a very high number of tribal students, seeing the actual numbers really drove the point home for me in a whole new way; well over 50% of each standard is part of the scheduled tribe, and while it seems obvious, the lower performing C, D and E sections of each standard – composed entirely of students coming to Madhi from neighboring villages – were overwhelmingly tribal.

We do like to joke that the town of Madhi, with its two main streets and many shops (and restaurants!) is like civilization when compared to the town of Bajipura, so imagine my surprise when I learned that most of our students do not even come from Madhi. It absolutely blows me away that students coming from very small villages a considerable distance away from the school, with few resources and opportunities drawing them to school, and instead, several life realities pulling them away, still manage to be such dedicated and engaged students in the classroom. After taking a poll of my very motivated Spoken English class, I learned that the majority of the students make the trek to class from various villages scattered all over the place, an entire hour before school even starts, on top of their tuition classes and other commitments. My little 9^th standard superstars!

Thanks for reading!