An experiment in creative thinking

I grew up on creative activities. Acting out impromptu plays and creating weird works of art were parts of my everyday life. In school, we were encouraged to write creative stories. I even competed annually with my friends in Odyssey of the Mind, a competition between schools which awards points solely based on the students' creativity. All of my fondest memories of middle school fall around these activities which allowed us to learn while being silly. After observing the students of Kadod High School for just a short time, I knew there was none of this teaching philosophy in the Gujarati school system. Luckily, we are able to encourage thinking creatively in our Spoken English classes before and after school, but my brilliant 8th standard students are simply encouraged to regurgitate everything they hear from the teacher.

Just last week, I was excited to find an activity in their textbook that asked the students to complete a story for themselves. While they all had guidebooks that gave them one answer, I asked them to brainstorm some other outcomes as a class. There was a long silence in the classroom, and then:

Me: "Come on! Be creative! Help me to finish the story!"
(murmurs and quotes from the textbook)
Me: "Okay, who can tell me what 'creative' means?"
Chorus of 8th standard kids: "To produce!"
(Co-teacher nods proudly)
Me: "..."

Finally, after coming up with some ridiculous conclusions of my own, the students got the idea and began giving slight alterations of my stories. After this interaction, I was determined to have a class in which we were all silly and creative.

The next week, I came to class equipped with a Gujarati word for 'creative', several household items, and the determination to get these kids thinking outside-the-box. We were going to think of all the different uses for umbrellas, hairbrushes, rackets, and dupattas, among other things. By the end of the class, the students were doing pretty well for themselves, telling me that a dupatta could be used for a jump-rope, a hairbrush handle could roll chapatis, and even that an umbrella could be used as a boat. Excited by this development, I pushed the students further. I explained to them that for homework, they would write a television advertisement for any object in their house. The most creative and silly ad would win a small prize. As we left class for lunch, the students were all excited for the project and murmuring about what they would choose to write about.

The next day I was excited to collect the ads and read what the students had written. Unfortunately, my excitement was cut short as I noticed that the first 10 papers I had collected were all exactly the same. As I continued around the class, I became more and more dejected as I saw the students copying a story directly from their textbook entitled "The Invention of the Umbrella." In the end, 5 students wrote really great ads, and 50 students rewrote "The Invention of the Umbrella."

I am determined to continue on my quest to get these students thinking creatively, but it seems that it will be a long road ahead. In the meantime, every little independent thought counts for so much.

Lesson Planning..

As overwhelming as all the advanced class preparation is sometimes, it's wonderful how alleviating it is to just see everything fit together in a basic, flexible schedule for the time to come. Unfortunately, it often looks great laid out on paper, but attempting to implement these more meticulously planned lessons can also be unsuccessful. My experiences thus far, especially here with the massive class sizes, has taught me although you do need to plan lessons a lot of teaching here is thinking on your feet and shaping what you have to fit the particular classroom. As I get to know my students and classes better, it is easier to tweak and gear lessons based on their abilities. I find it a little bit surprising too how so many small miscellaneous tasks seem to fill up so much time that I would otherwise be planning activities for.
With the holidays and a school trip, the past month has flown by. While planning, I can almost feel the next couple weeks whizzing past me already. All planning aside, here's a little taste in pictures of some of the things we've been up to here in Kadod the past few weeks. ..

So this is Christmas

Last week in my Spoken English class we spent a lot of time talking about Christmas, which seemed a little unreal to me. In India it feels nothing like winter, let alone Christmas time. I still think it is baseball season in America and that my parents, who are both teachers, are on summer vacation. In the Land of the Perpetual Sun, it is difficult for me to imagine people in America bundled up, building snowmen, Christmas shopping, and spending time inside with family and friends to take refuge from the cold weather.

Explaining and planning lessons around the Christmas theme made it a little easier for me to get in the Christmas mood. The students here all know about Christmas, but in our little village they have never had an opportunity to hear about it from a Westerner’s point of view. I have to admit that the more I talked about how Christmas is celebrated, the more ridiculous it sounded to me. When asked who Santa Claus was, I first tried explaining about Saint Nicolas, the Patron Saint of Children but this was of little interest to them; they wanted to hear about the red suit, red cap, and the bag of gifts they have seen in pictures. As I talked about how Santa flies around the world in a sleigh and enters every home through the chimney to deposit gifts under the tree and into the stockings hung by the chimney (with care) their expressions became more and more contorted into a face that seemed to be saying “Huh?”

In my class we made Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners and it was a lot of fun to see the students use their creativity. At first when I handed out the pipe cleaners they kept asking me “Teacher, what do I do with it?” “Anything!” I replied as I showed them how to bend and twist them into different shapes. As they caught on to the pipe cleaners’ possibilities there was no stopping them. Then, on Christmas Eve we made Christmas cards and chaos reined my classroom. I spent time the week before cutting out different shapes and preparing all the materials, which included some glitter that was sent from America (thanks mom!). The glitter was by far the most used material and the desks and floor of the classroom sparkled with the remnants of their creations.

The culmination of the Christmas week was our Christmas Party. The students took full control of the planning as they ordered food and a cake and talked to the Principal about wearing red clothes in lieu of their uniforms. I was not allowed into the assembly hall until everything was just perfect. They even managed to find snow spray and as I entered we were all covered in wet, foamy snow. As I cut my Christmas cake the students sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas before I blew out the candles. Then, every student fed me a piece of cake, and then smeared a little frosting on my face. I had a lot of fun celebrating with my students and I appreciate their efforts to make my Christmas a very merry one!

Video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a08VIxFrWzQ

Christmas in Surat

While there are various forms of Santa Claus to be found around the world, the Indian Santa Claus may win the title of “Most Fearsome.” If you thought a Santa Claus on each street corner was excessive, try multiple Santas swarming about in the same room in the mall, all wearing nightmarish Santa Masks with frozen gleeful grins and little beady eyes. The Santa masks are rather scary and awkward, yes, but the worst we’ve seen is a Santa who didn’t have a mask but still tried to “lighten” himself up a bit. Standing on the side of the road, one thin Santa had cleverly covered his face with streaky, clownish-white paint, through which his true skin color was still apparent. The effect was something like a ghoul in a Santa suit. Passing him in a rickshaw Pamela suddenly let out a cry:

“Oh my gosh! Did you see that Santa? That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. No WONDER none of the kids believe in Santa here!”

Yet while it’s true that Santa has few followers, there’s still a bit of youthful innocence to be tapped. During the Christmas celebrations that P.R. Khatiwala had on Christmas Eve, the day was mostly full of ruckus, but a few precious moments were interspersed: among them, my class period with 4-B, my best-behaved class.

Earlier in the week I’d given the class a taste of some Christmas Carols. I had printed out some choice carols to share with my classes and passed the sheets out to the students, and we tried singing “Deck the Halls.” Since it created too much commotion I had taken the sheets back, but 4-B was ready to try again on the day of the Christmas celebrations, and as soon as I walked in they greeted me with,

“MA’AM! WE CAN SING TODAY?”

So I passed out the sheets and we sang some rather successful renditions of Rudolph, Deck the Halls, and had just started Joy to the World when I was interrupted by some students asking for a definition.

“Ma’am, what does this word mean? Reedulf?”

I frowned. “Which word?”

A student ran up to me, sheet in hand, to point out the word.

“Ohhhh, Rudolph! It’s the name of the reindeer. Do you know the story of Rudolph?” I looked around the room at all the blank stares.

“No? Well, I’ll tell it to you then. You can put down the music. If you’re quiet I can tell you the story of Rudolph.”

Thankfully, I watched that movie obsessively each year at Christmas time (there are few movies I’m willing to watch multiple times, but I loved the holiday classics) so was able to modify and abbreviate the story for the class.

First, I asked if they knew how many reindeer Santa had. I didn’t really expect an answer, but one girl raised her hand and called out decisively, “Nine!”

“Exactly. How did you know?”

“Because in the pictures of Santa there are nine reindeer.”

Observant girl. “Yes, Santa has nine reindeer. But he didn’t always have nine reindeer. He used to have only eight. This is the story of Rudolph, a young reindeer who lived at the North Pole. He dreamed of someday pulling Santa’s sleigh, but he was different from the other reindeer…”

The class listened attentively to the story and gasped in all the right places. (“Do you know the abominable snowman? He isn’t really a snowman… he’s the scariest monster in the North Pole! He is covered with white fur so he looks like snow, but he is eight feet tall and has one hundred teeth!” [COLLECTIVE GASP])

At the end of the story, which covered the island of the misfit toys and Rudolph’s triumphant placement at the head of the sleigh on Christmas Eve, one (noisy) boy tentatively raised his hand and said, “Ma’am, this story is true?”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“But… reindeer can fly?”

“No, no. Not all reindeer can fly. Only Santa’s reindeer can fly.”

“Ohh.”

So despite being far away from home, I felt a bit of the magic of Christmas then.

My class party, however, was another sphere entirely.



(They look so cute, huh?)

Funny to think that in the U.S., class parties mean generally sitting around with good behavior, waiting to be served food and drinks (or perhaps lining up for them in a more or less orderly manner) and talking and goofing off at a reasonable volume. At least, that’s what I remember from my school days.

Here, it’s total chaos.

I mean, Indians DO know how to throw a party. But when it’s me versus the 28 terrible ten-year-olds, my eardrums can only take so much. Trying to serve snacks was probably the worst part of the day. I did my best to instill some order (“I’m going to dish up all the plates, and then you can take them”) but as soon as I would dish up one plate, little boys would be crowded all around me, stealing food from all the plates, and as soon as I looked their way I would see that one dish of food was already empty. I tried making an assembly line and having them go through it while some assigned helpers dished up food. Still people were stealing more than their fair share of food. The smaller kids, the quiet kids, and the girls complained to me from the sidelines, “Ma’am! I’m not getting any food!” while I struggled to deliver snacks to them.




(Boys clamoring to be in the picture)

Giving up on the food and leaving them to their battle, I progressed to the drinks, and tried to issue some kind of structure again, even as entire two-liter bottles would disappear to the back of the room, smuggled into some boy’s bag. “Hey! Who took the Pepsi??” I would yell, as a group of girls would scurry off to try to wrestle it back for me. Unable to get them to settle down until I had poured all the cups, I eventually settled for the path of least resistance: filling the plastic cup that was shoved closest to my eyeballs so it would get out of my face.




(Most of my girls)

By the end of the day my class literally looked like a dustbin (as one of my students helpfully pointed out). The floor was wet and slippery from some clever boys who wanted to do the moonwalk so slicked up the already dirty floor. At one point during the day three of the boys ended up shirtless (I’m still not sure why) and an entire cake was devoured by a few students when I had to leave the room for a few minutes.

Still, when I danced with them toward the end of the day, it ALMOST felt like the party was a success. They do throw fine dance parties, and my kids really loved it that I was willing to dance with them.

For the next party, I might have to do what the other teachers seem to do, and just let them have at it. I’ll let the girls go first, but then it’ll just be survival of the fittest.

But those who beat others won’t get any food. Going without snacks may be the worst punishment for a kid in Surat. Surtis really do love their food.


(Some leftovers)

Namaste,
Dalena

At Last, An Update!

Dear readers and supporters of Nanubhai,

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

I know Pamela and I have been the invisible members of the Nanubhai blogging world lately. This is because, after returning from Diwali, we were given a brand-new set of responsibilities by the English medium principal, and our lives have revolved around getting adjusted to our new schedule and finding our groove again. I don’t know if I’m exactly ‘grooving’ yet, but at least I have an extra day to the weekend this week, so I can sit down and write to you. (Pamela, on the other hand, is off on “Adventure Camp” with a throng of our students, swimming and having wilderness survival activities… etc.)

To reduce the last month and a half to a brief paragraph:

Our responsibilities underwent an overhaul when the English medium principal lost a couple of senior teachers to inter-continental moves and pregnancies. Without anywhere else to turn, she quickly assigned us the responsibilities that these teachers had dropped—specifically, we are now “Class Teachers” in the 5th Standard, which means we’re responsible for the progress of our classes, administering discipline, and being responsible for any extra activities that our classes may participate in. This also means that I now teach 4th and 5th standard English and English grammar, 5th standard Social Studies, and 8th standard GK (General Knowledge). Pamela teaches Maths, Social Studies, and 4th standard GK. Because of the drastically increased preparation time that goes along with these responsibilities and the extra teaching load during the day, we do not teach in the Gujarati medium anymore. We also work on our own in the classroom, because a lack of available teachers has prevented us from having co-teachers. Thus, all subsequent updates will be about our work solely in the English medium.

My class, 5-A, isn’t exactly huge (just 35 students) but it is disproportionate. Disproportionately full of little boys, that is. Out of 35, 28 are boys and 7 are girls. If only it were the other way around! My 7 girls are almost always wonderful, attentive, and well-behaved, while the boys mercilessly beat each other with any implements they can find (most often body parts, but sometimes pencils, rulers, compasses, water bottles, and so on). I assume this must partly be the influence of some of their teachers (I’ve witnessed one lady who teaches them after me walk around with a ruler in hand, whacking anyone who seems to need it), but this doesn’t make for a very smooth running class.

I’ve tried to implement some punishments for too much “beating” (as they call it) in the class, but these new tactics seem like a game opportunity to them, since they’re novel and, compared to getting hit with a ruler, fairly lenient. I tried to have any student I found beating each other write a phrase twenty times in their notebooks. The phrase was, “Violence always leads to more violence. I will not beat others because I do not want to be beaten.” It worked for a couple of days, but quickly became a fun way to rat out your friends and make fun of them for having to write it in their notebooks. Rather than discouraging the violence, it just resulted in gleeful cries of “Violence! Twenty times! Twenty times!” throughout the room. I’m still in the process of working out something more effective.

Anyway, to move on to a more specific update, I’m going to tackle the latest and greatest festival to roll through Surat: Christmas.

Chalo! Chalo! Chalo!

Chalo! This word can pretty much sum up the past five days. I don't think I've ever heard a word more in my entire life. I believe it is a combination of go, faster, move and come on. It was shouted at us constantly from every direction and mouth surrounding us for the past five days.

This past week Ms. Kathryn and I embarked on a journey to Rajasthan with 250 of our students. We were a bit apprehensive after hearing the other fellows filed Trip experiences, but we were excited nonetheless. This trip gave us the opportunity to see an incredible part of India, bond with fellow teachers and students, and even practice some language skills.



Around 8 PM it looked as if all of Kadod and the surrounding villages had come to the school courtyard to wish their farewells. We boarded our buses at 10 PM along with hundreds of worried, anxious parents who refused to leave their children's side until the bus left, be it on, or plastered against the side of the bus. Our bus began its 20hour journey at 12 p.m. We, of course, being teachers, had front-row seats. Also, in hindsight, not the greatest idea when you think about the proximity to the view of the road and speakers. It's not easy to describe just how terrifying Indian bus drivers are. Every single one of them owns the road, drives on any side they please and passes everything. There can be oncoming trucks with their lights flashing angrily at us, and we'll still pull into the lane to pass it. And no matter what time of night, no matter how far away from civilization, there are trucks and motorcycles and bicycles on the roads. Oh, and the roads are super bumpy. I'm pretty sure the one and only driving rule here is: everyone else yields to the biggest vehicle, because if you don't that will be the end of you. Buses basically yield to nothing, cars, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, rickshaws and vans yield to us. The only things that don't yield are cows and donkeys, so avoiding them consists of an immense swerve. One would think that a bus carrying double the maximum capacity of students would exercise a bit more caution. Not so much, the bus ride was 90 students hopped up on soda and candy taking part in a giant dance party accompanied by blasting Hindi tunes.

We weren't sure where our role as chaperons would lie, but we quickly discovered that we were also being chaperoned. The teachers were extremely worried for our safety, and thought that due to Rajasthan's location if we strayed from eyesight we would immediately be abducted. This slightly irrational, but sweet paranoia warranted constant supervision and personal body guards ranging from 10-14 years old. Our role in the group seemed to be more entertainment and fun for the students, rather than authority figures. We got to talk and hang out with our students outside of the classroom, which lead to a lot of joking and games. We attempted to make relationships with some of our naughtier students to hopefully alleviate some classroom management difficulties. They really made an effort to speak to us in English and help us in any way they could. They were not only body guards, but translators and guides. We saw incredible temples, museums, palaces, forts and awesome views.

After the exhausting trip we were ready to sleep in our own beds. Sleep deprived with runny noses, but satisfied with our journey. The trip was an amazing experience and left us with some great memories, loss of hearning, and some new friends.

Saying Goodbye Is Hard In Any Language

We recently attended a memorial service for one of our fellow Indian teachers that lost his wife. The two teachers at Madhi had formed a special bond with this teacher, and although we knew that our words could offer little comfort, we felt that our presence would be appreciated. We arrived in Bardoli, not really knowing what to expect, but as we approached the apartment building, we could see people gathered in the outdoor lobby of the building. One could not help but wonder how this experience would be different than what we would experience at a similar service in the US. It is amazing though how a sense of loss reveals our human nature, and that is a common tie that binds us all. It is in loss that our humanity is laid bare, and it is a common thread that unites us all and with which we can all relate.

We removed our shoes, and we greeted the teacher. His eyes had a sorrowful look, as one would expect, but there was a twinkle of gratitude as well. We introduced us to his son, and they were both very gracious as they introduced us to fellow family and friends. The male relatives had all shaved their hair to indicate a severance and remorse for the loss. Wife, mother, daughter, sister, niece, friend…..She was so much to so many people, and it also helps us in reflection of what role we play in the lives of people present in our own life. People sat around on rugs comforting each other- crying on shoulders, sharing stories and catching up with others that they may not see very often.

At the front of the room, there was a table with her picture surrounded with some incense and flowers. People would walk by to offer a kind word and to remember the good times and memories of a life that had ended too soon. We were then invited to join in a meal, and we sat on the rugs eating their generous offering. We were offered a spoon and a seat in a chair if we wished, but it did not feel right. We just wanted to blend in, if that is really possible, and not be treated as special guests, but rather as just concerned friends that had come to offer support in a time of grief. After the meal, we visited a bit longer, and then politely excused ourselves. The son escorted us to the bus station to make sure that we got on the proper bus- We appreciated it, but I am sure we would have felt better if he had spent the time with his family instead of making sure we were ok. We explained that to him, but he said his mom would have wanted him to help us. It was a fitting tribute to honor the loss of a loved one, as we can all appreciate how hard it can be to say goodbye- no matter the language.

*Out of respect for the family, no pictures were take at the memorial service.