How to.....

Our students have turned out to be quite the teachers here in Kadod! Recently, Priya and I read the story “The Bike Lesson” a Berenstein Bears classic. In the story, Papa Bear buys Little Bear a new bike and teaches him how to ride it through a series of lessons. After the 9th and 11th graders read and fully understood to story, we had them write and then present instructions for how to make a favorite food of theirs or how to play their favorite games in a step-by-step manner to teach their classmates. Here’s what they came up with!

How to Make Lemon Juice by Manali S. Prujapati

First squeeze 2 lemons. Put the juice into a cup. Add 1 glass of water to the juice. Add 4-5 spoons of sugar into the mixture. Now add a pinch of salt. Also add a pinch of cumin. Mix everything together. Put into a glass with ice. Serve chilled and enjoy!

How to Make Dal by Manisha N. Rathod

First, bring a dal cooker. Then put in water. Put the dal in the cooker. Put the cooker on the stove. Next turn on the stove. The dal will be done in half an hour. After the dal is cooked, put masala in the dal and mix with a spoon. Let the mixture boil on the stove. After a few minutes the dal is ready. Enjoy with rice or roti!

How to Play Cricket by Rinkesh Dhangar

I play cricket. There are eleven cricketers on each team. There are bowlers and all-rounder cricketers on the team. There are fifty overs in the match. In one over, there are six balls. There are two players playing and eleven players fielding. There are two umpires in the match. There is one captain and one coach on each team. One team wins a match. There are many people in the stadium watching the cricket match.

In other news, we also showed “The Wizard of Oz” to the 9th standard students of Kadod High School. It turned out to be quite a production as we attempted to get everything from the sound to the screen and projector ready so all the students could watch in the large Examination Room. All the students (especially the girls!) really enjoyed it and kept cheering when all the different characters started singing. They especially loved the witches character as well as the fairy. However, we’ve promised the boys that next time, we’ll show them a funny animated film!

Well that’s it for now! And please let us know if you have any recommendations for movies you think the kids would enjoy!

Vanisha

Jokes!

And now for some jokes created by our lovely 9th and 11th standard students:

Daddy’s Boiling by Jinita J. Gamit, Binal H. Patel and Twinkal J. Patel.

Little Anne’s father fell asleep on the sofa and began to snore. The child ran out into the corridor and shouted “Mummy, mummy, mummy. Come quickly….Daddy’s Boiling!.”

A Fisher’s Boat by Nazim
[Two people go in the boat on the river. Then there is a hole in the boast so water is coming into the boat.]
Fisher 1 [asking Fisher 2]: What are you doing?
Fisher 2: I’m making another hole in the boat.
Fisher 1: Why?
Fisher 2: Because in the first hole water comes in and from the second hole water goes out again.

Silly Raju by Pinal Suresh Dhimmer, Sumaiya Nasrudhakh Shaikh, and Manali Shashikant Prajapati

There was a man named Raju. One day he told his friend “I have broken an elephant’s leg and a horse’s leg.” His friend said, “You are so strong! What did you do next?” Raju responded, “Nothing. My father gave some money to the toy maker.”

No desks

Dear dedicated reader,

We were sent on a mission by the Foundation to visit other area schools in the hopes of finding partners for possible expansion.

The science by which Kadod High School was picked as the flagship school for the Foundation’s work was not exact: the Founder’s father went to this school and so we are here. However, the partnership’s success has depended largely on the willingness of the school leadership to let the organization try and fail with different initiatives and the principal’s cheerful willingness to put some clueless American teachers up in his guesthouse who merely speak English as their native language and have nominal teacher training.

The principal made the arrangements for other teachers to take our classes for two or three days so we could go visit some schools. He could not come on the first day, and so he sent Dhirinbhai, our friend in the computer lab, in his place.

After loading into the back of a typical hired Indian van, we drove out into the countryside. The sugar cane fields which dominate the landscape here flew by as the car bumped up and down along the (ostensibly) paved road.

We pulled up outside the arched gateway of a large tannish colored building. Inside, I could see the students in their blue checked uniforms: collared shirts for the boys and dresses for the girls. As they opened the gate and we drove inside, the students who were free in the schoolyard for recess followed our car and when finally came to a dusty stop, pressed their faces and hands up against the glass, peering inside to see who these strange foreigners were. I try not to write in clichés if I can help it, but this was a living one.

We stepped out of the van and the students crowded around us awkwardly. They stood and looked at us intently without saying anything. I looked awkwardly back at them. Some teachers materialized out of school building and started speaking to Dhirinbhai in a Gujarati which I couldn’t follow. Students appeared behind them lugging plastic chairs which they placed next to the car for us to sit down in. We hesitated, then sat.

“Anything you want to know,” Dhirinbhai told us, “they are ready to answer.”

The teachers, still standing at attention, waited for us to ask something.

After a long, awkward silence, I hesitantly asked a question. “How many students do you have here?” I could see plainly that it wasn’t very many as all of the students who weren’t crowding around us were sitting outside of the school building in neat lines, waiting to receive their free, government sponsored mid-day meal.

Dhirin relayed this is Gujarati and the teachers told us that there were 110 students at the school. We also discovered that they had 1st through 7th grade, but only had 5 teachers since the government pays for teachers based on the number of students, not the grades of students. Since each classroom needed to have its own teacher to teach all the subjects, they have to combine grades.

“It becomes even more difficult if someone leaves,” they said through Dhirin who translated, “because then we must combine further and the work for running the school becomes more.”

“Does this happen often?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

We were offered a tour of the facility, which we happily accepted. The tour began with the 6th standard classroom. The most striking feature of this classroom when we walked in was that there were no desks or even benches, which is what we have at Kadod High School. The students, it seemed, sat on the floor in neat rows and used their bookbags as elevated surfaces to put their books on while the teacher taught standing at the front of the room.

There were also no lights, as the electricity had been cut, as it often is here.The classroom had blackboards on all the walls on which diagrams of different concepts had been carefully drawn, by both students and instructors, the 6th grade teacher explained. We examined a neatly drawn and labeled microscope on the far left wall, followed next by a chart explaining the atomic make up of solids, liquids and gases. These students, I felt sure, had never seen an actual microscope. Knowing that, I wasn’t sure how to feel.

We were there to scope out the English program and the possibility of collaboration with the Foundation using their model of sending American teachers; however since the school only teaches English in 5th through 7th grade and since they only have English for 35 minutes a day with the same teacher that they have their other subjects for, it didn’t seem like there was much scope for partnership. It made me wonder: what kind of partnership would work for a school like this? What do they need? More staff? Equipment? What resources would be beneficial?

Teaching in a school with only chalk and a chalkboard to a room full of 65 students, I am becoming familiar with how little you actually need to create an environment of learning. But how much is necessary for the quality of an education to be satisfactory? For example, I believe that, for an aspiring young scientist in rural India, a diagram of a microscope is not enough. Students should learn about microscopes through actually using one. But the question becomes: is it enough to have one per class? Is it enough to have one for every five students? Should every student have one? If every student had one, would they be used? What about material for slides and samples to look at under the microscopes? Should these be chosen over, say, desks, if such a choice were even a possibility? Such a binary should never exist, but if some money were to come to a school such as this, it probably would.

Forget one laptop for every child (if you are familiar with this program): What about one desk for every child? What about one teacher per class?

Best,
Cat

Cloth, safety pins and petticoats

Dear dedicated reader,

Saris are the traditional uniform of the Indian school teacher; today, I was a traditional Indian school teacher.

Five and a half meters of precariously wrapped cloth, five safety pins and one airtight blouse are all that kept me from nakedness in front of my 240 students today. I can only guess at the evolution of this particular piece of Indian culture. In a place as famous for its cotton export and textile production as India, how else to best show off your wares than in a dress that showcases five and a half meters of said fabric on a (hopefully) beautiful woman?

The four of us planned to wear saris during the fast, but each day presented an insurmountable sari-wearing challenge: we were going somewhere outside the school, it was too hot, petticoats weren’t finished yet, etc. Somehow, however, this Wednesday became the target day for wearing our saris. After an early morning jog around the courtyard, we looked at each other and asked ourselves, “Do we really want to do this?” I’d love to say the answer was a resounding ‘YES’, but in reality it was more of a shrug and a hesitant nod.

Melissa and I struggled through putting on the blouses which hug so tight that breathing seems like something of a luxury, helping each other inch the skin tight sleeves up our American arms. After bringing the catches together and sighing (as best I could) with relief, I crinkled my nose as I looked at myself in the full length mirror. I was not, in my petticoat and top, the beautiful Bollywood vision that I’d hoped I’d be. Slightly discouraged, Melissa and I went to go bother Lathaben in the kitchen to see if she would be kind enough to help us wrap our saris, as neither of us knew how.

Lathaben laughed at us in our half dressed state and wordlessly knew our unspoken hopes. Returning with us to the bedroom, she carefully turned off the fan and turned to the long swath of red cloth that made up Melissa’s sari. After some time, Sejalben popped her head in to our bedroom. “Oh, saris!” she said. We had previously warned her that we might attempt said acrobatics on this day and I guess she had come to see if we were serious.

The process of wrapping the sari was a serious business: I tried to watch as Sejalben and Lathaben swiftly made the dozen or so pleats that would make the skirt with their experienced fingers, but to my untrained eye, the sequence of movements were difficult to follow, much less to memorize. This was draped and that was pleated and this was tucked and that was pinned and, voila! We had been wrapped, as the terminology goes.

Looking at myself again the mirror, I was surprised at how I’d been transformed. Melissa, similarly changed, turned to Sejalben. “How old were you when you learned to do this?” She asked her.

“Oh, in my B.Ed (Teacher Training) they taught a lesson on this.”

“Are you serious?” I asked her. I think Melissa and I had both assumed that this was like a mandatory childhood skill. But I was even more intrigued that they had taught a lesson this as part of her teacher training.

“We had to wear the sari everyday to B.Ed, so they taught us,” she said, matter of factly.

“To classes?”

“Yes,” she explained. Wow.

Saris pinned and movements practiced by walking the length of the room and pretending to write on the wall as if it were a chalkboard, we were ready to go to the lion’s den, er, teacher’s lounge. The teachers’ lounge is located on the other side of the school, and by this time students were streaming through the main gate heading to their classes as it was almost 10:40, time for school to start. It was the fashion equivalent of running the gauntlet. I had a small taste of what was to come as I waited in the doorway on our porch for Melissa to be ready to go. One of the 9^th standards students had come by to see Vanisha.

“Miss, is Vanisha ma’am ther—oh miss, you are looking very fine today.” (This, by the way, in Indian English is an appropriate, unoffensive thing for a 13 year old to say to a teacher. Intonation is everything.)

I smiled an embarrassed smile and thanked him, wishing Melissa would hurry up.

As we walked out of the gate of our house and into the courtyard, I tried to walk as quickly as my body wrapped in cloth would allow me to go. I could see students hanging around outside their classrooms, staring at us as we walked and some beginning to comment loudly. I tried to put on my most confident face, as if I was used to wearing a distant relative of the bed sheet as a dress everyday.

Having successfully faced the challenge provided by the varied terrain of one gravel courtyard, one flight of stairs and one hallway without mishap, I almost felt confident as we walked into the staff room. I braced myself, and with reason: the reaction was immediate.

“Oh! Saris!” The universal cry could be heard. I felt myself blush and I tried to look normal.

The other teachers were aflutter with questions: “Who has wrapped this for you?” “Do you like it?” “Which do you like better: A sari or a dress?” I answered each in kind and took my seat on one of the wooden benches at the side of the room. The attention continued. “Oh, you are both looking so beautiful today,” the teachers exclaimed as they made the okay sign and clicked their tongues, a Gujarati sign of approval.

“So, tomorrow – you all will wear American clothes, right?” I joked. They laughed.

The bell rang and it was time to go to class. I grimaced as I made my way to 11A. I would have given anything to have any other class first. I gritted my teeth, pasted a smile on my face and walked into the class.

“Oooooooooooooooooooooh Saaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrri…” cooed the entirety of the class.

I tried to look intimidating. “Please get out your books.”

I was interrupted. “Ma’am,” one of the girls called out, “you are looking so fine today!”

Looking good, feeling fine.

Best,
Cat

Mendhi Competition!

Last week Vanisha and I watched our very first mendhi competition! The students and teachers had been talking about this competition for days, but we had no idea what to expect when we walked to into the examination hall where it was being held. When we walked in, we were struck by how many students were participating - at least forty girls were carefully applying their best designs on the hands of their classmates.

After a quick scan, we saw two boys in the corner quietly drawing on the hands of another two boys. We had heard that boys participated last year, but we never thought we would see them putting mendhi on one another! Last year, a boy from our current Spoken English class won second place at this competition. Unfortunately, this year he forgot to bring mendhi.

After walking around and watching the students trying to finish their task, we decided to get our mendhi done as well! We sat down and were immediately surrounded by girls who asked us if they could put mendhi on our hands and arms. We eagerly agreed, and soon the students were drawing on us with the dark paste. Vanisha had both her arms and hands done, but I had to leave after one arm was finished, because I had to teach a class the following period. The designs ranged from simple ones that covered the wrist, palm, and fingers to ones that completely covered one's entire arm up to his or her elbow! We were so impressed with everyone's talent! Some designs took the full hour to complete while others were done in just twenty minutes!

Later that night, we took off the dried mendhi to uncover the designs that were left behind on our skin - they were so beautiful and dark! I hope I can get my other hand done soon!

Priya

Monkey….Monkeys…and More Monkeys!

So after my 5:00 pm Spoken English classes, the students always stay afterwards to tell me different stories about what’s going on in their lives. The boys were super excited early this week because Molly, one of my best friends from Stanford, was visiting me for a few days and I brought her to class last Monday. Even after class ended, the students continued asking both of us questions (in English of course!) about how we know each other and where we both live in the US.

Boys of my Spoken English class chit-chatting with me after-class

After a while, Molly left for our house and I was left amongst the herd of hyper 9th graders all talking to me at once. I suddenly caught a glimpse of two monkeys sitting on the roof of one edge of KHS. A few of the boys ran to get Molly as more and more monkeys came to join the ones sitting on the roof. Molly and I started screaming in excitement much to the amusement of all the 9th graders. Then the monkeys got tired of sitting on the roof and decided to climb down and run out of the school.

Naturally, the boys, Molly and I decided to follow them. As we all ran out of school passing the utterly confused watchman, we ran down a little path that leads to the Tapi River located right behind Kadod high school. As we looked to the left, we captured a glimpse of a few monkeys now sitting on a ledge of the roof of a nearby house. Unfortunately, the boys started yelling at them so they ran away once again in fear. Then one of the boys decided that he had to go purchase biscuits. He had the brilliant idea of enticing the monkeys with delicious Parle-G biscuits (a favorite of mine as well as that of the monkeys, or so I was told…). Unfortunately, right as Amir arrived with the biscuits, the monkeys ran away. So what did a bunch of rowdy 9th graders and their English teacher do? Chase after them once more of course!

The boys decided that the monkeys must now be near the roof of the Kadod library which is right down the path from the high school. After multiple times of trying to scare me to death and almost succeeding at that, the boys finally got me to go up the stairs of the Kadod library, a dusty room filled with Gujarati books and up to date newspapers in Gujarati, Hindi and English, to see the monkeys up close. As I slowly walked up with 2 boys holding my hands and others following closely behind me as if protecting me from any type of attack, a monkey sprinted up until it was about 2 feet away from us. We all shrieked and ran down the stairs into a safer place.

Some of the marvelous monkeys!

After some time, we got enough courage to walk up the stairs once again. This time, the kind librarian was standing at the top of the stairs with a stick, making sure the monkeys didn’t run into the library. The boys and I then darted up the stairs sprinting into the library. As I turned around, looking out onto the roof of the nearby building, I saw a family of about 7 monkeys playing around, scratching each other and relaxing amongst the falling electric wires. They were literally about 5 feet from where we were standing. The boys and I then, after being instructed by the Kadod librarian, went up yet another set of stairs onto the roof of the library and stared at the breathtaking views of the Tapi River and Kadod.

The gorgeous Tapi River, located right behind KHS!

After taking some pictures, we almost got attacked by another monkey and went screaming down two flights of stairs, running onto the rocky terrain outside Kadod HS.

An adventure I will truly never forget!

Vanisha

Keeping Discipline

Dear dedicated reader,

My methods of discipline since I’ve arrived here have become, by American standards, slightly unorthodox.

To frame what I’m about to say, I’d like to point out that while corporal punishment is technically illegal here in India, that is a mere, er, technicality. After all, as some (cynics) would say, the law is only good as its enforcement and the Indian legal system leaves something to be desired when it comes to swift recourse. To illustrate my point, we can look to a conversation we recently had with Dhirinbhai, one of the computer teachers here.

The interns have been taking 8th standard classes for the past three weeks. This arrangement was meant to be temporary until a new teacher was found to take these classes, though the “ten days” this was supposed to last has been stretched to “indefinitely”. For many students, this is their first exposure to English as they come to Kadod High School from other rural primary schools. Some teachers have had to start from the basic alphabet. Though from what I can see the interns have managed this with their other responsibilities beautifully, this comes with definite challenges, and one of those has been discipline. Priya in particular has been having extreme trouble with one unruly class of 60 boys who refuse to respond to cajoling, bribery, yelling or threats of the principal. The monitor, or the student whose most basic responsibility in a class is to tell other kids to “shut up” is the worst of the lot, talking while Priya is talking and being unstoppably distracting.

Priya finally said something to Dhirinbhai about the situation to see what he recommended. His response was to come to her class and scream at the students continuously for five minutes and then to pull two students out of the class and leave with them. She didn’t know where they were going, but she had 58 still rambunctious 8th standard boys to worry about so she wasn’t overly concerned. Of course, as soon as he left, the boys were just as disrespectful as they had been previously, except that there were two less to add to the general mayhem.

Later, a despondent Priya spoke to Dhirinbhai about where he had taken the two boys. One is from his village outside of Kadod and takes a ride home with him everyday on his motorcycle.

“Oh, I beat him with my belt,” Dhirinbhai responded casually. Uh, come again?

Now, I have not beaten any children. But, when faced with the job of keeping a room of sixty children quiet and attentive enough to teach them anything, I find that I must employ tactics that I would never resort to in the US.

First, I constantly exploit the students’ absolute and utter terror of the principal. His name is evoked in response to any overwhelming noise problem. This creates the appropriate atmosphere of fear; you know, the kind that is conducive to learning.

Second, the fixed stare (a favorite from my class in Boston) is remarkably effective here for any individual noise problem. Students here, unlike some of my students in Boston, are exceptionally aware of where the teacher is looking at any given time and ‘the teacher look’ creates a gratifyingly instant response. Sometimes it is so effective that the offending student will immediately volunteer the next time I ask for someone to read or the answer to a question in order to get back in my good graces.

It is for repeat offenders (thankfully few) that the guns come out. I am reminded of a time that I was doing my French homework in my history class and my history teacher, Mr. Wrangham, slammed a book down so hard on my desk that I almost fell out of my chair. Believe me, I never tried that trick again. I can understand his frustration: I simply confiscate any books or materials that are not written in English here, but have used the slamming book trick at least once in all my classes.

Another favorite has become the “stand at the front of the room with your arms crossed”. I don’t really know why this is so embarrassing; if I had tried this particular punishment in the US, my students would have reveled in the attention and probably created unspeakable amounts of problems. However, any student here called for this particular punishment is so ashamed that they meekly stand at the front, looking at the ground. I know other teachers make them stand the whole period; I can’t bear it and usually let them sit down after 10 minutes.

I have never sent a student to the principal. At least, not yet. Some of my 11th graders are really asking for it. I am aggressive when it comes to test-taking: if I catch any students talking or copying, their test paper goes in the trash. This breaks my heart, even though my grades probably don’t count for anything, because the students here study really hard and taking their test paper tears me up. However, I am incredibly clear about this both before and during the test, so as much as I hate it, they have no excuse for not following the rules.

It absolutely amazes me, however, that as difficult as keeping sixty students in line might seem, it is a far simpler task than keeping my 12 students in Boston on task.

Which leads me to wonder: Why?

Best,
Cat