The Guidebook: The Evil Guidebook

Some how one book that is meant to help the students with their studies has been one of the largest deterrents for student learning in my classroom here in India. This book is for cheating in the class and on the exam. All of the writings of the textbook are translated into Gujarati, which is the most useful part of the book. Where the book takes a turn for the worst is when all of the assignments and questions that are in the textbook are all answered in the guidebook. This completely eliminates all student thought. Students become expert copiers. Students simply copy the question and the answer from the guidebook for all assignments given by their Indian teachers. Teachers check student notebooks for completion of all assignments in the textbook, but really there has been no completion, since students have only been copying all the answers not actually processing any of what is written.

In order to curb the culture of copying I have tried to assign writing assignments that are not found in the guidebook. Many students are confused about the assignments because they are only used to copying for the guidebook. These new assignments bring out student laziness and then in the end the assignments that induce thought are not even completed. As I scan through student notebooks I am puzzled because very few students have any of the class work I have assigned or any homework in their notebooks. They only have the meticulously copied guidebook written in their notebooks.

After correcting seventy six notebooks from my 9A class, I went on a copying and guidebook tirade. I wrote some Spanish sentences on the board and I asked students to copy this into their notebooks 10 times. After completing this I asked them to tell me what this means. Students looked at me with confused glances. I said as many times as you copy something you are not going to learn it, so simply copying from the guidebook is not resulting in your learning.

Although I went on this rant I don’t know what affect it will have. The first essay I was assigned to teach, I launched into a large brainstorming session and gave students an easy framework for creating a simple, but well written essay about their village. As I corrected their essay notebooks I was expecting to see my framework being put to use, but alas there is also an essay guidebook and as a result I read 76 of the exact same essays. At first I naively said to the teacher that “All these essays are copied should they receive credit for this work.” To which the teacher replied, “Yes, they receive credit, it is from their essay guidebook.”

The guidebook tragedy goes even further. My co-teacher pulled out a small book that was in English. I asked her about the book and she informed it is a small guidebook. We both started laughing to point of tears, since her and both know the negative impact that this book is having on student learning. She said sadly, but also through laughter that this book is made so students can sneak it into the exam room in their pockets.

This lack of learnign saddens me. I have a passion for real teaching that creates real student learning. In some ways I realize that this guidebook is their sad and true reality. Many students come into eighth standard without the ability to read English. They are reading material at about the fifth or sixth grade level of the United States, which is nowhere in their reach. Without memorizing the material there would be no way they could come close to passing the exam. For many students memorizing or even cheating is the only way that they will be able to move on in school. In order to rid the evil of the guidebook the whole system must be changed. Since each semester is based on the completion of a large exam, the focus cannot be on genuine student learning, but about preparing for the high stakes testing. For a tenth standard student passing the exam is the only way to move onto higher secondary school. If they fail this exam they must wait a year and retake it or just stop going to school. Passing the exams becomes the most important thing to these students regardless of the fact that their ability is way under the level of the exam they have to fight to be able to pass. Memorizing the guidebook becomes their only weapon, besides copying during the exam.

Where is the light at the end of the dark guidebook tunnel? I guess only through education reform can we really impact language learning here in Gujarat. At this point making large reforms in the education system is a bit beyond my position or authority, but I will try to do my small part and encourage the students to think for themselves during my classes.

“Ma’am! Ma’am! Story? Story?”

It is the last period of the day, and I walk into an English medium first standard classroom. The chaos that takes over the children at the end of the day can be heard even in the hallway, but as soon as the children see me the chaos has a different face. Immediately, the children start to clear their desks, some fold their hands and put their fingers on their lips, and some run up to me and try to look at what I am holding behind my back. “Ma’am! Ma’am! Story? Story?” I smile and then and give them a quick nod, but remind them they must sit down quietly and clear their desks before story time can begin.
Principal Madam wanted Dalena and I to take over some Library periods in the English medium, as an opportunity to have an extra period to work on the students listening and oral reading skills. She assigned me all of the classes in first standard, and told me to ask the librarian for the books the school had for these classes. I browsed the books, and I mostly saw small fable books, without many pictures and difficult English—in other words, nothing so promising. However, I worked with the materials I had and read those small stories to the children. At first, I had them sitting in their chairs and I would go around, reading the story aloud and take time to show each child the picture in the book. Not only did this take a lot of time, but I realized the children started to get really bored if they were not instantly getting the satisfaction of looking at the pictures as well.
From then, I started a search of English books that were filled with fun pictures and easy text, so the children can easily understand what they were hearing, and also continue to stay interested. I found some books at a huge retail store called Big Bazaar, but still their selection was limited. Luckily, a few weeks later my school had a Scholastic book fair and I was able to get my hands on some quality books I thought my children would really enjoy. Now, I just had to overcome the next hurdle—keeping them interested.
The biggest challenge I was up against was changing the schedule of the children and their expectations of their library period. Since the library periods are in the last period, I also have to ensure that they know they need to stay calm, and that it isn’t a free period to just have fun and listen to a story if they feel like it. Having the children stay in their seats clearly wasn’t working so I decided to use the classroom set up to my advantage. In the front of each of my classrooms, there is a small platform in front of the blackboard. I decided that I would sit on top of the platform and I would have all my students sit in front of me, like how I remember having story time when I was small. No hitting, touching, talking or playing rules were implemented and very quickly, all the children were captured by the story I read them. They stayed still staring at the pictures, murmuring “wow” as the images came across their eyes, and even erupting into applause at the end of each page because of their excitement. It is really a sight to see! They are so excited about getting this story time each week that sometimes they forget the rules they must follow before they can get a story, but being clear about my expectations each time I walk into the class has really helped.
Now after 4 months of being there, they are getting the hang of Library period, they know what to do when I walk in the door (after some reminders of course), and they are getting used to breaking from the norm and sitting together to enjoy a story as a class. Now that I have gotten this far with my students, I really want to take it a step farther and have them begin to read stories on their own. I would like to take advantage of having two teachers in the class to do guided reading in smaller groups, buddy reading projects, and other fun reading/story based activities. My ultimate goal for the end of the school year is for the students to write their own short creative stories, illustrations and all. Wish me the best and I will let you know the progress of my work! Of course, if anyone has ideas please feel free to contact me with tips or suggestions. I would love to hear from you!

Until next time!

Of Mangoes and Monsoons

In honor of Blog Action Day, this is a post by former Kadod Teaching Fellow Melissa Ivins, currently pursuing her Masters in Environmental Management at Yale University. Below are her reflections on climate change and her experience working in rural India!

Two of the staples of India, mangoes and monsoons, have been on the fritz lately. The past year unseasonable winter weather stunted the mango harvest, meaning great loses for farmers who depend on domestic and foreign sales of the King of Fruit for part of their income. Since then even more farmers’ livelihoods have been compromised by irregularities in the monsoon, which came a month later than usual in Gujarat this year.


All over India people have found themselves working to adapt to more frequent droughts or floods, (no small feat when you are already catering to a weather pattern as extreme as the monsoon). Granted, one flood here, and a small drought there is not so unusual for India. After all, in a country of its size, you are almost guaranteed that someone somewhere is experiencing problematic weather at any given time. However, the frequency of these events is increasing, and that is what really has people worried. It’s not just happening in India, either. Around the globe, what people once referred to as “100 year floods” (so called because they occurred about once every 100 years) are becoming known as “15 year floods” and traditionally “20 year floods” are looking more like “2-5 year floods”. The results are ruined crops, damaged personal property, and sometimes even loss of life.


More and more people are talking about climate change and the rising levels of greenhouse gases as the driving force behind the unusual weather, from farmers and teachers at the Kadod bazaar to researchers and policy makers at the World Bank. (Click here to read the World Bank's report on climate change impacts on drought- and flood- affected areas in India.) When it comes to something as complex as weather patterns, it is difficult to draw direct links of cause and effect to explain the changes we are seeing. While it is impossible to say with 100% certainty that, “Yes, climate change diminished the mango crops and delayed the monsoon,” we do know that our environment is changing more rapidly now and in the last few decades than it has previously changed in centuries. This can be measured by the rapid increases in global temperature, greenhouse gas levels, and species extinction rates. More and more evidence suggests that all of these attributes are linked, and rather than wait until we are absolutely certain that climate change is affecting our weather patterns, ways of life, and fellow species, we need to act now to reduce greenhouse gas levels and preserve natural ecosystems. Whether or not you believe climate change delayed the monsoon, there are many small things you can do that not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also simply keep the planet a little cleaner and help save resources for future generations. Humans have more power than any other species to change their environment, and when you think of this power in terms of climate change it may seem disturbing and frightening, but the good news is that this means we really can change our environment for the better.


So what can we do for our environment?


Some of the best recommendations I can take straight from Kadod and they all boil down to the simple phrase, “Reduce and reuse.”


-Use durable, reusable bottles and Tupperware instead of one-time use items. This not only saves trash from going into landfill and prevents littering, it also saves energy. The energy that isn't being used to make a new disposable item, the energy that isn't be used to transport the "used" item to the landfill or recycling center, and the energy that isn't be used to recycle it into a new disposable item.


-Turn off lights and water when you’re not using them. In Kadod, people are especially aware of these resources because their limitations are felt. If you let water run when you are not using it in Kadod, it means there won’t be any water running later in the day when you really do need it. Not everyone has such strong reminders to conserve their resources, but this is not an excuse to waste them.


-Carpool. Have you seen how many people can “carpool” in a single vehicle in Kadod? I rarely saw anyone traveling in a car or rickshaw by themselves. (Disclaimer: While I admire the zeal of Kadod residents for sharing rides, I strongly recommend limiting the number of passengers to the number of seat belts in the vehicle when carpooling!)


-Ride your bike. Many people bypassed cars and rickshaws completely, transporting themselves via “cycle” only. (Extra bonus: You get to ring a bell and shout at people to get out of your way, “Side!”)


-Eat more vegan and vegetarian foods. A more plant-based diet is healthier for your body and for the planet. Be creative about how to incorporate these foods into your lifestyle without feeling like you are depriving yourself. Every little change you make helps, so try eating vegetarian for “Meatless Mondays” or going "vegan before dinnertime". You can help the planet and your heart while still satisfying your carnivorous cravings.


These are just a few small, simple things anyone can do to help our environment. What are some other things we can do to help? What is your favorite way of helping the environment?

A Picture Says... at Least One Word

Happy Diwali and happy vacation to all!

Yesterday was our last day of school at P.R. Khatiwala before Diwali vacation, which our school has off from October 15-November 4. In order to conclude the last few days, then, I’ve been trying to wrap up current lessons and abstain from starting any new chapters, since I didn’t want to break off partway through a story and have them forget it over vacation.

Before vacation, though, I had two periods left to fill with my 7-A class in the English medium, my difficult class of the moment. Things have been going very well this term with my 6th standard and 8th standard classes, and they seem to have no problem understanding my pronunciation or explanations for the lessons, but 7-A has the worst time keeping quiet as well as the hardest time understanding. When I tried to move slowly through the lessons to make sure they all understood, they’d stare at their hands or out the windows or fall asleep on their desks… when I tried to move a little more energetically, I’d achieve the same result. Thus it came as little surprise that they didn’t understand the lesson once we’d completed it, but I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do to get them more engaged.

Since I didn’t want to begin reading the new story (a rather strange take on “The Ant and the Grasshopper” which describes an elderly man and his ‘uncouth’ younger brother, the black sheep of the family, who swindles money from everyone and never works) I was left with a rather dry and lengthy list of vocabulary words that it would be necessary to cover before reading the story.

Generally, the students are given the task of writing down these “words to know” at the beginning of the lesson. This, predictably, does not assure that they actually learn the words, but does assure that their notebooks look fuller. The list also is never sufficient to cover all the difficult words in the text. In addition to the 25 vocab words given in the chapter, I found an additional 15 as I read the story.

This gave me 40 words to teach to 40 kids in two periods. And this in the face of it being their final two English periods before break, so they were all geared up to argue vehemently for their right to slack off and play games.

Fun?

So I got myself psyched up about it. I planned to use funny examples that relate to their life (which is getting increasingly easy as I start to know them a bit better and remember what it is that 7th graders find funny) in order to bring home the definitions.

Speaking of which, ‘bring home’ was one of the phrases I had to teach them.

“To ‘bring home to’ means to make sure someone understands something. As your teacher, it’s my job to ‘bring home’ this lesson to you… and if I’m not doing my job, you need to tell me!” I told them.

As I was about to move on to the next word in the list, Jayushi, my star pupil of 7-A, was waving energetically at me from a front row.

“Yes?”

“So ma’am, if we don’t understand the lesson, you will come to our home!” she beamed at me. Haha.

“Yes, exactly.” The rest of the class was chatting, so I called their attention back to me. “Did you hear that? If you don’t understand the lesson, then I will come to your home, and we will do the lesson all day!” This got a laugh, and I thanked Jayushi for her perfect, punny explanation.

Using examples of mischievous little brothers to explain ‘uncouth’ and stealing chocolate to explain ‘vindictive’ we got through the forty words in just over a period.

“Done! Game!” came a few cries, and they all started preparing their retreat from English… but little did they know, I wasn’t done yet.

“No, wait—now we have another activity. We’re going to illustrate these words. We’re going to draw pictures.”

“????”

“Each one of you is going to get a piece of paper with one of the words on it, and you need to draw the meaning of that word. I know some of you will be confused on what to draw, so I’ve written some ideas for you at the top of the page. I don’t want to hear that anyone can’t draw, because I think everyone can draw stick figures, right?” I drew a rough, awkward stick person on the board. The class laughed. “See, everyone can draw this, no? I’ll do the first word for you as an example.”

I glanced at my stack. The word was ‘discreditable’. I had written, by way of suggestion, ‘someone who has fallen in the mud.’ In order to explain the word, I had told them that they were all expected to be very good students since they go to P.R. Khatiwala, so we have a good opinion of them. We think that they dress very well and behave very well… so if, on Sunday, they are playing in the mud and one of the teachers sees them, it would be very discreditable to them!

So I drew a little stick student sitting in a puddle of mud, with a look of horror on his face, and a stick teacher with her hands on her hips, scowling at him.

The class laughed, both at the silly state of the characters on the board, and the expressions on their faces.

“OK, so it’s not very good, but it’s easy to understand, right? I want you all to draw something like this!”

As I passed the papers around the room, I half expected the class to try to thrust them back at me, as they sometimes do when I try to bring in outside assignments that aren’t part of the regular curriculum, but to my pleasure and astonishment they all took them up, some with exclamations of excitement of “Oh! I have ‘investments’! Hmm…”

One girl did look at the sheet doubtfully and told me earnestly, “But ma’am, this is not done!”

“Well, it’s done now.”

They were perhaps the quietest they’ve ever been in my class. Every student completed some manner of drawing for me, and we’re going to hang them at the front of the room when we DO finally read the story, after break. (Then, when they ask me, "Ma'am, what does this word mean??" I can point at the picture and say, "It's right there. Whoever drew this picture can explain it.")

So their day of partying yesterday, which included their singing an organized and unrelenting chorus of Hindi songs, complete with the boys doing imitations of obscene Western dances, was well-deserved.

I really WILL miss them over break.

And hopefully they’ll remember the definitions, for once.

Namaste,
Dalena

Lighting a path...

When I entered one of my 8th standard classes this week the students were poring over yellow cards that the teachers had handed out. I asked my co-teacher what they were and she told me that the students had received their result cards from September exams. “Are they happy?” I asked her. She gave me a smile that said neither yes nor no. “In this class 10 students have passed.” This is a class of 64 students. Confused, I asked “You mean passed their English exams?” This would make sense to me because this is one of the lowest classes; most of the students come from very rural areas and have received poor English training prior to entering Madhi High School. “No,” she replied “ten is the number of students who have passed all subjects.” I was floored. Here I am trying to teach English, and they aren’t even able to pass exams in Gujarati or Hindi, their native language. “These students have a difficult time learning” she added. I had suspected just that and now it was made evident.

I went on with class as usual but I couldn’t stop thinking about it; 10 out of 64! The common belief of the Indian teachers is that the students in C, D, and E classes are backwards and dull. To me that is unacceptable. These students are not dull, even though their test scores may tell a different story. If anything, these students are the victims of an education system gone bad; the cracks in the system have widened and more and more students are falling through them. I know my students are smart and capable; they just haven’t been given a chance.

The students must take the result cards home to show their parents, who must then sign the card in multiple areas so the school knows they are informed of their child’s progress. As the students handed them back to the co-teacher she scanned the cards to make sure all the signatures were there. On some of the cards there was no signature. Instead, there was a thumbprint; a sign of an illiterate parent. I was surprised at the number of thumbprints on the cards and I mentioned this to my co-teacher. “Many parents are farmers, they have no need to read, and therefore they cannot help with homework.” Again, I felt another blow.

This cycle of illiteracy has been spinning in some families for generations and it may continue to spin unless something is done to stop it. I have no illusions that in ten months I can overhaul the system, but I do know that I can make a difference, even if it is only one student at a time. What I hope is that I can slow the spinning down enough to give these students a chance to grasp something, to learn something that can pull them out of cycle and hopefully not only change their lives, but also the lives of their children.

On the wall of my room I have a small card with a quote by Buddha: “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” It reminds me of something my students in China told me; A teacher is like a candle; they burn themselves to give light to others.

I want to be their candle.

The Bus Trip to the End of the World

I can remember field trips from when I was a kid; lots of kids on a bus with lunch boxes full of goodies, our initials written in permanent marker onto our clothes, all of us probably annoying the crap out of our chaperons. Well, Lyndi and I were asked this last week if we wanted to go on a school field trip with 50+ kids to which we replied, "What the heck, Mount Abu sounds nice. Let's go." Maybe we should have asked the details of this excursion before we agreed but then, we probably wouldn't have gone if we had known. And talking about it now, Lyndi and I can't stop ourselves from laughing at the things we saw and heard.

Imagine, 54 excited kids ranging from grades 8 - 12 stacked into a "luxury bus" that doesn't have AC or reclining seats, all eating enough sugar to keep dentists in business for years, chugging the trendy Mountain Dew everyone is so obsessed with here, and then picture these kids saying the following quotes that are still making Lyndi and I laugh a week later....

To Lyndi: "Teacher, black man, White House, Obama". And then he walked away.

"Kitty-ben, you are tired but your face doesn't look tired."

On Mount Abu you had the option to pay to ride a few horses that looked pretty beaten down and tired out. My student, Shrey was talking about going all day and was really excited that I might want to do it too when I said that I had ridden as a kid. We see the horses and he asks me if I want to go. "No, that horse looks really hungry Shrey." He talks to the horses owner for a minute in Hindi and then says, "Don't worry, he will eat at 9 o'clock." Oh, great. That makes me feel better.

Lyndi to Raxa, our Gujarati co-teacher after seeing the little room where we will all sleep curled onto the floor, actually spooning our 11th standard girls (awkward) because of the close quarters: "So, is there another bathroom somewhere besides the one in here for the 15 of us? (she is still hopeful at this point)" Raxa: "What's your problem?"....None, no problem!

Shrey was super excited to find a whistle so he could be cool like the 12th standard boys who were blowing theirs excitedly at any time of day or night. I told him that if he bought one we probably couldn't stay friends because he was sitting next to me. He didn't seem that scared by my threat. Dhaval, his classmate, said, "Teacher, if he buys a whistle, you buy a gun and you shoot him."

Lyndi and I get talked to by random men just about everywhere we go so, it wasn't a huge shock when these random men started to appear and try to talk to us. The difference this time was that the kids could understand what they men were saying to each other before they came up to talk with us and knew they weren't exactly coming with the best intentions. Shrey made me pinky swear I wouldn't talk to strange men and Ashay would mutter under his breath when we walked by interested me, "Don't talk to him. Don't talk to strange men." We had 9th standard protectors :)

Maybe we won't be so quick to jump on the opportunity to take an Indian field trip the next time but I wouldn't trade the laughs on this one for anything. A weekend took me from being just Teacher to Sister (Ben). Three days gained us protectors. And my favorite quote of all is from Riddhi and is why I really can laugh at this hectic, draining weekend now.

"When you first came here, you were our new foreign teacher. We didn't know you. Now you are our friend."