Sunday, July 29, 2012
Cricket match
Our excitement this weekend included a cricket match between some of the older boys and staff members from the Marriott hotel in Chennai. Cricket is a big deal in India. Luckily, we won! Although the margin of victory was so large (50-something over 30-something) that I wonder whether the men maybe handed it to them...
The boys took it all very seriously. Here they are in their group huddle before setting out. They each bought a matching cricket shirt from our "star store," where the hard currency is in good-behavior stars. These are the jerseys of the "Chennai Super Kings."
And the onlookers, children and summer volunteers.
The teachers enjoying the show, plus two Marriott employees at bottom left. Thanika, the math teacher in blue at far right, is a bit of a local cricket star.
The boys took it all very seriously. Here they are in their group huddle before setting out. They each bought a matching cricket shirt from our "star store," where the hard currency is in good-behavior stars. These are the jerseys of the "Chennai Super Kings."
And the onlookers, children and summer volunteers.
The teachers enjoying the show, plus two Marriott employees at bottom left. Thanika, the math teacher in blue at far right, is a bit of a local cricket star.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Melange of colors
This week I finished reading "Little House in the Big Woods" to 4th standard and "Charlotte's Web" to 5th standard. By some coincidence, both within the same week. Or by some destined fate or will of nature, because volunteers arrived today bringing us the new books I'd requested. Hurray, Hurray.
I wish I had pictures of the children's faces while they're listening to me, pensive or enthralled. Reading to them officially marks my favorite part of the day. When Charlotte the Spider died, Ebenezer blurted out, "Ma'am, why are you crying?" Why indeed? I tried to hide it. It wasn't so much E. B. White's way with words as the fact that we were finishing our journey through the book, fifth standard and I. And they had understood it, although it did at times necessitate mimicking animal voices, wild gesturing, and chalk drawings on my part.
I loved it when Harikrishnan called out "look, it's Charlotte!" when a spider crawled across his book. I love how V. Vijay calls our reading "the Wilbur book."
In other disconnected glimpses of the week:
S. Vishva at math "home"work (all of which gets done at school, under supervision, and ensuring that everyone's completed it before leaving).
Why use one book when you can use two?
Our choir at practice.
Gokulraj with his fake plastic teeth. Why? Is anyone calling him dramatic?
First standard in the office. How do I love MATH-U-SEE? Let me count the ways...
Manimaran, Aravind, and Chanduru.
I wish I had pictures of the children's faces while they're listening to me, pensive or enthralled. Reading to them officially marks my favorite part of the day. When Charlotte the Spider died, Ebenezer blurted out, "Ma'am, why are you crying?" Why indeed? I tried to hide it. It wasn't so much E. B. White's way with words as the fact that we were finishing our journey through the book, fifth standard and I. And they had understood it, although it did at times necessitate mimicking animal voices, wild gesturing, and chalk drawings on my part.
I loved it when Harikrishnan called out "look, it's Charlotte!" when a spider crawled across his book. I love how V. Vijay calls our reading "the Wilbur book."
In other disconnected glimpses of the week:
S. Vishva at math "home"work (all of which gets done at school, under supervision, and ensuring that everyone's completed it before leaving).
Why use one book when you can use two?
Our choir at practice.
Gokulraj with his fake plastic teeth. Why? Is anyone calling him dramatic?
First standard in the office. How do I love MATH-U-SEE? Let me count the ways...
Manimaran, Aravind, and Chanduru.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
St. Hilda's
I recently visited a few schools in our area. It's important for me to get a sense of what comprises a typical school and of where we stand relative to the others. These visits usually leave me in despair over the state of the education system.
Parents must enroll their child in "lower kindergarten" at age 3 (or two and a half!), then "upper kindergarten" at age 4. These consist of sitting, writing, and reciting. First grade starts at age 5: it's against the law to allow a child to mature and wait until she's six (I have often been sleepless over this one, and won't reveal whether I am completely law-abiding). Yet birth certificates can be suspicious, and I'm not sure what to think when a parent claims a child is seven when he looks like he's three.
Other children have no birth certificate at all, and we have to guess.
I have been to a number of schools and never seen toys in kindergarten or picture books in any classroom. No crayons or art supplies. No library. Few schools have PE. Ours didn't have recess when I first arrived. There are no special ed or resource classes. Nothing for the gifted.
Children do two things: memorize their lessons and copy vast passages from the book into their notebook. The most important thing is your handwriting.
The kids usually look terrified. Corporal punishment is standard.
So I was relieved at my visit to St. Hilda's in Chengelput to find the kids looking fairly happy and not bored out of their minds. I admired the teachers who were functioning with as many as SEVENTY-THREE kids in a classroom. That was fourth grade. And this is a private school.
And then I come home, to my animated, bright-eyed little hooligans. They run to me to show me their paper airplane or Tamil quiz. "All correct." The world is good again.
We are lucky. Because of our American sponsors, our classes are relatively small, we have better (=contraband) materials, we actually teach reading, our kids speak English, and we are slowly helping the teachers grasp the concepts of creative and critical thinking for our students.
Our kids come from the lowest castes, but are getting a superior education.
Parents must enroll their child in "lower kindergarten" at age 3 (or two and a half!), then "upper kindergarten" at age 4. These consist of sitting, writing, and reciting. First grade starts at age 5: it's against the law to allow a child to mature and wait until she's six (I have often been sleepless over this one, and won't reveal whether I am completely law-abiding). Yet birth certificates can be suspicious, and I'm not sure what to think when a parent claims a child is seven when he looks like he's three.
Other children have no birth certificate at all, and we have to guess.
I have been to a number of schools and never seen toys in kindergarten or picture books in any classroom. No crayons or art supplies. No library. Few schools have PE. Ours didn't have recess when I first arrived. There are no special ed or resource classes. Nothing for the gifted.
Children do two things: memorize their lessons and copy vast passages from the book into their notebook. The most important thing is your handwriting.
The kids usually look terrified. Corporal punishment is standard.
So I was relieved at my visit to St. Hilda's in Chengelput to find the kids looking fairly happy and not bored out of their minds. I admired the teachers who were functioning with as many as SEVENTY-THREE kids in a classroom. That was fourth grade. And this is a private school.
And then I come home, to my animated, bright-eyed little hooligans. They run to me to show me their paper airplane or Tamil quiz. "All correct." The world is good again.
We are lucky. Because of our American sponsors, our classes are relatively small, we have better (=contraband) materials, we actually teach reading, our kids speak English, and we are slowly helping the teachers grasp the concepts of creative and critical thinking for our students.
Our kids come from the lowest castes, but are getting a superior education.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
This Indian Life
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
So long, farewell
Our 11th standard kids--Rajesh, Buelah, Sujatha, Priya, and Gracy--are about to depart to their new residential school in this picture from a week ago. The expression on their faces says it all. And this is what they looked like when they were smiling!
So they were terrified, transferring from our little school of 200 to an unknown one with over 1000 kids. They'll be there for 11th and 12th standard. But they are only 45 minutes away, and returned to us this weekend for a little visit. They had glowing reports and decided they would survive after all.
Shankar, our sixth student, has also joined them. I'm glad they're all together.
More from the road
Few people own cars here, certainly not our teachers or anyone with whom I associate on a regular basis. So they carry on in life as best as they can, often accomodating astonishing amounts of cargo and children onto bikes and motorcycles.
When our Rising Star van passes a particulary photogenic scene on the road, I nod at the driver. Today it was Rajendran. They are all patient with me, slowing down, ignoring honking busses behind us and cars swerving around on both sides. I roll down the window and lean out as far as a I dare, hoping I won't drop the camera or lose a limb (childhood warnings about dangling body parts from car windows still ricocheting somewhere in my mind). The driver hopes I'll hurry it up but doesn't say anything.
It probably strikes him as a bit odd that I am constantly taking pictures of their version of a mundane minivan.
Yet it still takes away my breath to see babies perched on the handlebars. Do alternate rules of physics prevail here? Just so we're clear: this family is doing about 40 miles per hour (I sit in the front and can see the speedometer).
When our Rising Star van passes a particulary photogenic scene on the road, I nod at the driver. Today it was Rajendran. They are all patient with me, slowing down, ignoring honking busses behind us and cars swerving around on both sides. I roll down the window and lean out as far as a I dare, hoping I won't drop the camera or lose a limb (childhood warnings about dangling body parts from car windows still ricocheting somewhere in my mind). The driver hopes I'll hurry it up but doesn't say anything.
It probably strikes him as a bit odd that I am constantly taking pictures of their version of a mundane minivan.
Yet it still takes away my breath to see babies perched on the handlebars. Do alternate rules of physics prevail here? Just so we're clear: this family is doing about 40 miles per hour (I sit in the front and can see the speedometer).
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