Thoughts from Week One

What an intersting week this has been... I had no idea what to expect from my initial experience in India, but I can say with certainty that is has been fantastic. Friday and Saturday went off without any major obstacles. Teaching is getting more manageable, and the hours don't seem to pass so slowly. Weezie and I are gradually thinking about exciting lesson plans instead of strictly teaching out of the textbooks, and everyone else seems to be acclimating well to the new environment.

I have learned a few things about education here in India. Naturally, some are good and some are bad. The children here are especially sharp; they can do mental math in a heart beat and enjoy learning new things. This makes coming to school and teaching a real treat. I have noticed, however, that education here is centered around results and not any sort of process. When doing math of any kind the children can give you the answer quickly, but when asked how they arrived at such an answer they are completely spellbound. Things like English and science are simply memorized and not truly learned. I think this comes from the system of discipline here, which involves a meter stick and small knuckles. The kids are much more interested in knowing the correct answer and not being reprimanded than applying a process and missing a small step along the way. Resultingly they are very well-behaved and attentive, but not really learning anything. I have come to realize that this is nothing that I will be able to change in eight short weeks, but something which I feel should be changed eventually.

I have also noticed that the teachers here are more than willing to let me take charge of absolutely everything, while they sit in the principal's office and chat. This is a negative of many levels (translation help, etc.) but my main worry is that nothing that I do (whether good or bad) will be learned by them and used later. If the teachers are not present during the school day then when I leave they will just revert to the same practices and principles which they used before I came. This is extremely frustrating, and makes me feel that my hard work may be completely in vain. This, again, stems from the existing system of Indian education. We have been told that it is illegal to fail any child until the ninth grade, meaning that teachers are never held accountable for what children learn up to that point in a child's education. They simply show up, collect a paycheck, test the kids once every three months, and pass them along to the next grade. Many of the volunteers here have found that this leads to an enormous discrepancy in the ability levels of chilren within the same grade. Beyond these things everything is just gravy!

As I briefly mentioned before we attended school on Saturday, as we missed Monday due to travel. The children attend school every Saturday, then have one day off on Sunday. On Sunday we all slept in a bit more than usual and left the home base around 10:30 to have a picnic nearby. The site was only about a 5 minute drive away, down some rock stairs, and settled in a pine forest which borders a large field. The partition of the two settings is a serene little stream of clear mountain water. As we sat in the shade of the pines we could see local boys playing a game of cricket in the field. After we ate we went to watch them. The game was quite intense as we found out that they were playing for Rs 45 (just less than $1 US) and lasted almost until we left. When we returned home most people went in to sleep off their lunch of rice, chicken, and potato chips.

Another observation that I have made is the Indian obsession for cricket. While hockey is considered India's national sport, no child in the country wants to be anything other than a world-class cricketer. Part of this obsession is due to the fact that the Twenty20 World Cup is currently being held in England. T20, as it is called, is the most exciting rendition of the game, with matches lasting only about 2.5 hours. The other versions call for either 8 hour or 5 day matches (probably the reason why we Americans, with such small attention spans, never watch the game). We have been up late at night every night to watch teams from around the globe (all of them former British colonies) attempt to play their way into the final stages of the tournament. India won its first match and plays again tonight.

All in all I could not have imagined a better first week. There were obviously setbacks and uncomfortable moments, but the positives far outweighed any negatives that were present. The people here are kind, the living is easy, and the scenery isn't too shabby either. Nothing that requires noting happened today (Monday) and school promises to be more routine from here on in. I will continue to post with as much regularity as I see fit, but do not fret if a day or two go by without a new post. In the meantime I will add some pictures of Dhauladhar School (which Weezie and I have been accumulating over the past week), as well as pictures of the staff, other volunteers, and perhaps the home base and surrounding areas. I will also try to add captions to the pictures and clean them up a bit, but I am having some trouble with the limited formatting options available through Blogger.com. If anyone has requests or questions please feel free to email me and let me know. Namaste.