Its been 2 weeks since I've started working with the Hope Foundation and things are going pretty well. I've finally figured out the routine and things get a bit easier day by day. My morning starts off with breakfast at the main office, Pavan makes us eggs or if I ask for traditional breakfasts like idli upma, poha etc :-) and no morning is complete without our beloved chai! Then we jump in one of the CCS vans and Sunil takes us to our placement sites. The morning ride is my favorite part of the day. I love to sit up front because I get a kick out of sitting on the (US) driver side but not driving. Dehli traffic is a complex and crazy system but after a few days I figured out the rules, so far I would have to say that if someone asked me to sum of Delhi in one word it would be traffic! But I'll write a separate post on that :-)
Sunil drops us off in front of the slums and we cross the street to the school. I'm hoping one of the male teachers will walk us around the slum for our last week. Depending on traffic we walk in while the children are reciting "OM" before they start their school day. Since the room is so small we all basically sit in a large square. Then Leia and I split up their notebooks, grab a pencil and call them over one by one. The children have been asked to make horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line and fill up the page. Some children like Yuvraj, Nandkisore, and Tannu finish the assignment in no time, they could use a more challenging assignment. Other children have developing fine motor skills which will eventually improve and most of the younger ones basically hold the pencil while we make the marks. The children wait for everyone to finish, they usually have nothing to do when they've had their turn. Some days they sit quietly some days they're stir crazy. We usually finish around 10:30 which is their lunch time and our chai (tea) time. Tea is brought to us in a plastic sandwich bag and there are and use small glass cups that we keep on the shelf. Sushma (Teacher Madam) helps the kids get their lunches out of their backpacks and instructs everyone to pray before eating their food. Everyone sits on the floor with their food and their water bottles, it is very common that 4-5 out of the group do not to have a lunch. One day Meraj didn't have a lunch and was sitting against the wall, Leia made a gesture that he should pray with the other kids, he just shrugged his shoulders and said "khana na hehay" (I don't have any food). I laughed so hard I almost spilled my chai. Sushma made him fold his hands anyway and he looked quite resentful :-) After lunch the kids put away their boxes and sit back down. Hygiene is a big concern here, Since there is no running water in the camp the children don't really wash their hands. Sunita, another teacher told us that the water pumps turns on at 4pm everyday for 30 min, everyone has containers that they fill and that is all the water they have until the next day. Knowing this, it seems to be a tough decision whether to ask the kids to use their drinking water to wash their hands every time they sneeze or eat etc.. if the children need to use the bathroom they step outside the door and use the open sewer that cuts the path in front of our school again I have yet to see anyone wash their hands. After lunch I begin my lesson, the kids absolutely love "5 Little Monkeys," (I do the version where they're teasing an alligator, not jumping on the bed) "Baby Fish," and "The More We Get Together." This past week I introduced "Wheels On The Bus" which has been a huge hit as well. We then do a large group number or alphabet activity, there is no way we can split up into small groups and our class attendance is between 27-30 kids a day. It is a challenge to find something for everyone to participate in, usually Sushma uses alphabet or number cards and the kids repeat after her. There are no games just a lot of repetition, to be fair doing a game with the kids causes a lot of downtime and the class may get out of control. I have been trying to introduce some large group activities she can do with the kids like the game Jee made up for our class: "memory." This week I took number cards 1-5 and hid them under a blanket I took one of the cards away and the kids had to guess which number was missing. This reinforces number recognition and develops critical thinking skills, and most importantly all the kids can play. Since there are very limited resources I'm trying to help Sushma find ways to teach the kids that don't require supplies which has been a huge challenge. I hope that once the school is better established this won't be such a problem. The important thing that CCS wants us understand is that the volunteers are here to assist and learn. Bringing supplies is a nice thought but could create a dangerous dependency on donations. CCS wants to empower these NGOs to develop their own solutions not just wait for volunteers to fix the problems. This was hard for me to understand at first, what's the harm in buying a pack of pencils or erasers when all three teachers share one eraser? Well for the next volunteer it might be crayons, then books, and eventually the schools will expect that all the supplies will be provided by the volunteers. The Hope Foundation probably won't have consistent volunteers throughout the year and we don't want to give the NGOs anything that they wouldn't be able to provide for themselves. On the other hand, Leia who is a talented artist has helped draw a ton of large posters highlighting the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and hygiene. I have also been trying to learn a few Hindi rhymes the kids repeat, they're really cute. After that we usually turn on a cd and let the kids play and move around. There is not a lot of room for them to play so we usually try games like "Ring Around The Rosie" (try that with 30 kids) or a popular train game . At noon the children leave and Sunil picks us up and we have lunch with the CCS staff and volunteers(which is the second most favorite part of my day). Language has been a huge stumbling block. I have learned select words and phrases in Hindi like "sit down," "come here," "don't hit," "good job," and "listen up" etc. The most challenging aspect of the placement has not been the poverty or large group size but the fact that I am very limited in what I can say or do. There's a hundred ideas running through my head of activities I could do but I don't have the language skills to do them. This has caused me to take a backseat from the teaching aspect and focus on helping Sushma keep the kids in line. I would like to write up a few ideas for the director that Sushma could use in class. The language barrier has also forced me to mainly observe instead of teach and while Indian and US teaching styles are very different I see that rote learning is not as bad as I thought it would be. If there was a way we could fuse the rote learning (which reinforces basic skills like math) aspect with critical thinking activities and opportunities to explore creatively then we would have a fusion of both teaching styles. I think this is the point of our placements; finding the best of each side and combining it to make a new style.
Sunil drops us off in front of the slums and we cross the street to the school. I'm hoping one of the male teachers will walk us around the slum for our last week. Depending on traffic we walk in while the children are reciting "OM" before they start their school day. Since the room is so small we all basically sit in a large square. Then Leia and I split up their notebooks, grab a pencil and call them over one by one. The children have been asked to make horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line and fill up the page. Some children like Yuvraj, Nandkisore, and Tannu finish the assignment in no time, they could use a more challenging assignment. Other children have developing fine motor skills which will eventually improve and most of the younger ones basically hold the pencil while we make the marks. The children wait for everyone to finish, they usually have nothing to do when they've had their turn. Some days they sit quietly some days they're stir crazy. We usually finish around 10:30 which is their lunch time and our chai (tea) time. Tea is brought to us in a plastic sandwich bag and there are and use small glass cups that we keep on the shelf. Sushma (Teacher Madam) helps the kids get their lunches out of their backpacks and instructs everyone to pray before eating their food. Everyone sits on the floor with their food and their water bottles, it is very common that 4-5 out of the group do not to have a lunch. One day Meraj didn't have a lunch and was sitting against the wall, Leia made a gesture that he should pray with the other kids, he just shrugged his shoulders and said "khana na hehay" (I don't have any food). I laughed so hard I almost spilled my chai. Sushma made him fold his hands anyway and he looked quite resentful :-) After lunch the kids put away their boxes and sit back down. Hygiene is a big concern here, Since there is no running water in the camp the children don't really wash their hands. Sunita, another teacher told us that the water pumps turns on at 4pm everyday for 30 min, everyone has containers that they fill and that is all the water they have until the next day. Knowing this, it seems to be a tough decision whether to ask the kids to use their drinking water to wash their hands every time they sneeze or eat etc.. if the children need to use the bathroom they step outside the door and use the open sewer that cuts the path in front of our school again I have yet to see anyone wash their hands. After lunch I begin my lesson, the kids absolutely love "5 Little Monkeys," (I do the version where they're teasing an alligator, not jumping on the bed) "Baby Fish," and "The More We Get Together." This past week I introduced "Wheels On The Bus" which has been a huge hit as well. We then do a large group number or alphabet activity, there is no way we can split up into small groups and our class attendance is between 27-30 kids a day. It is a challenge to find something for everyone to participate in, usually Sushma uses alphabet or number cards and the kids repeat after her. There are no games just a lot of repetition, to be fair doing a game with the kids causes a lot of downtime and the class may get out of control. I have been trying to introduce some large group activities she can do with the kids like the game Jee made up for our class: "memory." This week I took number cards 1-5 and hid them under a blanket I took one of the cards away and the kids had to guess which number was missing. This reinforces number recognition and develops critical thinking skills, and most importantly all the kids can play. Since there are very limited resources I'm trying to help Sushma find ways to teach the kids that don't require supplies which has been a huge challenge. I hope that once the school is better established this won't be such a problem. The important thing that CCS wants us understand is that the volunteers are here to assist and learn. Bringing supplies is a nice thought but could create a dangerous dependency on donations. CCS wants to empower these NGOs to develop their own solutions not just wait for volunteers to fix the problems. This was hard for me to understand at first, what's the harm in buying a pack of pencils or erasers when all three teachers share one eraser? Well for the next volunteer it might be crayons, then books, and eventually the schools will expect that all the supplies will be provided by the volunteers. The Hope Foundation probably won't have consistent volunteers throughout the year and we don't want to give the NGOs anything that they wouldn't be able to provide for themselves. On the other hand, Leia who is a talented artist has helped draw a ton of large posters highlighting the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and hygiene. I have also been trying to learn a few Hindi rhymes the kids repeat, they're really cute. After that we usually turn on a cd and let the kids play and move around. There is not a lot of room for them to play so we usually try games like "Ring Around The Rosie" (try that with 30 kids) or a popular train game . At noon the children leave and Sunil picks us up and we have lunch with the CCS staff and volunteers(which is the second most favorite part of my day). Language has been a huge stumbling block. I have learned select words and phrases in Hindi like "sit down," "come here," "don't hit," "good job," and "listen up" etc. The most challenging aspect of the placement has not been the poverty or large group size but the fact that I am very limited in what I can say or do. There's a hundred ideas running through my head of activities I could do but I don't have the language skills to do them. This has caused me to take a backseat from the teaching aspect and focus on helping Sushma keep the kids in line. I would like to write up a few ideas for the director that Sushma could use in class. The language barrier has also forced me to mainly observe instead of teach and while Indian and US teaching styles are very different I see that rote learning is not as bad as I thought it would be. If there was a way we could fuse the rote learning (which reinforces basic skills like math) aspect with critical thinking activities and opportunities to explore creatively then we would have a fusion of both teaching styles. I think this is the point of our placements; finding the best of each side and combining it to make a new style.
I guess your critical thinking is to try to figure out how to teach the children given your language limitations. With regards to your comment about supplies, that is a hindrance, but the goal is to make the best use of what is avaialable. That is the true genius of being a teacher; teaching with limited (or non-existant)resources. You can always teach them about actions and consequences (like the little game you mentioned).
ReplyDeleteI get the feeling you are learning as much as, if not more than, the children in your class.
Do something memorable, so that the kids do not forget you. You will influence them for the rest of their lives. Help them realize that there is more to the world than their little area. If you have to, have one of the locals translate for you. Give them hope!
always good advice dad!!!!
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