Tuesday, March 23, 2010

New Teaching Assignment, Shopping, and Dosais

This morning's yoga was more difficult due to the fact that Laura asked our instruction to make it "a little more difficult." Instead of our gentle stretches, we did shoulder stands, plows, and other contortions. Actually, I enjoyed it although I couldn't do all of them like they were supposed to be done. I quickly showered afterwards, ate breakfast, then gathered my school supplies for my first day teaching at Grace School.

After Claudia and I were dropped off by little Stephen, I was introduced to the principal then shown to my classroom. I met 15 very rambunctious kindergartners. I will have to say with all my heart - they were awful. They jumped on the furniture, refused to listen, and were genuinely horrible. A teacher came in one time and chastised them, but as soon as she left they went back to being terrible. I managed to keep them in their seats and when one would be become especially obnoxious, I would put them in the hall. It's hard to discipline children when they don't speak your language and you don't speak theirs. Finally, the hour was over and I was shown to my next classroom.

I was told I was to teach 15 first graders and then 5 second graders. I walked into a classroom with 20 children and asked if they were all first graders and the teacher said, "Yes." (Later, I found out the teachers aren't fluent in English, either.) So, thinking I didn't have enough handouts, I abandoned my lesson plans and did a conversational English lesson off the top of my head. The good thing, however, was that this teacher stayed in the room and discipline ruled. At the end of the hour, I asked where the second grade was located and I found out the second graders were in that same classroom; it was a first and second grade combination. The teacher then wanted me to teach just the second graders while she taught the first graders. As I used all my material on them the previous hour, I once again taught off the top of my head. It didn't go too badly, but I definitely need to bring more material tomorrow.

After the second grade class was over, I thought I was done. However, I found that the teachers wanted an English lesson, so Claudia and I had a conversational English class with the teachers. We discussed health care, marriage, divorce, family planning, the India government and President Obama. Not bad for the first day.

Back at the guest house, lunch was ready: rice, curry, mixed vegetables, and papaya. We had a bare hour to prepare our lessons for tomorrow before we left to go shopping at Government House, a government owned shop which features Indian arts and crafts. All of us couldn't fit in the van, so three of us went by auto-rickshaw. Once again, our lives flashed before our eyes as we threaded our way through motorcycles, cars, truck, bicycles, cows, and other auto-rickshaws. I've seen crazy traffic before in other countries. India, so far, takes the cake.

We all enjoyed shopping at Government House. I'm enjoying the reasonable prices. At the end of our shopping spree, we once again experienced the Indian check out system. A clerk takes your items and gives you a receipt which you take to the cash register. After paying, you go to the delivery counter where they find your purchases, wrap them, then hand them to you. Traveling back, I went by van. However, that didn't seem easier as six of us were crowded in the tiny van and we sweated in the heat as little Stephen negotiated a traffic jam. Finally, he took a detour and my backside was sore from bouncing on the rough streets by the time we arrived at our guest house.

I had about 15 minutes to run to the copy store to get copies for tomorrow's lessons before we had to leave to teach at SEAM. We walked to SEAM, and as we were late we only had 45 minutes to teach instead of two hours. Thank goodness. It is very hard to hold the children's attention for two hours after they just arrived home from attending public school all day. The teaching also went better as we separated the kids in different rooms or locations in the orphanage instead of sharing the common room. They definitely functioned better with less distractions. My group of rowdy middle- school boys actually stayed on task. Sort of. I find it interesting that the schools here have these young children read Shakespeare which they read by rote. However, their listening and speaking skills are at beginning levels. They are used to just repeating mindless syllables; they have no idea what they're repeating. I believe the educational system here is just rote memorization.

After SEAM, we walked back to the guest house, re-grouped, then walked to a nearby small restaurant to eat real Indian dosais. These are large, crispy, crepe like pancakes, and they are filled with the filling of your choice. Stephen recommended the butter marsala dosais. He also ordered samosa appetizers. Samosas are turnovers with a flaky crust filled with a meat or vegetable filling. Both the dosais and the samosas were wonderful. After we walked back to the guest house, Stephen treated us to ice cream. We all appreciated the cold dessert.

To bed, to dream of classrooms filled with children's faces...

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