The Kids

The kids here are so wonderful. It was funny at first, because somehow I thought they would be very different from any of the children I’ve taught in the past. That is not because we are in India, but because of the situation they all come from. I guess I was picturing these calm wise souls who would all be focused on their studies and very gracious and thankful. I think I was picturing a bunch of Buddhist monks for some reason. They are not a bunch of Buddhist monks.

They are loud and energetic. They run and play and don’t pay attention in class. The older ones are often too cool to being what everyone else is doing. The young ones fight amongst themselves. The old ones fight amongst themselves. They are rowdy in the class rooms, but most of all they are enthusiastic. At least what I have observed. There are talks of how to better motivate the high schoolers to study more, but every class I have had is eager to please. Every time I have to stop to quiet down the 3rd and 5th graders it’s because they all want to share the answer. I have had the younger grade come to me to request to have singing class with me once a week instead of going back to their dorm for free time. They have all asked if they could perform, so we are now having a choir concert in November. I’ve added classes and scheduled a performance all based on their requests. I wish I could say it was because of some kind of inspiration I have given them, but they have been inspired by so many before me and they are carrying that with them every day.

The biggest different between teaching here and anywhere else is the resources. I knew this would be true coming in, but it still hits me at strange times. Like the other day when one of my 3rd graders in creative writing came to me to let me know that her notebook was full and she needed to start a new one. Well the “key master” (the student in charge of supply cabinet key, because, yes, they keep all supplies locked up. Paper and pencils are like gold around here) came up to inspect her notebook. She looked through it and told her that she had plenty of one sided and half sheets of paper empty throughout her book and she would need to fill those first. This whole interaction was fascinating to me because you could tell it was an everyday thing. It also meant that in order for me to read her story I would be searching through her entire notebook to find the next page.

Supplies are a constant issue. In the 5th grade they each have a single piece of loose leaf paper they write the exercises on in class and hand in to me at the end of the day. We use one piece of paper week I’d say. When we need a new one someone has to go to the principal’s office to request it. It comes to us as double sheets that have to be cut in half before being handed to the students.

I am also amazed to look at the student’s work. In general these kids have the most beautiful hand writing I’ve ever seen and we are talking about cursive writing here. Everything is done by hand. There are no worksheets, so they copy complete exercises from the chalk board (yes, chalk board). I was in awe of looking at a 12th grader’s hand written 15 page history project. It’s a very different way of getting things done around here. But they do get done.