Rural & Urban School Visits

Almost two weeks in

Good news is we found a great flat and our furniture is being moved today. We aren’t sure yet how AIF will help us financially as we had to incur some costs for the deposit, etc. but we moved and have a safe, well ventilated flat on the 2nd floor of a home. Feeling a little closer to being settled in--thankfully!

As for my ‘work’ in the last two weeks I’ve mostly sat and surfed the Internet and read documents. But I’ve also visited several schools (both rural and urban), attended several meetings and almost have a project proposal—but not quite.

The best part of the rural school visits: getting out of Chennai and riding a bicycle around a village.
The worst part of the urban school visits: being witness to corporeal punishment over and over and over again.

Rural Visit:
The first school visit was very exciting because I got out of the office and out of Chennai with my co-worker. We chatted on the commuter train, shared food and got to know each other. When we turned up in Minjur (a community North of Chennai) we took an auto to the NGO office and met the representative. She showed us to our bikes and off we went. Cycling through villages is always amusing, especially for my co-worker who enjoyed not being the center of attention. She translated for me some of the comments expressing ‘awe and surprise to see a foreigner’ from the villagers as we cycled by. But she didn’t translate everything, and that is probably for the best. We visited two schools, both one-room classrooms with one teacher. The students were busy with the ABL (activity-based learning) program when we arrived but put their cards away and prepared for their English class. My co-worker and I observed the lesson as the representative and sometimes the homeroom teacher taught. Ideally, there is a CD component to each lesson and the schools have been supplied CD players and speakers. Sadly, one school’s CD player broke and the other was having problems with the connection. The storybook was also left at the office, so the representative improvised and demonstrated a semi-typical lesson. At both schools we were served bright orange Mirinda—sugary sweet orange soda.

In Japan I was always the one teaching, with others watching! Now, I’m the one sitting in the back observing. I decided against taking notes since it was my first visit and I really am in learning mode. There were about 25-30 students in both classrooms of various ages. They were pretty eager to participate. They stood up and spoke when asked. They played pass the parcel. They identified corresponding flashcards. And they practiced introducing themselves. Interesting overall!

Finally we watched a focus lesson, which was similar to the first but with the audio component included. After the sugar high of the Mirinda and seeing a similar lesson for the 3rd time, I almost passed out. The ‘ladies compartment’ of the train coming back was packed and we stood most of the way. It was fun to watch the female venders get on and off with all their goods—selling to everyone in the car. The most popular item on this particular trip were the banana stems and flowers, they were going like hotcakes.

Urban Visit:
One of my co-workers teaches a focus class at a local government primary school in the same neighborhood as our office. I asked to observe her lesson to learn more about her approach, the kids, the school and what might or might not work in the Indian classroom setting. She has been teaching phonics everyday afterschool for 1-hour to a group of 4th standard students. And what a group they are. I’ve never seen anything like it…except for one of my classes in Japan that was highlighted on national TV for its misbehaving: throwing chairs, sleeping, swearing, hitting, yelling, etc. The class that I observed here brought back the horrors of teaching that group of students in Japan. The children in this class were throwing water bottles, pencils, pens, and even each other. They were hitting, kicking, punching, and pulling hair. They were talking, yelling, screaming and so engaged with other activities I couldn’t hear the teacher at the front in a small classroom. I lost count of how many times my co-worker had to go and fetch the head mistress, their homeroom teacher or another teacher to quiet them down. In each case, they brought a stick or ruler with them and hit whoever was acting up on the hand, arm, shoulder, back, head or leg. The kids would wince and quiet down for a second, but as soon as the teacher left the room, they would be back at it again. I never saw a student cry from the pain of being hit, apparently they are used to it. Shockingly, my co-worker uses the same method although had even less authority over the students.

Knowing that my presence alone was probably contributing to their acting up even more, I dared not say or do anything. I just had to sit by and watch it happen over and over again. It was both brutal to watch and legitimate brutality toward the children. Honestly, I would want to drop out too if my teachers treated me like that. Given that most of the kids come from impoverished families probably living in slums and have life experience beyond their age, their need for appropriate attention is critical. But the schools are understaffed and corporeal punishment is seen as the only way of managing the problem, creating a cycle of abuse, neglect and acting out.

I had grand ideas of teaching myself. But this has made me think twice about it. Let’s see what happens. But maybe staying in the office isn’t such a bad thing.

Food, toilets, clothing norms, bugs, etc. aside, these are the real issues that make living and working in another cultural context difficult.