Arun accompanied us back to Khajuraho airport after some intense negotiations with a taxi van. We said goodbye with heavy heart and made it to Delhi, where we would be spoiled at a ridiculously nice hotel. We'd spend our remaining days reflecting and debriefing about our school visits and teaching experiences, as well as doing a fair amoung of sight seeing and shopping. The cultural highlights were traveling to Agra (about 5 hours by bus) so we could visit the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort, both of which are UNESCO sites. Our tour at the Taj Mahal was at sunrise (~5:30 a.m.) to capture the best light and because it was incredibly hot (felt like 110 F). The Taj is essentially a huge tomb for the favored wife of the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, who commissioned it in 1632. Over twenty years later, it was completed....quite a fortress of white marble and splendor. Walking around the entire structure with bare feet was really cool. As were the Rhesus macaques that were right at home in the surroundings. The Agra Fort was the imperial city of the Mughal rulers, and it was nearly as impressive as the Taj Mahal. While in Agra, we also visited a shop that practiced the centuries old practice of stone art. Some of the table-top sized pieces could take nearly 20 years of effort to complete. After returning to New Delhi, we did a bus tour of the city, including a thorough tour of Humayan's Tomb (you guessed it, another UNESCO site). The tomb was completed around 1570, and was actually the structure that the Taj Mahal was later modeled after. It is characterized by high arches and a double dome and was commisioned by Humanyan's queen, Hamida Banu Begum. We also visited the America Center and met with U.S. Embassy staff, to learn more about their efforts in the country. Maya (from the Teacher Foundation, whom we met in Bangalore) was with us throughout our time in New Delhi, and Emily Lester, the India program director from IREX, was equally awesome at facilitating our discussions and ensuring that we were both intellectually engaged and incredibly comfortable. We flew out of Delhi at 2:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I landed back in Vermont Friday nght at 7:30 p.m. What an amazing trip!
After catching a bus from Khajuraho to Chhatarpur and checking into the Shelter Inn, I slept up to get ready for our arrival at Kendriya Vidyalaya Chhatarpur public school the next morning. We received an incredibly warm welcome during the school's morning assembly, receiving garlands of flowers, bindis, and a kind introduction by both Arun and the school's principal, Mr. Vishan Sigh Rathore. A group of students sang "We are the World" as well! We observed the morning assembly, which happens every morning at schools in India, where students engage in yoga and meditation and prepare their minds for learning as a collective group. Very interesting concept and apparently well-liked by the students. We met with Principal Vishan and learned more about the school, its students, and the Chhatarpur community. Next we got to visit one of Arun's English classes, where the students told us about many of the learning and extracurricular activities that are available at Kendriya Vidyalaya. Deanna and I also both gave powerpoint presentations about our native states, schools and personal lives. I talked up Vermont, passed out Bernie Sanders buttons, and fielded some great questions about the U.S. and education in Vermont schools. We also started meeting many of the teachers at the school, which serves K through 12. On Tuesday, Deanna and I observed many presentations on Indian culture and the various states by his students. We learned about fashion, food, education, language, holidays, school life, and much more. The students did a great job and had clearly put a lot of time into their presentations. In the afternoon, we had time to meet with other teachers regarding co-teaching opportunities. I brought materials for a STEM engineering challenge activity. We had been advised (and observed) that much of the teaching strategies used in Indian schools were still based on direct instruction and rote memorization. Some of this was likely due to limited resources (especially for science activities) and limited access to technology (although schools we visited all had computer labs, not all with internet). I wanted to do a lesson that was project-based, required some critical thinking, collaboration, and that was a great example of engineering design. I landed at a classic balloon car challenge, which I was able to teach to two different sections of students (~35 students each section of mixed age and gender), where students were given a bag of supplies and had to design a self-propelled (via the balloon 'motor') car. Students could choose between multiple styles of straw, wheels, car body, axles, as well as deciding how many balloons they were going to attempt to use. By doing a hands-on activity at the start of a unit, students are likely to have an easier time understanding physical science concepts (Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws, friction, inertia, gas laws, kinetic and potential energy, etc.) when they are formally introduced by the teacher. Giving the students direct experience experimenting with the various variables by participating in the fabrication of their cars and the trial-and-error process of improving their designs is a common learning technique of the NGSS learning model. Students had a lot of fun and made some great balloon cars. Some groups even took them home and kept working on them, showing me their suped up designs the following day. Their curiosity and effort was really amazing...the type of engagement and enthusiasm that I have much more difficulty inspiring in my own students. It was a very humbling experience, and incredibly positive. We also visited two other schools while in Chhatarpur: a public residential school, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) and a private school, Maharishi Vidya Mandir (MVM). JNV is a school specifically for students that test highly in rural Indian communities, which then make them eligible to study for free at this residential school in Chhatarpur. Similar schools are found in the other Indian states. We got the full red carpet treatment at JNV, meeting the principal and other administrators, whom we ate lunch with in one of the cafeterias that served the female students. The food was amazing and we nearly had to prostrate ourselves over our plates to stop them from feeding us more. It was awesome! Next we walked the red carpet to an outdoor assembly, where we were introduced, observed a beautiful dance routine by female students, and then had a questiona and answer session with the entire student body. I finally got some Donald Trump/Hilary Clinton questions and some other inquiries about education in the United States. After another performance by the boys' tribal dance group, we were set to leave when the seemingly shy male students surrounded me and enthusiastically asked me question after question. We found a vacant classroom and I answered as many of their questions as I could, took some selfies, and then Arun found me and we made our exit. It was an amazing show of curiousity and courtesy. Later in the week, we visted MVM, a school based on the principles of the Yogi Maharishi Mahesh, the very same Yogi the Beatles famously studied under in India in 1967. We walked their beautiful campus, with numerous buildings for the different grade levels, immaculate playing fields and playgrounds, and observed some classes, especially in the primary grades, which were great. We also observed some devout Yoga and meditational practice by students from an affiliated program at the school. In talking to one of the female students that was out for recess, she said that the meditational philosophy of the school greatly enhanced her education because it "prepared her mind for learning." It certainly got me thinking about how little stock we put into getting our students minds ready for learning in the United States. Perhaps I need to tap into my inner transcendental self to help set the learning environment in my classes. The results looked remarkable. It also presented the familiar dichotomy between private and public schools, whereby the former have nicer facilities and resources, while the latter provide better salaries to the teachers. Much of the remainder of our time in Chhatarpur was spent interacting with faculty and students, as well as spending time outside of school with Arun, his wife Shalini, and their son Rowhan. Arun and Shalini lived right on the school campus, along with much of the rest of the faculty, and they totally opend their home to us. We spent many hours lounging at their house, enjoying delicious food, and having great discussions on any number of topics. They took us out to the local Chhatarpur market one night, where Shalini kindly selected some bangles for my wife, Lauren. Deanna and I also enjoyed interacting with Rowhan. Rowhan and I put a Lego plane together. We also spent time with the principal and his wonderful family. Vishan even took Arun, Deanna, and I out to a resort restaurant, where we met his brother-in-law and enjoyed an amazing Indian dinner. Getting to interact with the other faculty members of the school was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. Everyone seemed highly dedicated to their profession and their learning community seemed so comforting and genuinely wholesome. The politeness, enthusiasm, and boundless curiosity of all the students really stood out to me. Everyone was so appreciative of our visiting, Deanna and I often felt we hadn't done nearly enough to justify their remarkable kindness. Students and teachers alike brought us homemade food to try, and students gifted us beautiful painted folders and drawings. Chhatarpur certainly has a place in my heart and Deanna and I began conspiring with Arun and Vishan on grant opportunities that we could apply for to continue our collaboration. Hopefully this story is to be continued!
The U.S. teacher I traveled with to Chhatarpur, Deanna D'Onofrio, and I taxied to the Bangalore airport to catch our flights to Khajuraho (via Delhi and Varanasi), where we met our host teacher, TEA fellow Dr.Arun Khevariya. We immediately hit it off with Arun, who was welcoming, friendly, and scholarly. We spent our first night in Khajuraho so Arun could show us the UNESCO World Heritage group of Hindu Temples. There were previously over 80 of these temples which were constructed beginning over 1100 years ago. 25 temples remain in various states of preservation, and the group we visited, the western group, was utterly amazing. The temples are primarily made of various shaded sandstone (yellows, pink) and each is ornately carved inside and out. We spent nearly four hours visiting the western group and they were certainly one of the most amazing UNESCO sites I had ever been to. One of the temples was still actively used for worship, and we were able to go inside, with Arun as our interpretive guide, and get blessed and marked with a bindi, the first of many during our week in the area. Arun taught us so much about Hinduism and the history of the temples, which are often labeled (quite misleadingly) in the tour books as the 'erotic temples' due to some kama sutra carvings that can be found on some of the temples. Arun taught us about the four primary tenets of Hinduism: The Dharma (duties), Samsara (rebirth), Karma (right action), and Moksha. It was transcendent and surreal to learn about Hinduism from Arun at such a beautiful setting of cultural importance. Deanna and I both felt incredibly fortunate to be paired with Arun, who also showed us the Archeological Museum, the Architecture Museum, and the Folk Art Museum. After a full day and a half of travel, I landed in Bangalore (via D.C. and Frankfurt). Bangalore is a city of ~12 million in southern India, and is one of the technology hubs of India. We landed at 1:30 in the morning and didn't get to our hotel until close to 4:00 a.m. We had much of our first full day in Bangalore to recover from travel and jet lag, and I went out with four other teachers for a little sight seeing. We visited the local holy lake and then took some auto-rickshaws to the marketplace area. Cows are revered by Hindus, so they were commonly seen wandering of their own accord along sidewalks and in the middle of roads, a sight that would be common throughout our 2.5 weeks. We spent the late afternoon and much of the following day in workshops learning more about Indian culture and the different varieties of schools we would be visiting over our two weeks of travel. Our amazing teachers during these days were members of The Teacher Foundation, including their founder and director, Maya Menon. Maya and her knowledgeable staff taught us about the diversity of India, the numerous paradoxes that chararacterize this nation of 1.3 billion people, as well as a general outline of the educationa system, state curriculums, and the teaching profession. India has 450 million people under the age of 24, is a country of 29 official languages, and each state boundary is based on linguistic diversity, making India, in some ways, more analagous to a continent like Europe. Another guest speaker and scholar, Mr. Chiranjiv Singh, described India's noted ability to synthesize cultures and ideas, and described Indian society as being extrememly adaptive. Of note from a science perspective, he suggested that Indians generally see no contradiction between science and spirituality, and, in fact, the lines between both often get blended into a single narrative (e.g. Darwin and Hinduism). He also provided a great quote regarding India's complexity: "Whatever someone says about Indian culture, the opposite is also true." Two other noteworthy visits while we were in Bangalore included a field trip to learn about solid waste disposal and sanitation issues. Within the past 20 years, Bangalore has tripled in size, but infrastructure, particularly waste management, has not kept up. Garbage was all over the streets, sidewalks, and waterways. We learned a paradox of Indian society is that individuals value cleanliness, but primarily within their personal spaces. To throw away something in a public space or in someone else's space is easy and common: a classic example of tragedy of the commons. Also paradoxical, is the fact that Hindu's worship numerous bodies of water as well as cows, yet directly and indirectly pollute the crap out of them (into them?), the latter due to accidental ingestion of plastic garbage. We learned of Indian people who make their entire living sifting through garbage, either as rag pickers or else "reclycling gurus," using bikes to to transport recyclables. Amazingly, the carbon footprint of such individuals is essentially negative (all human powered, no fossil fuels), making their contribution essential to this de-centralized system of waste disposal. Our instructor and tour guide was Poonam Bir Kasturi, who is the founder of an inspiring non-profit group called the dailydump.org. We also visit our first school, RBANMS, and I got to observe a biology class learning about plant anatomy of angiosperms. The class had 29 highly engaged male students (gender segregation in some classes was common). The teacher utilized direct instruction (chalkboard notes) as well as passing around plant specimens to teach the lesson, while students often shouted out answers (>80% of the students!) in unison. We also got to debrief as a group with all the teachers that we observed and share questions and answers. Our first impression of students were overwhelmingly positive. Students at all schools we would visit stand when a teacher enters the room, refers to them as "sir" or "ma'am," and often ask for permission from the teacher to enter the classroom. Remarkable! |
AuthorI traveled to India in July 2016 as a member of the Global Teachers Fellows program, along with 15 other teachers from throughout the United States. We visited schools, taught in classrooms, and learned from Indian educators. ~Shane Heath Video Links BelowClick the above image to see video of what our daily commute to school was like in an auto-rickshaw.
Click on the above images to see video of the morning assembly at Kendriya Vidyalaya, my host school in Chhatarpur
The welcoming committee at Kendriya Vidyalaya on our 4th day, when the Deputy Commisioner of Education visited the school (video).
Videos of the Balloon Car Challenge linked above.
UNESCO temples at Khajuraho (VIDEO)
Intense math lesson, as part of a physics class, Kendriya Vidyalaya (VIDEO)
A Primary school lesson at Kendriya Vidyalaya (VIDEO)
Evening shopping at Chhaturpur market (VIDEO)
Music class at Kendrihya Vidyalaya (VIDEO)
Kindergarten class at Maharishi Vidya Mandir (VIDEO)
Welcoming ceremony by students at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (VIDEO)
Closing ceremony by students at Jawahar Navodaya VIdyalaya (VIDEO)
Botany lesson at RBANMS school, Bangalore (VIDEO)
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