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."
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!
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!