Lots of ideas in my mind to share... some are just trivial things, some more thoughts on teaching here and there. We went to Aurangabad this week-end and it was an experience and a half.First let me talk about a couple of people encounters we've had. They have confirmed my thoughts, people are the same everywhere... wait a minute, does this make any sense?! Let me explain, maybe it will then. I start from the end... On our return from Aurangabad, we were on the 12 Midnight bus, which came an hour and a half late!! That's India for you. Be flexible :-) When after 9 hours of a difficult bus ride we are in Indore, I am asking the men on the bus -driver and assistant- where is our stop, they just kept on laughing at me, and the fact that I did not speak Hindi. The more I asked in English, explaining that I did not speak Hindi, the more they laughed and continued speaking Hindi! I practically had tears coming to my eyes and had all the horrible thoughts for Indians at that moment. In the midst of all that, our cell phone rings, Kahlil answers, and it was the driver who took us around yesterday in Ellora, who was checking up on us to know if we had arrived safely back home!! Now this man had no obligation to do that, but out of the goodness of his heart he did this kind gesture! Now do you get it? People are the same everywhere. You find great kindness as well as jerks everywhere. If we could remember that always, we would be so much happier! So I had to come half way across the globe to learn this simple lesson! A recurring question "which system do you think is best?" Over and over I respond, "I don't think one is better that the other, they are just very different!" Driving... people say, if you drive in India, you can drive anywhere. I say, if you can drive in India, you can adapt easier to the driving system anywhere, but as Kahlil said this afternoon, after getting a few driving violations!! We're under a red light, 2 PM this afternoon, a zillion bikes, two-wheelers, rickshaws, cars... 13 seconds left of the red light. I swear to you folks, one biker decided he had waited long enough, drove off, and the whole crowd under that light just started moving, as if it was a full stop instead of a traffic light!! Someone, who shall remain nameless, very dear to my heart was banned from ever getting a license in the State of New York, for doing just that while taking her driving test!!
Open House last Saturday. An interesting experience. More or less what one would expect. All teachers were there to greet the parents, all the parents of the best students in your class were there. Those you wish you would get to say a few words to :-( were not there! All the parents were there with their child, so there was no awkward moments! One child has a straight "A" report card, in Bio and Physics she has "A+" and in Chemistry just an "A" :-(, Mom wanted to know what the child can do to improve her grade!! My response? "Hu! Hu!"
As planned, we left almost right after Open House on our trip to visit the Caves of Ajanta and Ellora. Whoa! What an experience!
Pictures of the Caves of Ajanta:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37221&id=1408545811&l=58e37a05ee
Some of the caves were actually built from top down! Can you believe this?! India really has some architecture that is breathtaking. I am certainly enjoying this side of the experience. The caves of Ajanta, I was familiar with them from having received one of those emails from a friend with a PowerPoint presentation about the Caves. That was breathtaking, I thought, but not real. Well, to my surprise this past week-end I realized, the caves are exactly like in the pictures! A majesty about them that is indescribable! Yes you can see the pictures and see the beauty, but walking in the caves, the darkness, and imagining those men so long ago, building these magnificent statues, the paintings in he Ajanta caves, how did they do it? Why did they do it? I know, a place of worship... but why this grandiosity? How did they do it? who did it? I tell you, really impressive! This coming week we are in for another treat! Boris is convinced I have come to India under false pretense! Supposedly to teach but really to travel!! What can I say, if they have all these festivities around this time of the year!! anyway, we are off to visit three cities, Delhi-Agra-Jaipur. This is a school organized tour and we will be going with another teacher and some students. Looking forward to this!
Teaching wise -see, Boris, I do that too!!!- I am more and more understanding the system. Through my own experience and through talking with other teachers. I don't find it challenging at all. It is too much rot memory. The students, who are paying attention, are doing so by taking down what you are saying words for words. I stop from time to time to ask: Any questions? No they don't have any, just finish dictating the notes so they can copy it down and be done with it. Rarely do you get a word from the students about what you are telling them. Maybe, "can you repeat what you just said?" I can't do it that way. I need a dialogue. I need feedback, questions, comments. Don't get me wrong, they are wonderful children, and I enjoy my interactions with them outside of class. It's just professionally, I am not challenged at all. My only concerns here are, Am I saying it the way they need to have it? Am I teaching the right stuff? Am I going deep enough? Too deep, I don't have to worry. If it's in the book, they have to know it! How do the teachers do it? Year in Year out? One teacher said, "That's all we know. I was raised in it, and so I teach what I was taught." He agrees something is wrong, like all the others, but they say like I do, It works for them, so why not? I really want to poke a little deeper and get some more info about who does it work for? All the students, or just some? What happens after high school? after college?
OK, so this is going to be my time of questioning, these 5 months in India! Hopefully I'll have a few answers before I leave!
...and I haven't mentioned the cast system, yet! I didn't even realize, it still existed, stupid me!! I can't reconcile the idea of one of the greatest democracy in the world, to have such a patented (!) system of labeling and classifying people. Boris made a comment earlier about an earlier Post, where I was talking about what I pay the lady who helps us with the upkeep of the apartment. He reminded me that the two twins who worked for mother all these years back, had in turn maids of their own! So he said they did manage to live with that salary. I corrected him and said they did not "live" with that salary, not if living is like Walt Whitman described it "To live free and..." This is surviving. These tarp covers that house so many, we can fool ourselves and say they are happy there, but that can't be! Anyway, I don't get it at all, so let me not say a word until I've learned more.
India is Incredible! This is the saying here! 
Bello.
ReplyDeleteto the first part of this blog let me answer Haiti.
to the last part of this blog let me say cell phones.
in Haiti we studied verbatem. most of us lived for the first 20 or 30 years of our lives w/o cell phones. Now heaven forbide we would stepout our door without one.