Over the past day and a half, I have spent a lot of time in the classrooms at the school with the teachers. The principal here, Celina, asked me to sit in on some of the classes and then provide some insight on how the teachers are doing and how they could improve. The first class I sat in on was a science class and the teacher happened to be my favorite house mom. We go read bedtime stories to the kids whenever we can and I always go to her dorm. If you've seen the pictures of my sweet henna "tattoo" on facebook or Heather's blog--she is the artist behind it. I know I shouldn't have favorites, but this girl, Rajne Kumar is my favorite--even though I'm still working on how to pronounce and spell her name :| She is so sweet and adorable with all the girls--she's only 23 but she works full-time as a teacher and also as a house mom living with and looking after 20 girls age 4-17.
Anyway, she was the first teacher that I evaluated and I could tell that she was nervous to have me in the room. She struggles a bit with her English and goes back and forth between English and Tamil (the local language) in her lessons, so her class was somewhat challenging for me to follow. After class she came up to me and timidly asked how I thought it went. I thanked her for letting me sit in and tried to reassure her by telling her I am just looking for ways to help make the classes even better. It's hard to explain, but it about broke my heart to even attempt to give her constructive criticism knowing how much this job means to her and how well intentioned her efforts are.
The other classes were easier. One class was working on a Biology project and spent most of the period outside collecting bugs--FYI I learned that dragonflies eat each other! They caught two in a little jar and the larger one was eating away at the smaller ones head :( The third class I sat in on yesterday was math, which went pretty smoothly. I went into the math class again today. They were just starting in their brand new Saxon Math books and were really excited about the books (which were recently donated to the school). The math teacher is really good, but since the books are from the United States, they use "$" signs and other symbols that he wasn't familiar with, so he just needed a little coaching to be able to effectively teach with the new books. He asked me how much the books costs in America--I told him I wasn't sure but probably over $100. He, along with the students, were a bit awe-struck by this--and now even more excited about the new books. It was really fun to see and made me think how much I took for granted in school.
I met with Celina yesterday after I had sat in on a few classes to debrief on what they could do to improve the classes. I was again humbled as she told me how hard it had been to get these teachers. The science teacher they had before Rajne Kumar used to put one boy and girl in charge of beating the kids if they made a mistake or misbehaved and if the child didn't beat the other children when asked, the teacher would beat both of them. The tricky thing here is that it's illegal to fire an employee, so it has been a huge challenge for the school, but they have come a LONG ways! ...Side note: it's also illegal to hold a child back a grade regardless of their skill level, but it's not illegal to "change" their date of birth... I am really impressed with Celina's dedication to the school and with how far it has come over the past couple of years. Celina is a very gifted teacher and has sacrificed a lot to be here (prior to Rising Star she was a professor at Duke). She has decided to extend her time here for another year- but it will be a sad day for the school when she goes.
Just one more note for today. It has been a rough day for some students and for Celina and the others that care so much about them. There is one little girls (who happens to be an albino Indian) and boy at the school that lost their house yesterday. They lived in a hut in the village a few miles away, but it burned down yesterday and they lost everything. The kids were upset about losing their uniforms for school and one of them lost their glasses. Their mom is a tailor and her sowing machine was saved from the fire, but broken in the processes. The school had $300 set aside that they were planning to by materials for the reading program with, but they will now be loaning it to this family to rebuild their life. Sadly, that means the reading supplies will have to wait, but isn't it amazing that this family can rebuild with only $300. Of course, some things can't be replaced, but it will be enough to get them back on their feet.
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