Many happenings in India.
Over the last two days, I have made cultural presentations at three
different schools, had a traditional dinner (as in 6 men ate while at least 12
other children and women watched) at the home of a teacher, taught my lesson on
Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust and was greeted by a marching band and
showered with fresh cut flowers at Sacred Heart School. Just like home! I am sure that Sara will have the Detroit symphony
orchestra and the Detroit Lions cheerleaders on hand for my arrival back in the
U.S.
Too many incredible moments to even list.
I learned today about the tragic church shooting in
Charleston, South Carolina. Beyond horrible. After learning of this human disaster, I was
haunted by a question and answer session I had at Aura Edify School yesterday. We visited what is essentially a private, for
profit charter school on Wednesday. Beautiful
building. Small class sizes. A dynamic principal. We met with faculty for a short presentation
and a question and answer session.
One man, a French and social science teacher, challenged Erik
and I from the beginning. “What do you do
when American students voice anti-establishment views in school.” Alright buddy, game on! There was some harmless banter about the
political and economic philosophies of Noam Chomsky but then he went for the
solar plexus. “I heard from a reliable
source that there are more guns in Houston than there are people” he began. From that point he suggested that the aura of
violence in the world emanates from the U.S. and it starts with gun violence on
our streets.
Ouch. As some of you
may know, this is a real issue for me as my daughter was the innocent victim of
a drive-by shooting and thankfully received only superficial wounds.
It is important to spread the global message and be ambassadors
of good will and global understanding.
It is also important to know what the world thinks of you.
Something deep to think about.
And the shower was incredible. Turns out that for four days when I was
turning the shower handle to hot it was actually going to cold. When I turned the handle to cold, the water
gets hot (well, warm).
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Interesting points
for the last couple of days
*Students are amazed that we have a separate parking lot for
student vehicles. At our school in
India, only 5 teachers come to school by car.
One in 20 Indian adults own a car.
*Indian students certainly know what a selfie is. I have taken numerous selfies at their
request.
*At Sacred Heart School today, a student asked what teaching
strategies we used in the U.S. to illicit maximum cognitive results. Well, those weren’t the exact words but
pretty close. Good question!
*Attended my first class in the Hindi language today. Very interesting and learned a tremendous
amount about the Hindi alphabet and the various language families. The students start learning Hindi, which is
their fourth language after Malayalam (their mother tongue) English and Sanskrit
in grade 7. I clearly needed the beginner
section of Hindi. Maybe I should learn
to speak English gooder first.
*Unfortunately, I have not improved significantly on picking
up the accents of many Indian adults and students who speak excellent
English. Erik is way better at it than
me and I often look to him for help.
Awkward and embarrassing.
*Google my name in Malayalam. My picture was in the local Malapurram newspaper. Not sure what the article says. In fact, I have no idea.
*The principal at Aura Edify School is very excited about
classroom exchanges for students using technology. He also has an internship program for
American university students who are studying education. He will provide housing and a small living
stipend. Wow!
*Ramadan begins today and 80 to 90% of the residents of
Malapurram are Muslim. We are going to a
Muslim teacher’s house tonight after sundown for dinner. I am really looking forward to this
experience.
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