Understanding the village

Today the highlights of the day included teaching kids chess, teaching them how to tell time and going into the village after school.

I realize that I am almost failing at teaching them chess. At times it seems impossible. I remembered advice of my own chess teacher, national master Bruce Baker "just let them play." He is right. To maintain the interest in the game the only thing that works is actually letting them play. It doesn't really matter that they don't know the rules. As long as they are interested in learning. Today I miserably failed at teaching to work the queen on the board. Children did not understand the exercise. They could not follow me. It was a battle I lost. I gave up after 30 minutes of intense trying to explain how the queen is the most powerful piece. They seem to move the queen in every possible direction. I don't think they understand me. I felt hopeless. Finally I told them to just play. It does not matter how. Just play. They suddenly got all lightened up and started playing some game I don't even know. The pawns were moving 4 squares up and the queen moved from any square to any square.

After a hard hour of trying to teach chess I decided to stop for today and study how to tell time. We have been doing time related exercises for a while now and kids are slowly getting it. Sorab was helping me. He speaks Hindi to them and yells sometimes in Hindi to calm them down. Time exercise went successful overall. We made each kid stand up and ask the other kid a time related question like "what time do you brush your teeth?". Then the other kid had to show on the paper clock the time and the first kid would repeat the full answer like "Ashish brushes his teeth at 9 o'clock".

We wrapped up the lessons with the daily prayer around 2:50 pm and headed into the village to talk to each family to find out why they stopped sending their children to DAAN school. Lately the number of students has dropped significantly. The villagers on the hills stopped sending them down to school. We wanted to know what's going on.

Manju, s 16-year-old from our school, has agreed to be our guide into the village. Sorab, the 20 year old Indian volunteer from local community, and me would go from door to door and meet the families.

It was shocking to see the poverty and conditions the villagers lived on the rocky hills. Most houses were either made of brick, mud, paper or plastic or some kind of combination of any of these. Some "houses" were very small. It was hard to imagine the family of 4 fitting in such a tight place.

The first house was a family of 5. The eldest daughter (of about 13-14 years old) stopped attending classes. When we asked why? The mother answered "she is married now, no need for her to go to school". The girl in pink on the picture below is that girl. I remember seeing her before in class.

Manju kept leading us into the rocky hills where we discovered many other families whose kids I immediately recognized. On the picture below Manju is walking ahead. Manju, by the way, is also married but still attends classes daily.

The next family was very friendly. Their lovely son Karan was always active in classes. I recognized him right away. The family of 5 lives in a tiny clay/plastic house. Karan looks so much like his dad. He is the shortest one on the picture below.

Looking down from the hill into Karan's house covered by blue plastic and stones I couldn't help but compare the newer high rises the Udapurians are building in the valleys between the hills. Such a drastic contrast. The tiny house made of plastic and clay vs the 10 floor high rise with garage.

We met few other families. Some said they don't want to send kids down to DAAN because there have been many fights between the kids of different settlements. Maybe fights between those who live in paper/plastic houses and newer settlements? Not sure.

It was hot to climb around the hills. It was an awakening experience.

UNO and Chess

Today was a day full of UNO and chess. I have already introduced the game UNO yesterday but chess was totally new.
I noticed that children got extremely interested in UNO. Kids of different ages and development. One of the main advantages of playing UNO in such a diverse circle is that all the kids get to participate. Nobody has to just sit there and watch others. Another advantage is that kids learn colors and numbers in addition to few action words like "skip", "reverse", or "draw". I have modified the rules a little bit so that each player has to actually say out loud the number and the color, for example, "one blue". That way they practice pronunciation. It made me happy to see that even the shiest of all the shy kids started saying out loud number and colors. And or course the most important that they are actually very interested in the game.

And now my main passion - chess.

I have selected kids of about ages 10 through 14 who showed great interest in learning. They were very excited.
I am not sure if they were more excited about the game itself or playing with new pieces and looking at the new demonstration board. My current students are two girls Rangeena and Manju, and 4 boys Ashish, Uttham, Mohit and Rohit. Mohit and Manju seem like they are picking up very fast so is the smartest girl of the class Rangeena.

At the beginning I was puzzled. What to start with? Kids show great interest but how to develop it and keep it in the same time? So I started with showing where the pieces would go. After they all got it I called the names of the pieces. It was funny to see the kids calling rook the elephant and the bishop camel. I guess that's what they are called in Hindi.

After naming each piece I started with pawn movement. Most kids got it fast. The bishop moves were easy too.

Now the most difficult part the knight. Couple kids got it very fast but Uttham had the most problem. He just could not understand the jumping over other pieces. In the picture above Uttham is showing where the knight can go. After a long long long time Uttham finally started to move the knight all over the board demolishing all the pieces like a mad child.

Uhmmmmm the dynamics of the group went crazy direction. While a good attentive Rangeena was being a good student the other ones started moving all their pieces without any understanding yelling at each other and sometimes even smashing the pieces of the opposite side with one hand. Uttham still was puzzled with everything. I think he is my slowest student. It will take a lot of time.

Not sure how the chess lessons would go. The village kids are different from city kids. I was happy to see the interest. They are now looking forward to the next lesson. They are also excited with new sets and the demonstration board they get to touch and play with. The time will show what's next. It was not easy today.

Visiting Havala village school

Last Friday I visited DAAN center in Havala village. It was quite different from Badgaon center. The kids were different. They seem to know more English. Maybe too many volunteers taught them in the past. The center looked a lot more like school. There were maps and posters on the wall. The DAAN teacher was an older man compared to the young Sorab teaching in Badgaon.

Also it seemed like there were more girls in that center than in the other one.

Kids asked me many questions. They also played many games.

The semi-funny story of the day is that one of the kids tried to punch our car's tire. Apparently he was not happy with Sam scolding him a bit for his bad behavior in class. Fortunately we came on time. Only some air was gone from the tire. We had to stop to fix it on the way back.

Teaching in the rain

Today I didn't expect that many kids to show up because of the heavy rain. I was surprised to see many kids already there before noon.

We continued the same thing we did the whole week. Worked in groups. Funny enough I noticed that group leaders are now taking their pride in being in charge. When I was trying to help one of the groups the appointed leader said something like "mam, I am a group leader here" meaning I manage things around here. It was cute.

Today I discovered that there are few married kids in the class. I also discovered that the eldest "kid" is 20 years old! That was new. So, ranging from age 3 to 20, married and unmarried, with basic education and no education at all - this group is not easy to homogenize.

Seriously.

Looking at the picture above I wonder if the little boy is actually married or it's just a ring?

Monsoon rain

It's raining raining raining raining. There is no end to this rain. Power shortages are becoming more and more common especially first part of the day. The air feels good after the rain. Fresh. Breathable. Almost as if it's not india. I am starting to love monsoon mornings.

Understanding cultural differences

They are all so different. They are of different ages, different backgrounds, and different development. Some go to government schools in the morning, some don't go to any schools at all. Some work in the fields, some take care of younger ones in the family, some are even married! Yes, don't be surprised, child marriage is practiced here in Rajasthan (here is a recent piece of news on legalization of child marriages in Rajasthan).

Some have better knowledge of English than others, some are more eager to learn, some will return many times and some will only appear once in a blue moon. They are all so different and very unique.

So, the question is how to deal with such a diverse crowd when teaching a simple concept of numbers? At the beginning I was sure that if working in groups the group leaders or the eldest/advanced kids will incorporate the others into learning process but today I realize there are many obstacles and pit holes even in this process.

One of the things is that each day different kids would come to DAAN school. The new kids do not have any idea of the activities we have been doing and the material learnt. To deal with this problem we decided to introduce material slowly in small chunks so that the new information is absorbed effectively by all members of the groups. For example, today we taught numbers 1 through 40, only introducing 30-40 as new numbers. The same game was played as a day before (each group has a number and the other groups ask questions trying to guess it). In addition each group is tested on the numbers and the performance prize is given to the group and special performance prize is given to the group leader.

The weirdest thing happened. Right in the middle of the class a man came in and started giving us blessings by placing a red dot on the forehead and then giving out sweets. I didn't really understand what was going on but did wonder a bit. So after we were all blessed class continued when I noticed chunks of the lower part of the wall started to fall on the floor from excessively vigorous drilling occurring from the other side. I realized then that we were all blessed because some well was being dug and the pipes were being put through the concrete. I still did not understand why the classroom wall needed to be drilled. The pipes could have put behind the wall. It's India. Hard to understand.

India, diversity, the whole unusualness of everything. I thought I have gone through all this before in 2006-2007 when I spent a long time in this country. Apparently I forgot what it felt like. The new awakening started.

Continuation of teaching numbers and working in groups

Yesterday we continued teaching kids numbers and working in groups. Some kids from previous groups did not show up and new kids showed up. As always it took a while to get them situated into the groups before starting with the activities. We taught them 1-30 following the same pattern as before. We had one winning group who got candies.

Between teaching them 1-30 and how to ask questions we did song activities where each group had to sing 6 songs. I have heard these songs for such a long time that I found myself singing them while I am doing other things. Funny like that.

I am still thinking it would be better to have groups for advanced vs complete beginners but since the mixed groups seem to be working alright maybe it should stay this way at least for now.

Sam took some pictures of me teaching. I am not liking the way I look on them. I am so new at teaching maybe that's why I look a bit confused.

First day of teaching at Badgaon village - changing established techniques

Today was the first day of actual teaching at Badgaon center. Me and Sam arrived a bit earlier to talk to the guy who has been teaching these kids for a while now. He is pretty understanding and excellent with children. As I found out his mom was also a teacher. Maybe it runs in a family. At 12 only 6 kids arrived. The rest of the crew of about 13 kids arrived late. Sam has decided to start giving out prizes to the kids who come on time as well as announcing their names. Perhaps it will encourage others as well.

I did not see many faces from last week but saw few unfamiliar faces. Not sure if it's a case of Mondays.

We have decided to wait with my introduction until more kids arrived. First of all I wrote my name and made them guess how to read and pronounce it. After many tries the best guess was something like "iron". I finally revealed the mystery and kids happily repeated many names many times. Then I told them that I come from America -> California -> San Diego. Kids were all confused with all the geography until Sam came up with good analogy. Same as India -> Rajasthan -> Udaipur.

Then I told them about my hobbies (chess, music, languages) as well as mentioned that this is my second time in Udaipur and I am planning to teach there for a while. Then I quickly asked them questions about myself and was very surprised that they actually remembered some details like that the California is a western state (I told them this also). They also remembered my hobbies. They could not get the name of the city though - San Diego.

Finally I decided to start with implementing the new system into the classroom. The system deviating from simple repetition and individual work. I have decided to spend as much time as I can making them work in groups and helping each other learn.

I have started with teaching numbers in English. The kids' ages ranged from about 1st graders to 7th. Some had no idea about one, two, three and some were fairly comfortable with numbers. What a thinker. My original idea was to separate smaller kids and teach them basics. Sam proposed a better solution. Divide the class into equal groups with all ages in them. That way the more knowledgeable kids would help those who don't know.

And it worked like magic. After a long time of separating the class into groups and rearranging the sitting three groups were formed. The kids were not used to be facing each other, they normally sit in lines/rows and face the teacher. We gave them plenty of time to help each other count 1 through 20, also in reverse order and picking random numbers. Each group had a group leader, mainly the eldest of the group or the most advanced one (suggested and chosen by the guy who has been teaching them before me).

I really enjoyed to see productive group dynamics. The more advanced kids patiently explained less fortunate ones what they know about numbers as well as tested them. In addition to helping the group the group leaders were given responsibility to maintain group discipline.

It was really great to watch them help each other learn. I thought it was more efficient than repeating after the teacher.

After some time we have given them a test to see which team did the best. We picked 5 random numbers and 5 random people from each group to answer. After each correct answer we all would applaud. There was only one group who got all the answers right. I distributed candies for each member and special chocolate for a group leader. What really amazed me is that the smallest kid from that group had no idea what 1, 2, 3 were and he answered number 5 correctly. I guess the group leader had some special explanation magic. It was a very special moment indeed.

I tried to do the activity where children have to ask questions to guess the number like "is it a double-digit number", "is it bigger than ..." but encountered difficulties. It was not easy to get them into that mode. Maybe I am rushing too much into things here. I will try to take it slow and continue number learning as the days go by. I am also thinking to get into learning about telling time sometimes later this week.

Kids were slow to go home. They kept on smiling and saying "Namaste" - "Bye" to me.

Understanding group and teaching dynamics

Today I returned to Badgaon center for more observation and learning. In addition to seeing many same faces I saw some new ones. Most kids arrived on time, they were dressed in clean clothes, some carried water with them. I have overheard that yesterday there was a big fight between the kids. Apparently some kids who live in newer developing settlements got in a fight with those from older existing settlement. Therefore some did not show up, perhaps prohibited by their families or on their own merit.

Sam has started to integrate me in the teaching routine. At this point kids are super curious about who I am. One even requested a formal introduction. It was cute. Next week I will officially start teaching at DAAN. It will be quite interesting but a lot of work. I can only imagine. Currently from what I have observed in the past 2 days most teaching is based on repetition. Kids would repeat a word by word after the teacher. The group would shout out things. Sometimes the teacher would point at a specific student who then would get up and answer. Most kids appear very shy almost afraid to say anything out loud. I heard the teacher repeat many times "zor se bol" which means "speak up louder".

I also noticed that kids are required to sit for many hours and get up for water or bathroom break only with official teacher permission. So different from american practices. Student is required to wait until he is allowed to go. But I think in reality in addition to actually wanting a break kids just want to move around. It's even hard for any adult to sit and attentively listen for such a long time.

Only at the very end of school session the teacher initiated some activities in the form of games where the kids actually got to move around. How easy would it be for me to change these practices? I would want to have them move around and be more interactive rather than to sit, repeat and wait for permission to go out.

One of the games was "Teacher says". The teacher would point at part of the body (shoulders, eyes, arms) and say "the teacher says". Kids have to point at the same part of the body and say it out loud. If the teacher does not say "the teacher says" but simply calls a part of the body and the student still points to it then this kid is eliminated from the game. This game accomplishes few things: gets kids to interact and move around as well as study vocabulary and test attention skills. Afterwards they played Shake game. The teacher shook the bottle with the sand in it, kids started to move around, jump and dance then at the signal they had to freeze in one position without moving. The kid who moved is eliminated. At the end of the games the winners got candies as prizes.

After schooling the kids spend few minutes praying.

Kids lined up to say bye to the teacher - "Namaste" in a very respectful manner, smaller kids first.