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.
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