Our yesterday's adventure of going from house to house on those rocky hills worked. Today we were surprised to see a large number of kids in the class. Most families from the shanty house community sent their kids to DAAN school. Many were new. We had to redesign the daily class routine on a spot to incorporate new children. I noticed couple older guys. One very tall fellow looked about 18 years old. He was so tall that he reached the ceiling of our little "classroom" every time he got up to answer a question. Looks like he has good memory. He was getting things fast. His name is Ravi.
Most kids on the picture above came from rocky hills settlement. I now know the living conditions they come from. I look at them almost different. Some came very sick. Two kids were coughing and it looked like it was some kind of flew perhaps. When we asked older brother (also new guy in the class) about his sister being very sick and coughing in class he told us not to worry. Hmmm..
Some kids were dressed in school uniform and looked very professional. Some were covered in dirt wearing dirty dresses and pants. I also examined their hair. It looked like it was not washed for a while. Two older boys (about 18 perhaps) sat in the back. I could see they felt a little bit out of place here. They looked bored. I remembered them from yesterday's adventure. They come from the hills.
Mukesh, is the little boy whose younger sister fell asleep in class. She was too small for school. It was touchy to see him protecting and comforting her in her sleep. Very sweet.
We started with UNO, the game which became so popular lately. The kids simply love it. They learnt it very fast and now even utilizing some major strategies such as holding the best cards for later. I make them all practice numbers and colors by saying it out loud. It works even for the very shy kids.
For smaller kids we practice snake game there they have construct different shapes which make sense.
Chess....... What can I say. It's not easy. My chess class is going terrible. After trying to explain so many times so many things I kept failing. So I decided be as simple and entertaining. After 20 min of useless chess instruction I realized that my students are so bored and clueless that something needs to be done ASAP. So I decided to just play the pawn game. With 8 pawns on the board the winner is the one who promotes to the queen. No king involved for now. It's too difficult.
I noticed Ravi, the tallest kid from the hills, was almost sleeping when the pawn game was introduced. He suddenly got all lightened up and interested. Kids became active because it was simple.
Other formal instruction such as queen/king mate did not make much sense to them. At least not at this point of the development.
In addition to games Sorab decided to spent a good hour teaching kids some English through the story from children's book. They seem to learn from those stories although I am not fully convinced about this technique. I think it's better to introduce as fewer words as possible and then slowly progress and increase number of new words. Sorab also did the exercise of telling time and practicing numbers while I was busy with the chess class.
Finally time to go home. Mohit and Anniket on a motorcycle. They are both cousins of Sorab, the 20-year old teacher. They do not live in shanty house community on the hills. Sorab's brother came to pick them up. I wonder if they got into DAAN school because of Sorab himself. He enjoys teaching children. They help me a lot to calm other kids down when things get out of control. And I need all the help I can get.
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