On Monday, we started teaching an after-school English class to 11 students in the 9th standard (equivalent to American 9th grade subjects, except typically about a year younger in age). Keep in mind that my DukeEngage group is made up of 8 students, few of whom have actual teaching experience. Needless to say, collaboration on lesson plans and pedagogical practices has been challenging and frustrating and has led to more than a few rolled eyes and cold shoulders. And the first couple of days were, unsurprisingly, chaotic and unorganized and a tad bit boring for all involved.
A bit of background about the school itself:
Vivekananda School is in the Tolichowki neighborhood of Hyderabad, which is a confusing mess of all socioeconomic strata. The school itself is still being constructed, so just walking into the school involves treks through mud puddles, rivulets of dirty water, wet cement, and crumbling bricks. It also involves the stench of raw sewage and trash, because the community has started to use the area right next to the school as a sort of dump. In order to walk up the stairs, I have to turn my feet sideways for fear of my foot slipping off the step; and it’s challenging trying to walk two by two. The classrooms themselves are tiny in comparison to what’s considered adequate in the US. It’s difficult to explain without pictures, but I would say the room for the 9th standard students is maybe 10×10—actually, probably closer to 8×10 ft2. Students sit three or four to a bench, and there is virtually no room for a teacher to walk about the classroom—really, teaching seems to consist of writing on the blackboard and hitting students with rulers. The school is private, meaning students must pay 750 rupees per month to attend (which is a fairly expensive school, especially given the students’ lower-middle class backgrounds). The school is “English medium,” meaning all classes are supposed to be taught in English, but the teachers themselves have trouble speaking in full sentences in English. The students told us that their teachers explain their English textbooks in Telugu—without this, they would not understand their classes at all.
There are between 340 and 350 students enrolled at this school. There are 13 teachers for all of them—only 3 of which have their BA degrees.
What is that 750 rupees per month per student actually going towards? There’s no playground, no auditorium, no fence, no colorful paint or artwork on the walls. We’ve been struggling in how to judge this school, because we don’t want to assume that this kind of school is “wrong” just because it doesn’t live up to American standards. But even so—it’s difficult to picture this place as a place where students can be creative and learn in a welcoming environment.
All these negative aspects said, working with the 9th standard class has been a joy. With 11 of them and 8 of us, we have almost 1-on-1 time to teach them at whatever level they need. This week, they’ve learned how to say “See you tomorrow” and the difference between “these and those” and “a and an.” They sang us their national anthem, and we sang them ours as a way to celebrate the 4th of July. They performed skits about what do to at a market, and told us all about their families. Today, we taught them to sing “ABC” by the Jackson Five, and they even performed for us at the end. These students are learning so fast, and, because of the low teacher to student ratio, their personalities are becoming so clear and so precious to us.
The problem is that, according to their textbooks, these students should be fluent in English by now. They should be using words like “ominous” and understand how to read lengthy short stories. But they can barely even tell us what they want to be when they grow up. We’re only here for 6 weeks—after that, it’s back to Telugu teachers trying their best, but failing, to teach an all-English curriculum. We’re looking for a way to make this project more sustainable over the long term, but it’s difficult to find some sort of community partner interested in English tutoring to a private school. Because, in India, English isn’t just a foreign language—it’s considered the key into a higher-paying job, the skill that sets you apart from the masses. These parents are using whatever extra money they have from painting and day laborer work and auto-rickshaw driving to send their kids to what they believe is a high-quality private school—but I don’t think they’re getting what they’re paying for.
Independence, Indian style.
Katherine Gets Lost 