Our morning started with bus ride across the city to Blossom Public School. The name is a little misleading since the school is a privated-aided school, which means all the students pay tuition, but the government of Karnatka also contributes funds to the school. Interestingly, this sign does not identify the school as English-medium, which it is.
The school occupies this building and the upper floors of a building a couple of doors down the street. This entry way was used as storage, and there was a room off of it that was used to prepare the lunches. Lunch is often one of the most important aspects for these schools as it is a meal the families did not need to provide.
The information that the Teacher Foundation gave to us prior to our visit indicated that this school served a predominantly Muslim student body. When asked about something connected to the beliefs of the students, the director/principal suggested that the majority of student body was not Muslim. All the evidence, however, suggested that our original information had been correct. When we arrived, almost all of the mothers who were dropping off students for school were dressed like the woman above on the right. In addition, on Fridays the boys were excused from classes to attend mosque.
We had a brief introduction from the director/principal and had the opportunity to ask questions. This is the first school that Ayub Pasha has opened. He trained as a journalist, but he opened this school because education was his passion. The school began seven years ago and has been adding grades each year. Next year, for the first time, the school will have students take the Standard 10 exam, which is the national exam that marks the end of high school. (Some students continue on to Standard 11 and 12 to prepare for university.) The school serves 1100 students (45-50 students per class) and has 34 teachers. Sixty percent of the teachers are trained. The other 40% are promising graduates who have trained on the job. Student fees are 300 Rupees (about $5.55) a month, which is a significant investment for these families. Pasha said the school's biggest challenge was the high expectations of the parents even though many of the parents could not provide appropriate educational support at home. Earlier, he had said that only 30% of the parents are educated themselves.
While we were waiting for our tours to start, I noticed a TV monitor in the school office that was scrolling through the different classrooms in the school. I admit that I was taken aback by this. Our new high school has security cameras inside and outside the building, but absolutely none in the classroom. My first thought when I saw the monitor is that U.S. teachers would never allow that sort of "Big Brother" in our classrooms. Later during our visits to the classrooms, I got to witness the camera in action. Three of our group were observing a geography lesson, but only two of sat down in the seats that we were offered, mostly because these were not seats made for adult-size people. Just a few minutes into our observation, the principal came on the intercome and told the teacher to offer all of us a seat.
This is the class we observed. It was Standard VII, and this is their classroom. The students stay in the same classroom, while the teachers move from classroom to classroom. This was a similar to what I knew about Chinese and Turkish classrooms. The posters on the walls were from a science project.
We watched part of a geography lesson on Europe. The teacher was reading aloud from the textbook about the physical features of Europe, and the students were following along. The lesson was entirely in English, from the text in the book to the review of the material. The students were taking notes in their books and were asked recall questions of the material at the end of each section. The teacher emphasized important information through a call and repeat process. Interestingly, on the pages I saw of the textbook. the lesson did not include a map or an image of any of the physcial features that were being explained. I know that I am fortunate with the technology I have available to me in my classroom and the ability I have to show students about what I describing. As I sat in a desk no 6' person should ever have to sit in, I tried to imagine teaching students about something with which they have no experience and in language which is a second language and with no visual images to help with the explanation. I admired this teacher very much for what she was trying to do.
This was the second lesson I observed. This is a Standard II class, and the students are receiving a lesson in Hindi. The teacher was using a call and repeat strategy, and then having the students write in their notebooks. At this point, she was walking down the center aisle to check what the students had written and to make corrections as needed. Keep in mind that the students are so crowded together because a couple of large adults had taken their seats in the back (us). This classroom was in the second building. It was on the second and third floors of this building. The first floor was used by another business.
In this classroom, the students were receiving a lesson in Kannada, which is the language of the state of Karnataka where Bangalore is located. This classroom had two teachers present, one teacher who stayed with these students all day and another teacher who was giving the lesson in Kanada. We mostly just interupted this class.
The woman in yellow is the teacher who stays with the students because their age. She could speak English, and we were able to ask her some questions. The woman on the left was the Kanada instructor who did not speak English. She was very gracious, even though we badly interrupted her lesson.
We arrived just as lunch was concluding, so the preschool children were down for their nap in the room off the entry way. The school provides instruction in Standards 1-7, serves 200 students, and has 7 teachers. All of the staff are assigned to this school by the central office, including the principal. The principal had been at this school for eight years, and she was clearly dedicated to what she was doing. She had arranged with a donor for the students to get fruit with their meal twice a week. She also had arranged donors to help with the school uniforms and to provide health screenings for the students and their families. The day we visited about half of the students and staff were gone, preparing for a presentation, because the school was being recognized as the best school in the area.
This classroom was strikingly different from every other classroom that I saw all day. This classroom looks much more like what I expect an elementary classroom to be. The students were grouped around round tables, and a variety of visuals and student work decorated the entire room. This is a style of instruction based on principles similar to the Montessori schools, but it is not the norm for most of India's students.
The principal was also proud of the fact that she had arranged for the school to have a computer lab, so the students could be instructed how to use computers. The computers were arranged through donor also.
My lesson for the day? These women (and except for Ayun Pasha, they were all women) care very strongly about they are doing, and they are doing the very best for their students, within the limits of their situations. I think this is a universal trait of almost all teachers.
The school occupies this building and the upper floors of a building a couple of doors down the street. This entry way was used as storage, and there was a room off of it that was used to prepare the lunches. Lunch is often one of the most important aspects for these schools as it is a meal the families did not need to provide.
The information that the Teacher Foundation gave to us prior to our visit indicated that this school served a predominantly Muslim student body. When asked about something connected to the beliefs of the students, the director/principal suggested that the majority of student body was not Muslim. All the evidence, however, suggested that our original information had been correct. When we arrived, almost all of the mothers who were dropping off students for school were dressed like the woman above on the right. In addition, on Fridays the boys were excused from classes to attend mosque.
We had a brief introduction from the director/principal and had the opportunity to ask questions. This is the first school that Ayub Pasha has opened. He trained as a journalist, but he opened this school because education was his passion. The school began seven years ago and has been adding grades each year. Next year, for the first time, the school will have students take the Standard 10 exam, which is the national exam that marks the end of high school. (Some students continue on to Standard 11 and 12 to prepare for university.) The school serves 1100 students (45-50 students per class) and has 34 teachers. Sixty percent of the teachers are trained. The other 40% are promising graduates who have trained on the job. Student fees are 300 Rupees (about $5.55) a month, which is a significant investment for these families. Pasha said the school's biggest challenge was the high expectations of the parents even though many of the parents could not provide appropriate educational support at home. Earlier, he had said that only 30% of the parents are educated themselves.
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| Ashley Snell, IREX, presenting Ayub Pasha with a gift. |
This is the class we observed. It was Standard VII, and this is their classroom. The students stay in the same classroom, while the teachers move from classroom to classroom. This was a similar to what I knew about Chinese and Turkish classrooms. The posters on the walls were from a science project.
We watched part of a geography lesson on Europe. The teacher was reading aloud from the textbook about the physical features of Europe, and the students were following along. The lesson was entirely in English, from the text in the book to the review of the material. The students were taking notes in their books and were asked recall questions of the material at the end of each section. The teacher emphasized important information through a call and repeat process. Interestingly, on the pages I saw of the textbook. the lesson did not include a map or an image of any of the physcial features that were being explained. I know that I am fortunate with the technology I have available to me in my classroom and the ability I have to show students about what I describing. As I sat in a desk no 6' person should ever have to sit in, I tried to imagine teaching students about something with which they have no experience and in language which is a second language and with no visual images to help with the explanation. I admired this teacher very much for what she was trying to do.
This was the second lesson I observed. This is a Standard II class, and the students are receiving a lesson in Hindi. The teacher was using a call and repeat strategy, and then having the students write in their notebooks. At this point, she was walking down the center aisle to check what the students had written and to make corrections as needed. Keep in mind that the students are so crowded together because a couple of large adults had taken their seats in the back (us). This classroom was in the second building. It was on the second and third floors of this building. The first floor was used by another business.
In this classroom, the students were receiving a lesson in Kannada, which is the language of the state of Karnataka where Bangalore is located. This classroom had two teachers present, one teacher who stayed with these students all day and another teacher who was giving the lesson in Kanada. We mostly just interupted this class.
The woman in yellow is the teacher who stays with the students because their age. She could speak English, and we were able to ask her some questions. The woman on the left was the Kanada instructor who did not speak English. She was very gracious, even though we badly interrupted her lesson.
One of the questions that was asked at the beginning of our visit was the availability of technology. The principal said that the school had computers that the students could use and the school had projectors that the teachers could use for a lesson. The computers are in a separate lab, and as this picture shows the projectors were in separate rooms also. This is a room next door to the Kannada lesson and across the hall from the Standard II Hindi lesson, but there were no desks or chairs set up in this room. I have identical projector in my classroom, but I think that I use mine more. Also every teacher in my building has the same projector in their classroom. None of the classrooms in which I saw children had more than a chalk board.
The woman in the chador works in the office and was helping to conduct the tour. She put on the chador because to go from the first building to this one, she had to walk on the street. She had brought us into this room to show us the available technology, but then engaged us in a conversation about education.
After lunch at the hotel, we traveled to the other primary school. This school is a government school, and the language of instruction is Kannada. Both Hindi and English are also taught, but the lessons are conducted in Kannada.
These are the houses that are directly across from the school. These are clearly homes of well-to-do families, and none of their children attend the school just across the street. The children from these families attend private schools, probably private unaided schools. The students that attend this school are from the families that cannot afford to send their children to a private school. During our interview with the principal, she said that many of the students came from the slum area.We arrived just as lunch was concluding, so the preschool children were down for their nap in the room off the entry way. The school provides instruction in Standards 1-7, serves 200 students, and has 7 teachers. All of the staff are assigned to this school by the central office, including the principal. The principal had been at this school for eight years, and she was clearly dedicated to what she was doing. She had arranged with a donor for the students to get fruit with their meal twice a week. She also had arranged donors to help with the school uniforms and to provide health screenings for the students and their families. The day we visited about half of the students and staff were gone, preparing for a presentation, because the school was being recognized as the best school in the area.
This school was laid out more how I would have expected. The day started in the courtyard at left, with the students singing the national anthem and participating in other group activities. The principal also said that the students read the newspaper first thing in the morning, but I was not clear about whether the students read the paper (I doubted this) or the teachers read the papers to them (I thought more likely). The school day began at 9:10 with the assembly and concluded at 3:30. Students attended school Monday-Saturday, with six classes per day on Monday through Friday. Saturday was used for co-curricular and computer classes. The hours and the days were very similar to the first school (Blossom), but Blossom could not start with an all school assembly because it did not have the space.
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| The students were singing a song for us. |
This classroom was strikingly different from every other classroom that I saw all day. This classroom looks much more like what I expect an elementary classroom to be. The students were grouped around round tables, and a variety of visuals and student work decorated the entire room. This is a style of instruction based on principles similar to the Montessori schools, but it is not the norm for most of India's students.
The principal was also proud of the fact that she had arranged for the school to have a computer lab, so the students could be instructed how to use computers. The computers were arranged through donor also.
My lesson for the day? These women (and except for Ayun Pasha, they were all women) care very strongly about they are doing, and they are doing the very best for their students, within the limits of their situations. I think this is a universal trait of almost all teachers.
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