Week 1 of Ahmedabad

I arrived in Ahmedabad, India on August 6, 2011.

Our Apartment:
Jim and I are currently sharing a two-story “flat” with three Taiwanese interns at Riverside School. It is in Tirth Bhoomi, Law Garden area of Ahmedabad. It is on the 10th floor. Living right next door to us is the school’s director brother-in-law. The first floor has marble flooring, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, large living room area, a kitchen and clothes washing room. There is also a balcony that overlooks the city. Our bedroom is on the second floor. There is an en-suite bathroom and a rooftop patio/ garden.

Our Work:
The Riverside School is a progressive, private school that is located on the east bank of Sabarmati River. I just recently learned that because of the Right to Education Act of 2009, all Indian private schools are to “admit at least 25% of the children in their schools without any fee”. This is something that Beijing private schools should consider doing. On Wednesday, I watched 8th-11th graders present their “Pecha Kucha”. This is an ongoing “mastery” research project that the students conduct throughout the year. Think of it as a thesis project. Each child is assigned a mentor that can guide them to complete their project. A Pecha Kucha is a way of presenting a topic. Each child has to discuss their topic using 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide. It was amazing! Some topics that the students were addressing were: Adulteration, media’s influence on adolescent psychology, modern art and architecture, a car’s body type and its speed, and Greece’s economic crisis. I will post pictures soon.

Moove it or lose it

As for my classroom…
The children come in at 8:30-9:15 (this is when the bus drops them off). Circle time is called “conglom”, I think short for “conglomerate”. From 11-11:30 the children have lunch. Then they go home at 1pm. The teachers stay till 3pm to plan/ discuss classroom events. The layout of the classroom is aesthetically pleasing; with high ceilings and mosaic and brick walls. One and a half wall is huge glass wall, doors and windows. The materials on the shelves need a bit of work, but I have the whole year to work on that. During “Free Choice” time children can go outside and play or stay inside and do work or they can take an inside activity and do it outside. Because it is the middle of monsoon season, there is limited work and play outside. What I have noticed is that it’s not a big deal for children to be walking inside or outside barefooted—it is sometimes more preferred to have them walk barfooted. There is a built in paddling pool (which is now empty) for the children to use. Every Wednesday there is a Professional Development workshop in which the teachers read 2 chapters from the current education book and then discuss its importance/ relevance/ irrelevance. Then there are also PD’s on two Saturdays of every month. Yup… will be super busy!

The Life:
So far, we have yet found bacon nor booze! We had our first meat dinner Wednesday night, after 5 days of no meat! I had a chicken tikka something something with garlic naan. And Jim had some minced lamb meat roll thingy. We have seen the following animals: a peacock on our neighbor’s roof; camels, horses, dogs, cows and water buffaloes owning the streets; and hawks gliding over our rooftop garden. The head bobbing is done by everybody. It can mean: yes, no, maybe, ok, I don’t understand, I agree, I disagree. Rain is the water life. When it is raining, people are just enjoying the mere freshness of rain. They are walking and splashing in the rain. I think because they only get rain 2 months out of the year, that they relish in the rain.

Can’t wait to reflect on the weeks to come!