Wednesday 23 May 2012

6 days of teacher training complete. Was it worth the sleepless nights?

As I have been concentrating my time here on striving to improve the running of and language teaching at the 4 Gram Vikas tribal schools, the opportunity to organize and facilitate a 6 day training event for all teachers at Head Office campus was something I really had to embrace.

The monthly reports I send to management  reflect a range of issues not just regarding teaching but also management and communication. I was excited by the chance to meet all GV teachers and share my concerns and impart new knowledge. So far my experience has been limited to Konkia school so I was excited to meet other enthusiastic and hopefully motivated teachers.

I met happy faces, young teachers and also familiar friends from Konkia. I was impressed by the teachers that started off as students at these schools who are now themselves starting a teaching career. This was especially exciting for me due to the fact that these individuals would be very well acquainted with tribal culture and tribal language. I intend to utilize these individuals more in the future.

Time was quickly ticking away before the arrival of the 42 teachers on the 15th May. I made sure I devoted all my time the week prior to this to make sure we had a new and interesting program for our visitors. Putting together a new schedule was challenging as there were ideas and inputs coming from many staff members as per their experience and passions. It was a bit of a balancing act to try and keep the program focused. It could be claimed for instance that the focus was too spread out actually. With more time, this could have been improved upon.

In hindsight, I could have used another week preparation but as everything in India seems to work best spontaneously and ad hoc, I decided to let my stressy, deadline driven Englishness subside and go with the flow, happy that I have done my best in the time available to me. Everything from logistics to accommodation to last minute changes were all down to me and I think I did quite well. I am someone who loves to plan and anticipate problems but I am also someone who thrives with an open-mind, open to spontaneity and change. I feel this way about my creativity when attempting to make music or paint. At the start of the first day the schedules were being printed after the teachers had arrived and the working groups were still not finalized. This is usually something that would have made me rip my hair out and shred the nails from my fingers. India has changed me. I woke up early got the files ready and still managed to get the documents printed in time.

I think there is a very fine balance between over planning and sufficient planning. In India I only ever seem to be able to sufficiently plan. I wonder how the 6 days would have been if I over-planned as per my English risk avoiding skills. I probably would have had a lot more arguments with the other facilitators and limited my on the spot planning. I have never been sure if I am all that great at working under pressure in situations like this but I think it went well. I was delegating tasks well and made sure I kept my cool. This was a test of patience and resolve for me. I was also taking sessions in Oriya! I think my fluency has really sky-rocketed during those 6 days.

It often seems to me like those who take responsibility and initiative here are often the ones who are the most heavily criticized when things go wrong. It also seems to me that with the injection of new management into the ageing Gram Vikas blood steam, there persists a certain amount of glory hunting to impress the leadership team. I am at the point of my time here now where I don't really care about these judgments or tussles for approval. I understand it is a product of the organisation and not necessarily down to the individual but I often feel ego-less surrounded by this competitiveness for 'whose idea it was first'. I do my best for the children and teachers and I am proud of that. My attitude was to not be brought down by any of this environmental influence and try and keep my cool throughout. By the last day I was really exhausted and getting irritable it must be said but we were wrapping up by this point so I hope it wasn't too tangible to the teachers. The heat was also incredible, meaning I was unable to sleep some nights and dreaming session plans for the following days. For instance one night I dreamt the entire session plan for the lesson planning session and one morning I woke up with the plan for the tribal cultural maintenance session. Two topics I am passionate about and two sessions I was satisfied with :)

Every year the teachers tend to be the audience of an external facilitator but this time I took the initiative to take over the program myself based upon a range of issues.I have never organised and led an event like this before and I am really proud I was able to pull it off without buckling under the pressure, the heat (40 degrees plus days) or the last-minuteness of it all.

The 3 main focuses of the meeting, as defined by myself and the schools tribal manager Urmilla (who herself was also having to think a lot about how to create a fresh program), were: (1) the creation of new Teaching Learning Materials for English and Science (TLMs) for teachers to take back to schools and use (2) addressing a range of management issues at the schools and (3) imparting a range of new skills and teaching approaches including I.T. and internet training.

I have to say that I had great help from Geeta, who runs the Biodiesel department here. She has been working with the Science teachers at Konkia school where I have also been spending my time teaching and training. I think we share a similar vision for the development of the schools and I really respect her knowledge of how to get things done in Orissa. Not only her language skills but also her approach seemed very appropriate. I think this kind of local knowledge is invaluable and her experience shows. She toured science teachers around their chemistry lab, took the initiative to push through the creation of school-wise newsletters (the completed dummy versions are looking great), helped maintain the TLM session focus and assisted in facilitating the 6 days.

I also had help from Anvesh who is of course also experienced here and knows the most suitable methods of communication with the teachers. I remember posting recently about my concerns regarding the teachers' lacking knowledge of tribal culture, meaning that they are unable to generate suitable relevant materials for the children or truly understand tribal strengths and weaknesses. The same thinking needed to be applied to our teacher audience who also had problems understanding the trainers' English and perhaps also had problems embracing the complexity of educational theory or complex terms. When explaining the internet to teachers however, (some of which had never used a computer!) we used analogies and metaphors and the teacher feedback reflects the success of these sessions. The skills we imparted to these people will be invaluable for their future and I am excited we had the opportunity to expose these people to the benefits of the internet as a teaching resource. It was a real example of how effective communication skills can help bridge the gap in comprehensible input.

Marcus' girlfriend Lucy was here visiting and her experience as a primary teacher back in the UK and Africa was invaluable for these teachers, many of them being inexperienced and open to new experiences. She stayed a week longer to help out during the training and I want to again express my gratitude for this. Her session on joyful learning went down a storm and she really helped me in structuring a session for addressing discipline methods at the schools (obviously a difficult, culturally specific topic to approach considering the prevalence of institutionally accepted forms of corporal punishment) Marcus being the tech-head I.T. trainer helped with computer sessions, organizing sessions and took the initiative to start an  anonymous comment box where teachers graded their concerns at the school. These results will be followed up on by me in the coming months.

I should also mention Satyadeep who despite personal problems was able to attend and co-lead facilitate with me. He was an invaluable source of English-Oriya translation and really helped me adapt session activities as per what he has experienced in the past at the other teacher training events. Like Geeta, he knows what works and what doesn't and despite having the occasional difference of opinion, he helped a great deal and seemed very much used to this style of ad hoc workshops. I had a few complaints here and there regarding the training days program but I feel my contribution outweighed the problems caused by time pressure.

I have a lot of follow up work to do this month! I will attempt to put together a realistic action plan embracing all the subjects addressed.

When looking at the feedback it was obvious the I.T and internet sessions were a highlight for everyone. I am quite certain however that these sessions distracted the teachers from actually considering their utilization of new TLM resources in the class room. A quick electronic solution such as a Youtube video does not mean the job ends there. Some I think might have had this ideology and I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when they presented their final presentations of the TLM materials they had created, with the last-minute newsletter taking off a lot faster with really colorful, artistic expressions of pride in the schools. I can't complain though, I think these newsletters could be wonderful if we make them a regular bi-annual initiative. The whole idea behind these was to promote cross-learning between the schools and improve the network communication between the schools which do not necessarily have phone or internet connection.

Regarding my disappointment with the new TLMs and as Dorothy and Geeta so rightly said, this was only because I had expectations which perhaps considering the circumstances were unrealistic. My idealism often has this effect but at-least I know I have pushed as hard as possible to get some decent output.

On the other hand, as I have said before, what a great range of new skills and knowledge we imparted! I was especially pleased with the session I devised on language acquisition where I projected a video by leading theorist Stephen Krashen and explained the concepts of 'comprehensible input' (understanding messages) and the effective filter hypothesis (what blocks language acquisition). With lots of translation the video caused ripples of interest and it was great to see people feverishly taking notes and starting discussion.

Another topic I talked passionately about was tribal cultural maintenance whereby I expressed the collective responsibility of the teachers to attempt to maintain the relevance of and children's pride in tribal culture. This went down great and I got great feedback concerning the possible events teachers can conduct and how they can adapt their teaching at the school. Of course, this follow up needs to be pushed at each school.

Overall I think the 6 days was worth the restlessness. Despite varying degrees of teacher participation and motivation, I was generally satisfied with the teachers' input and their feedback regarding the new program expressed satisfaction of the new schedule and fresh subject matter. I am proud of the skills we imparted and happy all teachers had a chance to air their grievances to management in one way or another.

I was also happy with Joe's involvement, directly addressing the teachers and making them feel special by saying they have immense power to shape the students' mentality and future choices. I think the teachers needed to hear this as they work so hard in these conditions, often isolated from the GV management team despite the top-down administration of the schools.

I have genuine love for the teachers and students and a real passion to be a role model and teacher. This could keep me here beyond 2013, even though I am afraid to write that as I'm unsure if I need to be here that long....hmmm.

Anyway, if anyone read this, cheers!





Monday 21 May 2012

Filling Up Space


















































Boards Of Canada Wire Magazine Interview - 2005

So, my music obsessiveness continues with a renewed love for Boards Of Canada and their back-catalog. I've been reading a lot about them and I am interested in the reason behind their lack of output for the past few years.

Words cannot describe how incredible I find this music. The oscillating synthesizers and looped samples seem so emotionally charged and nostalgic. I have so much respect for these artists that can realize such a specific vision and produce art like this. To me, releasing records like this would be a life defining moment.

I told a friend last year that one of my goals is to be professionally artistic in 5 years time. I still want to produce tracks and I would like to go and hide in the mountains somewhere and devote all my energy to a project of some kind. I just wish when I was younger I was exposed to more musical instruments and equipment. If you can foster this kind of creative imagination from a young age, I think records like this are really possible.

My other thought is that it would be great to set up some kind of artistic group or community to share ideas and skills. Anyway, I am rambling. Check out the following interview with Boards Of Canada.





Tuesday 8 May 2012

Jungle Beasties

Walking home from work yesterday, I saw this:



Then when I got into my room after going to the toilet I found this in my room
(we have met before):








Then, when I finally got rid of visitor number 2, I found two rather large frogs hopping around my room!

I think that's why Mr. Snake (cough, cough) decided to drop in!

After some research I can say that the snake was non-poisonous and the scorp was tiny and very docile. This is nothing in comparison to life in the field and villages. I believe the jungle to be beautiful and threatening in equal measure.

Still though, I'd be lying to say I wasn't a bit freaked out about the snake visitor! Hissssssssss!

Monday 7 May 2012

My troubled mind

http://dasra.org/n/forwebsite/dasra/Reports/dasrareports-tribal-education.pdf

I am slowly digesting this PDF in preparation for the teacher training here from the 15th to 20th May. 


Many topics will be covered during these days with teachers attending from all the 4 Gram Vikas residential schools. I am happy today that I have been able to contribute towards the organizing of these few days and starting dialogue between the various facilitators and managers. 


My worry remains that even after these 5 days, longer term and far more in-depth study or evaluation of the running of these schools needs to be conducted. From quickly asking if this has already been conducted by someone at Gram Vikas, I receive an answer in the negative from a very trusted friend. 


I find this hard to believe. Either way I start digging deeper myself and I came across this article today written by DASRA. A lot of the issues raised here reflect my personal experience of the school I have spent time in. 'A Fine Balance' seems like an excellent title to me and I often feel this way about the schools myself.  Sometimes I am in awe at the contribution it is making and other times I am all too quick to criticize. For instance, the teachers are often ill-informed about tribal life with only a casual interest or understanding of the children they have the responsibility to teach. This can't be right.


 Anyway, I am in a weird mood to write right now. There is a lot to be done or to be trialled. I am sure of that emotion!


Is anyone actually reading my blog?!

I can not get hold of this stuff! Grrrr


'Music is the most eloquent language'