MY DAY

For those of you wondering what I've been up to and why I haven't posted a blog entry for almost two weeks, I will tell you. My friend Annie commented that my blog was very "thorough". Get ready for some thoroughness!

I now have nine days of teaching at Primrose School under my belt, and all together I teach about 200 different kids every week. Of those kids, four of them are named Anne, Marc, Maria, and Jennifer. The rest have names like Logapadmanabha and Charumathy. My day begins by catching the big school bus with the kids. We all crowd into the open-air bus, little kids sitting on big kids' laps, and whizz down the street with the driver on the right and a second man with his head out the window to conduct traffic on the left. His job is also to open the door and hoist little kids up the stairs. It is LOUD! This bus has quite the horn, and it must be used at all times. It is difficult to have a conversation on this bus, so I opt for staring out the window. I like watching parents race up to the bus via motorcycle so their child can jump on board. Yep, if you miss the school bus there's always a chance to catch it given the laws of Indian traffic.



This is the first year Primrose has an intercom system, and every morning they play "Mother's Music" for a few minutes while the well-trained students sit with their eyes closed and meditate. IMPRESSIVE. More on the Mother later but real quick: Basically she was this rad lady who is now a very holy spirit that watches over all of Pondicherry and makes it the special place it is. Her music is her very old voice speaking inaudible words of wisdom over new-agey harpsichord drones on a keyboard. Mother used to hold flowers and feel their energy, then she'd give each one a name. The mother said a primrose's energy was "growth". Therefore the school is named Primrose. My first period is free, which is nice, because I have time to get all my materials together for the day and sort out what I'm going to do and in what order.

So, out of my Zen meditation and into the Kindergarten chaos that is UKG! Here I sing nursery rhymes to 4-5 year-olds for forty minutes. Let me tell you, you realize how short nursery rhymes are when you have to sing them for forty minutes. I suck it up and be a good sport, because this is not something I particularly enjoy doing. But once I've jumped into the pool, it's not so bad. The school asked me to do this because they want the kids to start hearing English from a native speaker while they are just beginning to learn.... ok ok. I take batches of 10 at a time to a separate room and I pray that none of them gets injured under my supervision because some of these kids are CRAZY! They do not come when I say "Vanga! Va Va Va!" (Tamil for "Come come come!"). And they do not come when I yell, "Come come come! Sit down!" I'm at a loss. I have to periodically pry children from the window bars that they are climbing up. This week a little girl was standing on a table less than a foot off the ground, did a 180, and bounced on her head. BOUNCED. She didn't even cry, just looked a little stunned. NO MORE STANDING ON THE TABLES! Too bad they love doing this. "Jingle Bells" is by far their favorite song, it is always requested, and they shout the chorus at the top of their lungs. Christmas everyday in UKG!



Onto my English class with 4th Standard, 8-9 year-olds. This is my smallest class, a batch of only 11. The fourth standard is divided into 3 batches, and there were instructions to give me only the "Nice smart girls and the quiet shy boys", as 4th has a reputation for being a bit naughty. I love my 4th standard. They are the first class I memorized all their names (Abirami, Kadambari, Hari, Hussein, Siddarth, Shakti Ragov, Raguveer, Oviya, Mridula, Sandya, and Pooja!) They are getting very good at following the rules I laid down for them: Do not shout, "Miss miss miss!" when you raise your hand and want to say something. Do not interrupt the teacher when she is giving instructions to ask what the instructions that are coming out of her mouth are. Bring your English notebook to class, not your Tamil notebook. You do not need to ask permission to enter the class room. You do not need to stand up to read or answer a question. They think I'm an alien from outer space and they are so eager to please! We love each other.

Next, I get so sing rhymes again, this time with LKG, the 3-4 year-olds! Basically, same gig as UKG, only these kids are a little more confused. A few of them are starting to sing along to "Inkle inkle iwil saaaaah...." I requested that I needed more time to prepare for my classes, so I do this only on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I go drink some tea from a thermos while the other teachers go to the kitchen to have their "buttermilk" break. We get a tea break in the morning and afternoon for five minutes. It kind of rocks. Except, I can't get used to buttermilk-- curdy salty liquid cheese at room temperature. It's supposed to cool the body. Once it's not 100 degrees, we'll start drinking tea instead in the morning.

Lunch with Sunita in the teacher's lounge. We usually sit in exhausted, introspective silence together. Sunita is my buddy. She is also a new teacher, and teaches English to 6th thru 9th. We relate to eachother, and plan 6th's curriculum together.

After lunch, 5th standard English. This class needs the most attention, but I really love them too. I'm going to stop naming names, but there's this one boy who has the biggest loudest mouth I've ever encountered for such a little person. His voice is deep, raspy, and kind of like a trumpet. I need to reprimand this kid for constantly gabbing, but I love the sound of his voice so much I kind of like it. He is also hilarious. 5th standard loves playing hangman. All Saturday they were begging me to play it until I wrote on the board "We will play games at 1:05". No matter how many times I repeat myself, there will always be a kid who asks again. This writing on the board thing seems to clarify. I just point to the chalk on the board. No more questions asked. They were so excited about playing games that they just couldn't settle down. So at 1:03 I stopped class and made them listen to the silence. "Ah? Do you hear that sound? Listen! Shhhh!" I got them to all listen to the silence for about 50 seconds. Then I asked, "Who likes this sound?" They all raised their hands. We are starting to understand each other. Hangman commenced.

Then I have 6th standard Art! These kids are probably my favorites, mostly because I have them for two periods in a row and I get to really know them. I feel like you can learn a lot about a kid by watching them draw/create for an hour everyday and seeing what they produce. I love it. The first day I gave them the project, and for the next 45 minutes they sat in silence, totally engrossed. I just walked around watching them in awe, giving words of encouragement. We made name rangolis and oragami. They're great. Pictures of art to come.

So then I have the 6th for English and we have a lot of fun together. Their English skills are a bit more advanced, so they understand me better and we can move a little quicker allowing time for more games and stuff. I think this class will really take off as writers this year, I can see the room for growth and what I can teach them. Exciting exciting!



Tea break. Milky caffienated sugar, into my bloodstream.

Then 7th music! Also a high point of my day. This class is special because Leslie's niece was at the school two years ago and taught them how to sing in tune. Therefore, it is my job to mold them into a choir by the time the year is up. It is do-able, they can sing! I have a crush on this class. We have started with "A Tisket A Tasket", "Yellow Submarine", and "Goodmorning Starshine" from Hair. They love all of these songs, so I'm glad I know how to select appropriate music. I've been handwriting sheet music so I can play these songs in the right key on the keyboard... yeah. I showed them clips on Youtube of Ella singing "A Tisket", and they were totally enchanted, they wanted to watch it again and again. I also showed them "Yellow Submarine" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which is this gorgeous psychadellic animation from the movie that I thought they'd really dig. Unfortunatley, all the dancing women kicking up their legs (CLOTHED) were just too much for these conservative kids to handle. Oh jeez. "Haven't you watched the Olympics? Gymnastics? Dance shows on TV?" I apologized and told them I wouldn't show them something like that again. No songs with kissing or love mentioned. No dancing girls. Check.

Twice a month I teach photography and soap making (don't ask...) to the 9th standard, the "old" and "special" kids. Fourteen-year-olds! Rad. I won't go into too much detail, but yesterday I showed them a bunch of photos in the projector room taken by two of my photographer friends-- one in Brooklyn, one in Bangalore. I made them talk about the pictures, compare, contrast. They seemed quite interested, no straying attention spans. This type of art and thinking is new to them. I think they were a little confused at all the talking you could do about one photo. It's hard to tell, but I think this class will be a good one.

FINALLY, once a week I teach yoga to the 6th thru 9th standards. The kids were buzzing about it all week, asking me questions every day about yoga class. Example: "Kate Miss, we have to be sure to do this in yoga!" Then the student promptly got into lotus pose to show me nadi sodhana, alternate nasal breathing. "Marc, we will be sure to do that one, just for you." So much to smile over with these kids. In the end, yoga class came to 60 kids. While waiting for the bus and talking to a parent, my friend Dhinesh tapped me on the shoulder to inform me it was actually 61. I prepped the 6th and 7th standards by saying "Ok, when you get to yoga class I need you to sit down right away and be quiet, so you can set a good example for the older kids." This seemed to work pretty well, I was amazed. After a few minutes of settling we had an auditorium chanting, "OOOOMMMMMMMMM". Wow. They rigged a microphone for me, which was kind of bizarre to get used to as I was trying to demonstrate all these asanas while holding it. Indian kids have pretty weak arms, so they had a hard time with plank and chataranga. I egged them on by saying, "Hey come on, if I can do this with one arm, you can do this with two!" That got some of the boys going. We might just have some buff kids by the end of the year. One of my sweet sixth graders came up to me after class to say, "Kate Miss, that was really lovely." Oh my. :)



The bus ride home: Almost always there is a 4-year-old propped up next to me taking a nap, tucked under my arm (to keep him or her from flying forward as the bus lurches around). The wind dries the sweat on my face as I gaze out the window.