A billion bags a day

I took some plastic bags to the grocery with me to use for my purchases. This must not be common because the bagger placed my groceries in my bags and then put those bags in another bag. However, the Indian government has passed a law requiring merchants to charge for plastic bags. If the merchants are forced to follow through, the environmental impact is stunning to consider. Imagine over a billion people reducing their use of plastic bags.

Our First Day of School

Both May and Aven have been asked to sing for their classmates. They both demurred. Aven reports that he was asked to dance as well. Aven was asked to sing the national anthem, which he does know. That is something I never got around to teaching them, so I will have to give the credit to school. The Indian students are much more socially outgoing than the students at home. They speak very loudly to get attention and will get very close physically. May enjoys attention more than Aven, and her adjustment has been easier. She came home with ball-point pen all over her palm in henna designs, which she thought was cool. Aven has found that he can make paper cranes or paper stars or do little magic tricks to interact with his classmates. However, the most difficult adjustment in school is the heat and the mosquitoes. Aven finds it difficult to concentrate with his knees under attack. The repellant seems to be sweat away.

Both children have been excused from spots period (gym class), which can involve running laps of the schoolyard in the noon sun in the dress shoes that are part of the uniform. I explained that when our weather gets this hot, we keep the children inside during the hottest part of the day. They are also excused from Hindi and Sanskrit classes, so they have a fair amount of reading time during the school. They discovered this week that the library has air conditioning (when the electricity is functioning) and they will be retreating there when possible.

All students here are learning Hindi, Sanskrit and English during school. The predominant languages are Tamil and Telugu here in the south. Some students also take German and school is taught in English. So, by the time a student graduates from high school, they are likely to know Tamil, English, Hindi, Sanskrit and perhaps German and the language spoken at home. The teachers find it perplexing that U.S. children will not start a second language until middle school – after the best language learning time has passed.

An average Indian teacher has 4 hours and 15 minutes less of actual teaching time than US teachers, but the classes are spread over six days and are only 35 minutes long. I have more planning time, but being at work for six full days is significantly more draining. Also, the school has a bell that is not always audible – some classrooms are too far from the bell and sometimes an airplane obscures the sound. We are adjacent to an airport, so the planes are pretty regular. In addition, the electricity often goes out, and then the bells don’t ring. As far as I can tell, the actual time schedule for the beginning and end of classes is just a rough guide. The bells do not coincide with the timetable. This means that the actual class time, which is scheduled to be 35 minutes, can range from 25 minutes to 45 minutes. Using all the class time effectively is much more challenging because I have no idea how much time I have left.

Indian students keep meticulous notebooks for each class. They write many pages each class – dictated by the teachers. Most study each night – whether homework is assigned or not. This is true even in the 7^th grade class I teach. Students are very good at rote assignments – for example making a poster of cell parts. However, little emphasis seems to be placed on thinking skills. I was asked to judge a handwriting assignment, and the students chose a passage from a book and copied it word for word. The handwriting was beautiful – with several students using calligraphy fountain pens.

Aven reported in math class that a single story problem was written on the board and students copied it. The purpose of the problem was to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the hypotenuse when a strip of bark fell off a tree. The children drew a nice tree, with shading to show where the bark was stripped off, and they drew another diagram to show the triangle using rulers. Then, they solved the problem and the class was over. Aven simply solved the problem with numbers and was done in a moment. We have concluded that efficiency is a value that we hold more highly in the U.S. than in India. I had collected notebooks to check in one class but needed to start the notes before I was finished grading (about 45 students per class). I suggested that students write on a separate paper and tape them into their books. Nearly all students simply recopied the notes into their books when I returned them. Tradition and respect are much more important here than efficiency.

My first day at school. My mentor is on the far right, Mrs. Malar.