Last Saturday began a long two weeks of travel for me all over India. First, we went further south to Chamarajanagar, a district in the southeastern corner of Karnataka for a conference on teaching methods and for NGOs and non-formal school educators to come together. Chamarajanagar was really beautiful, and the school in which we stayed--Deenabandu School--is partially sponsored by Asha and educates orphans and very poor children in the district. Chamarajanagar is also considered one of the most backward states in Karnataka. Apparently, former Chief Ministers always had bad luck politically after visiting this district, so now its taboo to come there, and no CM's will come! I made friends with a few schoolgirls that at first, wanted to call me Aunty. We corrected that quickly and they taught me some Kannada. It was really interesting to see various educators coming together and discussing the challenges that they face. Some of them talked about a lack of "nourishment," so to speak, among people doing similar things--working with poor children, facing funding problems, feeling alone in their quests, etc. Imagine starting up your own school in rural India for children far below the poverty line, some orphans, with little staff and few people that can give you the sort of intellectual or moral support with a certain level of understanding on education taken into account. If you don't have that support, it gets lonely. If you, as an individual, are the emblem of sustainability, by enduring with your project for decades, how do you find someone that can follow up with you after you've moved on, that has the compunction to invest the same amount of needed long-term energy into something like a school? In some ways, it makes sense to me why one would instead choose to spend a lifetime trying to change the government system--the fundamental, permanent provider of education for the most underprivileged. But that is also a very frustrating, endless road to go down.
On Sunday, we made a mad dash back to Bangalore to catch our train to Delhi at 10 PM. Ram kept telling me I wouldn't have a chance to have a bath. Thankfully, we did, and I had my only bath before we embarked on the 2 day, non A/C train journey. As a sidenote, this has been the dirtiest vacation I've ever been on. Baths are very coveted affairs. So anyways, the train was actually not too far from my expectations, but I had been prepared. Madhavi bought me a copy of the newest Harry Potter (!). Sleeping on the train wasn't too bad, but at 6 AM sharp, the chai-wallas started coming down the aisles every few minutes. The scenery was fantastic--we traveled through 6 states: Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. At one point, the train stopped for us to witness probably one of the most fantastic sunsets I've ever seen. Guys on the train were sticking their heads out the windows and singing Hindi songs. We got to Delhi around noon on Tuesday.
Once we got to Delhi, we went to the sketchiest hotel I've ever been to to park our stuff for the day and have much-needed showers. Then we spent the day wandering around Delhi's National Museum and Connaught Place. That night we took another train to Chakki Bank station in the very northern part of Punjab state, and from there we took a taxi to Himachal Pradesh. We wound up the mountains and landed up in the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie, about 7000 feet up.
Dalhousie was absolutely beautiful, though the cloud cover was pretty thick for the 2 days we spent there. While no snow-clad peaks were to be seen, we did a lot of hiking and I am proud to say that I handled it all in my flip-flops with only on scape on my little toe to show for it! As we climbed higher into the mountains we trekked by cows and bulls grazing. I'll admit that I was only slightly terrified of being butted off the mountains by a bull as we tried to slip by them on the narrow paths, with valleys dropping thousands of feet nearby. 2 days in the clouds of Dalhousie were fantastic though, and definitely a highlight of the trip.
After Dalhousie, we headed to the thriving metropolis of Sherpur, Punjab. A village of 10,000 people, Sherpur is not easy to find. The Asha India Conference was held there in a dharmashala in the village, and for 2 days I witnessed the goings-on (basically all in Hindi) of a mixed group of Asha-India volunteers from all over the country. Asha is an extremely diverse federation of people--some running schools, some working in people's movements, some fundraising and running projects like in Bangalore, etc. Most of the meeting was spent on discussing processes as Asha grows in size and in funding strength, so that wasn't too interesting for me. But it was quite an experience nonetheless. Being in Sherpur definitely provided another contrast to our third world/first world travels. The place in which the conference was held was under construction, with piles of sand and dirt everywhere, un-usuable bathrooms with inches of stagnant water inside, and a generally rowdy bunch of Northerners mixed with a few "tree-top" NGO-types from the US and the South that were only slightly horrified by the conditions there. I got to stay at a nice Punjabi woman's house at night, sleeping on cots in the open air. I couldn't speak to my host, because she only spoke Punjabi and Hindi, but she was incredibly nice and hospitable. The highlight of Sherpur was when we got to see the school and plant nursery that Asha was sponsoring. The kids in Punjab are definitely more boisterous from what I'm used to, breaking out in bhangra and singing songs and playing with the volunteers. The plant nursery was developed on the grounds of a crematory (!) and is situated in the rural part of the village. I've never been to a place like Sherpur before, or a state like Punjab, but it was definitely an experience. At times I felt entirely cut off from the rest of the world, but then at other times, I was taken by in-your-face kindness the people there.
From Sherpur we headed to Amritsar, and indulged in first-world delights of air-conditioning and mattresses and toilets in a hotel near the railway station. In the evening, we saw Jallianwala Bagh, the site in which hundreds (or thousands? The numbers reported vary from source to source) of innocent people were massacred by a British Indian firing squad in 1919. It was surreal seeing it for real, because my limited understanding of the place is from the film Gandhi and what I've read in history books. Later, we visited the Golden Temple.
Now I'm back to Delhi again, after taking a fancy Shatabdi train from Amritsar around 5 this morning. I'll be here for a few days before heading back by train to Bangalore, arriving on Friday. This trip has been brilliant so far. I've traveled 8 states in a little over a week. I've learned to sleep on humming trains, bumpy rides down the Himalayan mountains, and in cabs tumbling through the dusty Punjab. Oh and I've also learned to sleep through snarky comments on my reading Harry Potter (which was actually pretty disappointing! This article sums it up pretty well). But I've gotten to experience quite a bit of the multifaceted landscape, food, charms, and contradictions of this country. Pictures to come soon.
So this week I've been spending some time in another government primary school--Kumaraswamy Layout School--in the same area as Chandranagar School. It's been interesting hanging around a new school and facing some of the same obstacles I faced when I initially began to work in Chandranagar School last summer-- distrust, curiosity, excess hospitality, etc. The older teachers of course were very shocked when I wanted to carry my own chair around, or when I insisted on being ignored in the classrooms. The headmistress actually speaks no English, which is a change for me, but she kept insisting that I have some yogurt mixed with salt and water, and before I realized it, I had accepted a drink made with unboiled water. I had like four sips and then my mind started playing tricks on me, my hypochondria settled in and I started feeling a stomachache.
I kind of sensed that some of the younger teachers were more suspicious of me than anything. I explained that I was doing research on government schools, and one asked "What's the use?" Totally valid question. I tried my best to explain that I wanted to understand schools to find out how NGOs could do a better job of helping, but I'm not sure if I was making sense to her. It seemed to be quite odd to her that an outsider, let alone a girl from the US, would want to hang around a poor government primary school. It makes sense though, I would be curious too. But beyond trying to do anything of use for NGOs or whoever (which in and of itself is a lofty goal, and honestly presumptuous in a lot of ways), I'm here to learn. At that level, I don't think this teacher would have seen the "use" in what I was doing at all.
Being in KS Layout school reminded me of what it's like to be a true outsider again. In Chandranagar School I can enjoy the luxury of hanging out with the kids, talking easily with the headmistress, poking around and asking questions. But even there, I think I am still somewhat of an outsider to them.
But if there is something I've really learned so far through my experiences in India and with Indian education, it is that to try to make change as an outsider, delivering yet another interpretation of a valuable input to reform schooling that is just as invaluable as some of these government inputs, or lack thereof, is to misunderstand the nature of the challenges of working in government education. We are constantly inundated with statistics on government education--but we have to move beyond the stats and recognize that wait a minute, we're actually talking about people. To make change in government education, I think that you really have to understand each of its challenges in depth, and also understand the role that you, or an organization, are playing in addressing those challenges.
Paulo Friere puts it well, as always:
We simply cannot go to the laborers--urban or peasant--in the banking style, to give them "knowledge" or impose on them the model of the "good man" contained in a program whose content we have ourselves organized. Many political and educational plans have failed because their authors designed them according to their own personal views of reality, never once taking into account (except as mere objects of their actions) the men-in-a-situation to whole their program was ostensibly directed.
The task implies that revolutionary leaders do not go to the people in order to bring them a message of "salvation," but in order to come to know through dialogue with them both their objective situation and their awareness of that situation--the various levels of perception of themselves and the world in which and with which they exist. One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions nonwithstanding (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 94-95).
On Friday I was able to sit in on a meeting that reinforced my hope that there are dedicated, intelligent people here in Karnataka that are advocating for justice in government schooling.
Recently, the Government of Karnataka proposed the creation of a new state-sponsored but privately run research institute, State Institute of Educational Management and Training, or SIEMAT. In essence, the Government of Karnataka has taken the position that the problems in our schooling system today can be remedied through "better management practices," over more attention paid to changes in pedagogy, improved funding for teachers and infrastructure, better quality in education through teaching, less mismanagement of funds by corrupt bureaucrats, etc. etc (this is my take on some of the prime areas that need reconsidering). Whats more, SIEMAT would be a private-public partnership between the Government of Karnataka and the Azim Premji Foundation (APF).
APF is the foundation of the founder of Wipro, one of India's dazzlingly successful information-technology companies. APF is based in Bangalore, and has been adopting schools left and right in North Karnataka, doing extensive research on schooling, and creating a model for improvement based on better management practices. It seems as if the great managers of the IT industry know exactly how to remedy the problems of education with the same simple solution. Maybe there is a need for study of better management practices in education for the bureaucrats and the ministers and all, but why it needs to occur in a seperate institution run primarily by APF, I don't quite understand. This is a case of private interests gone too far, where suddenly those who are lauded for bringing new money to India are the best people to solve problems in education, as opposed to the educationalists, advocates, etc. that have been working for equality and improvement in government education for their lifetimes, and whose achievements and prescriptions are not given the same weight by the Government of Karnataka. Non-profits like APF certainly have a role to play in improvement of government education, but this form of partnership where they have been named the specific directors of a state-funded institute crosses the line.
Nonetheless, when I sat in on a meeting of people who are about to begin round two for advocacy against SIEMAT through press releases, a memorandum, and so on, I really appreciated their dedication in fighting for equity and reform in a system so ready to give policy-making authority to private actors with no democratic responsibility to the people as the state indeed has.
So, we'll see what happens next.
I learned a lot today.
I went to school today after meeting with a representative from another NGO working in government schools, Sikshana Foundation. When I got to school, the usual chaos was in place. The fourth and fifth standard classrooms were left without a teacher for most of the day. The kids were running amok and fighting with each other. One kid who already had a cut on his head had been pushed around by another girl, and the wound started bleeding again. I took a look at his head, and it was scraped up pretty badly, and it looked as if it was an open wound. The teachers remedied the problem by pouring water on his head, and then asking the SDMC (School Development and Monitoring Committee) president for some help. She sent some ointment for the kid's head smeared on a leaf. A leaf. The HM stuck the leaf on his head, and the kid went on his way. Such is the nature of first aid in Chandranagar Government Primary School. I asked if the kid's mother would take him to the doctor, because that wound really needed to be checked out. The HM shook her head doubtfully.
Later, I yelled at an SUV full of idiot guys that was parked in the schoolyard. They were blasting loud music and disrupting the classrooms and learning that was not really taking place anyways. They were all male teenagers, with nothing better to do, so I screamed at them for a while and they turned the music down, but didn't leave. Ram said later that we all should have gone to the police station to have them removed. Tomorrow.
There are more events from my half-day at the school that made my stomach turn, but I don't feel like getting into it. After an hour at the school today, I wanted to run. The kids weren't listening to anyone, none of the teachers were really teaching much, and I was overwhelmed. But I forced myself to stick it out until the end of the day, and do some English with the 4th and 5th Standards. As I was taking an auto back, all I could think was that I really needed my coffee, and a shower.
After I got myself together again, and after a long conversation with Ram, was I really able to wrap my mind around just how severe a challenge it is to teach in government schools here. The number of teachers, no matter how capable they are or not, cannot withstand the capacity of the school. No teacher could possibly teach for five hours straight at this school, under these conditions. There is no where near enough momentum behind just seven teachers to withstand the assault of dealing with 330 students and eight grades. You don't solve the problem of lack of teachers by supplying untrained or apathetic teachers paid a meagre 1000-2000 Rs/month ($25-50). But then again, if the government isn't supplying teachers, NGOs go on putting these 'temporary' teachers into posts, perpetuating lack of government agency but fulfilling an immediate need.
It's funny, because I keep telling Ram that every time we have discussions about the nature of government schooling here, and its larger reflection on Indian society, he is slowly chipping away at my idealism. But I suppose idealism steeped in about 25% cynicism is what makes you go on in the world today, beyond misguided notions of altruism and philanthropy, to a deeper understanding of our self-interested ways. I haven't yet given up my idealism and I'm going on my merry way working and doing research on NGO work in government schools, instead of taking up arms au Che Guevera and joining the Naxalites and starting a real revolution or people's movement for radical change in schooling. Maybe that is what it takes. But until then, I might as well be fully aware about how I, and how NGOs as well, exist for our own self-interests. Through learning more in depth about the nature of education work and the realities of government schooling, and about the way our societies work and develop, we can have a better understanding, and "introspect" on our place within it all. Through such introspection can we figure out how to make change in the world. I may not be able to empower communities without becoming one of them, and I can't really become one of them if I'm living in America, or in Mantri Elegance for that matter, with my iPod and my copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. But maybe I can have a better understanding of how my personal choices contribute to the nature of the beast, and how through continuous learning I can find appropriate ways in which to act.
Today I went to the school again, all day, stocked with ammunition-- English storybooks and art supplies. More on that another time. But here are some stories from the day...
After doing some English with the 4th grade class (they were teacher-less for this period), the teacher entered the class and began the ganitha (math) lesson. The 4th grade classroom is half a schoolroom, divided with the 5th grade by a wooden partition that does not reach the ceiling. I was sitting and watching the lesson-- the teacher copied a drawing from their textbook, and the students were supposed to follow, and write out numbers based on their thousands, hundredths, tens, and ones places. For example:
7777 = 7000 + 700 + 70 + 7
About 15/45 of the students were actually participating in the lesson, shouting the answers and running to the teacher to have him check their notebooks. I noticed that one kid sitting near my feet, Manikanta, was rubbing his eyes, textbook and notebook closed. He was crying. I asked him why, and he said it was because he didn't have a pencil. I offered my pen, but he refused vehemently. No kid would let him borrow their pencil. I went to the HM's office and grabbed a tiny pencil lying around, and offered it to him. Still, he refused. I kept trying to console him, but he would not open his book and follow the lesson. Nearly 10 more minutes went by, and the rest of the class had moved along. Finally, I gave him a stern look and forced him to stand up with me, and we went through the problem together. I kept shouting excitedly ("Verrryy Goooud" in my Indian accent) when he understood what I was asking him, and finally, he took my pen and started writing the answers to the questions.
Later, at the end of the day, I was helping the HM fill out records to enroll the 8th graders for their SSLC (10th Standard) examinations in two years. SSLC exams are a huge deal around here, and apparently you have to submit perfect records far in advance, with payments and photos for each child. While we were working, a young mother came into the office and started talking to the HM about her son in the 5th Standard. She was worried because he refuses to write, or read, or do any work in either school or at home. She is illiterate and cannot help her son. She has high aspirations for him. At one point, as she was talking, she just started crying. I couldn't really make out why, but later Padmaja explained that it was because her husband drinks, and she is worried that her son will end up like him.
It's a curious phenomenon, really. More frightening than curious, but in my second trip to India I can both feel and see myself becoming slowly desensitized to the chaos around me. It becomes natural, and therefore one develops this skin built for protection against the sensory overload, the frustrating and backward politics, and the depravity of so much around you.
The first time I saw a beggar on the street was in Delhi, obviously, since that was the first place I went in India this time around. There are definitely more on the streets of Delhi than in Bangalore. I remember walking through a shopping complex with Tinku and Anand and there being an old woman on the granite footpath writing on the ground. I was mid-sentence through something inane, I'm sure. I couldn't speak for a moment, but we continued to walk, sidestepping the horrifying sight at our feet. In these situations, you feel helpless. Do you stare? Call for help? Continue walking?
At some point, you have to ask yourself when countless people come up to you, begging for money with their dirty, sleepy children thrown over their shoulder, what can I really do to help this person? Where is this money going? After a while, most people stop looking at them. You stare in the opposite direction, suddenly both blind and deaf to their requests. And I saw myself begin to do it too, desensitized.
Another example. On Monday night, we all went for a movie. For those of you unfamiliar with SUPERSTAR RAJNI (Rajnikanth), he is a fat, toupee-wearing, former traffic policeman now incredibly popular actor in South India. His newest creation that we saw, "Sivaji: The Boss," is about how this multi-billionaire wants to build a hospital and school with his money, encounters some troubles, tries to marry a "traditional" Tamil girl, goes bankrupt, etc. etc. Seemingly harmless plot, no? Well, the actual movie is impossible to give justice to. The traditional Indian bride spends the entire movie either crying or screaming, and while she is chaste and wears a nice braid and sari during the "Reality" portions of the movie, in the "Dream Sequences" or song-and-dance numbers, she sports ridiculous wigs, scandalous outfits, gyrating around like a robot and sexual object for the old, skeezy Sivaji. That's not a word, but I'm using it anyways. The entire movie was awful. Please YouTube it so I can stop trying to explain the inexplicable.
So, back to the point-- after the movie, I was horrified. Madhavi couldn't sleep for a while. I couldn't get Sivaji's idiotic catchphrase ("Cool!") and theme song out of my head. During the movie, I couldn't stand to watch most of the song sequences, so I took to watching the audience instead. The theatre was packed full of your typical South Indian families, sitting happily as the movie blared at the highest possible volume and displayed these vulgar scenes of scantily-clad women in black leather juxtaposed with traditional scenes of a Tamil family feeding their guests and offering them tea and coffee. Everyone seemed to have a pleasant, glazed-over look on their face.
But on Tuesday, I managed to go the entire day without thinking about it. That's desensitization.
There is a difference between being desensitized to the harsher realities of this country and being ignorant to them. I can no longer call myself ignorant, as a second visit has now begun with a better baseline of knowledge for what this place is all about, how it functions, and what its people are like. I find it harder to go to the school now, and see its problems continue for another year. But at the same time, seeing this thicker skin develop has only led more questions. The problems I encounter in the school, for example, may seem even more difficult to deal with, even more rooted in systemic or cultural issues, but now its time to put a more informed finger on where the problems lie and find out more deeply why they exist.
But I'll never understand Rajnikanth. I almost don't want to, and I'm glad that I've developed some sort of tolerance strong enough to let me sleep peacefully at night after four hours of "Sivaji: THE BOSS."
