Since my arrival in India, I have come to love the words "Namaste" and "Jenni-mam." In the streets, to strangers, my little boys, everywhere I go, people press their hands together and nod while saying, "Namaste." It is the one thing that seems to be the friendly link between the culture and language barrier. If I go for a walk in the village, I might see a little lady filling up a pot with water and there is always a mutual "Namaste.""Jenni-mam" is what my little boys yell as they see me approaching their dorm. "Jenni-mam! Jenni-mam! You study math with me. So hard, the math. Jenni-mam, you look at this... Jenni-mam... hello, Jenni-mam. Jenni-mam, I love cricket...Jenni-mam I love the soccer... Jenni-mam you eat... Goodnight, Jenni-mam..."
These are my eleven boys that I tutor at the children's home. There are about 50 boys total ranging from age 5 - 20 at the home and they are divided into three houses. I go to the house with the youngest boys and play with them, tutor them, and do my best to make a documentary. They are different than any other children that I have been around because they do everything they can to help each other. They help each other study, they assist each other with their chores and they are never mean. They call each other brother. The boys are also incredibly appropriate, not tainted by crass humor. Completely innocent and sincere.Several of the children really struggle in school and I have had challenges trying to figure out what they need to prepare for their exams. I realized that phonetics are not taught in school. I was trying so hard to explain how to sound out a word that a boy was trying to read and he looked at me blankly. He had to spell the words correctly on the exam the next day. There are comprehensive exams starting in the 3rd grade, which count for 90% of their grade for the year. The worksheets and class work from the entire year only count for 10%. So the boys get very stressed. Poor Ajay could not spell most of the words he needed to. I realized that I couldn't teach him how to figure it out. They only memorize here. So I repeated the words and chanted the spelling over and over until he mostly had it memorized.
It has been a challenge to not be critical of the way the the children are taught. Just because the system is different from my own doesn't make it wrong. Memorization seems to be valued more than reasoning. I am trying to not judge too quickly, but I still think that learning to sound out words could be valuable, but for now we only memorize.
4 comments:
I promise to call you Jenni-mam from now on!
These two photos are awesome. Every photo you take there is automatically awesome, it's unfair :].
I agree with Tom, the photos are amazing. I thought that about Emily's blog when she posted pics of her time in India. You know what it is? I think it's the purity and the shear joy that exudes from the little ones. It's really beautiful.
And I love the meaning of Namaste. "the best in me, reconginzes the best in you."
OK, I'll be critical for you.
The whole memorizing concept is stupid. That's what really screws over the foreign grads who try to get jobs in medicine here in the States.
They a very bright people, with wonderful clinical exam skills. They can list off diagnoses and give the page number to go with them. . . But apply things clinically? That's where they're at a disadvantage because they've only been taught to memorize.
It's good that you're trying to be open-minded, but maybe someone needs to fight the power for their own good.
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