K.K. Nagar Campus

This week, we visited the last of the 4 Mahatma Schools. K.K. Nagar campus is located in another part of town, but still fairly close to our hotel and the Baba/CBSE campus. The school is nestled in a residential neighborhood, so it's atmosphere is a little different than the other 2 sites, where the campus is separate from the hustle and bustle of town. The campus is still lovely and I was just as impressed with their school and students as I have been at the other sites.
We started the day with a ceremonial welcome. KKN school provided a military salute and band welcome, as well as beautiful little girls all dressed up to give us our gifts - flowers, bindi paint and a fire blessing (they just waft smoke at you from a flaming tray). Then we went to the morning assembly, where the Monday ritual is universal prayer. This means they say readings from the Q'uran, the Bible and the Hindu holy book and sing songs from Christianity, Hindu and Islam. It is still so interesting to see the secular prayer and worship in the schools since that's something that doesn't occur in the states, but there are just the 3 main religions here, so it's easier to accommodate everyone.
This year, the Mahatma schools are celebrating the "Year of Patriotism" so in the 9th grade, we heard a patriotic song (a Tamil state song) and were introduced to important patriots, such as influential Indian authors and politicians. Then, the students demonstrated a debate on whether all Indians are patriotic. I continue to be impressed by the students' poise and knowledge in these debates. I think debate is a skill many schools overlook in the U.S. While it may not seem like the most important skill to teach, it certainly develops critical thinking skills and public speaking practice.
Next, we went to grade 3, where the children are learning about birds. KKN school uses the same format the other schools use, where students are introduced to the topic with a story, are taught the lesson, sing songs or some other verbal method of learning and do a hands on activity or craft to further the lesson. The school also uses tongue twisters a lot. I can't really remember doing tongue twisters in school. These schools have one on every chalkboard.
Something I really admire about this school system is how diverse the curriculum is. The students are doing so many different things like debate, cooking, dancing, yoga, mahendi (henna), instrumental and vocal music and many more. The students seem so happy to be in school and I attribute that happiness to the variety of activities they are participating in each day. The school is really focusing on teaching life skills rather than just teaching students to pass the tests.
One of my favorite parts of day 1 at KKN campus was dance class. 4 of the girls in our group, myself included, joined their grade 4 dance class, learning the steps to a traditional Indian dance form! It was fun!
The second day in the KKN school (today) was much the same... observing classes where students are participating in a variety of learning methods. But, the morning assembly was a shocker and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! A band made up of 7-9th grade boys performed Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie". I was so not expecting it and had a great time. The boys on guitar and drums were great and the rapper was the biggest shock! He was quite impressive. I'm going to try to upload video onto YouTube, but I haven't had much luck with video here, so it may have to wait until I'm back in the states!
One of my favorite parts of today was visiting the KG (kindergarten) classes. For one, the kids are so stinking cute! For two, this is a Montessori school, which means the students are learning by using manipulatives (hands on tools). The upper KG students (4-5 year olds) showed us the "gifts" (tools) they use for learning. I rarely hear adults use the word "differentiate" but I heard a 4 year old say it today. He said "I use wooden blocks to differentiate sounds made by different density woods" or something along those lines. Regardless, he used advanced vocabulary in the proper context! I was impressed. In one of the KG rooms, we were greeted by children dressed as Hindu gods and goddesses... it was adorable! Then the children of that class sang for us in English, Hindi and Tamil! I am so envious of their multi-lingual education!
We toured the art department this afternoon. It was amazing! I saw drawings done by first graders that are better than almost any college drawings I saw in my art class this year! The students just love when we enter their classroom to view their work. And, they are so polite when thanking us for coming in or in response to praise of their work! They are always calling us "miss" or "ma'am" ... it sometimes catches me off guard but it's very nice to be respected in such a way. In the higher grades' art class, the students explained how they made several of their recent projects, including paper mache masks, stained glass paintings and book marks. Then, the girls did more mahendi on us! I now have the palm of my left hand (from Baba school) and the back of my right hand (from KK Nagar school). It's so beautiful!
We ended the school day with more cultural programs performed by the students. There was instrumental music and dance. Bri, Calley and I tried one of the traditional dances at the end, but Bri was the only one who really got it, but she's a dance minor and he mom is a dance professor at Augustana so I'm not giving myself too hard a time for not catching on. :-)
After school, we went back to CBSE/Baba Campus to talk with all the teachers from all 4 schools. Each of us from our group (Americans & Indian teachers) talked about our observations and some of us shared some thoughts on things we saw that could use improvement. All of us agreed that this past 8 days of observing has been incredible, and these schools are doing an amazing job of producing intelligent, well rounded citizens. We were presented with gifts - a shoulder bag, a shirt, earrings and a necklace.
It really was a wonderful experience and I love the school system here. I talked with a few of the principals about doing my student teaching here, but we'll see. I did get the e-mail addresses of Shakila and Narayani, the two administrators that I got to know really well from our group. Shakila even calls me Kiki now, since I told her about my nieces and nephews calling me that! :-)
Now that our observations are done, we'll have tomorrow to work on our presentations, then do our presentations for the group on Thursday, and have a banquet at the Residential school Thursday night.
We head back to Chennai on Friday and leave at 4 am Saturday morning. I'll continue blogging this week, but I had to mention how close I am to coming home. It's gone by really fast, but I think I'm ready to come home. It will be nice to sleep in my own bed and eat BEEF! For now, I plan to fully enjoy the next fews days, my last few in India for this trip!