No desks

Dear dedicated reader,

We were sent on a mission by the Foundation to visit other area schools in the hopes of finding partners for possible expansion.

The science by which Kadod High School was picked as the flagship school for the Foundation’s work was not exact: the Founder’s father went to this school and so we are here. However, the partnership’s success has depended largely on the willingness of the school leadership to let the organization try and fail with different initiatives and the principal’s cheerful willingness to put some clueless American teachers up in his guesthouse who merely speak English as their native language and have nominal teacher training.

The principal made the arrangements for other teachers to take our classes for two or three days so we could go visit some schools. He could not come on the first day, and so he sent Dhirinbhai, our friend in the computer lab, in his place.

After loading into the back of a typical hired Indian van, we drove out into the countryside. The sugar cane fields which dominate the landscape here flew by as the car bumped up and down along the (ostensibly) paved road.

We pulled up outside the arched gateway of a large tannish colored building. Inside, I could see the students in their blue checked uniforms: collared shirts for the boys and dresses for the girls. As they opened the gate and we drove inside, the students who were free in the schoolyard for recess followed our car and when finally came to a dusty stop, pressed their faces and hands up against the glass, peering inside to see who these strange foreigners were. I try not to write in clichés if I can help it, but this was a living one.

We stepped out of the van and the students crowded around us awkwardly. They stood and looked at us intently without saying anything. I looked awkwardly back at them. Some teachers materialized out of school building and started speaking to Dhirinbhai in a Gujarati which I couldn’t follow. Students appeared behind them lugging plastic chairs which they placed next to the car for us to sit down in. We hesitated, then sat.

“Anything you want to know,” Dhirinbhai told us, “they are ready to answer.”

The teachers, still standing at attention, waited for us to ask something.

After a long, awkward silence, I hesitantly asked a question. “How many students do you have here?” I could see plainly that it wasn’t very many as all of the students who weren’t crowding around us were sitting outside of the school building in neat lines, waiting to receive their free, government sponsored mid-day meal.

Dhirin relayed this is Gujarati and the teachers told us that there were 110 students at the school. We also discovered that they had 1st through 7th grade, but only had 5 teachers since the government pays for teachers based on the number of students, not the grades of students. Since each classroom needed to have its own teacher to teach all the subjects, they have to combine grades.

“It becomes even more difficult if someone leaves,” they said through Dhirin who translated, “because then we must combine further and the work for running the school becomes more.”

“Does this happen often?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

We were offered a tour of the facility, which we happily accepted. The tour began with the 6th standard classroom. The most striking feature of this classroom when we walked in was that there were no desks or even benches, which is what we have at Kadod High School. The students, it seemed, sat on the floor in neat rows and used their bookbags as elevated surfaces to put their books on while the teacher taught standing at the front of the room.

There were also no lights, as the electricity had been cut, as it often is here.The classroom had blackboards on all the walls on which diagrams of different concepts had been carefully drawn, by both students and instructors, the 6th grade teacher explained. We examined a neatly drawn and labeled microscope on the far left wall, followed next by a chart explaining the atomic make up of solids, liquids and gases. These students, I felt sure, had never seen an actual microscope. Knowing that, I wasn’t sure how to feel.

We were there to scope out the English program and the possibility of collaboration with the Foundation using their model of sending American teachers; however since the school only teaches English in 5th through 7th grade and since they only have English for 35 minutes a day with the same teacher that they have their other subjects for, it didn’t seem like there was much scope for partnership. It made me wonder: what kind of partnership would work for a school like this? What do they need? More staff? Equipment? What resources would be beneficial?

Teaching in a school with only chalk and a chalkboard to a room full of 65 students, I am becoming familiar with how little you actually need to create an environment of learning. But how much is necessary for the quality of an education to be satisfactory? For example, I believe that, for an aspiring young scientist in rural India, a diagram of a microscope is not enough. Students should learn about microscopes through actually using one. But the question becomes: is it enough to have one per class? Is it enough to have one for every five students? Should every student have one? If every student had one, would they be used? What about material for slides and samples to look at under the microscopes? Should these be chosen over, say, desks, if such a choice were even a possibility? Such a binary should never exist, but if some money were to come to a school such as this, it probably would.

Forget one laptop for every child (if you are familiar with this program): What about one desk for every child? What about one teacher per class?

Best,
Cat