Incorporating Individual and Community Stories

At APRS, students started PowerPoint projects on the following topics: traffic, mosquitoes, water, and religion. Because we are only at APRS twice a week, it didn’t make sense to do individual projects, since they would require much more time considering the limited number of cameras we have. We asked students to research these topics and create a draft layout of a PowerPoint presentation, including both photographs and text. From the work that the students produced, I got the sense that these topics were a bit tiresome for them. They know that traffic can be deadly and that mosquitoes can spread diseases. It felt a mistake to have assigned those topics to begin with. In response, we changed our direction for the students at Railway this week, asking them to choose one individual (either a role model, family member, or friend) to interview and then highlight in a digital story. As this project progresses, it will be interesting to note the differences between the stories created at the two schools.

As we started work on group and individual digital story projects, Danny and I had many discussions about the topics that we want our students to focus on. We must strike a balance between allowing the students creative freedom, while also giving them enough direction so that they can produce high quality work. As former students of International Relations and Development Studies, we both get excited when talking about issues affecting communities and development projects that seek to address them. We want to instill our own passion for social justice in the students that we teach, but we’ve been marinating on some words that Mr. Prabhakar, one of the teachers at the Railway School, shared with us the other day. He asked “Why can’t we focus on something happy? Why does it always have to be something related to a problem in the students’ communities?” It wasn’t an extraordinarily profound sentiment, but it brings to mind some other thoughts that I’ve been having lately. Although these community issues are only a part of our curriculum, another focus being that of individual stories, I feel strange broaching such topics as pollution, traffic, and health in the classroom. While we feel that we are bringing awareness to under-discussed topics, it seems that students are well aware of these issues and the disproportionate impact they have on their day-to-day lives. When students ask “Do you have mosquitoes in America?” or “Do you have a washing machine in your apartment in Abids?”, it is only because they understand these differences between our lives. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of initiating conversation on these topics; however, I feel uncomfortable giving weight to them. Allowing students the opportunity to share both personal and community stories has tremendous potential for empowerment. How do we ensure though that we are emphasizing dynamic stories that students will feel happy sharing?

Using the Digital Camera

During this past week, our students have been taking photos with the digital camera on their school grounds. While they were asked to take photos of images relevant to text that they wrote beforehand, they’ve been sidetracked by their camera access. It’s great to see their enthusiasm for being able to document their friends’ funny faces, their teachers, and the classrooms where they sit all day long. When I had to take a camera away from one girl, so that the next group could take their turn, she asked “Please can I just hold it for a minute longer?”. When class time becomes frustrating with the language barrier, and I feel that the emphasis on fundamentals is being outweighed by the encouragement of creativity, I remember the excitement and special feeling that overtakes students when they use the camera.

This excitement also makes me wonder how many photographs our students have of their families and childhood. I’m certain that it’s in great contrast to life back home, where every dinner or night out turns into a Facebook album. It seems that there is so much more value for each image that they capture, their product inherently telling a story with greater depth.

Throughout my day, there are so many moments when I wish that I had a camera with me–if our students carried one all day long, what spontaneous images would they capture? I would hope that they would expand their idea of an interesting image, which seems to currently include, trees, flowers, and nature, to underappreciated parts of their homes, schools, and greater communities. As we weave together writing and images, I hope that we can successfully encourage the students to think outside of the box to tell unique stories.

Islam and India: Student writings on world faiths and recent floods

The boys pose in front of their mosque nearest their boarding school

I asked the students to write about a special memory they had. Munna, a student whose group project was on religion, misinterpreted the assignment and wrote to me: Religion is like memory (for) anyone who cannot see with his eyes, he sees with his mind.

A temple near The Modern Story's fellows' apartment in Abids

When asked, ‘If there was one thing you would change about the world,’ Krrish responded: I would convert the whole world to Islam. I asked him what he would do if he met someone who believed in a different religion and did not want to be converted. He said, ‘I would respect him. But I would tell him how he was living was wrong.’ In response, Krrish will be exploring how the diversity of religions in India relates to him by working on fictional conversations, a dialogue, that he would imagine to take place between himself and people of different faiths that he meets. His responses reminded me a lot of the delicate discussions I took part in with World Faith in Lebanon following the 2006 war. Arbani, an energetic small 9th grader, will be exploring religion through a graphic novel he is working on. He is a visually oriented student who cannot wait to draw and is always sketching something in his notebook. He will be exploring religious tensions in his community, Hyderabad, and India through a series of illustrated stories that I hope to be posting soon.

A Hindu temple near the Muslim APRS Boys school

Another student, Khasim, wrote a poem about the afternoon sunlight near the mosque where he prays:

Afternoon comes
it goes
to the river to ride on buffaloes
to the big animals
and enjoys them all
This way the afternoon, like a crow, enjoys the whole day.

Both religion and issues related to health including dengue, malaria and the recent floods seem to be issues that concern the students on a daily basis. Nadeem, for example, wrote about those Indians that have had to deal with the heavy rains this summer:

Mud in our homes
Mud in our beds
Mud in our bones
Where do we eat.
Where do we sleep.

Sajjid, a student that has a lot of experience with cameras and has been patiently waiting his turn to show his skills, wrote the following about the floods in Andhra Pasha.

There is a man
in the water
in the (midst) of his poverty
floating on the flood
There is a man
by the water
eating all the money.

One theme students will be exploring this semester is health. This is a photo of one of Hyderabad's most famous hospitals: Osmania

Arshan had one of the most poignant insights into the crossroads between religion and the floods in Andhra Pasha in his letter to the Chief Minister:

“Look at how the people are before the flood. Look at how they collect money to help. People go to the Mosque, the Temple, the Church and they all come away with money to give to people of the flood.”

Some More Photo Presentations from the Girls at Railway HS

As the girls that I am teaching at Railway HS are smoothly moving on to learning about the video camera, I uploaded their final Powerpoint presentations, which they put together with the photographs that they took in our little field trips. If you remember from my previous posts, the girls were divided into groups and were working on a four separate projects: on traffic, life in the slums, the culture of the Hindu temples, and, respectively, their own school.

I therefore invite you to take a look at their work on slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/themodernstory

All the photographs are taken by the girls, and the text is written entirely by them. All this after learning Powerpoint just a few weeks ago! (You can tell that I am PROUD!).

The eraser and other simple poems

At Nalgonda A.P.R.S. Boy’s Residential School the chalkboard eraser is a newspaper. The students unfold the front page, read the headlines, the day’s events are then torn up and the paper is used to erase the board. Is someone willing to donate erasers to this school? The boy’s lessons are wiped out by current events.

Here are some images students wrote on the back of index cards with their name to describe their daily life. The language is simple:

Mohammed Saleem
I have seen a tree of apples and the men who steal them
I have seen a picture of a Matador a bull is hitting
My house is behind the big Mango trees
Where men are walking their road.

Munna:
Water is moving on earth
Sun is falling on earth
We are walking on the earth
Moving a bike, running for the bus.

Suleyman Ali is a promising students at the A.P.R.S. Boys residential school

Suleyman Ali
My house with a white wall, 5 people, a big tree and a garden around it
A river with water flowing, fishes moving, a bridge upon it
Michael Jackson, a tall man wearing a golden cloth and dancing
A sir teaching students. The students looking at the black of the blackboard
A lion, killing a rabit by jumping on it and eating its flesh.

Sirajuddin (Baba)

Siraj Uddin (Baba)
My friend
Short
Tall his Face
Smart his Face
Fat his body
He wears his clothes dirty

Siraj Uddin (Baba)
My school ground
grass
dogs
killing a rat:
our school.

Mohammed Saleem
Reflections on problems in my community: Smoking is a very big problem in our community. Now a days even small children start smoking. Through smoking many people die in our community. Air pollution is also a big problem. Because of air pollution human beings started suffering from many diseases in our community and the ozone layers in the atmosphere are getting smaller and the heat is seducing us more day by day. But, mainly, the air is polluted by smoke of vehicles and factories!

Please keep the girls in your prayers.

We have just started to get to know the girls at the Railway school where we began teaching this week. Please keep them in your prayers. I was just informed that one student passed away from Dengue fever today. We are not sure who yet. I’ll try to find out more as soon as I can. Again, if you have any words of encouragement for the girls please let them know and we’ll pass on your words.

Thank you.

Language Barriers and Storytellers

“Persons trying to find a motive in this story will be prosecuted.
Persons trying to find a moral in it will be thrown out of the country
Persons trying to find a conspiracy in it will be shot.
I pledge my allegiance to India, in whose happiness lies my own.”

These lines are published on the first page of an English reader for Huckleberry Finn found in our girls class at the Railway school. There is a lot of pride in producing stories in the many local dialects or the national language. The sentiment may not be so strongly felt today, but on finding that book I was reminded of the resistance to the myths of another people’s language and literature.

In my own class, I have felt a corresponding unease asking students to express themselves in a language not their own. Language barriers have not been a huge issue, but they do limit the students’ capacity for poetic expression. It is as if they write just enough to invite understanding. They intimate a larger world within where they speak of their family and of friendship and of love that understands them just to the point where a young child wants to be understood.

A colleague of mine asked me to define a ‘modern story.’ It’s opposite implies ‘traditional stories,’ but I’m not sure how to define either one. I’ve tried to walk around the city as much as I could to get a feel of the area before forming my own ideas on how telling ‘modern stories’ matters to our students. As we head into our third week at Nalgonda and our second week at the Railway, I am reminded of Joseph Campbell’s famous work, “The Power of Myth,” where he notes that more kids grow up nowadays with their own laws and myths and rituals that are not those of the city. This, for Joseph Campbell, makes the narratives that many children believe about themselves ‘modern’ exactly because they have fewer traditions and rites of passage in which to come of age. Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” seems to hold true in Nalgonda where many boys believe the laws of their own bodies are not those of the world around them, and there is a destructive element in their play. The saying ‘Boys will be boys’ has a unique spin in Nalgonda, the students’ childish wonder seems to acknowledge they live in a world that does not necessarily confer distinction upon them. Yes, it is easy to lose oneself in an urban center. The atmosphere of this rapidly developing city is not un-like the air breathed before waking, there is a magical-realism in those surroundings so conducive to suspending belief, each alley an invitation to retreat rather than succeed in a metropolis, easier to lose oneself beneath the skyline, itself the shore of a dream.

Class dynamics in response to this language barrier have expressed themselves in noticeable differences. At the all boys school, the effort to concentrate on discussions held in English makes many boys wriggle in their seats and act out. At the all girls school, the language barrier quiets many who might otherwise express their opinions in their native tongue.

So far, stories have concentrated on the family and community. Girls have talked about their fathers in positive ways. At the boys school I have not heard a single story about the students’ fathers. There is a natural tendency for younger boys, at least among kids I grew up with, to eclipse their own perceived shortcomings with a father’s infamy. Their stories tend toward the fantastic, while the girls’ stories are grounded in community issues and have a sense of immediacy. In both schools, I have seen promising examples that the students will produce excellent work despite the language barrier and the extra concentration it exacts upon them. Once issues of plagiarism at Nalgonda are worked out and the students begin their own original compositions to showcase at the Railway school in Hyderabad/Secunderbad we’ll post examples here for others to see. The Railway school is also preparing a function with thousands of community members at the end of December where students will have a few minutes to showcase their work completed during their TMS classes. Language might also be an issue there too and so we hope to coach the students in how to read in English clearly and with a unique voice to maximize the impact their stories might have on the mothers, fathers and other members of their community who will be in attendance.

Railway Girls High School

During these introductory lessons, I’ve been acutely aware of the role that gender plays in our students’ lives, perhaps due to the fact that both schools are single-sex. As Danny mentioned in his post, the boys at Nalgonda are really kinesthetic learners–in order to keep their attention, we must plan activities that engage their whole bodies. On the other hand, from the first day of classes, it seems as if the students at the Railway School are much more comfortable with traditional teaching methods that require quiet concentration.

As a high school student, I very neatly filled the stereotype of a quiet, hardworking Asian girl. I always felt guilty for not being a more active participant, a feeling that spread to my academic life in college as well. Whether in a moment of self-empowerment or one of self-validation, I slowly began to defend my introverted nature and tell myself that being “shy” was not a bad quality, but one that could in fact be of enormous value. Since then, I’ve continued to ask myself why we as a society place such importance on being outspoken and energetic. It always seemed to me that along a scale, one where shyness was at the leftmost extreme and extroversion on another, we always seek to push children to the right.

In our first class at the Railway School, I immediately found myself in a dilemma where my personal attitudes were pitted against my need to evaluate understanding of material as a teacher. First, in an ‘icebreaker,’ we asked the students to show us their favorite dance move, which evolved into each student giving the same short wave of their hand. Even as a college student, I remember having to do these activities and wishing that somehow I would fall sick and have to leave the room once it was my turn. Why then was I frustrated that the students were uncomfortable with the activity? Once we realized that half of the girls were really not fans of the icebreaker, we amended the exercise and asked the other girls to just tell us their names, and if they wanted, show us a favorite movement. I was disappointed that the exercise had failed to stimulate excitement among all of the students, but was happy that as a teacher, I identified the feelings of my youth in the classroom, and acted to alleviate them. As the class progressed, and few students volunteered examples of responses to questions that we posed, I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated. While its easy to dismiss our students’ quiet nature as disinterest, I’m realizing that it is my challenge to find better methods to assess how well students are understanding material.

On the other hand, I’ve been so impressed with the girls, and their drive to achieve – today, one student who was absent on the first class showed up with the entire homework assignment completed, and asked for additional homework for the following class. Knowing that they have limitless potential and overwhelming barriers, I strive to be a positive female role model for these students. However, I am confused when I think about the types of behaviors that I want them to emulate. Do I exhibit the confidence and independence that will be necessary for them to break down the barriers that exist in their homes and communities? I’m only one of many woman mentors that they will encounter in their lives, so it feels rather self-important of me to think that I will have some impact on my students. But these questions will continue to be on my mind as I think about effective ways of building a classroom environment that will be conducive to the girls’ learning.

Our first day teaching The Modern Story at the Railway Girls School

In the Head Mistress’s office, a painting of scenic India is accompanied by the caption: “To know the world one must construct it.” Mr. Pravakar, a teacher and assistant at the Railway Girls School, said,

“It took me three days to select this quote. I believe it captures the spirit of our school.”

The quote also resonated in me the spirit of The Modern Story (TMS). My goal as a TMS fellow is to both ‘bridge the digital divide’ and instill a sense of individual expression that ‘constructs,’ as the quote says, a student’s world view through images, sound and moving images to help themselves and others better understand their lives.

During a brief orientation discussion, Mr. Pravakar also noted,

“In the U.S. there is talk about first generation college students. Here, these girls are first generation learners. Their parents never had any schooling of any kind.”

He went on to describe a story of a former student,

“One girl, a student of ours, has been very successful. Neither of her parents went to school. She attended classes here at the Railway Girls school. She wanted to go to college. She told her father ‘No, now I want to study. I know how much you’ve spent on me my whole life. It is not much. Now, I want to go to college. I want this and you’ll give it to me.”

Her father was a carpenter on the railway. She went to college. She is a successful working woman. Mr. Pravakar says that 1/2 his classes are spent teaching and the majority of the rest of the time is devoted to motivational speaking and exercises.

With regard to our curriculum, I feel that motivation is inherent in many of the exercises of telling stories that are of interest and inspiration to the girls. Our first day went amazingly well. The girls are bright. They internalize the material quickly and demonstrate above average discipline. We have started classes here three weeks behind schedule. We have a lot of work to do and I can’t wait to go full steam ahead.

For today’s class we talked about images, sounds, and moving images. TMS fellows used an elevated platform in the classroom to give an example of images and moving images by imitating a fashion runway. One of the girls said she wanted to be a fashion designer and I like to keep in-class examples related to student interests. To demonstrate ’subject movement,’ one student walked down the ‘runway’ and posed for the camera modeling her ‘dress.’ To demonstrate ‘camera movement’ I then showed the students how a cameraman can move 360 degrees around the model to show off the dress, or how he can pan down the runway as the model walks etc. The students giggled but immediately understood the point: Moving images are developed by things moving in the frame and/or moving the camera itself. Still images can be taken when the model stops to model her dress. Having enough light is important for the dress to look inviting to the crowd. TMS Fellow Vidya Putcha then did an excellent presentation on different kinds of sounds that are involved in telling digital stories.

Vidya also showed her example of a digital story on powerpoint. She talked about her family and showed photos accompanied by text. The students then did the following exercise. They chose an issue in their community. They drew a frame. They drew something in the frame demonstrating their community issue. They then answered the following three questions. ‘What is in the frame. What is not in the frame. Why are these choices important.’ For an example, I chose a pressing issue in my community which is gun violence. I drew a frame. I drew in the frame two men and a gun. I responded to the questions;

“What is in the frame: Two men and a gun.”

“What is not in the frame: Policemen, ambulances, families, children playing, people smiling.”

Why are these choices important: The absence of police suggests that this is a problem related to gun violence. The absence of children playing suggests that kids are not safe to play in the streets where gun violence is a problem. The presence of a gun and two men suggests that gun violence is a problem people are concerned about where I live.”

The Modern Story, with support form The America India Foundation’s Digital Equalizer Program, now has two classes operating at the Railway Girls School. Today was our first day. I am looking forward to a successful semester.

-Danny Thiemann
2009/2010 Fellow

Challenges to creative writing curriculum in India: Individuality, Borges, and the crowds of the city

Above the boy’s beds made of steel is written “The greatest men have always stood alone.” The quote, for me, lends weight to the tension between individuality and the teeming 1billion plus Indians in the subcontinent’s often overcrowded cities.  ‘Individuality,’ in reference to our students and their education, is often at odds with the overpopulated city and the lack of funds to provide enough teachers for individual learning. This week taught me the challenges of implementing a curriculum teaching individual expression, creativity, and a sense of individual value in our students in Nalgonda. A.P.R.S. boys school is a Muslim boarding school. Although they are not necessarily minorities in all parts of Hyderabad, there is a rich record of complementary and antagonistic histories between the many religions living side by side in the country’s urban centers. Whether or not they would express it themselves, it seems to me that religion plays into a sense of pride in both their identity and interests. They are fascinated by the pyramids and mosques of Cairo, tigers, Arabic and Urdu calligraphy, riddles and religious songs from childhood. So far they have been doing great individual and creative stories while in class. For homework, however, almost all the students copied poems out of their English readers claiming that they had written the poems themselves. For example, one boy claimed he was the original author of ‘The Road Not Taken.’

The Road not taken

A student finds some personal space to be alone

Plagiarism is not always an un-creative act. Some philosophers, such as those Jorge Luis Borges would often quote, believed that anyone who writes a line of Shakespeare is Shakespeare. One of Borges’ most famous stories is that of a man who tried writing the next great Don Quixote. Realizing his pride, the man decided instead to live his every thought as though he were Miguel de Cervantes until, without glancing at the text, his life would lead him to write Don Quixote word-for-word, exactly as the original. In most contexts, such a conjecture would seem ridiculous. However, in the teeming crowds of Hyderabad, the individuality of one person or one student can often get lost in the shuffle of government education. Plagiarism can also lead a teacher to suspend their belief in a student’s creativity. But this is not so much of an alarm for our classes. Yes, it was not easy for the students to internalize an emphasis on individual work, original ideas and creativity. But they have shown excellent promise while working in class. As supported by the America India Foundation’s Digital Equalizer Program, we as Fellows recognize the importance of bridging the digital divide but also recognize a more pressing issue  at the local level of our schools; the value ascribed to individual expression, and perhaps in proportion, individual worth.

There are daily news reports that emphasize a reduced value of human life in such a highly populated country; on-going fatalities on the highways, railroads, oppressive pollution hanging as thick as moss in front of pre-schools, the suicides after the Chief Minister died and the list goes on and is normalized. Granted, this is an outsiders perspective. Yet, on our daily rides home through the congested and chaotic streets of Hyderabad, I am reminded of the social context pressing in on the classroom once the bell rings and the day is over. For teachers, we return to our apartment in Abids. But the boys return to their metal beds and their walls where it is written: “The greatest men have always stood alone.” Success, it seems, comes when one has the privilege to live in a house with your own room, to ride in your own air conditioned car, to have the personal space to breath unpolluted air: indeed, it does seem the greatest men here strive to stand alone. There is a health related aspect to self-isolation. No wonder so many students perceive their solitude profiled in the city’s skyline; privacy is at a premium in India. Those who can’t afford it continue in the rush of the alley traffic beneath the high rises. Perhaps like our students they are fascinated by tigers, pyramids, and constructions of the mind that lead one man to believe, as Borges often dreamed, that he is any other man. For now, our challenge is to channel their energy into completing the assignments faithfully and honestly, doing their own work and showcasing their incredible capacity for wonder.

-Danny Thiemann
2009/2010 Fellow