Young Idealists

As the signature haze of Delhi thickens below me a realization takes flight. A long awaited journey has earned its departure. Today we will arrive in Hyderabad and this project will begin.

Over the past week spent in New Delhi, site seeing and visiting with family apprehensions have built. On a visit to the Swami Narayan Temple, Akshadam, Hindustan’s latest architectural feat, Remy and I discussed the use of technology to modernize an ancient faith. An animation robotics show; a simulation boat ride on the Ganga; an Imax semi motion picture; how much is too much and how will we distinguish our use of these same tools? After all, it is the modern story, is it not?

Then a visit to the Delhi based office of the America India Foundation intensified my concerns. “We just want to make you aware of the challenges,” one of the Digital Equalizer coordinators told us. “The children will not be comfortable with English; the teachers will speak only a limited amount of English; both are used to a style of rote learning that emphasizes exam scores and scores alone.” So our lofty ambitions would not be met with only bells and whistles to say the least. But who else besides “young idealists” would push on, though slightly scarred?

The second half of our meeting took a turn. We met Roopak, a young man from Delhi who works as the Delhi AIF coordinator for the Adobe Youth Voices grant, which has been awarded to ten Digital Equalizer schools in Delhi and twelve in Bangalore. The initiative has many of the same goals as our project and ironically entered the AIF scene at the same time as our proposal. Adobe provides funding for the equipment and manpower necessary to help students create multimedia projects that encourage them to further engage with and take charge of their learning process.

Roopak visits each of the ten schools every week, first identifying a core group of twenty to thirty students and two to three teachers who will be key participants in the project. He then leads the group through discussions and exercises that help them narrow down a topic that will be explored for the next six months through either a photo essay or a documentary film project.

After exchanging lesson plans and teaching techniques, Roopak invited us to visit two schools with him the next day. The first school was an orphanage for boys. We arrived on the campus amongst a scattered crowd of probing eyes and as soon as we mentioned the word “computer” a teacher knew exactly where to lead us. We entered a computer lab and were greeted by a banner, “Education for the Internet Education” and a group of eight students listening attentively to their instructor, Roopak.

This particular group of eight and ninth graders were working on a documentary film project about the Dara Ganj Book Market, a footpath street fair that takes place every Sunday on the road just outside their school. The boys had been to this book fair many times and were interested in finding out about its origins and simultaneously sending a message about literacy to the documentary’s viewers. The fair sells only second hand books and offers a selection of over 22,500 books at a hugely discounted price. The students were in the middle of their research process; they had found a few Internet articles and had taken a practice shoot of the fair that previous Sunday. Roopak led the students through a few discussions about what facts they had successfully uncovered and what information they still needed to find. They then spent some time reviewing the footage they had already shot, deliberating over good shots vs. poor ones and decided how they might cut the footage down to a three-minute clip. One student had written a poem about books that the boys suggested using for the introduction and conclusion of the film. Roopak then sketched out a schedule for the next week with the teachers, allotting at least one forty-five minute period a day to this project. The students were clearly on their way, enthusiastic and engaged.

The second school was a day institute for girls located in between street vendors and rickshaw pile-ups in one of the most famous bizarres in Delhi, Chandi Chowk, a loud and clear tribute of the heart of India.

This school was hardly the sprawling grounds of the boy’s orphanage; rather a crumpling collage of three classrooms for over one hundred and fifty students next to a residence apartment and above a sewing shop. And in the same corner where the dust and the dirt gathered the girls absolutely shined.

Before us was a group of twenty, sixth class and seventh class students, neat and proper in their blue skirts, read sweaters, black plaits and unmistakably glittering eyes. Of course, they were not to be seated until they had each asked to enter the classroom. “Please sir, may I come in,” they chimed.

This particular group had decided to make a video out of a poem in their textbook about a rickshaw-wala and his daily existence. The girls had just written a letter to the poet asking permission to use his words. After a discussion about the letter and how to break up the poem into film scenes, Roopak split the group into three teams: computer, video cameras, and script writing. To the girl’s delight, he asked Remy and I to lead the video camera team. Finally these strangers would come to life and our game of charades begun.

Teaching the girls stripped of language and expression was one of the most difficult tasks we experienced but also hopeful and rewarding. They could understand us; they wanted to; and even more, they wanted to learn from us and then teach each other. To them, our differences were arbitrary; it was our common goal to somehow interact and try out this exciting new piece of equipment that stole the show.

That afternoon, as we mazed our way out of Chandi Chowk, three exhausted idealists had won a hand. Through the realm of technology and education, borders had been crossed, ideas had been exchanged. The fundamental concept of our project was already in place.