Can Do Sandhu

As Sat mentioned in the last posting, I started teaching at the local village school on Tuesday. I’ve been there every day since then (it’s now Thursday) and think I have enough info to tell you about how life is in a rural Punjabi secondary school.

The school itself is called Government Secondary School Kukran and is located in the centre of the village. It has around 60 pupils ranging in age from 10/11 to around 16/17 and there seems to be an equal split between boys and girls.

The school week runs from Monday to Saturday (!!!) and their day starts with morning assembly at 8am. They march from the school building onto the field in front of the school in single file and stand in rows of about 8-10 pupils, boys on one side, girls on the other. The headmistress leads the assembly and asks the pupils to say prayers. This is followed by a brief rendition of the Indian national anthem.

The headmistress is definitely someone on my wavelength (probably one of the reasons why I’m there). She values healthy living, eating well, taking exercise and helping others to learn whilst still developing themselves. She’s a very determined woman. She needs to be as the conditions of the school coupled with the funding it gets leave a lot to be desired. Anyway, in her bid to get the kids physical strength enhanced she’s introduced some gentle stretching exercises. So after prayers and singing, the kids run through these whilst one pupil stands at the front beating a large drum which dictates the pace of the stretches. It’s quite fascinating. The odd pupil will get a clip behind the ear (usually a boy!) if they don’t follow the exercise pattern! Not sure they’d get away with that in the UK.

Stretching over, the daily newspaper is brought out and either the headmistress or one of the more senior pupils reads out some of the main news headlines of the day. Personally, I think this is a great idea as many don’t have access to news sources so it’s good to let them know what’s going on in the world.

So they’ve prayed, sung, stretched and had a news update. Time to hit the classroom. The beat of the drum gets them back into their respective classes – class 6 through to class 12 (I think!). At the moment I have responsibility for teaching classes 6, 7 & 8 but I was told today that the older kids are demanding my time too. Oh to be popular!

Anyway, classrooms are pretty small and vary in size from about a dozen to 20+ pupils. Their level of understanding seems quite basic but they are enthusiastic and very willing to learn although their shyness tends to hold them back from speaking aloud (although they’re very good at twittering amongst themselves if I happen to leave the room!). I know the older ones understand more than they let on. Classes start at 8.15 (ish) and each one lasts 40 minutes. Fortunately I’ve been given classes in the morning (when it’s a “little” cooler) so my timetable from Monday to Saturday is Class 6 at 8.15-8.55 (period 1), Class 7 (period 2) from 8.55-9.35 and Class 8 (period 3) from 9.35 to 10.15. Next week I have another class to add to this which is after lunch (lunch break/recess is 11.35-12.00) from 12.40-1.20 (period 7). I expect I’ll do some teaching to fill in the time between period 3 and 7!

Given Sandhu Farm is about 3 km away from school I have the privilege of being chauffeured to school either by Mum (that’s Sat’s mum but everyone calls her Mum) or Sat (as was the case today). I don’t much like driving in the UK but I have no intention of driving in India (see previous postings!)

Right, so what about the teaching? I hear you ask. Well, it’s been an experience so far and to my relief (and perhaps surprise) I’m loving it! The kids are receptive and keen to learn. The benefits of my being there are two-fold. They get a native English speaker to help them speak/understand/write better English, and in order to do that, I have to improve my Punjabi in order to say the little phrases which they don’t understand in English. Simple things like, “write it down”, “listen”, “does that make sense?”, “put your hand up if you know the answer”, “speak more slowly” (they like to race through the alphabet thinking it’s a speed speaking competition rather than a pronunciation exercise!). Each night I plagued the rest of the Sandhu clan for these phrases and scribble the phonetic sounds in my little notebook which I now guard with my life!

So everyone’s language skills are improving. I’ll admit it’s been a bit difficult to gauge the level they’re at but in all 3 classes today I did more or less the same thing – “a is for apple, b is for banana, etc, etc”. Gut instinct said this be a good place to start.

I’d spent my run this morning mentally preparing a list of words to correspond to each letter (just in case). But I was keen to continue a more “coachlike” approach to their learning and I was really chuffed that it paid off. Once each class got the gist of what I was trying to teach them, they all came up with their own version of “the list”. Admittedly, many of the words were the same as the ones I had written but it was the fact they understood and took the initiative themselves and it was fun for them and for me. Mission accomplished and each class left with a smile on their face. (I hope that’s because they enjoyed it rather than relief that it was over!) So….a satisfactory start to my teaching career!

There’s yet another bonus to teaching out here, holidays! Not only are there the standard Indian national holidays, but due to the diversity in religions, all Hindu, Sikh and Muslim holidays are also honoured. Monday this week was a holiday and so is tomorrow. Happy days! June is when the school is closed for the whole month as it’s too hot (although it was 40c in the shade today) and the ceiling fans in the school weren’t working yesterday and for some of this morning (they kicked in about 10 minutes before I left – bliss!). One of the joys of an erratic electricity supply. Dad tells me it gets worse as it gets hotter – and we’re experiencing this already.

So, there you have it. My first posting on our latest adventure. My main goal for taking this time out to travel was to use my coaching experience to support and develop other people and also develop myself through being more compassionate, patient and understanding. It’s early days but there’s definitely a tick in the box for life satisfaction at the moment and for now, that’s good enough for me.

Love & hugs

Jo

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