Update from Delhi
Yesterday night was Mirko's last night in Delhi, so Suraiya, Ankita, Nate, Allison in spirit (she had to work late), Alexis, Mirko, and I went to dinner in Pandara Market. We were joined by Jordi Strom who has been working for the CDC Global Aids project in Chennai.
Being in Delhi for this past week has been wonderful. I am researching governance and primary education, and have had some interesting meetings with people working at the National Institute for Education Planning, the Centre for Equity studies, JNU, and the Delhi School of Economics. I decided to compare education policies in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab, and then visit schools to try to get a sense of the quality of education at the government schools. I only have a month left, and I wish I had more time!
Saturday I went to a government school for girls in a poor community adjacent to the Red fort. I sat in on a grade 12 english class. Most of the girls' parents had not attended more than primary school and almost all came from very large Muslim families. It was impressive that they had made it so far through the system, and planned to continue their studies after grade 12 in order to become teachers. They said that many of their classmates had stopped coming to school because their family thought it was unimportant for them to be so educated.
After interviewing the students, I spoke with a few teachers about their experience at the school, and then went to observe a sixth grade class. The English teacher didn't show up and so Bubbly aunty (a family friend who taught at the school) told me to teach the english lesson. The next teacher also was absent so instead of the substitute teacher, I ended up teaching english for an hour and half to thirty eleven year olds. We read a story about a man named Gopal. Gopal had neighbors who were day dreamers. In particular, the couple dreamed of a day when they would have enough money to buy a cow. Caught up in her dream, the wife bought four pots, one for butter, one for ghee, one for milk, and one to bring milk to her sister. When she told her husband what she had done, he started to shout at her, angry that she had not asked his permission to buy the pots and bring milk to her sister. Gopal heard the shouting and aksed what the trouble was. When his neighbor explained that his wife had not asked permission to bring milk from their cow to her sister, Gopal accused his neighbor of letting his cow ruin his vegetable patch and started to beat him. Then they all realized that Gopal did not have a vegetable patch and the couple did not have a cow. It was supposed to be funny, but it took a while to figure out the joke :). I had to explain vocab words like 'day dream' and 'thrashing' but the girls knew most of the english in the story. It was a lot of fun.
On sunday Suraiya and I went to see Dus, the latest hit Hindi film. We had no idea what the plot was since niether of us spoke very good hindi, so we made it up as we went along. We think the plot centered around members of an Indian anti-terrorist organizaiton that was trying to prevent terrorists from bombing a canadian football stadium. The highlight of our experience was a seemingly endless commercial during intermission where this woman said over and over again that the solution to all life's problems was to 'drink good milk from the carton.'
Being in Delhi for this past week has been wonderful. I am researching governance and primary education, and have had some interesting meetings with people working at the National Institute for Education Planning, the Centre for Equity studies, JNU, and the Delhi School of Economics. I decided to compare education policies in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab, and then visit schools to try to get a sense of the quality of education at the government schools. I only have a month left, and I wish I had more time!
Saturday I went to a government school for girls in a poor community adjacent to the Red fort. I sat in on a grade 12 english class. Most of the girls' parents had not attended more than primary school and almost all came from very large Muslim families. It was impressive that they had made it so far through the system, and planned to continue their studies after grade 12 in order to become teachers. They said that many of their classmates had stopped coming to school because their family thought it was unimportant for them to be so educated.
After interviewing the students, I spoke with a few teachers about their experience at the school, and then went to observe a sixth grade class. The English teacher didn't show up and so Bubbly aunty (a family friend who taught at the school) told me to teach the english lesson. The next teacher also was absent so instead of the substitute teacher, I ended up teaching english for an hour and half to thirty eleven year olds. We read a story about a man named Gopal. Gopal had neighbors who were day dreamers. In particular, the couple dreamed of a day when they would have enough money to buy a cow. Caught up in her dream, the wife bought four pots, one for butter, one for ghee, one for milk, and one to bring milk to her sister. When she told her husband what she had done, he started to shout at her, angry that she had not asked his permission to buy the pots and bring milk to her sister. Gopal heard the shouting and aksed what the trouble was. When his neighbor explained that his wife had not asked permission to bring milk from their cow to her sister, Gopal accused his neighbor of letting his cow ruin his vegetable patch and started to beat him. Then they all realized that Gopal did not have a vegetable patch and the couple did not have a cow. It was supposed to be funny, but it took a while to figure out the joke :). I had to explain vocab words like 'day dream' and 'thrashing' but the girls knew most of the english in the story. It was a lot of fun.
On sunday Suraiya and I went to see Dus, the latest hit Hindi film. We had no idea what the plot was since niether of us spoke very good hindi, so we made it up as we went along. We think the plot centered around members of an Indian anti-terrorist organizaiton that was trying to prevent terrorists from bombing a canadian football stadium. The highlight of our experience was a seemingly endless commercial during intermission where this woman said over and over again that the solution to all life's problems was to 'drink good milk from the carton.'
posted by Elena at 11:22 PM
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