Teaching

We have finished our first couple of weeks of teaching and although there have been some challenging moments, it has mostly been really fun and rewarding. I have been teaching English, French and Music to children aged from 3 to 15. We are teaching from 8:30-3:30 on Monday to Friday and from 8:30-12:30 on Saturday.

Some of my favourite parts of teaching in the past 2 weeks have been:

• ·         Teaching 2^nd standard how to introduce themselves in French and them remembering it all when I tested them on it the next lesson. They even said they’d taught it to their parents!
• ·         Reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ to kindergarten- they loved the pictures!
• ·         Teaching the ‘Hokey Cokey’ to 1st standard and seeing how much they loved running into the middle of the circle.
• ·         Being taught Hindi and Telegu by 7^th standard.
• ·         The kids shouting “bonjour madam” and “merci” whenever they see me and Izzy.
• ·         Playing a very confusing game with 3^rd standard which they taught us, we still didn’t understand it by the end, but that made it more fun!
• ·         Telling 1^st standard to carry on with the work we were doing on animals while I went to get a cup of tea, and coming back to find one of the boys writing a relevant sentence on the board and everyone else copying it down.
• ·         Seeing 7^th standard creating ‘A Foreigners Guide to India’ and putting so much time and effort into it.
• ·         One of the boys in 1^st standard called John Michael doing a really good picture of a lion and being so proud when I put it up on the wall.
• ·         Teaching ‘Twinkle twinkle’ to a group of students and teachers on the piano!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

There have also been some challenges:

• ·         Trying to control 1^st and 2^nd standard when I was teaching them music together in the hall and they kept running off and chasing each other!
• ·         Thinking of lessons on the spot when someone tells you to go and teach a class that you don’t know and aren't on your timetable.
• ·         Seeing other teachers hitting children, which is really upsetting.
• ·         The flexibility of the timetable and time keeping, which makes it hard to know what’s going on!
• ·         Lack of resources in the school, like it’s really hard to even get any plain white paper to do drawing on.
• ·         Teaching Sunday school with no preparation at all and a massive class full of kids of different ages!

However, I think the good things definitely outweigh the challenges, and some of the challenges are cultural norms that we need to get used to, or things that will improve over time. So overall I am very positive about our teaching, and we have some really cool ideas for lessons and projects which I'm really looking forward to doing!

We’re going away for a few days tomorrow to help at a travelling medical clinic. It goes to remote villages where there isn't much adequate medical care and sets up clinics. We’re really excited about it, and I’ll write about what we see there when we get back!

We're here!

On 11^th January, Izzy, Jade, Abbie and I finally arrived in India! It is the most amazing and exciting country I have ever been to, from seeing whole families piled onto motorbikes, men running into the traffic carrying goats and the constant beeping and swerving on the roads, there’s always something completely mad going on! Home from home really! After a few days of orientation and sleep in Hyderabad, we set off for Bangalore. Our hosts Vinay and Sandia met us at the airport and drove us to their house in the village of Kadugudi on the outskirts of Bangalore. The highlights of the journey were seeing a monkey sitting with a group of men by the road eating bananas and stopping at a level crossing, where a family noticed us and started shouting “white girls, white girls!”

Me and Izzy are staying in a newly built flat with Vinay, the headmaster of the school we’re teaching in and pastor of the local church, his wife Sandia and Rani, their 19 year old daughter. It’s really nice to be with a family, especially as Sandia’s cooking is amazing! She has promised to teach us how to cook some Indian dishes, so hopefully we’ll be expert cooks when we get back!

Our address is:
Adams English High School

2 Church Street

Opp. Sandy Bazaar

Kadugudi

Bangalore- 560067
Karnataka

India

Kadugudi is a small village, and the closest town is called Whitefield, where there is a train station. We are about 25km outside Bangalore, but it takes quite a long time to get there because the traffic is crazy! Rani and Vinay took us shopping for Indian clothes earlier in the week, which was really fun and now we fit in a bit more!

The school we’re teaching in is called Adam’s English High School, and it goes from nursery (age 3) to 10^th standard (age 16), and we’re teaching all classes apart from 9^th and 10^th standard. The kids are really nice and they all stand up and say “Good Morning Madam” when we go into their classrooms! We have taught a few lessons with them, but I am planning on writing another post about teaching when we have finished our first full week.

I am having a great time already and I can’t wait for all of the adventures we’re going to have in the next seven months!

The story so far...

In January 2015 I will be travelling to India to volunteer for eight months in a school, with an organisation called Project Trust. Project Trust is an educational charity based on the Isle of Coll, a remote Hebridean island. They have been sending young people overseas for volunteering projects since 1967. Project Trust has a very rigorous selection process which includes a five day residential on the Isle of Coll. This is designed to take young people out of their comfort zone and see how they react when faced with difficult situations.

I went on my selection course in the Easter holidays and really enjoyed myself. We all stayed with local families and were told that we needed to find out as much out about life on the Isle of Coll as possible from them, as we had to give a presentation to the rest of the group at the end of the week. Our host family were strongly involved in the recycling scheme on the island, Recycoll, which is important to the island, as it reduces the costs of transporting rubbish on and off the island by boat, so we talked about this in our presentation. As well as presentations we had to teach a lesson, as many of the volunteering projects are based in schools, dig lazy beds, (raised beds with drainage ditches used in remote communities because of lack of soil), volunteer in the community and climb up to the highest point on the island. The selection course ended with a ceilidh which was really fun!

A week later I received a letter from Project Trust saying that they had selected me to go to India and I needed to start fundraising to reach my £4870 target before January. I started my fundraising in July, after my A-levels, and at the end of November I finally reached my target. I began by offering to bake and cook things for people and do jobs such as babysitting and gardening. I started applying for jobs, and finally got accepted by ASDA to work in their chilled department, not good preparation for going to India! I also wrote an article for my church magazine, which said about what I was doing and gave details of my fundraising page. I had overwhelming support from everyone in my church, and many people asked me to do jobs for them and gave me donations. Many people also gave me suggestions for fundraising, especially my god-mother, who has been so helpful all the way through the process. I also began writing to charitable trusts and creating a leaflet. I had lots of responses from trusts, meaning that I was able to raise £2625, which was amazing and I am so grateful for their generosity! The trusts which gave to me were:

·        York Ainsty Rotary Club- £300

·        The Alchemy Foundation- £100

·        The Mahavir Trust- £75

·        The Roger Vere Foundation- £100

·        The Lynn Foundation- £500

·        York Lions- £100

·        The Allan and Nesta Ferguson Foundation- £300

·        The Nichol Young Foundation- £500

·        The Robert Kiln Trust- £200

·        The Souter Charitable Trust- £250

·        Sir John and Lady Amory’s Charitable Trust- £200

I am also really grateful for the donations given by friends and family over the past six months, it has been great to have so much support from everyone! My job at ASDA has also been really useful for raising money. My final fundraising event was a curry lunch, which I held on 30^th November in St Olave’s Church hall. With a lot of help from my parents and friends we managed to make and serve up 6 different types of curry to about 40 people. After we had eaten I did a little presentation about my project and fundraising and thanked all the people who have helped me.

From 2^nd to 6^th December I braved the stormy weather to return to the Isle of Coll for my training course. We had a very intense few days learning about our projects, meeting our partners and being warned about dangerous and upsetting situations we may face whilst abroad, and how to deal with them. We also had workshops on teaching methods and classroom control and we taught a 10 and 20 minute lesson to the rest of our country group. It was really nice to meet everyone again, and the workshops made me really excited about going to India.

Since returning I have had lots of jabs, bought many classic children’s books, stickers, pencils and other teaching resources and got other essentials such a mosquito net, sensible sandals and a big rucksack. I am now just over a week away from leaving, our flight leaves on 10^th January and I will be travelling to London the night before. I am still waiting for my visa to come, which is a bit of a worry, but we still have time! I am so nervous about going but I am also excited for the challenges and amazing adventures we will have. I know I wouldn't be here without all of the help from my wonderful family and friends, so I want to say a massive thank you to all of you!