Megan in India: August 2013

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Full Uniform (as promised)!

Head to toe uniform now!

All the girls in my standard dislike the uniform, but I like not having to think in the morning about what I'm going to wear that day. It is too time consuming and I feel pressure to look my best everyday. Putting on the uniform every morning is so much easier. Also, people in the U.S. often judge a person just based on how they dress, at least in my experience, and here that is eliminated in schools. Everyone is unified and equal. With such a disparity between the wealthy and poor in the county, uniforms are all the more important. If your more interested, here's a more detailed essay I found about the benefits of school uniforms in India:

http://www.thinkvidya.com/a/the-benefits-of-school-uniforms-in-india

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Sanskar vs. ConVal

I have been keeping a list of observations in the back of my school notebook about the various differences between my school experience here in India at Sanskar Vidya Bhavan School versus my experiences at ConVal, SMS, and PES. It's grown to be quite long. Everyday I add about a page and all the students in my class get a kick out of reading it, so I thought you might enjoy what I have written so far.

School Set-up

School seems harder here. Advanced lessons rely heavily on memorization and individual study. Indians have to study hard because they have to memorize tens of chapters of information per subject for their exams.
School is 6 days a week for my standard. Saturday is a half-day.
School begins at 7:30 am (bus comes at 7ish, but I have to be ready by around 6:30) and ends at 1:00 pm (I get home by 1:45).
My bus is a coach bus, but there are all varieties of (all private) transportation. Rickshaws, vans, some kids ride on bikes or mopeds with their parents, or are dropped off by car.
Textbooks seem to be the same across the board for standards. For example our bio book says 11th standard, as does our english text book. There is no picking and choosing of the curriculum by teachers.
Standards or grade levels, are assigned one classroom, students only leave for computer programming class, Hindi, and labs.
There are four levels of private schools here:

State Board - hard
CBSE (my school) - harder
International Board (ICSE) - hardest

Public schools are not a good source of an education and usually do not lead to university. Mostly poor children attend them just to be fed a meal for free by the government.
Students in private schools can either study commerce, science (biology or maths [that's right--not math]). My school only offers science.
Commerce leads to certified accounting, biology leads to becoming a doctor, and maths leads to becoming an engineer. It seems like everyone I meet here is an engineer.

Teaching

Teachers are referred to by either "Ma'am" or "Sir"
Teachers seems to be strict and loud while teaching. Two of my teachers yell/scream "Yes!!!???" at random intervals to get the attention of the class. To punish they either move chatty pupils or ask them do they know the material?, is that why they're talking?, and ask them up to show it on the board (a smart board by the way)
Teaching is very verbal, somewhat visual, but rarely hands on. There are no classroom activities or independent assignments during the lesson, just lectures.
Teachers expect students to speak answers aloud without being called on. Hands are raised only for asking questions (along with calls of "sir!" or "ma'am!", which the teacher answers individually while other students talk.
The teachers repeats themselves a lot when they are saying something that needs to be memorized. Which apparently is everything.
The teachers also do this unique thing where they say everything kind of slowly and adamantly and then put emphasis on the second to last word before dropping the last word a few seconds later. That's the best way I can describe it. It's like they are waiting for the students to volunteer the last word or say the entire phrase with them.
The smart board is used for writing things the students are recommended, but not required to copy down. Students do need to follow along in their textbooks however. The board is rarely used for much else. Only the occasional poor quality video. One student is dedicated to look after all things technological for the teacher. However, technical difficulties are still common.
There is a LIZARD living behind the smart board! This makes me very excited when I see it :)
No one uses a calculator, let alone a graphing calculator.
Personal computers and phones are prohibited in the school.
At the end of the class the teacher just leaves.
For large portions of the day the students may be unsupervised. Teachers are often busy and proxies are supposed to come but never show up. For my first three days, I had biology, english, and hindi on the schedule, but didn't actually have the class until the fourth day.

Students

THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE: STUDENTS ARE VERY LOUD. All day the talk to each other. During lectures they talk (not whisper) and during breaks it gets so loud everyone has to yell. On the first day this was very hard for me, I am adjusting a bit and can actually focus on what one person is saying to me now.
Students are self-disciplined in their independent studies but often undisciplined in the classroom. As I said, much talking and teasing occurs.
The students are very close, especially within their gender. Most of them have been together for many years, but even the new students this year (4 by my count) are very involved and seem to have many friends. Cliques seem to not exist at all--this is very very nice compared to the U.S. What is unfortunate, however, is that though they are all friends outside of school, they do not hang out a lot because they have to study so much. They all get together maybe once a month. Some do call each other to talk everyday though.
There is a uniform. It is different for gujarati medium and english medium students. The gujarati medium uniform is red and orange plaid shirt with a brown frock or pants (shorts for boys 6th and younger), while the english medium uniform is white button up short sleeve shirt with a grey frock or pants (shorts for boys 6th and under). All students wear black shoes and white socks.
Everyday a girls hair must be in two braids (chotis) tied with white ribbon.
On Mondays there a house uniforms. Students are placed in different house (a little like Hogwarts!!!) and they are expected to have house pride during certain activities and competitions. I have not been given a house yet, so I do not have the uniform. White shoes are worn these days.
Students also have ID cards they wear on school themed lanyards every day. These cards have their photo, dob, address, and phone numbers.

Tests

Exams are given at certain points during the year and students must use textbook language, word-for-word in essay style answers to receive full marks. Writing things in your own words is not important like it is at Conval, it's discouraged. Points are actually docked for deviation from the textbook.
Exams, cgpa, and marks solely determine which universities you can go to. One can become a doctor at university in just 3-4 years, there is no undergrad before medical school) or an engineer in 4.
Grades on practicals (subject tests, like unit tests to check competency) are announced to the whole class and when they are not, students share their grades with everyone anyways.
Grades are definitely not as inflated as at ConVal. Students are just happy when they pass, no one gets even close to perfect marks. 56 out of 70 is the highest I've have heard of so far. 23/70 was considered passing on the most recent test.

Classroom

When a student returns to the class and a teacher is present, they must hold out their hand in front of them and request permission to enter the class before coming in.
Old fashioned benches (combo desk and seat) not tables and chairs are used in every classroom. Two students sit at each. They are also terribly uncomfortable.
There do not seem to be assigned seats.
Attendance is taken during the first period a teacher is present. Students say "present (ma'am or sir)" not "here". Marie's and my attendance are not recorded. We also aren't punished for any uniform deviations, though we are expected to wear it. We are considered guests.

AND THIS IS ONLY FOUR DAYS IN!

Sanskar Vidya Bhavan School: An Overview

I am currently attending Sanskar Vidya Bhavan School in Bharuch. I am in the 11th standard (grade) and my subjects are Biology, Hindi, Chemistry, Physics, and English. The school is composed of an English medium school and a Gujarati medium school. I am in the english medium school. This is nice as all my classmates speak english and I can more easily make friends. Classes are also taught in english (except Hindi) so I can follow along somewhat too. There are about 40 students in my standard, we all stay in one classroom the majority of the day and the teachers come to us. There are nine periods a day with a snack break after 4th at 10 am and another short break after 6th. Everyday of the week there is a different schedule for classes.

Here's a picture of my school (from the school website, as I can't bring my camera to school):

The entrance to the school is to the left of this photo and my classroom is on the first floor if you look straight through the gate.

The School Seal is in the upper left corner.

Me in my uniform on the second day! (Missing belt, shoes, and socks--will post another picture when I have all three)

Imagine this path crowded with students of all ages in uniform, that's my walk to school from the bus in the morning and back to the bus in the afternoon.

The reason Marie and I go to Sanskar is the head is a rotarian.

I received what is hanging around my neck on the first day as a welcome from our standard's head teacher. It is made of khadi, the hand-spun cloth Gandhi promoted making as a gesture of self-reliance.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Mumbai!!!

My first post from India was long and I have realized, from looking at other student's blogs, that what people most want to see are photos, so here is a post dedicated to photos from my four day trip to Mumbai (Bombay). We went to see my host brothers off on their flights to the U.S., but we also saw many famous sights and I met many extended family members. Here are the pics!