Learning to be a great teacher

Staying Power

The school year ended two days ago after a long six weeks at work. I brought in my birthday early with family and flew out yesterday to start my internship with 3.2.1. Although I met Hatim for a quick bit in the morning I also met the new team and we hit the road again for the guest house in Vasind where we’re staying and began sessions with the 3.2.1 team. My phone network ran aground and I had no internet. I felt slightly stranded. The night for us ended at 1 and the day today began at 0630. And this is at a fantastic new start where the energy is super high. 

It only hit me at 5 pm today that I was drained. Emotionally, physically and mentally. I’d left my family behind (the four of us together after some 3 / 4 years), was celebrating my birthday with new people, I had not slept long enough for days and I was starting a new role after juggling end of school. 
I actually juggled with my phone and called my family to say I was missing them and almost got up and told the team - hey guys, I am sorry but I want to catch the next flight home. 

But then sessions ended at 6 and I took out my running shoes and got myself a solid workout. As I was working outpost my run, I was under an orange tree. In the fading light the ripe oranges fell with soft thud in the grass around me. As the endorphins coursed through me and I approached the evening more calmly I realized I might have some staying power to take it easy and see the next few days through one at a time. Almost like a riper orange than I was a few years ago. 

A sweet metaphor for a man who just celebrated a birthday. 

I am here doing what I really want. We’re trying to scale an excellent class to an excellent school system. I love the team, the school philosophy and the sessions. Its work I know I’d be proud to be a part of. I need to dig in and stay.  

And - Vasind is 74 km out of Mumbai, near a village, lovely fields of hay and some hills in the distance. It might just be the place to stay and catch my breath for a couple of days. I am glad I could pause and take a level headed call. 

 

Third field trip! A dream comes true

What feels like many years ago, but was actually August 2011, we discussed big goals for class. I was new to school and planning but I had realized my kids needed dollops of exposure and seeing life around them. And I knew in my heart I wanted to make three class field trips happen.

We did a trip to the zoo first up and then followed it up with a visit to the NCC Army day parade. Thanks to so many wonderful friends and people and family those tips went off well. Tomorrow though we head on our third and final class trip of the year to the Garden of Five Senses. 

It might be a place close to school and the logistics are not intense but its the most fitting. We've just built a garden in school and finished a unit on nature and teamwork. We have been trying to set an example of excellence with the naturescapes we showcased. The class is called the Explorers and we're exploring out neighbourhood now. We're making the trip happen just in time for summer break. Its a learning trip - the kids will take notes and based on this real vision of excellence decide how their garden in school evolves.

I am psyched. A lot of luck and good karma has played a role in making this happen but I hope the kids love the trip and we make the most of it. More than anything else I am really grateful that the metric I set myself in the beginning of the year has stood the test of my judgement and that things have evolved so beautifully.

PS - other teachers have slowly joined up in helping with the work around the school and the garden. And the horticulturist at the Garden of Five Senses has offered to help us with advice too!

Putting an excellent wrap on year one

We just closed last Saturday with a small year end showcase to inaugurate 2 sets of boards the kids had painted and also open the first phase of the Hakuna-ma-tata garden behind school for the kids. 

Here is a video that talks about how I felt as we were wrapping up a long day of showcase and celebrations and two weeks of effort it took to get it together. (More impressions and photos to follow)

(download)

 


As I mentioned in the video - just over two fortnights ago, at the end of the year summit, Arun Kapoor made me think about education but it was Shaheen, our CEO who urged us to be excellent in the last six weeks of year one that caught my resolve. 

It was important to leave the kids on an excellent note because

- in 7 months we’d achieved between 1 and 1.5 years of growth of some sort in Math and English

- We’d done two class trips (to the zoo and then to the NCC Army Day Parade) in under seven months

- We had gone from an avg 60% attendance to 85% + attendance

- We’d built a garden in school, raised money towards our fundraising targets and welcomed over 10 visitors in class who’d held sessions with us (Punit, Chandini, Robert, Nivedita, Myna and Ahana, Sumeet Bhaiya, Anjali, Jessica and Anushka etc)

By the time I attended end of year summit with Shaheen, the project to paint 6 3’ by 3’ boards was underway but the outreach around it or the theme supporting it missing. With the help of Becoming I and Niharika we closed a stellar event because

- The kids got up in front of the school for the second time in 2 weeks to conduct a special assembly

- 16 kids got on stage to do a short skit on nature and teamwork (all in english, of course!) – actions, props et al

- Two kids spoke about the painted boards, in Hindi and English, and it did not seem like it was learnt by rote

- The arthritis ridden HeadMistress (HM) climbed 20 stairs to inaugurate the painted boards

- 17 parents turned up and two spoke impromptu when asked by the HM

- Prabhat’s father Dinesh, helped put up the boards. Sabina’s father Hakim painted the railings leading up the school stairs

- We had the whole school up on its feet for the inauguration ceremony and unveiling

- And because with curtains to unveil it, a proper thank you address, external participation and the whole school – this was a definitive public first step from self  classroom  school for me

These bullets hide the subtleties. We’d been learning about nature and teamwork for four weeks. Painting the boards on the forest and underwater brought the theme and practice together. The kids now know their work is excellent enough to be showcased and put up in front of the whole school. The kids are learning to help each other independently of me exhorting to do so. Vijay gently prompted Bittoo on stage while they spoke about Nature and the boards.  

In ten days, The Explorers head for their 2012 summer vacation. That ends one academic year with me and we have one to go. But I think while they might forget their Math drills or English vocab; they’ll remember our field trips, the process of painting and the inauguration, the garden and how its changing the school landscape and the bhaiya’s exhortation to work in a team. 

A good note to end year one on; here’s to killer planning for year two. 

I need to walk the extra mile

I'm reaching a point in my journey as a teacher where how I think about life is merging with my evolution as a teacher. The changes I want to make to my life apply equally and more urgently to my career as a teacher or my need to be excellent at my craft. I have 10 months to put my kids on a diametrically different life path. 

Focus and discipline unleashes potential and I am struggling to keep my head down on the discipline. I am impatient when long term plans don’t come to me or when I struggle to put my thoughts down on paper. I find it tough to get across to colleagues on what deficiencies I see. I fight with an old demon – holding others to very high standards- I need to fight a lot of this solo and lead by exmaple. I find it hard to juggle all the thoughts that come to my head and am bad at delegating tasks out to people who can help me. I need to fix all these traits and habits.

For the next 10 months or so; barring impending issues like what I want to do post Fellowship and making my (plausible) climb in Ladakh happen I need to cut out all chaff in life and work on excellence in class (and thereby unlock the potential in me and my kids).

While a lot of excellence can come from extensive reading on excellent classrooms and schools, relentless work towards my goals for the year, brilliant structures - tracking systems in class… at the core lies great habits and routines for myself. i.e. religiously sleeping eight hours a day, short and efficient work sessions, plenty of exercise, cutting out generic social 'hanging out' (Birthday do's, non core family dinners). It’s like Padukone on the five year sanyaas before he won the All England Championship – I need my 10 months to live, breathe and manage growing excellence in class – to envision it, plan for it and then make it happen. 

Being in class can be very naked. Each reaction you have can be a mirror to your wiring. But more and more I think of it, I want to work on that wiring and make it the best there is. My kids deserve a much better me.

Sibling love and new school environments

Neetu_and_ravi

Ravi, Neetu’s four year old toddling brother came into school with Neetu today. He’s a recent admit into nursery. He refused to leave her side and waddled into my class and sat there all day. He’s slightly afraid to talk to me as I tower over him. But I was happy to let him be in my class. And when he cried this afternoon he got a sweet for keeping quiet so that I could proceed with my own class. He high fived me at the end of the day and began to talk a little.

Little does Ravi know I see myself in him. Many many years ago, my sister and I changed schools every year. And the new school always fazed me. I also used to sneak into my sisters class the initial few days and pretend to be a part of that class. And my sister is younger, so I effectively went into Kindergarten to just be with someone familiar. Neetu is at least five years older to Ravi. 

As Ravi sat there quietly taking stabs at the notebook, mimicking what the grade three kids did and seemed happier through the day; I felt pride in making him feel at home. I know how strange a new school feels little one, I know.

Earlier in the day though, I was completely thrown by another kid. Jyoti is Rahul’s younger sister and they’re both new admits to school. Jyoti was wailing loudly in assembly and my attempts to calm her down had an opposite effect. She threw herself on the floor, ran outside school, spat on me and just threw a huge tantrum. 

Admittedly I was underslept and ruffled in the morning but as she struggled out of my grasp and ran away from school yelling I was completely shaken. I thought I could be calming and shush a child down but this one I could not help. The funny thing is she was back hanging out at school and few hours later, eying me curiously. I did not have the strength to go up and say hello! I was scared she’d wail me out again.  

(The picture here is Ravi sitting next to Neetu as the kids file into class post recess)

Its beginning to come together

All the education talks (I'd been attending or going to) making sense seemed like one-off events until I read Anurag Behar's article in the Mint yesterday. As he highlighted the common mis-perceptions around the ed. problem and the lack of 'silver bullets' to fix it, I realized the journey I had traversed over the course of year one of my Fellowship. I prescribed to some of these silver bullets too in a sense and now I might know better. 

Earlier this year I was at Howard Gardner's talk on multiple intelligence's in Delhi. Vineet summarizes the talk here well. That talk made intuitive sense. Then Arun Kapur from Vasant Valley made a few points about ed. at the year end summit at TFI, Delhi. His three pronged approach to 'wholistic' ed with Sanskriti, Karma and Prakriti seemed like the way I'd thought about ed. all along without articulating it as such. And then of course the articles friends send in on incremental improvement across schools that results in excellence and talks at TFI about ed. - they all add up. Ranging from curriculum to pedagogy and theories around improvement of schools and impact - the different pieces of ed. are slowly beginning to click together. 

This is an important realization.

It is important because as someone said - "as potential leaders / managers / problem solvers / entrepreneurs we tend to over simplify issues and believe we can fix all in a business cycle or a few cycles". Quarterly results and numbers dominate etc... but these problems are vast, complex, diverse and need individual addressing. And the ed. problem is vast and it need clear attention with high focus and a long term view.

Also, I personally, have felt the need to specialize. To understand small pieces and have the depth in a few to begin to piece things together. I never felt that need for software or business development or tech. With ed. I do. 

This makes me think about my next steps. What I want to be oriented towards, where I need depth and what I want to try and fix.And that is a good path to be on. To seek depth and seek solutions and understanding. This is what I mean when I say this job could be potentially life changing... it could determine in many ways what I seek to understand and solve. And I am liking getting here...

Jyoti is leaving and I don't know what to do

What do you do when you discover your top kid is leaving school? What do you do when it hits you that the three kids dropped out during the school year were girls? I am asking myself the "what will I do about it" question and have a sinking feeling that I have few solutions.

Jyoti top scored on our beginning of year assessment. She's grown from strength to strength in English. I am in love with her youngest sister Shweta in nursery and admire the stoic nature of Mamta her eldest sibling. And now they're moving to an area 5 km away cause their father cannot afford the rent here in Said-ul-Ajab. 

Nandini left cause her father moved the family back to the village. Muskaan left for the same reason. Every child who drops out is a heartbreak and I feel helpless. 

This time though I want to dig in and convince Kali Kamati to hang in there but I do not know how I will fight this one through. With Jyoti going Vijay will lose the one buddy he has in learning. I will lose the 'morning bhaiya' and the confidence someone is getting my English rambling and I will miss seeing the sister trio in breaktime and I will lose my politest parent. 

They're moving to a house 2.5 km away. How can I make them stay. Show them the benefit of my classroom, help them realize that maybe staying in the same school helps the kids. It seems pitifully self centered when clearly the family is struggling with bigger issues but I am not sure if I am ready for this heartbreak. Its going to be a toughie. 

Nature takes all

When I interviewed with Teach for India around a year ago they pushed me to answer what I would leave the Fellowship for. I told them I would not because I’d arrived at this point through what felt like an irrevocable process. They still pushed and I told them that if anyone wrote me a cheque to train and climb mountains for two years I’d leave in a heartbeat. I loved the jaw drop on the other side.

I love nature. I grew up in the mountains and Army cantonments. The former is nature in the face and the latter manicures the environment. I loved going to the zoo more than my kids, I’ve admired many a sunset in my car’s rearview mirror driving in Delhi and I’ve lately been caught commenting on the beauty of a lizard’s eyes. But for the first time I am creating nature close to me rather than running away to it.

Its been a MAD 6 weeks since. However, between revision, end of year assessments, corrections, extra art classes, tying up a summer internship and all the insane things one does as a teacher I’ve been able to pull off the idea of building a garden in school with my kids. 

It started off as a lets plant grass in the backyard to reduce the dust but then my HM got excited, the kids loved the idea, I spoke to a friend, my kid’s parents and Swechha stepped in. We’re now building a garden with a hedge, creepers on the walls, bamboo trees, a compost pit and hopefully a play area!  

Yes, I have struggled getting the parents of the kids on board as much as I’d like, I have spluttered at the thought of possibly buying plants for a few thousand rupees or buying soil  but I have loved the process. 

Today as I sweltered under the hot April sun laying our first flowerbed and music played in the background I knew I was going home to one of the deepest spots in my heart. I was going to show my kids what joy there is in creating something. We’ve got a pretty stellar timeline here and some pictures over here for you to check out how we’ve been doing. 

More than anything else I think it plays to my kids wiring of ‘doing’ something than talking about it and I think there is enormous potential to tap here academically – my HM is already talking of putting up an hour a week for each class to do EVS practically and outside! 

For the Explorers that is not all – we’ve got four projects lined up. More news on that and updates to follow.

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bam! January 2012 has gone

31st January. Half day at work. End of month one of 2012. 

Highs: Two kids speaking 9.5 and 7 sentences in English. Kids learning phonics well. A class trip to the NCC PM's rally. Green shoots with the community involvement in class 
Lows: Wipe -out at addition with carry-over. See-sawing attendance. 

The highs outweigh the lows! One rolls with the punches and struggles to retain a balance with life outside the classroom. What excites me the most right now is growing the community involvement with the school to clean up the school, plant grass, water the grounds, install computers etc. Lets see how things go.

Personally though, its been a tough two weeks back at school. I've seen my kids go further. I've walked out of two review meetings heartened professionally but internally its lonely for the lack of a better way to put it. And that is a hard hard gap to fill. It reflects in class, my inability to sleep well and may come down to irregular exercise. Maybe it would be nice if I was more disciplined but it may be nice too if the path to self discovery and being better at something was not not so hard too. 

Maybe. I have always said powerful experiences are great but sometimes you just want to sit down with a hot chocolate and friends and people you love and stare into a log fire and not have to worry. And I don't know why but that seems missing.

Explorers at the NCC Prime Minister's Rally!

The kids, Nanki, Niharika and I went to the NCC Prime Ministers Rally. A lot of my kids want to go be in the Army, this was a chance to get them to see tanks, helicopters, marching, a cultural show and maybe somewhere set some view on decorum and orderliness.

Its always a surprise to see how little the kids are sometimes exposed to what is so normal to me / us. The route we took through the city is pretty much my drive to and fro school everyday and the kids gasped at buildings, some hoardings, yelled in glee when the bus went over the flyover and let loose some choicest bollywood numbers.

I believe deeply that I need to find a structure that makes me hit 80% of my class everytime when I am teaching something. I also need to sharpen my skills to be a great teacher and differntiate my teaching, cater to different learning ways and be engaging. But there's nothing that replaces exposure. Or powerful experiences.

We're reaching end of year one. And now I'm beginning to get a hang of structures, planning, my community etc to think on the lines of what I want to leave my kids with. I've been speaking to lots of people and I think the nuggets of the planning for year two start now.

Don't get me wrong - I'm still focused a lot on year one ending. Infact the last ten days in class have been a recalibration to teaching all day. I'm in the midst of a pen on paper breakdown of things that make up language and math teaching and systems that will drive a superb 5 weeks but I know I need to leave the kids with something big.

Seeing the kids outside class made me realize just how much needs to change before they can process and communicate and leverage what is being taught in class. I need to take the world to the class room.

My moment of the day though was winding back home, getting the maid's kids up on the terrace and sitting on the sun warmed floor with them. As I ate a late lunch and they a katori each of sweet but healthy gajak, the world was a simple happy place. The youngest one, at two also took a swig of my cold coffee and asked for another few sips. I learn from the abandon the kids have, everyday. And realize how leading by example, they give me a shot at lessening my anger, increasing my patience and living each moment as it comes. I'll be a better man for this experience.