Hi Gang - here's what happened during my visit to the chandranagar school today.

I was alone today and it's amazing how richly you observe details while by yourself. Along the way I saw the "Unemployed youth chicken and egg centre" and the "Hearbel beauty parlour". Getting there was a breeze with such landmarks.

I reached at 10am. School was abuzz with activity as the ECI tries to wrap up its voter registration drive in karanataka. For those of you yet to register, Nov 24th is the last day to get your forms in before the drive ends. The ECI had taken over one of the classrooms so the 4th and 5th standards were squeezed into one section. Because of the general crowd of would-be voters on the school premises the playground was full and general commotion persisted. 

I met with Ms. Padmaja and Mr. Shekhar. We spoke briefly about how things were going on. Everything appears tip top. HM was on leave today and I didn't meet the other Asha teacher. ISKON was administering a test to the kids i.e., kids who were enthu could fill in the test paper designed by ISKON and submit the paperwork to Ms. Padmaja. Kids who did well got a token/ merit certificate. Since kids had to volunteer to take it, half the class was busy doing the test while the other half were getting notebooks corrected.

I had made up a game to play with this class. Basically I wanted to give them some idea about how to fill up a form, with their Name, Age, Address etc in English. But I figured getting 40 kids to do this might be chaotic so instead I wanted to divide them into groups and give them playcards to fill in about their favorite movie. They had to record their team name and list all the members of their team,plus their age along with their favourite movie. I wanted to initiate a discussion about movies and talk about story making, characters involved etc. The idea here was to encourage them to talk to me in english about a subject which I thought they might enjoy and not talk about normally. End result - only 15 kids participated in the playcard game since the rest were taking the test. The kids were very resistant to talking in English so instead I just worked on vocabulary. Whatever story line they related I asked the corresponding word in english. It was slow going. This game needs more thinking! One story was about a robbery. I picked this subject up and enquired whether it was right to steal? Whom would you complain to if you lost something to a thief? etc etc. Great news: there was 100% consensus that the police should be informed and are the final authority in dealing with the problem! :)  

Last time I visited I was asked to bring flash cards in english - At the recent bangalore book festival I finally found a set I liked (transport and careers). Ms Padmaja liked them and has asked for more of the set I got. I'm also working on getting some decent A,B, C flash cards. Ram, if you are reading this - will the teachers actually use this stuff? Just curious. I got a hook up with a person in the book festival who works on making this stuff based on teacher feedback etc. I'll dig out that info for anyone interested in following up on this. 

I had a chat with Mr. Anand the science teacher. The school has a microscope, yay! which just made my day. But it was locked up in the HM's little box so I couldn't see how operational it was. since i have a biology background I was trying to assess what I could design for the kids in chemistry/ biology area. next week, if the microscope is fit I plan on doing some onion peel experiment. The science teacher also discouraged me from buying charts. he would really like some models that children can take apart and put back together. he thinks that might be more fun to study the various anatomical and physiological processes. I couldn't agree more. So I am going to talk to a bunch of doctors to see what we can assemble in this area. 

For the Deustch (? spelling) bank folks who want to contribute to stuff in classrooms we can ask for flashcards and models of circulatory system, brain etc. In fact,  I would be happy to work with them on this. 

The other string of info I picked up at the book festival is about Akshyapatra - an ISKOn based intiative to provide healthy, diverse food to the govt schools. I'm going to follow up to see if our school can qualify. I was talking to mom about this and she said that this Akshyapatra consulted with her dietic society to design the menu so I can imagine it's quite nutritious!

Megha