Bangalore School Visits
I visited two schools in Bangalore. I was at each school for only a couple of hours, so I am reluctant to make snap judgements or sweeping generalizations about all I saw and more importantly, all I did not see. My initial impression was one of surprise at how different the schools seem to operate as well as a bit of sadness brought about by the difference in their buildings and resources. We first visited one of the oldest schools in Bangalore which is run by a charity for students who may not be able to pay tuition. Many students will spend their entire school career at the same school. The students were excited to meet with us and they posed for selfie after selfie. We loved their energy and we would have loved spending more time just chatting with them. The teachers were clearly working hard to meet the needs of their students, but they shared with us that many challenges and obstacles impede their progress. As in America, poverty is often a barrier to success. Another obstacle American teachers know well is the intrusion of government officials with little or no training in the area of education. Teachers were quick to point out that what they are ordered to do is often not in the best interest of the students. Lastly, I was a bit taken back by the lunch time monitor who walked around with a stick. He seemed to “poke” students with the stick if they were not behaving in a he preferred. I could not make sense of the “rules” or where mistakes were being made, but he was quick to “poke” for what seemed like typical kid behavior to me. Next, we visited an Army Public School and public in India means private. This building and the grounds surrounding it were quite lush compared to the charity school. The students were incredibly well spoken and offered great questions and responses during our panel discussion. We met two recent grads who spent the last year in the US at a university. It was clear that these students are confident they will be going on to college/university and that they will be future leaders. We often see differences in schools in the US, but it is rare to see such stark differences within just a few miles of each other. It is true that all students in India are offered the opportunity to attend school, but there are a variety of types of schools and levels of success within those schools.
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Jane PhillipsJane Phillips is a teacher at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan. In the summer of 2017, she travelled to India with the U.S. State Department as part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program. Archives
August 2017
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