Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset, and More

Pictures from my trip to the Sundarbans are finally up!  There are far too many sunrise and sunset photos (cue Fiddler on the Roof overture apparently), but I just could not decide which ones to select.  So I chose about 150 photos from a weekend of over 400 photos.  You can see them all HERE (click on link).  It was an excellent weekend, and I hope you find the photos as interesting as I did.  Enjoy!

Thoughts on Education

I am not, of course, an expert on education or on Indian education in particular.  However, the past few months have led me, a future teacher, to wonder at both the good and the bad of education in India.  I will try to keep my thoughts relatively brief, but I do have worlds of thoughts/opinions to share.


Right to Education: I think it is admirable that the Indian government has determined that education falls under the constitutional right to freedom.  In guaranteeing free and compulsory education, the government has taken steps toward addressing the persistence of poverty that illiteracy maintains.  Unfortunately, this right is difficult to maintain, especially in India.  There are far too many children to ensure that each has access to education.  Moreover, the system is such that an education in English is necessary to attend college or gain a well-paying job after school.  The free schools teach in Hindi, Bengali, or other local languages.  This perpetrates a system where generations maintain either wealth or poverty with limited room for economic movement.  Anyone with money sends children to private, English-medium schools.  Those without must be content without English.  The desire to educate everyone recognizes excellent goals, but the system leaves room for improvement.  Then again, the United States has encountered some similar but less visible challenges.


Loreto Day Sealdah: As per a required service-learning class, I have been volunteering this semester with a private girls’ school.  Loreto Day Sealdah has taken huge steps towards addressing some of the issues in India’s education.  Half of its students live in poverty and attend the English-medium school for free.  This provides opportunities for children to potentially attend college on scholarship or at least qualify for better jobs than their parents’ jobs.  The school also has a program to house street children so that they can attend school (some in English, some in Bengali), with results similar to that with the children from slums.  In addition, a Barefoot Teacher Training program and makeshift schools in brickfields, along railroad tracks, and elsewhere with limited access to education help to reach those children who otherwise would not even receive a minimal education.   The list I have provided is not exhaustive, but you get the picture.  As these programs grow and other schools work to provide similar efforts, India is working actively to improve the current education system.


Villages: I have been to a few villages around West Bengal, and the schools continue to amaze me.  Children I have met are unlikely to ever leave their villages, and yet they take the time to learn reading, writing, math, and more.  Some even learn English, leaving me astounded to speak with children half my age who can hold conversations in Bengali, Hindi, and English depending on the situation.  This also speaks to the power of education without technology.  Certainly, the Internet and other technologies help students to learn.  We have developed very high standards for students in the United States because there is access to billions of documents at the click of a button.  But when a student needs to know how to speak in a second language or how to sign their name, determined teachers can do without SmartBoards.


Facts: Now onto a subject that deeply frustrates me.  My education has been one based primarily on ideas with the mindset that a good foundation of fundamental concepts and a thorough knowledge of how to seek information on my own combine to give me the skills necessary to remain well-informed for the rest of my life.  India, from my limited experience, places more emphasis on memorization of facts.  It bothers me to see that my classmates at St. Xavier’s College place all emphasis on learning for exams.  Teachers spend entire class periods dictating notes for students to copy word-for-word.  Then, when the teachers try to expand on the topics and students don’t take notes.  An attempt to hold a class discussion the other day resulted in half of the students skipping class because they are not accustomed to sharing their thoughts on issues…in a political science class.  I, on the other hand, have been fortunate enough to attend a college where many of my classes expect us to learn through discussion.  It forces us to consider other perspectives and to be aware of the arguments used for or against certain positions.  I try hard to understand the reasoning behind a primarily fact-based system (classes too large for discussion, students lack the excellent pool of academic resources that CSB/SJU provides, etc.), but it is very difficult.  I do not want to memorize that capitalism is bad or even that it is good.  I want to understand its successes and flaws.  Guide me to a thorough understanding of all arguments, from which I can form an educated opinion.  But maybe that’s just something that the individualistic American culture has instilled in us without our awareness.  I was prepared for lecture, just not for hearing, “I am not suggesting anything.  These are important facts for you to know,” for something I call an opinion.


Wow, this became long!  Sorry about that!  I guess I should not have held these thoughts in for three months, letting them build day-by-day.  But I wanted to share some of these reflections.  As a student studying for a minor in secondary education, I have put quite a bit of thought into opinions regarding the purpose and methods of a good education.  India has shown me things that inspire me as well as a philosophy that is glaringly different from my own.  I hope that this hyperawareness of my own preferences and my continuous attempts to understand another view will help me to become a more effective teacher when I begin student teaching next spring.

Another Batch of Photos

At this point, you know the drill.  I am painfully late in uploading pictures, so this album is of some of the various activities I was up to in February.  The PhotoBucket album is available HERE.  I called it, quite simply, February in Kolkata.  For more information on some of the photos, see some of my blog posts from February, especially:

• Fun in Kolkata
• Santiniketan
• So Much to Experience!

I'll try to get more pictures up soon, especially because I can't wait to share pictures from Holi.  For now, this random jumble of pictures should entertain.

Happy Holi!

Like the picture?  Yes, that's what I looked like yesterday after playing with colors for Holi, a Hindu festival for spring.  This particular festival celebrates the destruction of a horrible demon.  As it is religious, the first step in playing with colors was for our friend Shreya to offer colors to the gods.  However, I'll admit that the religious part was not my particular focus.  I played to have fun with one of the most visually exciting festivals that I am aware of.

Apparently, it can be dangerous to travel on Holi because people celebrate on the streets and put less-washable colors on unwilling victims.  To avoid this, my friend Bekkah and I slept over with Shreya, a friend from St. Xavier's College.  After a delicious, home-cooked breakfast, we donned destroyable clothes and began the process of playing Holi.  To be honest, I was a bit worried about the activity.  People warned that only the dry colors would come off easily.  Wet colors would stain skin for a few days, and none of my black-haired Indian friends knew what the colors would do to light brown hair.  After a couple minutes of blessings with dry colors inside the flat, we went outside to play with wet colors on the lawn of the housing complex.  Before long, everyone was unrecognizable.  Children squirted colors with special sprayers, and Shreya's friends filled buckets to dump on heads.  It was completely chaotic and fun!  We returned to the flat for pictures (no safe place for cameras with all the activity) looking unrecognizable but incredibly happy.

After showers to wash off some of the colors, lunch, and a nap, Shreya's family convinced Bekkah and me to stay for another night of fun.  We went outside to meet her friends after knowing them only as the people dumping color on us.  While outside, the group watched a bonfire to burn the evils of the past year and watched the moon from the observatory.  Then we went back inside for great conversation and more.  I had another great time!

Bekkah and I returned home this morning.  We are exhausted and still a bit colorful, but the experience was well worth it.  My first Holi was a blast!

The Sunderbans

Oh, my, have I ever been busy recently!  I hate to think that I have gone so long withoug blogging, but I simply have not had the time.  In the past few weeks, I have watched a variety of movies, participated in two sleepovers, attended classes, visited a museum, and more.  Most importantly, last weekend was the much anticipated CSB/SJU group excursion to the Sunderbans, the largest delta region in the world.  I had been looking forward to the trip since before coming to India, and reading Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide increased my excitement.  Fortunately, the experience did not disappoint.

The biggest draw for tourists to the Sunderbans is the nature.  We failed to see a Royal Bengal Tiger, but we saw deer, monkeys, and many birds.  More importantly, we saw the unbelievable six meter difference it water level between high tide (pictured above) and low tide.  Entire boats sat on mud during low tide that were easily in water during high tide.  This variation of water levels required that only trees able to be deep in saltwater could survive.  We sat awestruck during boatrides past impressive mangrove trees.  I also loved the sunrise and sunsets that we watched from the boat.  I took many photos but doubt they can come close to equalling the remarkable beauty of the views themeslves.

I also enjoyed the opportunity to learn just a bit about life in villages in the Sunderbans.  We watched a jatra (traditional dramatic performance) of the story of Bono Bibi, a goddess who protects villagers in the Sunderbans.  Oddly enough, Bono Bibi's story originates in Islam, and many of her worshipers are Muslim.  This worship deviates noticeably from the monotheistic expectations of Islam.  We also walked through a village to see villagers' homes and rice farms.  Homes unquestionably fail to meet my standards of preferred living, but the happy children we met do not seem to mind.  Some people bought gamchas (like towels) in the market, and we drank fresh coconut water before riding in rickshaw-trucks (think a motorcycle with a flat wooden rectangle on wheels behind it) back to the jungle camp.

In all, I had a wonderful, relaxing experience in the Sunderbans.  The food was delicious, supplemented by quite a bit of masala chai (tea).  We enjoyed great conversations while on the boat watching beautiful scenery.  Some members of our group even fell asleep on the boat, aided by the warm temperatures.  After living for a while in a busy and tiring city, I was happy to experience a break for a few days.  No travelling to class or museums and ending up exhausted by early afternoon.  Just enjoying ourselves and recouperating for another two months in India.

Cows Eat Garbage

 Yes, that's right: cows eat garbage.  Yesterday, I worked on reading with a ten-year-old girl at the Loreto Day School.  As we tried to complete activities in the reading book that her teacher suggested, we worked on a page that required her to select the appropriate response to complete the sentence.  One question was something along the lines of, "Cows like to eat ______ (toys, grass, sugar)."  In America, most children would say, "grass," automatically because the answer is simply obvious.  I would give that answer, at least.  This girl also knew the answer automatically.  Without looking at the choices, she said, "Garbage!"  And she was right.  The book may disagree, but the many cows that roam the streets of India always eat garbage.

Today is the halfway point of my trip.  Upon reflecting on my first two months in India, it occurs to me that yesterday's amusement provides a good example of what India has meant to me so far.  I came with a firm understanding of what is what and how the world works according to my experiences in Minnesota.  India has forced me to change some of these thoughts and reconsider the obvious.  For example, a quality hotel will not necessarily have a working shower head.  The best food may be not at the cleanest restaurant but at the dirty stand on the street.  And, yes, people can kindly make a path to the metro door even when packed tighter than sardines.

I have unquestionably fallen in love with India.  My list of things I want to see and places I want to visit is so long that some items have already fallen into the "Next Trip to India" category.  But in the end, India's impact on me will not be a matter of remembering great trips and sights.  I will never forget the Taj Mahal, riding camels in the desert, or this weekend's trip to the Sundarbans.  More importantly, I will never forget the little things that made me reconsider the obvious.  The "salt of the earth" is not a tasty addition to food but rather an absolute necessity if food is to be edible, as one homily insisted.  Respectable people can eat rice with their hands rather than with silverware.  Cows, dogs, and cats all like to eat garbage.