Thursday, 4 March 2010
Peace Garden School and Little Gems Girls Hostel
Day 3 I woke up early at 630 am. Had a cup of tea and biscuits. My breakfast is at 9:15 which consisted of Dhal Bhat. Nothing better than some spicy curry to encourage regular bowel movement in the morning. The local culture is to have two meals a day one in the morning at about 9am and one in the evening at about 6pm. At first I was not too used to this. Hence I had to have another meal at about 1pm, unsurprisingly it was another Dhal Bhat. I loved a vegetarian organic curry three times a day but it was a little bit repetitive, Eventually, I switched to 2 meals a day to follow their routine and less repetitive in a different way.
Teaching in Nepal is quite different compared to what I was used it. Although I compared it from a pupil’s point of view. I was educated partly by a combination of the Hong Kong and British system. The teacher required zero preparation for each class. I could do that too. But then, they taught as they go, which was the more difficult part. I could do the class 6 or 7 maths because generally I did not have to think about the questions. For the higher class, there was already a teacher doing a great job.
My main difference compared to the local teachers is that I didn’t apply any physical punishment. Otherwise, I tried to mimic their style of teaching because the results they were getting were pretty reasonable. The kids were getting educated. I added my own style by trying to get everyone involved. With hindsight, I was at a really good school compared to some rural village school. Each class has about 20 kids which was really manageable. There were schools with 80 kids to a class. It would be a different world. In the end, they would all take the same examination, hence the city boys are at a serious advantage. Even though the village (Rural village not my village) boys were more in need. I guess I had to start somewhere.
The teaching process involved walking into the classroom with a board marker. Then do the thing for 45 mins. This systems works well for maths. Not so sure about english, or science. Art or other creative subjects are non-existent. Although I put that all to rest by showing how to draw in perspective, ambitious I know. It took about 30 mins to get across that it was unnecessary to put all their strength into the pencil and kill the paper.
The kids here have 6 days a week. with few holidays. Although the regular occurrences of general strikes, school strikes, recreational striking compensates the latter and give the kids plenty of breaks from school.
After school, I volunteered at a local hostel, sponsored by ‘help 2 educate’. The girls here were former child labourers. Their level of english is amazing considering that they started education very late. Being a girl is harsh, their combination of poverty, feminine, lower caste and starting late at education meant it was difficult for them in some subjects especially maths. Hence I tried to make them to focus on the basics of mathematics, similar to how I learnt my maths.
John was a biology teacher from Birkdale School (a school in Britain) was already there to make use of the new science lab which was completed a month ago. I identified that I could make bigger contribution to the science lab compared to any other area of the school. Therefore I decided to think of some experiments which can be done in Nepal.
This science project was to become the focus of my efforts to make an improvement to the school.
Adventures of Delboy 