July 23, 2014
Today I started in a geography class today with 45 students. I believe their teacher's name is Delsa. She had 100% attentiveness from her students today. HOW!?!?! I wonder if it is the belief that the teacher here (if I was correct in my understanding) represents three of the Hindu gods. In either case, class participation was 90-95%. It is very impressive to hit those numbers and even more so with a class of that size. On top of that, this teacher negated the idea that group work and large class sizes don't work. In India, all problems require some form of creativity to solve. She had her class get into 4 big groups. The way the desks/tables are organized and the shape of the class allows for easy observation of the students well enough to keep them on task. The group work is brief to help keep the students focused on the task at hand. They then turn to the class to report their various answers and they are to respond and read the material in English. It is proper, formal British English, but that is not a bad thing.
I also noted that Delsa does much of what I do back home, teaching wise. I find it gratifying to find that what I have attemped in my own class is reflected in a counterpart in another country and in another language. There is a common thread to teaching and good teachers know what specifically is needed for their individual students to succeed and adapt their techniques as results begin to not meet expectations.
The students were studying geography in the English medium. Regardless of what is said in class, this class is more difficult that your average geography class because English is a second or third language that these students learn and speak. So, in reality, every teacher that teaches in an English medium is an English Language Learner Teacher.
Today was my presentation.
I focused on 3 areas: The Danger of a Single Story, Document Driven Lessons, and Student Centered/Driven Lessons. I went over the rationale behind these approaches as well as brief and various activities that require little to no preparation. I started to lose them with the Single Story. There was a difficulty understanding the concept of changing historiographies. What I heard most was:
How can history change? It happened the way it happened. You can't change it!!!
So, I pretty much tanked the core of keystone piece of my presentation. I later discovered that it was not really what I said/did but that there is a strong cling to tradition and a refusal to adapt. The rest of my presentation went over pretty well. Some of them even liked the idea of letting the students discover the material and ask how close they were to what is being looked for. So, my presentation wasn't a complete loss.
That night we met with the local teachers' union, local education leaders, teacher trainers, and teachers from other schools in a very productive question and answer session. I was there with 3 other teachers that are apart of the TGC program. 3 of us were from Texas and one from Massachusetts. I believe we did our country and states proud with the answers we were able to provide and how it was conducted.