Conversation with Veena

Chennai, September 28
Veena is a friend that I work with--she works at the school part time and teaches French at the Alliance Francias. Our discussion started about how her video production company (Voices of India) is pulling together a documentary about handicapped students. The project will pull together South Indian and Western filmmakers together to help fight stereotypes. Maybe it is just luck, but everyone I seem to meet is part of an NGO or working on some project to benefit someone less fortunate or someother worthy cause. Our discussion moved on to how the treatment of mentally handicapped children has changed in the past generation. The children used to be in come and received compassionate care from the family--they were a responsibility. Now the institutions have taken over. She commented how this is also being influenced by the changes in construction--the concrete apartments and smaller homes make caring for larger families more difficult. While many families may have an ancestral homestead that serves as a meeting spot, the early support when the child is young is vital.

Our conversation veered towards IB and the differences she noticed between her work within the curriculum and her classes outside the school with adults. Some of the differences were pretty pedestrian--no listening comprehension in IB, fewer materials. However, and this is what really opened my eyes and mind, she said the biggest difference was the lack of comparison between the home country and the Francophone countries--the curriculum is really only focused on France and its former colonies. Veena continued that there needs to be a cultural component--both Indian and French. Where do learn about their own culture? To know yourself is the only way to proceed. Through French, she told me, I've questioned alot--and now I know my culture and myself. She told me that she knew the Ionesco quote that I used in ToK--it's the question that enlightens. She then told me about when her father passed away and as part of the Hindu ritual surrounding the death of a parent she read the Garuda Puranam for 13 days. It was through this process that she really got to know herself--why study far away cultures when there is such a rich one here. For example, the investigation of ecology and nature conservancy is a mix of obligation and religious fear. However, when these are examined, there's a real profound link to the past and present.

Our conversation then ranged to the CBSE schools and she detailed her son's experience with the harshness in the classroom and how this affected him on assessments. He performed brilliantly in a different setting where assessments were treated more like learning tools instead of high-stakes exercises. Her comments sounded alot like what our district has been hearing from Dr. Thomas Guskey at the University of Kentucky. She noted that the more traditional approach is changing. She recommended that I visit Gurukul in Pune. In the gurukul tradition, the guru takes the child to develop skills--they are taught vedas and taught to be part of society as well as basic life skills (how to keep their surroundings clean, how to deal with people). In this model, the guru finds out what the child is interested in and then focuses on the development of these interests and knowledge. The teaching about subjects happens after the interest. The other unique thing that she pointed out is that the guru serves as a caring, involved adult who connects with the student and builds on what they are interested in. This last piece really got me thinking about what it means to teach and the role that we fulfill--or should or could fulfill to help our students learn.

Our last topic dealt with how culture is taught--and there are some really good schools that teach the culture--Chinmaya International Residential School performs pujas, for example. Other institutions may be international in their perspective, but they are not Indian--in this case the implication is that culture=spiritual. They cannot be separated here. She commented too that the scientific explanations that seem to dominate now have their own limitations. She stated that when ever a house is built, they must plant mango and coconut trees. Very little was done to examine why this was done, it's tradition. But now the students hear about environmentalism and begin to wonder why people do the traditions. In her opinion, this was a cyclical thing. Her last comment was that the state schools that teach Tamil, the students perform better. They hear Tamil all the time, they get the culture, the context and nuance--so much more than vocabulary. This in essence, makes the language a living thing--not a grammatical exercise and word lists.

Looking back at this conversation, again I can't help but see links to my project. Experiencing the awakening or a-ha moment. As a Westerner I don't look at our curriculum so critically--it's my culture so I miss what it would feel like to not be represented. It's like I don't even have to think about it, but now that it's pointed out to me I finally get it. I'm starting to work on what international really means.

Figuring things out--in two parts

Evening, September 27, 2010

I need to write--so much has happened, I don't want to let it get to far away. I definitely need to talk about school--the travel stuff is fine and good, but it's the work with the students that is rejuvenating. I've been working with the first and second year ToK students for the past two weeks and the students have responded beautifully. Some students are starting to come out of the woodwork and are more engaged than when I first met them. Finally having the questions and talks after class. One student whose parents are in the film industry here is pulling an essential Indian cinema collection together for me. Sudha and I have different approaches to lessons but we are really starting to click (Sudha--I know you sometimes read this blog so feel free to leave a comment/correction) and I have enjoyed the conversations we've had about the kids and the craft. The school has been a good pairing and I am really enjoying working with her. We tried out a Paideia seminar on the second years (Montaigne's "Of the Art of Conversing") and it worked really well--100% participation (which was remarkable--there are students in there who utter next to nothing) and the two young women in class got that their whole discussion was a conversation like Montaigne described. They want to do more of these and I was so proud of how they met the challenge of reading a really hard piece, trusting me, and how they embraced the technique. The seminars work really well in my American classes and I guess that I was both surprised and not surprised at the outcome. I've watched a few classes and the students do interact with each other and the teacher differently than in an American classroom. But in class they were pros, and they enjoyed themselves. Does this just tell us something about adolesence in general--they crave independence and want to interact with each other. They can be coached in behaviors and they can meet challenges if properly prepared. This school is new to IB so it's not that the traditions of the program have been instilled (this is the first group to go through the curriculum). Perhaps I've come as far away from home as is humanly possible to find out what good teachers knew all along--know your students, give them a voice, hold them to standards, have high expectations, and coach them in what you want them to do. The setting doesn't matter and in this case the technique transcended culture. Maybe I'm simplifying it, but nonetheless it worked. We're going to try using discussion board/blog software next to connect the M. Ct. M. students with the MHS kids next. The students here are really excited about the potential and have a lot of questions. They want ot know about values and beliefs and interests and what the American high school experience is really like. They really would like to do an exchange. I think that both groups would really benefit--especially if we set them up correctly and really build an awareness of culture and help foster a curiousity and openness to new ideas. As a team I think Sudha and I can really make this worthwhile--and I think having a person on the ground from the other institution really helps. It puts a face to it, a personality, a connection that can answer questions and offer up stories. Would they be so enthusiastic if we were doing it a different way? My gut tells me no. My school runs an type of correspondence program between schools, but this is more intense and connected to a specific group of students and a class. It's really fascinating to think about the effects that this could have on understanding and where this program could go. It's sort of a rush--the conversations and connections that are being fostered here have a lot of energy behind them and I am not entirely sure where this might go in the future, but it feels like there is some profound potential. I wake up some mornings and wonder about what to do with this--how far can we go?

I got some insight into my nickname mentioned in my last post. I went to lunch at my usual spot met up with the manager again--I had to ask about the name (Sudha made a face when she heard it and asked why I had been given it). When I broached the question, he told me that it identifies you as part of the community--the self never changes but the label may when you are here. In America you are Kennedy, if you were to go to Saudi Arabia you may be Saleem, but here in India you are Gopal. Always the same person but the location changes. My name also means Krishna, he told me, you see we are all linked, one all-encompassing religion. The differences don't matter, it is just God. I told him that in my tradition using the name of God casually is condemned. He commented that people here use it all the time, it doesn't carry the same stigma. Children are named after God because to invoke the name is to connect with the divine. We talked a bit about the ashram that I'm going to this week--about the self, about peace, about letting go of anger and understanding human relationships. I'm not sure if I fully understand why this name and maybe I'm looking too much into it wanting to find some significance. Maybe I can just be Gopal when I'm here--one degree away from being entirely foreign. One step closer to understanding this culture and community. I am still myself and all my Western quirks and predilictions--but maybe the self can expand to allow others and their world in to live side by side. Maybe the taking of a name can be symbolic--a walk in two worlds. This is something I know that so many people in my country do everyday (pulled between the culture in their home and the one they encounter in school or at work), and I know that I can easily shut it off when I go back home. I know that it's different because I can choose--it's not a concession or a trade-off that I have to make. There's not conflict of identity--the self is the same, the definition or content is just wider than it was before.

Back from Mamallapuram

I put about 100 photos on my Shutterfly share site from my trip to Mamallapuram. If you are interested, there's a tab with a link. I may write about that more at some other point, but it's late on Sunday night--well, at least it feels late. I've been sitting at the computer most of the day, except for a trip to the gym, lunch and a haircut (all of these were done at the same place). Probably should mention that at this same place I received my first nickname since arriving in India 11 days ago. The manager at the restaurant I always eat at gave it to me--Gopal. It refers to a manifestation of Lord Krishna in his youth, the protector of cows. Not quite sure how to respond to it--I was re-introduced to all the staff as "Mr. Gopal." I smiled and took the name in good nature. It was sort of a strange afternoon anyway. I finally pulled myself away from e-mails, Shutterfly, grading papers and other work in my room to work out. The weights felt good, but I was hungry. I packed a change of clothes in my messenger bag, just in case I couldn't slip into the restaurant to grab a quick sandwich. The trainer said to just go for it, and as I entered the dining room I was greeted loudly by the manager and the assistant manager. There I am, standing in basketball shorts and a quick-dry top, while all around me very well-dressed families quietly eat their Sunday afternoon lunch. I can barely get out asking if I should change before entering, but I'm swept away to my usual spot and the manager personally puts in my order and stays to chat--this is when I got the nickname. I have no idea what the other patrons thought about this--who is this sweaty, shabbily-dressed American and why the fuss? I can understand making a cultural misstep innocently, but this time I felt like I was pulled into it despite my better judgement. I have to say that it does feel good to be a regular, to have some community, some connection to a new place. I've been stunned by the welcoming nature of the people I've met--invited to homes for meals, offers to help with just about anything I could possibly need. Coming from the Midwest (good doses of German and Scandinavian guilt and responsibility programmed in, fed through the water-supply to the very core of our beings) it feels like I owe a series of debts that I may never be able to repay. Maybe it's the lessons learned that's the key--I feel close to my friends here, like I've known them for so much longer than 11 days. I feel like I have a better sense of what it is like to be a good and giving person, a reset of priorities--sort of like my soul grew or aired itself out a bit. Maybe what I've been experiencing is just human-hearted compassion--you do it not for any type of reward or recognition but because ultimately it is what keeps us together as human beings you are more free and happy when you do. Give of yourself and be open and receptive to others. Let that be your gift to the world and let others learn from you--hopefully they'll spread it around, too. Won't we all be in a better place if this is true. But then again maybe I'm overthinking it, or perhaps the label and categorizing (I guess we could call it reason) doesn't really matter, but if it works go with it. Regardless, I feel like I'm sort of getting it, like there's been a real positive change in my outlook, like I learned something.

Sometimes a day happens for a reason

Chennai, late evening, back from dinner, still reflecting--9/21

This picture fits for today--it's of the entry to the IB building at M. Ct. M. Chidambaram Chettyar International School. The school is very traditional in many ways which has been fascinating. Sometimes a day just seems to be made for one important conversation--today was one of those days. I had meetings with Ms. Sudha and a talk with the Tamil teacher about student engagement and I was pulled into watch some physical science presentations by a group of middle years students. As I made my way back to my messenger bag and laptop, the English literature teacher greeted me and invited me to conversation. The English teacher is a striking woman with long grey hair and a posture and demeanor that radiates intelligence, wisdom and thoughtfulness. Our conversation began with a book recommendation for me and then connected to the differences between Indian and Greek tragedy--in Indian tragedy the character suffers from attachment (over-emotional attachment to lovers, to possessions, to children, to youth). It's more of a themes than a trait (the Western view of a fatal flaw--but this flaw could take many forms). I'm already hooked at this point, but our discussion goes deeper in to language and technology and emotion. She states that it is a paradox these days, the students have so much access to the internet but little curiousity. I commented that the Tamil teacher and I talked about this as well--the students had little interest in cultural knowledge of their region. She extends the point--unfortunately this also translates to their language ability. They are not necessarily fluent in their mother language adn their not fluent in English. They can only say the necessities, but cannot express their thoughts and feelings. English can be viewed as the language of the workplace--a means to make money, but it doesn't touch the real parts of you. In the past many people spoke 4-5 languages--they traveled and in order to communicate with friends, you learned their langauge. Now people, she said, speak a pidgin language--merely functional English. She related to me a longitudinal study on students grades K-8. The study sought to understand what would happen in English was superimposed on the mother language. What was found was that the students initially spoke Tamil, but soon the Tamil didn't keep up with their emotional needs, but English couldn't express these needs either. This trend has become apparent in the last 25 years--students that can't express themselves but have emotinoal needs. It's really quite sad when you think about it. Her own children were raised with Tamil spoken in the home (it was a family decision), and this brought them connections to film and art and older family members. Part of this decay in language may also be a change in society--the schedule of working parents changes the language and cheapens the language. Conversations are more along the lines of "did you pick up..." or "what is scheduled today...". This cheapened langauge affects your world view. People have become more reliant upon or are immersed in media--but this builds a view that nothing is really older than yesterday's paper. There are visuals of what society is like, what institutions or other cultures are like, but they are devoid of the connections--missing the humanity, the culture, the behavior. Slowly the cultural threads are lost--meaningful rites like birth, death and marriage become mashed together in a cultural hodgepodge as people borrow only what they find useful or what makes sense. Some of this can be seen in the ways business practices and organizations have been implemented in Indian society. The Western structures are there, but the people participating don't fully understand--they do the things in the structure but there's little adaptation or understanding of the practices. Our conversation went back to students. Many students view learning English as a key to economic improvement--their view of education is on the aspiration. This type of knowledge--acquiring it for purely economic reasons--is pretty shallow. The students must have real knowledge--paravidya (real knowledge, knowledge of the self or self-knowledge) as opposed to aparavidya (useless knowledge--what you need to get on in life). In the Upanishads the most learned man is an ignoramus if he doesn't have paravidya. You may have knowledge of the Upanishads, but until you act it, you are ignorant. You can also have real knowledge and slip back. It's fluid like that.

At this point she had to go to class so our conversation ended with promises to talk again. We both thanked each other and went our separate ways--she to class and I to pull together a seminar on Montaigne. In those moments as we sat talking it was as if I could feel the connections to the questions I had been wondering about--I could feel my perspectives and knowledge being stretched. Some days were just made for a single conversation.

Ideas and Conversations

Morning, September 21--beat the alarm up, need to get some ideas down



I'm still a little sick--probably the fruit I ate. This always happens, I've been told, to newcomers. Just puts a kink in the workout schedule. Feel much better than I did this weekend.



I've been having a lot of conversations with people and wanted to summarize the content--some of this will be for my doctorate which I hope to start in the summer--but much of this is just processing and trying to understand all that has experienced. I invite comments especially for where I may have made generalizations that are inaccurate. My perspective is limited, but I am trying to understand this new place.

• The need for education: education is a means transcend problems of poverty, especially in the rural areas. If the population is better educated than this will help build a more equitable society and ease some of the problems experienced in India today. A couple people have wondered what will happen once the population becomes more prosperous and comfortable, though--will the tolerance and more group oriented mindset be diminished?


• The Indian education system: most people have talked with me about how Indian schools make for wonderful engineers, but not necessarily great creators or innovators. They go on to say that a lot of time and energy is spent on rote memorization and drilling for exams. One man, an engineer by training, stated that he could easily tell you the formulas and calculations to solve a problem, but not how they work or why they work. Some have gone so far to say that once this is addressed, then India will be the dominant economy. If this is combined with a more affluent and educated society, there may be fewer Indian professionals seeking employment outside of India.


• Religion: This is a tricky one to get my head around. Temples surround us as well as emblems and symbols of faith. While religion is not far from people's minds or reality--my students commenting that their belief that form matters more in poetry than emotion comes from their grounding in the couplets found in sacred texts, pigment on the body every day , acceptance of a new place (how do you feel about Chennai I asked a breakfast companion, "It is a city of God, and since God made it who am I to judge--it is and I accept it."--I had just met this person a moment ago)--there is also a frank secularism among some students and a tremendous amount of tolerance. This city has large temples, mosques and a basilica crammed into--despite what the population figure might indicate--not a very large place. In the autobiography of Adbul Kamal--the former president of India and father of their rocketry program--he discussed how a new teacher in his childhood separated him from his best friend in class because he was a Muslim and his friend was a Hindu. The father of the friend was the priest at the local temple and confronted the teacher, castigating him for spreading intolerance. I've been told more than once as well that it is not the religion of an individual that matters but the content of their character--this being linked to the primacy of relationships and some of the day-to-day hardships. You accept the person because you share in the difficulties and rely upon each other. If they are a good person, they are a good person--you participate in each other's festivals because they enrich your life, bring community together and they are part of your friend.

Need some sleep. Still recovering. I am learning a lot.

Ok, I'm finally here and have my feet under me...somewhat

Chennai, September 17--10 PM (11:30 AM Minnesota time)

So much has happened I don't know if I can fit it in one post--and alot of these ideas will be picked up and developed over the course of the grant and this blog. I've met so many people in the past few days, tasted so many different types of food, had some unbelievable conversations, figured out how to use the auto taxis, and even got lost once. I've only seen Americans and Europeans at the Immigration Bureau.

My initial landing was rough--culture shock hit pretty hard (which I thoroughly underestimated) and I had a couple of SNAFUs with my housing (which are now rectified). My neighborhood is called Mylapore and it is very conservative and many wealthy Indians live here. This combination does not translate the same way as in the West--this is more traditional India, not like the rest of Chennai which is more cosmopolitan. You will see more garbage, you will see many devoted Brahmins with body paint and traditional dress. When I walk to work I smell the flower merchants selling their garlands for the temples, I pass an ashram and wall graffitti of Ganesh. Tamil is the predominant language (it is a government mandate that all schools teach it) and I can walk for miles without hearing English--I only hear it at my guest house, at school and sometimes in restaurants if people are talking to me. This has been both fascinating and tough--it is so different from my home and street in Minnesota. You hear tropical birds amidst construction, calls to worship juxtaposed against the incessant horns of motorbikes, auto taxis and cars. Buses crash past at terrifying rates, school children pile out of their parents cars or off their motorbikes with Barbie lunchboxes and Nike running shoes while a barefoot man in a loin cloth and long white hair passes by. I am very aware that I am outside of my culture, that I am in a new place, a very different place where I don't yet fully understand the rules.

On top of the sensory overload. a million questions have raced through my mind--just about the mundane, the basics of living and navigating a city. Strange how we can just drop right down into these issues and how scary it can be when you don't know the anwers. My phone doesn't work, where can I get a mobile? Where can I eat? Where can I get cash? Which streets are safe? How late can I be out? Then the responsibility questions hit--can I bring my daughter here? What will she do? Will she be safe? Is this what she's expecting? Will I find an adequate apartment--and if I do, how on Earth will I figure out how to furnish it, buy groceries.... My brain has flooded a few times with this--usually bringing on feelings of homesickness. The grant would be easier if it were just me--but having a family ramps up the protective caregiver side of me. I've had to remind myself (or my wife reminded me--she is so solid) to just clear my mind and breathe. I landed 4 days ago, be patient, give it time.

While much of this sounds a bit negative, the people I've met, the over-the-top assistance and kindness I've received, and the conversations about big ideas (value of education, poverty, nature of history, cultural knowledge...) have been mind-blowing and wonderful. I work with tremendous educators at M. CT. M. School--Ms. Sudha is amazing and I am so looking forward to working with her on this project. I am linked up with a brilliant and dynamic facilitator who just makes me want to dive into the issues and change the world--she runs an educational foundation and is a teacher trainer. Her foundation is taking on big problems in education and there may be some opportunities to work with her on them while I'm here and perhaps in the future. As my facilitator, she's answered questions that I didn't even know I had and has really taken care of me. I have been really fortunate to meet some amazing people during the past few days--they have buoyed me in so many ways I hope that they know how much it has all meant to me. One final piece about this--and I'll have to write about the content later--so many of the conversations have aligned with my capstone and what I've been reading and thinking about for the past year. It's an strange coincidence perhaps or a map to go forward--a confluence of ideas and potential.

Since I mentioned it, yes, I did get lost today. I spent several hours with the Indian bureaucracy at the Immigration Bureau. I raced back to school to meet with the year 2 IB ToK students and caught the last 20 minutes of class. My supervisor had a ton of other obligations due to a conference being held at the school this weekend so I had the late afternoon free. I headed down Luz Church Road from school to the Mylapore Tank (see the picture at the top of this entry). I walked through a park, past stores and a few coffee and tea stalls. Once I got to the tank I decided to take another route home instead of merely backtracking. This turned out to be stupid. I don't know what possessed me to think that this old city is on a grid like Minneapolis--somehow my memory of the maps I've looked at blanked. I did see some pretty extreme poverty--little kids playing naked in the street next to their shack which abuts a canal that reeks of industrial and human waste. I wandered by dead-reckoning for about 45 minutes until I finally decided to give up and take an auto-taxi home--I had asked for directions 3 times and received conflicting information resulting in me making a complete circle. I approached one, but his fare was too high so I walked to what I thought was another driver. The man was old, eyes clouded by glaucoma, and as he spoke I could smell the alcohol on his breath--however he turned out to be the only reliable source I found this past afternoon. He understood where I wanted to go and knew the landmarks and could point me in the right direction if I wanted to walk, but he kept refusing to drive me there. Looking at my watch I realized that I needed to get back to Skype with my daughter and get cleaned up for a play that I planned to attend this evening (Madras Players' "Whose Wife Is It Anyway?") I thanked him and started to look for another driver--the distance wasn't too bad. He then informed me that he was not a driver (he just helped me out for no other reason than to be helpful) and then fetched me a nearby driver to take me where I wanted to go--he even gave directions to the driver. As the taxi pulled away I waved and thanked him still sort of stunned by this whole interaction. The driver was pleasant and taught me a few words in Tamil and got me home in a matter of minutes. I showered and then Skyped with Mads over breakfast and made it to the school auditorium in time for the play.

This entry is getting long and it barely scratches the surface--and I've only been here 4 days. It's also late and I need to be up early for a couple of things.