A Week in Coimbatore

I have just arrived back from a week in Coimbatore, India. Coimbatore is about 6 hours south of where I am currently staying and is in the state of Tamil Nadu. I went there with the couple that I am staying with to help run a Vacation Bible School program at a church there.

The week was wonderful, full of lots of singing and dancing with the kids, a plethora of photographic opportunities in the adorable faces of the kids as well as amazing food from our host family that we stayed with!

Right now in Coimbatore the temperature is extremely hot and humid, hotter and more humid than Florida in July if you can imagine that, but with no air conditioning anywhere. The extreme heat definitely made me tired and worn out alot faster than normal, but the program we did and the people we worked with and met made up for any tiredness felt.

The theme of the Vacation Bible School was "Inside Out", teaching kids and teenagers about how to allow their inner faith affect the way that they live and interact with others. Most days I helped lead the singing and dancing during the main session for the kids as well as photograph everything going on. One day I spent with the teenagers teaching them a lesson about how their actions and the way that they live impact their lives powerfully long term as well as the lives of others, it was wonderful to get to spend time teaching teenagers!

Here are some pictures from the week there!

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Daily Life

My day to day life has become such a routine that I often lose track of what day it is, until the kids remind me, its Tuesday! Or its Thursday! You are teaching us gymnastics today! I have been teaching them gymnastics and every Tuesday and Thursday evening during their play time and they have been loving it. Loving it so much that sometimes they cannot even contain their excitement that they are jumping up and down, it is a joy to see such excitement over something so simple.

Everyday Monday thru Friday is the same. In the mornings as a staff we spend time together in prayer and praise and sharing different things that God has been teaching us and praying for each other and the kids. 

Teaching begins at 9am and we spend the first hour of the day focusing on literacy. In Indian schools teachers do not teach kids how to read the way that we do in the United States, and there is little to no focus put on literacy when they are in school in India. Thus it has been my goal to implement a literacy program here at the orphanage that can be continued after I leave. This way when the kids start school in June and are not learning to read in school they will have an established program at home that they can continue to use to grow in reading.

Literacy is the biggest focus of our day, we spend about 3 hours between reading, writing and word study. Although all of the kids are at such a low reading level, most 2 grades lower than where they should be they are improving quickly as they are getting the one-on-one individualized instruction that they need.

In the afternoon we spend about 2 hours on math, playing math games, developing certain skills that they needs and doing Number of the Day, a short part of our math time to develop number sense.

Our focus on math has been quite intense, much more than I had planned and most of this is due to what the kids are expected to know when they start school in June. Before even going to school every year they have to take entrance exams to get into the grade that they should be in, this means they are tested on everything that they learned the previous year. So for the 6 year olds that are starting 1st Grade they are expected to already know addition, subtraction, multiplication and fractions, which by American standards is ridiculous to know all of that before even going into 1st Grade. 

As a result of what the kids are expected to know and me only being here with them for 7 weeks I don't get to always teach the way that I feel is the best for kids or what is developmentally appropriate for their skill level.

Teaching the kids here is nothing like teaching kids in the United States, and slowly I have been trying to undo some of the misconceptions that these kids have been taught but it has been hard. For example when we do writing workshop the kids are constantly so worried about spelling every word correctly that they become so fixated on the spelling their mind is blocked from just being free to write and enjoy the story that they are telling. I keep reminding them that I will love their story whether they spell every word right or no words right because its not about how good your spelling is its about getting your thoughts out to tell your story and writing the sounds and words you are hearing in your mind.

Indian children are also taught to sit and write, sit and write, sit and write and don't interact at all with what they are learning. This has been a slow process as well in teaching them how to be free of sitting and writing all the time and to enjoy learning, reading, creating art and thinking for themselves critically.

Everyday is filled with so much joy despite the things that are so different and hard and I am seeing so much growth in the kids already in the short two weeks that I have been here. Even the rest of the staff at the orphanage has been impressed with how much better the kids speech and pronunciation is, I explained to them its because they are reading books and they have never spent anytime doing that before!

Bangalore

Since I live at the orphanage with the kids and spend most of my day with them I have not seen that much of India aside from the city that I live in. Bangalore a city of 6 million is a compilation of houses, apartments, stores, parks, churches, mosques and temples. Everything is very close together and most people live in very close quarters, especially those who are quite poor are living in very small shacks with many people living in them. 

I can relate Bangalore to places in South and Central America that I have been to where there is a high population density in the cities, much of Bangalore even looks similar to cities in South and Central America. That is aside from the language differences and the way that the people look.

Most people in India that are living in cities speak some English. The national language in India is Hindi but not even all people speak Hindi or understand it, there are at least 22 different sub-national languages that are spoken and over 1,500 tribal languages and dialects spoken just in this country alone. This make communication difficult between people that are native Indians let alone a foreigner like myself.

Most people speak at least 3 languages; English, Hindi and then their native language, depending which state they come from. For example I am living in the state of Karnataka where Tamil is spoken and in the house that I live in between the staff, kids and myself that are 7 different languages that are spoken. 

Often times my instinct for not knowing Hindi or Tamil is to try to speak Spanish if I know someone does not understand English, because this is the only other language besides English that I know. Then I am reminded that I am in India and people will understand my Spanish as well as I understand their Hindi, which means, not at all. 

A Day at the Park

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we take the kids to the park to play. It is a beautiful green space near the orphanage hidden from much of the noise and pollution of the city. The kids bring their Cricket gear when we go and play Cricket, a game which is very similar to baseball, but you don't run any bases. The kids are all much better than I am at it since I have never played before. They have been teaching the techniques of the game and give me huge hugs every time I score a run, because it is very rare if I do.

They love having their pictures taken and say "auntie, auntie, take more photos of me!" 

Here are some pictures of our afternoon at the park!

What Have I Had to Do to Prepare?

Preparation for the trip has been ongoing over the past 4 months ever since I first decided to go. Aside from the standard visa application and purchasing of plane tickets, I have had to get a whole slew of vaccines and immunizations, as well as anti-malarial medicine to take with me.

Curriculum development has taken about 2 months, I was given guidelines for what they need to know for their entry level exams for each grade, so some of the curriculum is based off that. Nearly the entire literacy program of what I will be doing had been adopted and modified to fit the needs of ESL learners from the literacy program we developed and used in my student teaching placement.

Student teaching in and of itself was a huge preparation in making this trip possible, I gained so much priceless knowledge about literacy and how to teach kids to read that I will be able to pass on to the staff at the orphanage.

I have also spent countless hours at home surrounded by multicolored paper and matte board creating games that the kids will be able to play at their level for literacy and math while I am teaching other leveled groups. Since I have very little money to spend on what I was taking I have to be highly creative with all of the resources I already had, which was actually quite fun to make everything myself!

Where Will I Be? What Will I Be Doing?

I will be living in Banglaore, India which is in the state of Karnataka for the months of March, April and May. While there I will be living at the orphanage that I will be teaching at. The orphanage is comprised of 30 kids ages 5-8, most orphaned because of religious persecution in Orissia (Northern India) where most of their parents were martyred. 

My main role will be improving the kids reading, writing and speaking of English to help prepare them for the school year starting in June. Currently they are not in school and many of them are still not near where they need to be for starting school. The school they will be attending they will learn and be taught in English only and their native dialect will not be used at all, thus it is imperative for them to be at an emergent language stage for kindergarden and a fluent language stage for every other grade. In addition to developing English literacy I will also be teaching Math, Science, Social Studies, Health and Bible Classes for the kids. 

Why India?

Why India?

The decision to go to India started last summer, in 2009. India has always been a country that I have wanted to travel to and it has always been a desire of mine to teach in an orphanage. I started by getting contacts from a friend who had been to India a few months prior. Through her I was able to collect names and email of people connected with ministries that could help me get linked up with what I was looking to do. After sending out a few emails I had an orphanage to teach at and a place to live, it all happened very quickly in a matter of about a month.

I knew that after I graduated in December of 2009 I wanted to do something other than just substitute teach while I looked for teaching jobs for the fall. I wanted to be able to use what I had spent the past 5 years learning and my wealth of experience of world travel and ministry to be able to help others. So instead of staying at home and making money substitute teaching I decided to volunteer to teach for free.

Using what I know and have learned to help others grow is a driving passion of mine, I also want to be able to empower the staff that are not trained teachers to gain the necessary knowledge they need to teach their kids.

Hence the name...Know >> Grow >> Empower