Teacher/Student Ratio - 1:125
A friend from home is visiting. She’s an educator with expertise in reading methods and staff development. Yesterday, her skills were used to help young teachers in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum.
The 25 public school teachers who participated in the workshop came in on a holiday. Their needs are great. Some are teaching first grade classes with more than 125 students. There are no desks, no playgrounds, and limited supplies. Basics, like pencils must be shared in their classrooms. Reading books for the first graders are more complex than those we use at home. There are big words like porridge and shallow, and that’s for kids whose native language isn’t even English. Drop out rates are huge.
The teachers also come from the slum. Some are 15 or 16 years old. For many of them, English is difficult, so key concepts in the workshop were translated. Phyllis taught them skills to help manage their large classes. She also shared methods that will enable them to make reading more meaningful to their students: frontloading the difficult words from the story, getting the children to think about how each character feels, and doing all this while there is the normal fidgeting and short attention spans that come with being 5 years old. These newly learned skills will go far.
There is a great deal of learning by rote in public schools here. Last week, I visited a girls’ shelter and was initially impressed by a 5 year old who wrote in beautiful cursive, words on a blackboard that were pretty advance. I soon realized she had no understanding of what the words meant, but she soaked up all the positive feedback I gave her. Kids on the streets of Dharavi run up to me and ask, in perfect English, where I’m from. I respond and ask them a simple question: How old are you? To which they respond: I’m fine. Or: Today is Tuesday.
There’s a lot of talk here about how important education is to escaping the clutches of poverty. It’s good that NGOs (nonprofit organizations) are stepping up where the government has clearly failed. Many more are needed.
Got ‘Em All Cut
I got a much needed haircut yesterday. I went to a place recommended by a colleague. The stylist I ended up with just returned from a 3-month assignment on a Bollywood movie set where she was the stylist for several stars. After sitting almost 2 hours (!) I walked away with a cut that made me yearn for my stylist back home who takes 15 minutes and knows my hair. Let’s just say I won’t need another haircut while I’m in Mumbai. By the way, the haircut cost less than $20.
The 25 public school teachers who participated in the workshop came in on a holiday. Their needs are great. Some are teaching first grade classes with more than 125 students. There are no desks, no playgrounds, and limited supplies. Basics, like pencils must be shared in their classrooms. Reading books for the first graders are more complex than those we use at home. There are big words like porridge and shallow, and that’s for kids whose native language isn’t even English. Drop out rates are huge.
The teachers also come from the slum. Some are 15 or 16 years old. For many of them, English is difficult, so key concepts in the workshop were translated. Phyllis taught them skills to help manage their large classes. She also shared methods that will enable them to make reading more meaningful to their students: frontloading the difficult words from the story, getting the children to think about how each character feels, and doing all this while there is the normal fidgeting and short attention spans that come with being 5 years old. These newly learned skills will go far.
There is a great deal of learning by rote in public schools here. Last week, I visited a girls’ shelter and was initially impressed by a 5 year old who wrote in beautiful cursive, words on a blackboard that were pretty advance. I soon realized she had no understanding of what the words meant, but she soaked up all the positive feedback I gave her. Kids on the streets of Dharavi run up to me and ask, in perfect English, where I’m from. I respond and ask them a simple question: How old are you? To which they respond: I’m fine. Or: Today is Tuesday.
There’s a lot of talk here about how important education is to escaping the clutches of poverty. It’s good that NGOs (nonprofit organizations) are stepping up where the government has clearly failed. Many more are needed.
Got ‘Em All Cut
I got a much needed haircut yesterday. I went to a place recommended by a colleague. The stylist I ended up with just returned from a 3-month assignment on a Bollywood movie set where she was the stylist for several stars. After sitting almost 2 hours (!) I walked away with a cut that made me yearn for my stylist back home who takes 15 minutes and knows my hair. Let’s just say I won’t need another haircut while I’m in Mumbai. By the way, the haircut cost less than $20.
posted by arr at 5:28 PM
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