Friday School and Mark's Visit from UQ
There has been no internet for a while now, which is kind of frustrating. I do like not doing uni work (come on graduation!) but having it still hanging over me is a bit stressful...
After breakfast I went to spend the morning in school with my class. They were very excited for 'a.c.' - arts and crafts - which was after break, but I didn't have any ideas coming to mind. To be more precise, I had plenty of ideas, but not necessarily ones that I felt confident could be done with the resources available, or that I could communicate to these children with their different expectations and different ability at English language. But in a rare case of good luck, for the first time ever my phone got a data signal while at the school site! This meant that I could use the Pinterest app to search for children's craft activities, and then allow the children themselves to choose what to do. I really enjoy supporting the children here to come up with ideas and make some decisions of their own, especially as the education culture here (not just at this school, but the system in general) is very much based around conformity and rote learning, with a dearth of opportunities for creativity (another reason perhaps that I found the Independence Day event so very impressive, as it is not the kind of thing that schools seem to practice much).
There were only 3 children in my class today, as one was absent. The two boys each chose a flying creation that used straws and and paper to make. One was a breath-powered rocket, and the other was a shuttle-cock shaped flying machine. The children both expected me to do a lot of the making myself, so I gently coached them step-by-step to give them the confidence to do it by themselves. I did help with drawing some lines for them to cut, but I was really pleased with how much more willing they were to work a little independently than they were when I first met them.
When the two flying machines were finished, both boys were very pleased with them! They played with them a lot, and also asked to borrow my camera and phone to make photos and videos of themselves in action. It was so cute!!
The girl in the class was less sure of what she wanted to do. She changed her mind several times as she was dissatisfied with her choices, before settling on wanting to draw a mandala. She actually only wanted to colour the mandala, and wanted me to draw the outlines for her. I tried to draw a mandala for her, although it wasn't very good unfortunately - I'm not very practised at drawing these days. I deliberately made the designs a bit simplistic so that she could add her own creative touches, as I'm really keen to get her to explore her abilities rather than only relying on others to guide her so much. I wish I could have done a better job of the initial outlines for her, but she still seemed to enjoy colouring, and she also added a picture from one of her first attempts at choosing an activity, before asking me to write her name and class in "Drops miss! Drops miss!" (She had previously asked me to write her name on her Australian bird picture, but I wanted her to write it. To compromise, I had written out the dots for her to follow, but all the children liked the dots (drops) so much that now they ask for me to do that for them quite often...)
When the school broke for lunch, I headed back up to the house. Mark, our visiting liaison tutor from UQ, and Augustine, the placement coordinator from the Indian side of things, had arrived for their visit. It sounds a bit weird I think, but I had been really looking forward to Mark's visit.
Mark and Augustine had already been catching up with Manil before I finished at the school, and we had a nice catch up over lunch as well. As lunch finished, I invited Mark to come and visit the school with me - I've been really enjoying the teaching recently and was feeling very enthusiastic, so I was keen to show him around and introduce him to people, and tell him some about my fundraising idea. I didn't get to talk to Mark much though, except to introduce my own class, as the other student tagged along and monopolised the conversation a bit. I felt myself withdrawing rather than asserting myself, and I decided that this would be a good thing to discuss in my supervision session later, to help me learn how to maintain my presence rather than shrinking into the background when others people are being socially dominating, especially as I had arranged to take Mark on this visit to the school and had things I had wanted to share with him.
I introduced Mark and my class to each other, and gave the children an opportunity to show off some of the things they have learned recently. Then Alex introduced Mark to his class while I helped a little with the rest of my class's science lesson. Soon the bell went for the end of this session, and the end of the last classroom session of the day - because now it was time for sport and games outside. They don't seem to do organised sports here, but the children play and have access to cricket and badminton equipment, and some footballs. The children are always super-keen, and the teachers seem to enjoy it just as much and join in themselves. I think this is all pretty good fun - the teachers role model being active to the children, and it's a nice opportunity for the children to make their own choices, direct their own play, and have a lot of fun.
I joined in with some badminton, and playing with the children. Mark seemed to really enjoy playing with the kids too, and I introduced to the other children - those not in my class - as well. The children are a bit more shy and reserved before they get to know you, so I made sure to show Mark which children were less shy, so that he could interact with them, and I taught him how to ask the children their names in Telugu. The more shy children then came out of their shells a bit more, and Mark was soon getting stuck into playing with and entertaining the smaller kids, who tend to prefer the playground equipment to the sports equipment. I might not have had so much opportunity to talk Mark, but on a personal/professional level I was pleased that I had at least been able to show him that I had been developing my communication skills with the children, and that I had made an effort to learn their names and characters and develop some teaching skills, rather than just trying to entertain them.
When the school day ended we walked back up to the house, and Mark said he would do the first supervision visit. As Alex had been talking to him so much I said that he may as well carry on rather than have me interrupt him, and Alex readily agreed. I guess that making a subtle point didn't really work, but I did also want to compose my thoughts about what would be useful to discuss. This will be my only liaison tutor visit as I am on placement overseas, so I wanted to make the most of it.
While Mark and Alex were off, I sat with Augustine and Manil. They had a good catch up and a gossip, and we just had a friendly chat. The sun was getting fairly low by the time I had a chance to talk with Mark, so it was cooler but there were more bugs out. Therefore, rather than sitting too long, we walked around the fields as we talked, which was actually really nice and I was even able to point out some hornbills to Mark. I was able to discuss my biogas project, my fundraising project, my hopes for some contributions I might be able to make at the school, and so on. I also asked some advice about how to better manage things when I get sidelined, so that I don't just withdraw and can become better able to assert myself.
After the supervision chat was over, Mark was interested in seeing the village. We were walking the short distance towards the village and it was all very nice, but it had to be cut short as we suddenly noticed that 3 of the dogs had gotten out and were following us! They were already barking at other dogs, and there was a real risk they might cause trouble, so rather than making it to the village we had to turn back to put the dogs away.
We had dinner, and then I had a supervision chat with Augustine before the day ended.
In other news, Mark told us that there had been more leadership issues in the Australian Government, and that we might have a new Prime Minister by now. I managed to check some news online, and discovered that Scott Morrison was now PM. Seems like a bad day for human rights causes and social justice in Australia.
After breakfast I went to spend the morning in school with my class. They were very excited for 'a.c.' - arts and crafts - which was after break, but I didn't have any ideas coming to mind. To be more precise, I had plenty of ideas, but not necessarily ones that I felt confident could be done with the resources available, or that I could communicate to these children with their different expectations and different ability at English language. But in a rare case of good luck, for the first time ever my phone got a data signal while at the school site! This meant that I could use the Pinterest app to search for children's craft activities, and then allow the children themselves to choose what to do. I really enjoy supporting the children here to come up with ideas and make some decisions of their own, especially as the education culture here (not just at this school, but the system in general) is very much based around conformity and rote learning, with a dearth of opportunities for creativity (another reason perhaps that I found the Independence Day event so very impressive, as it is not the kind of thing that schools seem to practice much).
There were only 3 children in my class today, as one was absent. The two boys each chose a flying creation that used straws and and paper to make. One was a breath-powered rocket, and the other was a shuttle-cock shaped flying machine. The children both expected me to do a lot of the making myself, so I gently coached them step-by-step to give them the confidence to do it by themselves. I did help with drawing some lines for them to cut, but I was really pleased with how much more willing they were to work a little independently than they were when I first met them.
When the two flying machines were finished, both boys were very pleased with them! They played with them a lot, and also asked to borrow my camera and phone to make photos and videos of themselves in action. It was so cute!!
The girl in the class was less sure of what she wanted to do. She changed her mind several times as she was dissatisfied with her choices, before settling on wanting to draw a mandala. She actually only wanted to colour the mandala, and wanted me to draw the outlines for her. I tried to draw a mandala for her, although it wasn't very good unfortunately - I'm not very practised at drawing these days. I deliberately made the designs a bit simplistic so that she could add her own creative touches, as I'm really keen to get her to explore her abilities rather than only relying on others to guide her so much. I wish I could have done a better job of the initial outlines for her, but she still seemed to enjoy colouring, and she also added a picture from one of her first attempts at choosing an activity, before asking me to write her name and class in "Drops miss! Drops miss!" (She had previously asked me to write her name on her Australian bird picture, but I wanted her to write it. To compromise, I had written out the dots for her to follow, but all the children liked the dots (drops) so much that now they ask for me to do that for them quite often...)
When the school broke for lunch, I headed back up to the house. Mark, our visiting liaison tutor from UQ, and Augustine, the placement coordinator from the Indian side of things, had arrived for their visit. It sounds a bit weird I think, but I had been really looking forward to Mark's visit.
Mark and Augustine had already been catching up with Manil before I finished at the school, and we had a nice catch up over lunch as well. As lunch finished, I invited Mark to come and visit the school with me - I've been really enjoying the teaching recently and was feeling very enthusiastic, so I was keen to show him around and introduce him to people, and tell him some about my fundraising idea. I didn't get to talk to Mark much though, except to introduce my own class, as the other student tagged along and monopolised the conversation a bit. I felt myself withdrawing rather than asserting myself, and I decided that this would be a good thing to discuss in my supervision session later, to help me learn how to maintain my presence rather than shrinking into the background when others people are being socially dominating, especially as I had arranged to take Mark on this visit to the school and had things I had wanted to share with him.
I introduced Mark and my class to each other, and gave the children an opportunity to show off some of the things they have learned recently. Then Alex introduced Mark to his class while I helped a little with the rest of my class's science lesson. Soon the bell went for the end of this session, and the end of the last classroom session of the day - because now it was time for sport and games outside. They don't seem to do organised sports here, but the children play and have access to cricket and badminton equipment, and some footballs. The children are always super-keen, and the teachers seem to enjoy it just as much and join in themselves. I think this is all pretty good fun - the teachers role model being active to the children, and it's a nice opportunity for the children to make their own choices, direct their own play, and have a lot of fun.
I joined in with some badminton, and playing with the children. Mark seemed to really enjoy playing with the kids too, and I introduced to the other children - those not in my class - as well. The children are a bit more shy and reserved before they get to know you, so I made sure to show Mark which children were less shy, so that he could interact with them, and I taught him how to ask the children their names in Telugu. The more shy children then came out of their shells a bit more, and Mark was soon getting stuck into playing with and entertaining the smaller kids, who tend to prefer the playground equipment to the sports equipment. I might not have had so much opportunity to talk Mark, but on a personal/professional level I was pleased that I had at least been able to show him that I had been developing my communication skills with the children, and that I had made an effort to learn their names and characters and develop some teaching skills, rather than just trying to entertain them.
When the school day ended we walked back up to the house, and Mark said he would do the first supervision visit. As Alex had been talking to him so much I said that he may as well carry on rather than have me interrupt him, and Alex readily agreed. I guess that making a subtle point didn't really work, but I did also want to compose my thoughts about what would be useful to discuss. This will be my only liaison tutor visit as I am on placement overseas, so I wanted to make the most of it.
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| Me, Alex, Rajan, Manil, Augustine. Photo by Mark. |
While Mark and Alex were off, I sat with Augustine and Manil. They had a good catch up and a gossip, and we just had a friendly chat. The sun was getting fairly low by the time I had a chance to talk with Mark, so it was cooler but there were more bugs out. Therefore, rather than sitting too long, we walked around the fields as we talked, which was actually really nice and I was even able to point out some hornbills to Mark. I was able to discuss my biogas project, my fundraising project, my hopes for some contributions I might be able to make at the school, and so on. I also asked some advice about how to better manage things when I get sidelined, so that I don't just withdraw and can become better able to assert myself.
After the supervision chat was over, Mark was interested in seeing the village. We were walking the short distance towards the village and it was all very nice, but it had to be cut short as we suddenly noticed that 3 of the dogs had gotten out and were following us! They were already barking at other dogs, and there was a real risk they might cause trouble, so rather than making it to the village we had to turn back to put the dogs away.
We had dinner, and then I had a supervision chat with Augustine before the day ended.
In other news, Mark told us that there had been more leadership issues in the Australian Government, and that we might have a new Prime Minister by now. I managed to check some news online, and discovered that Scott Morrison was now PM. Seems like a bad day for human rights causes and social justice in Australia.
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