Our next visit was to I.International. At the end of a long drive on Sarjapur Road, and a 2.5 km detour, you suddenly come upon some white buildings in a landscaped setting. The white buildings have a colonial feel about them, it's as if you suddenly have stepped into Rashtrapati Bhavan with its manicured lawns.
We were shown around the campus, which resembled a university, by 2 fourth grade and 2 fifth grade kids. The children were very self possessed, especially one of the girls. She waved her hands and presented quite like an MBA student.
Our visit to 6th grade was at the end of a history class. The teacher was quite animated, and tried her best to draw the children into the discussion. The discussion was on the caste system, and she asked good questions, like "what in the political scenario acted as an impetus to the rise of Buddhism"? Some of the children raised their hands, and joined in, echoing her enthusiasm, but there were enough number of kids who did not participate at all, and in spite of the teacher's encouragement, refused to be drawn in.
The teachers' in the campus seemed to have slightly mixed styles- they did encourage the children to have a voice in the class, at the same time, the style of addressing the children's misbehavior made the teachers revert to an authoritarian and dictating style. I think that when you have a school which mimics the impersonal nature of a corporate campus, to have a culture where everyone comes with the exact same philosophy and ideas is difficult, and having the atmosphere of a school is even more difficult.
We walked into a 4-year old class, which was quite delightful due to the lively Spanish teacher, who used several strategies to engage and manage her energetic children. It made me realize that preschool teaching is a tough job, and I could only watch with admiration and pleasure at the teacher's patience and liveliness.
Pondering the idea of students' view of relevant and valid knowledge, I can draw some conclusions based on observations rather than interviews. In the 4 year old's class, there was one child who had not bought into the idea of sitting still, and following the teacher. He ran all over the class, and inserted himself between an easel board to hide from the teacher, and refused to follow instructions to color within the boxes, using his crayons instead to color quickly and vigorously. Similarly, there were children who had been using language in class that was not considered appropriate, or had been using cellphones in class, and their phones had been confiscated.
We interviewed the coordinator, who told us about the problems of having children from famileies whose parents were high-ranked CEOs or businessmen. The slightest problem resulted in tehe parents sending emails, or pulling their weight in the parent-teacher association. It seemed to me that the teachers had their authority diluted in this school, as opposed to a school from a lower class, and resistances from the students/students' parents had a greater voice in the school.
The question of culture, which I used to pooh-pooh prior to my entry into APU, as some wishy-washy concept is beginning to show up as such an important one, that I laugh at my earlier naivete. "Creating global leaders" is the motto at Indus, and I don't know whether the school realizes the price the children might pay in terms of being uprooted regularly and displaced all over the planet, with the feeling of never belonging anywhere.
At the end of the day, I did not feel that the children received any better instruction than a well-run government school, like through the Nalli-Kalli program I saw earlier in one well-run government school, in spite of all the fancy infrastructure. We asked one of the girls whether they got to do any science, and she talked about taking a seed home, but said "the gardener ruined it by pouring too much water into the seedling"....alas for the poor little rich girl, she cannot even do an experiment without being molly-coddled out of it.
We were shown around the campus, which resembled a university, by 2 fourth grade and 2 fifth grade kids. The children were very self possessed, especially one of the girls. She waved her hands and presented quite like an MBA student.
Our visit to 6th grade was at the end of a history class. The teacher was quite animated, and tried her best to draw the children into the discussion. The discussion was on the caste system, and she asked good questions, like "what in the political scenario acted as an impetus to the rise of Buddhism"? Some of the children raised their hands, and joined in, echoing her enthusiasm, but there were enough number of kids who did not participate at all, and in spite of the teacher's encouragement, refused to be drawn in.
The teachers' in the campus seemed to have slightly mixed styles- they did encourage the children to have a voice in the class, at the same time, the style of addressing the children's misbehavior made the teachers revert to an authoritarian and dictating style. I think that when you have a school which mimics the impersonal nature of a corporate campus, to have a culture where everyone comes with the exact same philosophy and ideas is difficult, and having the atmosphere of a school is even more difficult.
We walked into a 4-year old class, which was quite delightful due to the lively Spanish teacher, who used several strategies to engage and manage her energetic children. It made me realize that preschool teaching is a tough job, and I could only watch with admiration and pleasure at the teacher's patience and liveliness.
Pondering the idea of students' view of relevant and valid knowledge, I can draw some conclusions based on observations rather than interviews. In the 4 year old's class, there was one child who had not bought into the idea of sitting still, and following the teacher. He ran all over the class, and inserted himself between an easel board to hide from the teacher, and refused to follow instructions to color within the boxes, using his crayons instead to color quickly and vigorously. Similarly, there were children who had been using language in class that was not considered appropriate, or had been using cellphones in class, and their phones had been confiscated.
We interviewed the coordinator, who told us about the problems of having children from famileies whose parents were high-ranked CEOs or businessmen. The slightest problem resulted in tehe parents sending emails, or pulling their weight in the parent-teacher association. It seemed to me that the teachers had their authority diluted in this school, as opposed to a school from a lower class, and resistances from the students/students' parents had a greater voice in the school.
The question of culture, which I used to pooh-pooh prior to my entry into APU, as some wishy-washy concept is beginning to show up as such an important one, that I laugh at my earlier naivete. "Creating global leaders" is the motto at Indus, and I don't know whether the school realizes the price the children might pay in terms of being uprooted regularly and displaced all over the planet, with the feeling of never belonging anywhere.
At the end of the day, I did not feel that the children received any better instruction than a well-run government school, like through the Nalli-Kalli program I saw earlier in one well-run government school, in spite of all the fancy infrastructure. We asked one of the girls whether they got to do any science, and she talked about taking a seed home, but said "the gardener ruined it by pouring too much water into the seedling"....alas for the poor little rich girl, she cannot even do an experiment without being molly-coddled out of it.
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