Valley visit

The Valley school visit was a long one. The campus is set amidst nature, with lots of trees and a lake and rough trails. The children are all dressed in play-ready clothes, and the school has a tranquil ashram-like quality about it.

One advantage of having play areas and space is that I see that the girls are very active. There is a long gym rope in one playground, and I see a girl swing on the rope with great dexterity – it gives me great pleasure to see a girl who is not half-hearted in her movements – she has not bought into the discourse that says that women must be self-conscious. The dance class we see conducted outdoors in a hut-like structure has male participants and they are again not half-hearted.  The gender micro-level messages from Valley are quite heartening.

The literature class in 6^th grade was also interesting in that I noticed that the whole class participated whole-heartedly in the discussion. There were quite a few of us in the class, but the class was lost in the discussion. The dynamics of the class were such that neither the girls nor the boys dominated the discussion, though the teacher called on girls only to read the texts, not sure if this was coincidence or not.  In the sixth grade, the children were aware of words like oxymoron, and quite receptive to picking out interesting phrases or thinking about where the story was proceeding.