Innovative teaching methods!

Written by Hayley Forbes - India GapBreak Volunteer 2008
Image c/o: Sarah Shaw

This is probably going to be my 2nd last email from here in Udaipur. We leave Udaipur on the 29th, so we have about 2 weeks left. This is quite exciting but also kind of sad as i have grown very comfortable here and have gotten on really well with all the other volunteers and the co-ordinators.

These last couple of weeks have been great. I’m teaching at evening school and my class is normally made up of 4 or 5 kids. They are Suresh ( a bright and cheeky kid) Mukesh (very cute boy who’s brilliant at maths but tends to copy Suresh in most other subjects) Prakash (he is quite smart and a little fussy, he must have a very flat surface to right on. Which is a little difficult because we teach on an uneven dirt floor, I’ve ended up bring hard books for them to lean on to class.) And Pooja, the only girl in my class, she’s a little shy like most of the Indian girls we teach, but quite bright.

We teach in the backyard of an neighbor of ours, so the children get a bit distracted as there are goats running around and many younger siblings and we all just sit in a particular area, there is no dividing wall. Which means my kids can always see what other classes are doing and if they are doing something crafty my kids want to join in or watch. My kids are pretty good though and don’t get too distracted. Of late we have been teaching in the car park under our apartment as it has rained every afternoon at around 3pm for an hour and we start teaching at 4.30pm. today we expect lots of children to turn up because we are putting on a picnic for the kids. Me and four other girls and Ritu( a co-coordinator) will be cooking chana masala (chickpea dish) and a semolina dessert.