January 18th. Arrived at the school towards 10, to find a room full of children - about 24, though there are now 27 on register. The teachers and the ayah, Padmini, Rani and Saradha greeted me so warmly and presented me with flowers and a note of thanks for us all, and then fixed more flowers in my hair (on top of the roses Selvi had already insisted on back at the house. Have spotted that as well as a competition to feed us there is another to pin flowers in our hair. I fear the net result could be - and would by my children undoubtedly be- called silly and most definitely not age appropriate!)
It did in any case feel lovely to be back with them in the school and with the children. Sekar had led me to believe that perhaps the teachers weren't totally pulling their weight with enough enthusiam. I had to say gently to him that- through no fault of his own- he hasn't really been able to see much of what has been going on, and I think his judgments are based on too little observation. I feel defensive of the teachers because we selected them last year and they seemed such a good pair. They have also kept in touch with us by text and email this year,which is no mean feat for village women.
After being with them for the day and observing what went on I am much relieved that I still feel they are good teachers who are kind to the children (not always the case in Indian schools) and who have lots of commitment. I think that because our training last year was so minimal and we left them to make a start on their own, with as it turned out, very little ongoing support from Sekar, they may have become a little stilted in the way they work, and for example they have timetabled too little free play. Still, all that will be needed, I feel, is for me to be with them giving them ideas and modelling the way to work with the children, giving them as much first hand experience as possible and as many opportunities as they can each day for making their own choices and being creative.
Meanwhile the children are as ever, delightful and full of life and beans and character. They joined in immediately with the pretend doctor's set, taking my 'BP' repeatedly and administering at least 5 'injections'. One of them then wrote a prescription for medicine and told me to take it after eating! I was soaked in the water play, as we poured and splashed and floated, and then shown a beautiful garden with hills and trees they had made in the sand. All in all a day to gladden the heart and make me feel that all the frustrations of delay in getting things going, by officials at CMC and at RUHSA, are worth it in the end.
After school Sekar came and we had a meeting with staff and a representative of the committee which runs the school, Pushparvathy. I was able to get Sekar to explain about adjusting the time table to have more free play sessions, with all activities available from the time of arrival, and about planning for a small group teaching session each day. I said I would show them some ideas for this whilst I am here. Pam and Marilyn had arrived in the afternoon, and Pam stayed for the meeting with me. It became very heated at one time when Pam used the record of wages and outgoings to ask why staff had had a pay cut last month. The committee decided that they were unpunctual in arriving in the morning and that therefore they should be disciplined with a pay cut!!!! I said I felt sure this was not something the committee could just decide to do, and that it seemed a very unjust thing to do, to me. I did actually take a deep breath and say 'To be honest, this makes me feel very angry'
Sekar back-pedalled like mad, though I don't think he had disagreed with this action, and he certainly hadn't addressed it. After much to-ing and fro-ing of lively debate(!) we resolved that terms and conditions of employment and job descriptions will have to be worked out before we go.
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