Back on!

For the last few days, we have been having electricity problems. The electricity would surge and then die down, over and over again. This meant that the air conditioning did not have enough power to work for long enough to cool down the rooms, and also that a number of people have had electrical things short out. One guy was holding his computer during a surge and he got a shock - his fingers were numb for hours. My adapter surged and shorted out, but luckily my computer and cord were protected. So now that the electricity is working again, I'm back on and I can sleep in comfort again.

Today is the 4th of July. I really miss being in Cody for the 4th of July, but it's also really good to be here. We sang some songs, including the national anthem, at dinner tonight. We also had brownies with our Indian food, which was great. I really do like Indian food for the most part, but having it every day is tough - red rice, with its husk, and curry sauce. The sauce has some differences, but it's always a spicy sauce of basically the same kind. So it was a great food day - yesterday, when we went to church in Chennai, we had some pizzas delivered to the church at the end of the block of meetings, and I had a few pieces left over for today - cold pizza for breakfast, yum!

Work wise, it was a busy day. I am still feeling kind of sad, because I'm turning over my 7th and 8th standard classes to a guy who just arrived. He was a teacher in Texas for a year and he has teacher training, so I am sure it will go well, but I will miss them. I have a few more days with them to transition and to help him continue the work that I'm doing. It will be hard for me not to do those classes any more, because I really enjoy them. But the folks in charge here really want me to be free to do some more model teaching in classes, so that when I leave, teaching in general will be better. I do understand this. So today, when I wasn't teaching, I did a lot of observing and making notes for things that individual teachers could work on. I will continue to do this, and I'll also be meeting with teachers, individually and in groups, to work with them as a coach. I have a meeting tomorrow with the third standard teacher. It is her first year of teaching, and she is really struggling with classroom management, so her students are also not learning much. I learned early on that classroom management is a prerequisite to learning. So we will talk tomorrow and come up with some strategies and a plan to put into place, and I will spend a fair bit of time in her classroom helping her to implement it. In the evenings, I've been helping the science teacher, Rajakumari, to understand the English textbook that she is using, how to pronounce and understand words, and also some ideas for lessons. She is wonderful. She really wants to improve her English. She is reading Charlotte's Web, and she is excited to see the movie when she is all finished. She works so hard - she is a housemother, as well as a teacher. She told me once that she is 22 years old and she has 22 children, and she teaches all day. I wonder sometimes how she does it, because it seems that she never gets a break. Many of the teachers here really do want to improve, which is so great. It's good to work with them.

I would like to share with you an interesting Rising Star story before I sign off tonight. Becky, who started Rising Star, shared it when she came to visit. She told us that in their first years, they did not charge any tuition to the parents who sent their children to the school. Then, a few years in, none of the 8th standard (8th grade) girls returned for 9th standard. When they checked, they found that they had all been married over the summer break. Becky was very upset. She felt that much of what they did would be wasted if all the girls married around 8th grade and were not able to continue their education. She spoke with the Indian woman who has helped set up Rising Star. She thought about it and said that to help this problem, they needed to start charging tuition. Becky was surprised, but agreed. When they met with the parents, many were quite upset. They said that they could not afford the tuition of 1,000 rupees per year (a little more than $20), but they were told that this was not true - through Rising Star, they have received microloans to set up small businesses, so they would be able to afford this, although it would require some sacrifice. The Indian woman and Becky explained that this money would be put into a fund and, when their children graduated, they would receive all of the money for their graduation to help them. The parents were interested - they have never had 12,000 rupees to give their children all at once. Now this is how Rising Star works, and in the first year after this was implemented, all of the 8th standard girls returned for 9th standard. Now there are 9th and 10th standard girls as well as boys.

It is not always easy to be here, but I am glad that I am. There is so much to see and learn, and so much to do!