Work It

I've noticed that I've written about the days that I have off, but I have yet to write about the days I have ON and what I do then. This post should remedy this. I will attempt to explain what exactly it is I'm doing here at RIVER -- the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (Indians get tricky with their acronyms and re-arrange the letters to make clever words). Get ready for a lot of acronyms!

RIVER is a part of the larger Rishi Valley School Complex, where I live. The school is located about 9 miles from the nearest city, Madanapalle, a tiny town of only 200000 (remember: it's all relative). The "valley" part in the name comes from the fact that we are indeed located in a valley, surrounded by many rocky hills on all sides, making life absolutely beautiful. I hiked some of these hills last weekend, and it was absolutely blissful. Rishi Valley School hosts a bunch of different initiatives, including main campus (where I eat), the Rural Education Center (REC - where RIVER is housed and also where I am housed), a Rural Health Center, a nursery (of the plant kind, not the children kind), a dairy, and a bunch of land with various crops planted on them. Pretty awesome stuff.

REC is a bit away from campus (about 5 minutes on bike from the main gate and 8 minutes on bike from the dining hall), so we have our own space. Here, we have some offices, a computer lab, a cafeteria for rural children, a rural school, dorms for rural children, a bunch of guest houses (we hold trainings in our methodology and we can currently house up to 50 guests), director's offices, and some seminar rooms. We also have a lot of space to walk around, some gardens, a football pitch, and a volleyball court (where we sometimes play badminton). The staff here isn't very large. I mostly interact with the directors (couple who invented the methodology), another couple who is pretty high in the hierarchy (India is ALL about hierarchy), a resource manager person in charge of curriculum development and training, a nice lady who lived in Denton County in Texas (small world!) who teacher computer classes, and three people working on the English curriculum (whom I <3 dearly).

I keep saying "our methodology," which is vague, but is actually at the core of RIVER. It's the whole reason we exist and work and such. The methodology is child-centered multi-grade multi-level curriculum (MGML). I will say right off the bat that it is AWESOME. The directors saw a need to address the reality in India (especially rural India) that teachers were faced with multi-grade multi-level classrooms. This means that the students in one particular classroom were usually in different grade levels or at least on different levels within a grade, but still all in the same classroom under one teacher. (This was mostly due to teacher absenteeism, when one teacher had to cover for two or three classes at a time. The multi-level thing happens EVERYWHERE: it is nearly impossible to design an effective lesson plan for fourth grade math, for example, because you will only reach about four kids, the rest will either not have enough knowledge to understand fully the activity or already know the concept and be bored.) So, they decided that it would be best if we address this problem by creating environments where multi-grade multi-level teaching and learning was encouraged and enhanced.

They designed, for each grade, a "ladder". (When you imagine this ladder, think Chutes and Ladders and not vertical climbing ladders.) Every step in the ladder represented an assignment or an activity. A collection of steps in the ladder equaled a "milestone". The directors also sought to reduce lecturing and intimidation in the classroom. They wanted the children to be free with their teachers and to emphasize the joy in learning. They wanted everyone to be engaged and love school. Impossible? Not so. They created child-friendly (student-centered) activities that students can do with minimal teacher supervision. The classroom was divided into four groups: fully teacher supported, partly teacher supported, peer supported, and self supported. Every step in the ladder is labeled by a logo (like a tiger or peacock, for example) and a number. A child sees the logo and number corresponding to their step on the ladder, picks up the card with the matching logo and number, selects the group they are in, and works on the activity. (The logos always match to one of the groups, for example a cat is always peer-supported and a bear is always teacher-supported.) So, the child matches the logo with the picture at one of the four group tables and sits there to do her work. The teacher moves about the classroom helping kids out with their activities, focusing mostly on the teacher-supported groups. The teacher needs to only spend 3-5 minutes with each child to get them started on their activities and then leaves them to do the work independently. It's pretty great. The peer-supported group works together on games and other group activities to enhance learning. New concepts in math are introduced outside in a group setting. New concepts (like addition, subtraction, concept of zero, multiplication, etc.) are acted out by the older students using funny characters and animal masks. The younger children watch and participate in discussion, with the target child (the student needing the learn the new concept) sitting in the front in a drawn circle. The kids also participate in songs, arts and crafts, and host tremendously elaborate puppet shows. Very impressive stuff. I posted some of the pictures of our schools (we have 11 satellite schools within a 10 kilometer radius, all serving villages in which there are no government schools within 45 minutes walk) earlier, and you can see some of the other features: independent chalkboards at the child's level, art work hanging from the ceiling, example of the cards, etc.

I have to admit, when I first read about MGML, I didn't think it could be possible. Thirty children? Five grades? One teacher? Can't work. But, miraculously, it does. And not on accident, either. This is high quality stuff! Another aspect of RIVER which I absolutely LOVE is their emphasis on international collaboration. The methodology has worked for our schools, and we are happy to share it and provide training for anyone who wants to adapt it to their environment. As part of the training, educators are taught to create their own ladders with their own milestones, using local culture and tradition for themes and activities. Everything is made to be directly relevant to the child's environment. RIVER also emphasizes taking care of the Earth: reducing waste, planting trees, herbs, and flowers, and learning about different natural processes (water cycle, best farming practices, dangers of pesticides, etc.). Training is offered on our campus. It starts with a three day immersion for top policy-makers to introduce them to the methodology. Then, we host an intensive three-week training for teachers, where they become MGML experts and design at least one milestone in their own language/context. We also offer on-site evaluation three months after the program has been adopted, and later evaluations, as requested. (Coming up next week is a trip to Chhattisgarh, where I will participate in evaluating their program, adopted two and a half years ago. Also, there will be a three week intensive training for teachers from West Bengal, the Kolkata area. I am super excited about this, as I have not seen one yet, and am very interested in how RIVER communicates not only the theory behind its methodology, but also its powerful vision. Can't wait.)

So, how do I fit into this awesome MGML stuff? Well, I am designing all of the curriculum (ladders, milestones, activities, etc.) for the new English program for grades 3-5. There is already a team of three people working on developing the curriculum for grades one and two, and I am in charge of creating all of the necessary materials for grades three through five. The English curriculum is divided into two stages: one being first and second grade and stage two being grades three through five. Each grade within a stage has the same themes and group activities, but the learning outcomes for each grade differ, so the independent work varies slightly. The need for English comes from the reality that higher paying and better jobs are only available to those who speak English in India. We want to open those doors for our children. Also, I might be helping out with an English immersion camp that we want to host on our campus sometime next year. Since none of our kids have had any English instruction, they are currently on the same level -- we want to give background knowledge to second and third grade kids in order to get them caught up. We are also considering an intensive English training for our teachers, as most of them have very limited English abilities. I might also help plan/execute this training. Hopefully, it'll be a lot of fun!

One of the biggest challenges thus far has been the English language itself. Seriously. English is cray cray. It makes NO SENSE. There are five vowels, which make more than 20 vowel sounds. C and G are inconsistent. Capital and lower case letters sometimes look nothing like each other. (Telugu does not differentiate between capital and lower case letters -- it's the same symbol only bigger or smaller.) Another issue has been that India formally uses "British English," while our employees speak Indian English and I have an American English background. The word "spoon" (especially the oo sound) sound very different in all three of these dialects, making it extremely difficult to ensure that we stay consistent in teaching letters and sounds. I am so happy that I took linguistics in college, as all of that knowledge is coming into use now! I only wish I minored or perhaps majored in linguistics, because that would've been a HUGE help. Special shout outs go to Profs Dickey, Rajka, and Elliott!!

Another project I will be working on is the international collaboration part. First, I will help to create better monitoring process of programs implemented far from our campus. We are also hoping to create some digital material for training or refresher courses for teachers in our methodology. Additionally, I hope to help connect this methodology to a wider global audience. Someone from Ghana has already inquired about bringing the methodology there, and hopefully my contacts can help make that happen! (If I get to go to Ghana this year, words would not be able to describe the intense level of my happiness...) Perhaps using some of the other fellows' international contacts could spread the word or help establish deeper connections with interested parties. RIVER also really wants to go to Mexico and Sri Lanka, both of which would be fantastic places to explore for me. I am really especially excited about this international collaboration business, because I've been preaching "globally sharing best practices" for four years now, and to finally be a part of it is absolutely exhilarating.

I could go on and on and on about how amazing RIVER is and how lucky I am to have this job. Honestly, I am completely surprised at how close my job description is to the job description of my dream job. I am livin' the life, y'all. :)

If you want to learn more about REC and RIVER, please check out the following links:
www.rishivalley.org/rural_education/overview.htm
www.river-rv.org/
river-rv.blogspot.com/