Teaching in Bodh Gaya
Trip Start
Jul 08, 2008
1
20
23
Trip End
Ongoing
Bodh Gaya,
Bihar,
India
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
We left the center of town and the Internet cafes characterizing any heavily touristed area became less numerous. We crossed a bridge over the Fulgu River, where the Buddha had spent much time as an ascetic, and reached a series of dilapidated buildings on our left. They included a tailor and a 'hole in the wall' convenience store but a sign was posted on the wall with the words "Ao Zora School". The three of us walked through the convenience store and passed somebody getting a shave before emerging into a much larger room. This was the school and there were two separate classes being taught in opposite corners of the room where children were sitting on makeshift wooden tables. The floors were rough concrete and beams of sunlight passed diagonally from the windows through the dusty air. The kids quickly noticed the presence of two Westerners in their midst and the dissonant chorus of "Namaste!" echoed throughout the room. We returned the greeting before heading up some rough stairs towards the back of the room. We came out onto the rooftop where there were two more classes being taught in small concrete rooms.
After a few minutes we headed downstairs and entered a smaller room by the entrance, which happened to be the principal's office. The principal, Nikesh, thanked us for visiting and proceeded to tell us about the school while occasionally bowing. The school was run entirely on donations and focused on the kids from the Sujata Village on the outskirts of Bodh Gaya. Eight of the students were orphans who lived at the school and slept on the wooden tables, which doubled as beds.
The next day I returned to the school and was invited to teach a class. There were no instructions or guidelines, only a gesture to get in front of the class, so I started writing English sentences on the board and the children would recite them. Eventually this evolved into grammar exercises as I was trying to gauge what the kids knew and what would challenge them. After the lesson I talked to Nikesh about teaching regularly for a longer period and his reply was "as you like" accompanied with his usual bow.
Tom was at the end of his journey and he hopped a train to Mumbai to catch his flight back to England.
I spent a month in Bodh Gaya teaching at the school and this involved six days of teaching each week for the duration of September. The school lent me a bicycle for getting to and from class and it epitomized 'function over form' with its rusty color, wobbly tire, loose seat, and missing left pedal. This was an interesting way to experience the Indian traffic and the bell on the handlebars allowed me to join in the symphony of courtesy horns.
I moved from English grammar to math and science lessons over the course of each day and was impressed with the level of devotion the 10 year old kids had towards the educational process. On one Friday I had written the usual number of math problems on the board as the homework assignment and the students suggested I give them double the work-load as they would have the weekend to work on it. On another day I introduced the kids to the Periodic Table, handing each a copy. The response from each student was a bow as if I had given them a present. The "land of extremes" label was evident as, on one hand, the kids were advanced in the material they were covering but the school building was a run-down mess with mice regularly crawling on the floors and the extreme heat of September and lack of any reliable electricity giving even this Floridian a hard time. I would start each day by filtering five liters of water, which would last me until the afternoon.
The kids seemed to take an interest in the childhood of Abraham Lincoln, and while they never said this specifically, I think the story of a poor kid living in a cabin eventually becoming a president gave them motivation to work hard. They saw an education as a gift and knew that an example of not having one was simply a look out the window to the peasants working in the nearby fields. Based on their current levels there's no reason why any of the students won't eventually become scientists, doctors, and engineers; the aspirations most of them voiced.
On my final day I was speaking with Nikesh who was suffering with the flu. "Why don't you go home and lay down?" He thanked me for teaching (for the millionth time) and I handed him a small donation. He struggled with his obvious illness to write out the receipt and gave his usual bow.
Comments
Nice story
and very good descriptions. Keep up the great writing. It sounds like you made a small difference in the lives of those kids.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager