A Trip to Bangalore

Lalbagh Botanical Gardens: Bangalore, India

1st Presentation

http://www.lorven.org

  Last weekend my roommate and I traveled to Bangalore with my friend from the flight to India, Ashok, to visit his mother’s schools: Lorven schools (http://www.lorven.org/News.htm).  The first campus we visited serves students from rural and suburban areas in grades kindergarten to 10^th grade.  We first observed classes, then had a Q&A session with several students.  The instruction at Lorven is rigorous, the response rate extremely high, and both students and teachers appear to take academics very seriously. 

2nd Presentation

            Well, a discussion commenced with the students for 30 minutes, and following it was another discussion with over 50 teachers at Lorven.  There were three of us at the front of the room during the discussion, each giving input as our disciplines allowed. Toward the end of this session, teachers began asking detailed questions about behavior management and instruction when Ashok turned to me said, “Britany, I think you can take it from here.”  I was sitting there in my chair with my fingers interlaced, legs crossed, and actually quite comfortable just engaging in discussion.  I mean actually just barely comfortable.  But then the phrase came, “You can take it from here” and I looked over at the people, at Ashok, then back at the people and thought, Well yeah, I guess technically I could take it from here. So I took it from there.  For almost an hour.  I stood up, picked up some chalk, faced the board and began writing my philosophy of education and behavior management on the board.  I wrote the word “DISCIPLINE” on the board and two lines coming out from it.  One line said “PUNISHMENT” and the other was “LEARNING.”  This is how I began my discussion on response to intervention and positive behavioral supports.  I wrote examples of punishment: humiliation, corporal punishment, scolding, etc. and then wrote examples of learning: positive and negative consequences with explicit instruction.  It is common in India to use corporal punishment as a means to manage difficult behavior or academic failure.  It is also very rare for positive reinforcement strategies to be in place, from my observations and discussions thus far, that is. 

            So on the following day it happened again: I was put on the spot and asked to present at two sessions, each at different Lorven schools with a different group of parents, teachers, and students.  The first session is the only one I anticipated having to participate in, and didn’t expect to be the main speaker.  I also didn’t expect that the PowerPoint I created would be unusable with India’s technology…so that was awesome.  I didn’t care, I closed my computer, picked up the chalk, and wrote, talked, and made terrible jokes in between. 

3rd Presentation

            The highlights of this experience for me were many and lasting.  Being able to discuss with highly skilled and caring teachers better ways to manage their students’ behavior and improve academic and social success was fascinating.  The teachers and parents were genuinely concerned and interested in how to improve the way they teach the children academically as well as how to be better people in the world.  Secondly, presenting for almost an hour three separate times to large groups of intelligent people was a huge challenge that would have normally hospitalized me. ;)  Seriously though, it was a positive experience for me to demonstrate my real understanding of the theory and concepts that I put into action in my classroom everyday.  There was something about the unplanned, unorganized nature of my presentations that made them more authentic not just to the listeners, but especially me.

            But don’t misunderstand me: I can’t describe how happy I am it’s over.  The PBS ghost possessed me during that weekend at Lorven, and lies dormant in my body I suppose until the ghost is called on as needed.  Like for instance, every day from around 3:00-5:00 the ghost appears as I train teachers at Karuna Home on behavior management in their classrooms and schoolwide.  I guess it’s my new companion.

Dinner at the "Cave" with Ashok & Britney.  It's like the Mayan!!

Lalbagh Botanical Gardens: Bangalore, India