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Lalbagh Botanical Gardens: Bangalore, India |
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1st Presentation |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Dinner at the "Cave" with Ashok & Britney. It's like the Mayan!! |
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Lalbagh Botanical Gardens: Bangalore, India |
AWESOME update, Britany. You were, and are, a great blessing to your Indian teacher colleagues. Well done!
ReplyDeleteYou never cease to amaze Brit!
ReplyDeleteTechnology failures are an issue even in corporate America's events. I am glad that it did not stop you from going ahead with the presentation. I agree that it could have been better planned. Its something I need to improve on. I have to admit that the unplanned road trip that we did in Colorado last week was more fun than the planned ones that we have done in the past. Thank you for spending the time with the teachers, students and parents at Lorven. They have all had follow up sessions based on your presentation on PBS :)
ReplyDelete