National Training Ends and Deborah Arrives!

Deborah Wildfong joined us today.  She will be spending the next three weeks with Murray doing state level training in Orissa and Assam.  She missed her flight in Toronto by 5 minutes and ended up being a day late getting to Delhi.

Today we completed the national level training.  Both yesterday and today the participants presented mini workshops with a model lesson using the instructional strategies that are part of the Professional Development Program.  They did great jobs!  We saw agendas posted, opening activities that activated prior knowledge linked to the content, bodies of workshops with creative demonstrations of the strategies and clear closings.  We sang, danced, engaged in multiple instructional strategies and even got to see Murray do a Charlie Chaplin imitation.  I’ll be charging admission to see the video (yes, there is one) when I get home!  Just about as funny was the impression one of the participants did of Murray – slowing talking, gestures and all!  It was wonderful to see them in action.  Teachers are the same everywhere - get them doing what they love and they shine!

Chitra and Amit:

New for the participants, and very exciting to observe for us, this year was practicing encouraging feedback.  The tendency here is for people to give advice/instructions to others regarding what they could do better.  We changed that to a more reflective model by having the presenters self-reflect first, followed by reports of success, followed by considering how they might change their workshop/lesson the next time they do it.  It took us a bit to get them into this new groove, but once they got used to it they did an excellent job.  It created much “joyful learning” for everyone.

The participants used up most of our chart paper for their presentations, so as we were fussing about how to find more I remembered that there was a printer behind the AIPTF office.  I took a young teacher named Chitra with me to translate.  Little did I know that Chitra is an even better negotiator than Tish.  The printer had the perfect sized paper.  We bought a stack about an inch and half thick.  The price started at 500 rupees, but Chitra haggled it down to 200 (about $4).  I don’t understand Hindi, but I do understand body language and she was very firm in her demands to the printer.  So, paper crisis averted.

We ended our five days by collecting feedback regarding the national training program and the resource materials that we created.  It was exciting to hear that some states have begun to engage their colleagues in professional development using the Professional Development Program.  At the end of the day speeches were made, gifts were exchanged, thousands of photos were taken (literally), and we wished our colleagues and new friends well as they began their journeys home.  Many will be on the train for 24-30 hours, or are flying to their home states.  The level of commitment is amazing.  Interestingly, many are going home to go door to door to take the census.  One teacher told me that the people don’t trust the government officials, but they trust teachers, so teachers have been charged with taking the census.  Imagine if we asked our teachers to do that after work was over or after nine days away from home at a PD session.

After lunch we began to clean up.  We all know that teachers like stuff.  Well, these teachers liked the stuff in our baggies so much that we ended up with only two baggies at the end.  So, it was off to the market.  Chitra volunteered to take us.  Chitra is in her twenties and is a ball of energy!  Chitra, her friend Amit and another participant went with us.  After the death defying feat of crossing the street – no one stops for pedestrians – we were right at the entrance to the market.  This market was the Delhi that I really wanted to see.  I was taking pictures and video as we entered the market and then Chitra and Amit told me to put my camera away.  The police said no photos were allowed.  Luckily, I had taken all the photos I wanted by then.  We made our way to the shop that sold office supplies.  In Canada we need about an acre of big box store to sell markers and sticky notes.  In Delhi, the store was literally about 100 square feet.  You could get about 8 people squished in at one time.  The owner had shelves that went to the ceiling.  He stood on the counter and used a ladder to get enough markers and sticky notes for us.  Again, Chitra went to work.  She was banging the sticky notes on the counter as she worked the price down to 550 rupees ($12).  While walking back out of the market we found the stall that made our snacks and lunch every day, saw chickens in cages, and zillions of people.  Every store you could imagine was in the market – everything from fruit and vegetables to electronics to saris to modern fashions.  Spencer, you would have liked the shoe store I saw.  I have never seen such cool men’s shoes in Canada!

After that we headed back to the hotel to change and head off to Connaught Place so that Deb could do some shopping in the state emporiums.  We only had two hours, but discovered a whole set of emporiums (emporia?) we had missed earlier in the week.  Things must be really slow because everyone had a “sale” on and in one store each of us was literally followed around by a clerk who described every item in the store – very annoying.  To cap off Deb’s first day of Delhi shopping we re-ran the gauntlet of the Kashmiri shops.  Take the hawkers at the exhibition and multiply their persistence by 10, 000 and you’d be getting close.  A couple remembered us and the game was on again.  Tish was in fine form and again left without anything.  We’re learning that you need to negotiate the low price with the young clerk and close fast before the older clerk/owner arrives.  When the older fellows appear the deals vanish!  It is always great fun!

Back at the hotel we did a bit more shopping in the stores here.  Tish is closing in on a rug purchase she has been working on all week.  When bargaining on big ticket items, time must be your friend.  I negotiated the price down on another scarf for MJ and Deb scored a bunch of scarves for her friends and family.

Tomorrow morning, we hope to visit the B’hai Lotus Temple and then we all leave for Orissa in the afternoon.  We will take the next day to meet with the state level leadership and do some planning, then the 5 day program begins.

Some random pictures from our excursions of the past two days:

Just a reminder that quality is Murray’s middle name:

The range of fabrics available everywhere:

These people seem to live under an overpass:

More soon from Orissa!