Day 1: Although I have never visited a low-grade government-funded school, Nai Disha is honestly exactly what I had imagined. The classrooms lacked sufficient equipment and cleanliness, but yet it was very quaint. There were only around 3 educational posters in class one’s room, and a decent sized chalkboard in the front of the class. My students were all adorable, and I wish they all can have the same learning experience I had when I was in grade school.

Shikah is class one’s instructor and she guided Amanda and I for a brief ten minutes and left to do her personal chores. When the students realized their teacher was going to be absent for a good amount of time, they became progressively rowdy and inobedient. At the moment, we were teaching them vocabulary words and they proved to be very intelligent. When the students’ monstrosity reached its peak, we were unable to control them. We took them outside to the playground hoping to change their behavior, but they just became worst. The students ran everywhere and refused to pay any attention to us. It was awful and disheartening; we were defeated.

Day 2:
Today, the children were much more enjoyable to teach. I realized that I didn’t anticipate such an energetic and wild group of students yesterday, therefore I was able to become entirely patient today with my prior knowledge. /

Our first lesson for the class was called, “This is my family.” This assignment idea was taken from Gil and Krithika’s group. Basically, each student drew their house, mother, brother, sister, and brother onto a piece of paper. After the students were finished, they would individually present in front of the class. We acquired assistant from Gil because we were unable to control and tame our students. He, in a stern yet animated manner, was able to capture each student’s attention as well as inform them how to orally present the assignment. A bright girl named Guddi presented the assignment first and performed an excellent job. The following students presented just as well, however there were apparently some that did not comprehend the “family” vocabulary words well. In this case, I made certain to provide more attention to these individuals—making sure that they are understanding their learning material. For our outdoor activity, we placed on the ground six papers with the words: jump, sing, dance, clap, sing, and sit. The papers were spread apart and they would run to each of them performing the certain action verb. This activity was clearly very successful, and it made me realize why the students were uncontrollably wild. I believe they have the mentality that outdoor activities should be excessively active, therefore this game that allowed them to run around and play was perfect.

Day 3:
It took almost an hour to reach the inner-village slums. We first arrived at another government funded school, and it was remarkable to witness education in a completely different environment. The young students seemed very willing and eager to learn.  We were given a tour around the campus, and I was very surprised to see such a sufficient computer room that contained probably twelve modern flat-panel computers. 

Afterwards, we were given a tour around the slum area. It was very depressing to see such terrible living conditions. This area was completely unsanitary. We were shown a picture of the slum taken place around a decade ago. Although housing situation is a hundred times better, there is still a huge range for improvement.

Day 4           We were invited to the Dai Nisha director’s home for lunch. She had a beautiful home and backyard. The food was also delicious.


Today in class, we had worksheets ready for our students to learn. Amanda and I basically lectured on prefixes and suffixes. Later on, Shikah helped us maintain the students in an orderly fashion, and we practiced the song, “I Love You” from Barney until it was perfected. The students were very enthusiastic when they performed the song.

Day 5
Even though the students knew that it was our last day at Nai Disha, they didn’t seem as remorseful as Amanda and I were feeling. We practiced their song for the performance and then we went to meet the students’ parents.  It was amazing to see how much the parents cared for their children’s future.
I was so proud of my students’ performance, they did an amazing job. In the picture above, the students holding up stockings are all in Class One.