The Freedom Writers

I watched Freedom Writers today, and even though the plot was predictable (teacher rescuing inner-city kids), I still got caught up in the story.
I've seen the same idea in "To Sir with Love", though those are set in slightly gentler times, and of course,to put it mildly, Sidney Poitier is easier on the eyes and ears than Hilary Swank.
I also have seen a French version, where a music teacher teaches kids that the system has given up on, and creates a choir out of a bunch of straggly kids. The French movie portrayed the teacher with his imperfections, struggling with his own sense of failure - in this movie, Hilary always looks picture perfect - with her pearls and clothes always just so in place.
It still created a sense of the miracle that a good teacher can bring about, and about the power and worth of a good teacher in people's lives, and was quite motivating.
I was also happy to see that America was portrayed more realistically, often people think that America is all honey and milk, and this movie, like the movie "Crash" shows a seamier and more realistic idea of America, which struggles with its diversity, as much as India does.

The movie also is a reminder of whose story gets told - the Holocaust has been told over and over again, and while I understand the pain of the Jews, there are many stories of similar and unspeakable horror, that do not get the same limelight, like the atrocities in Rwanda genocide. The Jews are a powerful community, and they have made sure that their story gets told because they control the finances in America.

curriculum at different schools

So far we've visited a government school, an international school, a kendriya vidyalaya, and an alternative school - and it is interesting to see how the curriculum plays out in the class.

Clearly, the curriculum stems from the vision that the schools have of themselves, as citizens of India, or of Karnataka, or of that of global leaders, or that of human beings with capacity for autonomy, and searching for self-actualization. If that ethos is clear, the curriculum's broad framework is set. After that, it is also a function of the school itself and how that particular school has turned out.

For example, I went to the government school with an idea that the curriculum would play out as text book, but thanks to a motivated teacher and a Nalli-Kalli program, the students were working with the material in an animated fashion.

The history teacher in the international school was not a strict follower of the text book, but some of the students in her class who were students from a different country, clearly did not take to the nuances of the caste system. I guess it was as alien to them as teaching the idea of snow to someone from Salem.At the same time, a pre-kindergarten teacher of Spanish origin, overcame the difficulties of teaching the idea of a cube to her extremely energetic wards, thanks to her patience and innovation. She presented the idea of a cube through a "magic" box filled with cubes of different textures and sizes, got the children to touch and feel and experience the idea of a cube as a 3-D figure with six sides.

In the alternative school, the idea of children as independent, and fearless worked its way into every aspect of the curriculum. It did not really matter that the teachers were perhaps of the same caliber in teaching as the others we met previously, but the driving philosophy made all the difference.

Good Tamil Brahmin girl's curriculum

So here is my mother's idea of a good Tam-Bram girl 's curriculum -is more like a daily schedule

1) Get up early. wash face,put bindi, go out and sprinkle gobar water on the verandah, and put kolam (rangoli)
2) take bath, light diya
3) say shloka
4) eat tiffin, go to school
5) after school, wash hands and legs, change clothes, help mother in household activities- folding and putting away clothes, keep vessels inside the cupboards, cut veggies
6) In the evening, a tutor comes home to teach music, or for imparting Veena lessons.
7) Light diya, say a prayer
7) Study
8) Eat dinner at 8ish
9) Sleep


* My mother is a an ex-maths teacher and likes order and method in her life, so her response is systematic. Based on my understanding of her life and my grandmother, I'd like to add a few points.

Life for my grandmother revolved around the Hindu calendar. Meals, daily variations on whether she ate or had upvas or what she cooked depended on the calendar. Cooking and the kitchen was the centre of her life. So it is fair to venture that mastering cooking according to the religious calendar was a focus of the good Brahmin girl's curriculum.

My grandmother was always neatly put together, hair never unkempt, and I remember her with her beautiful pattu sarees and neatly tied hair...I've never seen her looking untidy...so cleanliness was a huge thingy in her life. The idea of pollution was very ingrained in her, so she would take a bath in the morning, and we could not touch her if we had not taken a bath ourselves. A bath after going out and coming back was also mandatory. So ensuring the household cleanliness and cleanliness of self and family members was a major part of curriculum.

Prayer in various forms - in shloka (for eg. learning the Sahasranamam or 1000 names of Vishnu and Suprabhatam were a given), or music training, or as participant in a singing group- religious rituals and music another mandatory part of the curriculum.
Regular visits to the temple and especially during festival days a part of life.

I met a boy who was running a puncture shop. Btw, I love the creative spellings for puncture shop - puncher shop, pancher shop etc. He said he'd started working at 4, and was now 15. That makes it 11 years of work, and I guess he's put in the 10000 hours that the outliers' book talks about. He seemed pretty competent and earned about Rs. 320 for fixing 2 punctures in 1 wheel. That seemed a pretty decent "aamdani". So how did he learn his work - "mera bhai sikhaya, aur dimag rehne se koi bhi seekh sakta hai" was his cryptic answer...so that's that about his curriculum I guess. Learning by observation.

agreeing on grammar and other things

I liked the list of 21 grammatical errors listed in Bobbitt's article. But imagine implementing this on a bunch of teenagers ...I guess we'll get an SMS saying "be rt bck".
So, I guess my peeve is that the texts are written by a bunch of fuddy-duddy old timers who are out of touch with the world as it is today. How we are all going to agree on what ought to be in every subject in a curriculum, I am not sure.