The Justice

Students in Palampur study in dilapidated buildings. Above, Wolfman with her class and co-teacher on the school's outside porch. Photo courtesy of Rachel Wolfman.

I'll begin at the end, because that is when my experience first sank in. As we climbed into the car to drive back to the home base after my last day of work, I heard shouts from a little girl behind us. I turned around and saw Kajul running up the path to the car. When she reached me, she looked up into my eyes, handed me a flower she had picked and said "Thank you." In that moment, I realized I'd changed her life forever.

This summer, I spent five weeks volunteering at the Kathera Government Primary school in Palampur, Himachel Pradesh, India. I worked alongside the locals teaching conversational English to children in third, fourth and fifth grade.

Completely unaware of what I was walking into, I set off for my placement on the first day with a Hindi/English phrasebook in hand and an optimism toward creative teaching options.

When I arrived I saw about 70 students running around in brown jumper uniforms with white button-down shirts. Boys wore ties and girls belts inscribed with the school's emblem. The schoolhouse was a modest building with only two classrooms for the first through seventh grades. Most of the students sat out on the porch outside of the classrooms patiently waiting for one of the two teachers at the school to come and give them something to learn. The students didn't even have desks. My students were lucky, and had a wooden plank on which to sit. Most other students sat on burlap sacks.

Week one was a challenge. The students quickly learned that my co-teacher, another volunteer, and I did not punish in the way that was customary in this school. Time-outs were a joke in comparison with the hard slap across the face they would receive from their principal.

Although every day we came prepared with flash cards and worksheets, we didn't truly feel as if we were teaching them anything. These children were more a source of frustration than pride and accomplishment. It seemed impossible to keep the class under control and at a reasonable decibel level when we didn't even share a common language.

It wasn't until halfway through the third week that we saw the results we had been hoping for. Finally they started listening to us and answering the simple greetings we had taught them. The smiles and nods we used to get from a question like, "Hello. What is your name?" started giving way to full sentences as they learned to say, "Hello. My name is Sarvesh."

Continued...

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