On Sunday, November 14th, India celebrated Children’s Day with festivities, games and an extra serving of sweets. Like Teacher’s Day at Railway, Children’s Day naturally calls for a “program” (a performance by the students), some speeches, a colorful tent, and lots of candy – all things that our students are crazy about. However, because Children’s Day officially fell on a Sunday this year, the administration at Railway waited until yesterday to hold their celebration. Kara and I were unfortunately unable to attend the program, as we were conducting interviews for a friend in the morning. However, we arrived just in time to see the glittery, sugary aftermath of the Children’s Day hullaballoo.

Knowing that the girls would be very excited about Children’s Day (“m’am! wish me a happen children’s day! shake my hand m’am!”) Kara and I decided to use their energy as a springboard for a related, but much different topic: motherhood. “Children’s Day is all about children,” I told our students, “but we we wouldn’t have any children if we didn’t have mothers!” Building on last week’s lessons about interviewing and journalism, Kara and I thought that motherhood would be a good subject for the girls to think about – something that they could consider both on a personal, and a more general level.

We opened the class with a writing exercise, using this photo, which I took near the APRS boys school in Nalgonda:

The only thing that we told the girls before we began was that this photo was of a mother and child. The students wrote silently in their notebooks for five minutes, and then two volunteers shared their stories. Akshatha’s story was particularly interesting, as she described in it how the young mother was feeling very nervous because her son was going to get a polio vaccination. Akshatha told us that the mother was was afraid that her son would be upset by the polio vaccination. I found this response to be a sign of great progress in Akshatha’s ability to think beyond the confines of an image – she read into the expression on the woman’s face, and then thought creatively about all the things that a mother could be feeling about her teary-eyed son. We will post Akshatha’s full response soon!

After we got the ball rolling with our mother-related writing warm up, Kara and I screened a short film that we’d found on India Unheard, a website devoted to sharing videos made by people from around India. The mini-report is called “Motherhood: Who is Deciding?” and was produced by a woman named Aleya, from Meghalaya. The girls seemed very surprised by some of the interviews in the video, particularly the initial one with a young woman who has given birth to 10 children, 3 of whom have died . The girls were also good about giving small critiques of the film regarding interview style, questions that weren’t asked, etc. and they were eager to do some question asking of their own. The girls’ discussion of the film naturally came to focus around questions they had about how old a girl/woman should be when she marries, whether or not a girl should get an education before she has children, and how it is important to make sure that you can support all of the children you have.

Which brought us to the culminating activity of the day: a mock press conference on “Motherhood” and other related subjects such as marriage and education. Over the course of the past week, we’ve really been focusing on the importance of questions like “how,” and “why” in our interviewing tool bag. The girls seem to have caught the “Why?” fever as a result, and it is incredibly exciting to see them pushing both their peers, and their teachers, for more detailed answers. Last week, during an interview exercise, one of the girls asked Neha “why are you in class?” to which Neha responded, “to teach you.” The girls all simultaneously shouted, “Why?” to which Neha replied, “because I love you!” It was a beautiful moment, and I think that it really helped drive home the idea that  questions like “why?” are a means of getting at important, deeper answers. It is especially encouraging for Kara and I to see the girls asking questions so freely, and building up such energy while doing so, knowing how far they’ve come from our first class. Timid, quiet observers no more! We have some active, curious, and engaged young women in our classroom now.

You too can see the power of this evolution in the video below. Filmed by Ramya Krishna (with some guidance from Neha,) our press conference on Motherhood was held to give the girls a chance to practice both asking and answering some harder questions. With only a little prompting from their teachers at the start, they proved themselves to be excellent journalists (and, in the case of Sandhya at the end, excellent debaters too!) By the end of our time in class that energy in the room was palpable, and the girls begged us to continue the discussion for “just five minutes longer, m’am!” While I was sad to cut things short, I was thrilled with the girls’ level of engagement and enthusiasm.

[vimeo 16995279]

Feel free to leave feedback about the press conference for the girls, or for us, in the comments section! We will be continuing our discussion about Motherhood in upcoming classes, and I can’t wait to share more of the girls’ thoughts and digital documentation with you!