This week met the first of many milestones. First, was the end of our training period. Piya and Remy took us out for an outrageously delicious Farewell-and-You-Survived-Training Dinner and then dropped us off at our apartment where we said our goodbyes. The Fellows all agreed that the feeling reminded us of when our parents dropped us off at university for the first time. We were, somehow, on our own.

The beginning of the week was spent rickshawing acrossed Hyderabad to visit our schools. We survived our first week in India, and now we were to begin our navigation into the government school system, and into teaching. Each of us had to meet with our respective headmasters and teaching assistants, and also to finalize the class schedule.

By Wednesday all of our schedules for the next six months had been finalized. Between the four Fellows, we each have two schools where we will be teaching. Additionally, all of us are teaming up with one other Fellow to teach at The Railway Girls School.

This marked another important milestone; our first class. Rachel and I were paired up to teach at Railway, and spent all of Wednesday scripting our lesson plan for our first class on Thursday. We spent a lot of time thinking about important teachers in our life. What makes a good teacher? Which activities will be the most effective? How can we create a classroom environment that is fun and welcoming, but also one that will create equal learning opportunities for all students? How can we be liked, but respected?

Luckily, the Railway girls were welcoming, attentive, and ready to learn. We spent the first two days of class doing icebreakers, learning names, and preparing to dive deeper into the art of digital storytelling. The girls were just as excited as we were, and I can tell that we are going to have a great semester with them! Here are two pictures that we took to commemorate the first day of class!