The previous week in Hyderabad was a humid, hazy one, punctuated with rain. At our apartment, we’ve grown accustomed to planning around the power cut cycle, with regular 2-hour outages in the morning and just after noon. What we can’t always anticipate is the furtive nighttime outage, which leaves us in darkness save for the light of our laptops, until those run out of battery as well. We have not yet invested in recently purchased candles. For me, after the initial frustration at losing our internet connection (!), I began to enjoy the momentary pause that being cut off from technology provided. It was a chance to clear my head, reflect, and remember the value of stillness in preparing yourself for action.

In many schools, we began work on our photo stories – the first major project, marking completion of Unit 1 in the TMS curriculum. Students in different classrooms are gearing up to tell stories about friendship, family, school, and the different states of India, among other topics. It was exciting to see students’ progression as they worked through the pre-production phase of their projects. After some action-packed, hands-on classes where they learned about and practiced their photography skills, we were now asking them pause from using technology and use the time to think and plan.

For some of our classes, the process of writing scripts and storyboarding were new concepts. It took some time for students to wrap their heads around what we were asking them to do, on top of the responsibility we were putting into their hands, in place of equipment. Still, their creative energy was in full-force and there was a palpable thrill in the air as ideas started coming together. Mental work spurs a new sort of dynamism, but it is hard, time-consuming, sometimes plodding. Although we impressed upon the students the importance of planning for the production stage, we also had to trust that they might not fully understand that lesson until they get there. In that way, the first project truly represents a landmark, not only for what students can create, but also to help them reflect on what they have learned along the way.