tms@themodernstory.com

EmilyK
25
Sep

0

Classroom News

Pairing a Face to a Name

The most recent census clocked the population of Hyderabad at 4 million, in a state of 8.4 million, in a country of 1.2 billion – the second largest in a world filled to the brim with 7 billion and counting. To name every person on earth, saying 10 names per second, would take 22 years (or my entire lifetime).

Inconceivable sums such as these dwarf the students of The Modern Story, who number 115 students between our five schools (to put it in perspective, I could recite all of their names in the time it takes you to read this paragraph). These numbers frighten one with their sense of scale, certainly, situating these 115 boys and girls within the colossal frame of the world. Statistically, they represent an infinitesimal blip, 115 stars in an oceanic sky. When it comes to the world, these 115 students are destined to be forgotten.

Which of course, is the illusion of quantitative data: it fails to capture the magnitude of these 115 students, how their spirit exceeds the boundaries of their 4-foot/5-foot stature and ages of 12. 13. 14. Numbers cannot do them justice. They have lived a lifetime – 115 whole lifetimes – and possess rich inner lives we catch only glimpses of in their journals and our conversations. They are all different. They write differently, converse differently. The light catches their eyes in a different way. The astonishing powers of Krishna, the boy god of Hinduism, were revealed when he opened his mouth and inside was the entire universe. Each of these 115 students has done the same – swallowed an entire universe of stories, a unique name, a home, a family. And as much as we write about these young men and women in the collective, as “our students,” “the class,” “Railway 8B,” etc., it is ever so important to honor who they are as individuals and how they have grown in the past three months. Here are six such profiles, written for Adobe Youth Voices, and our small attempt to capture some of their whole person on paper:

B. Sravanti, or ‘Sravs’ is one of the most unique personalities we have in Railway Class 8A. From day one, she has not been scared to face the ‘doubts’ in her mind and is brave in asking questions and sharing her ideas. I will never forget the sincere curiosity in her eyes when she asked me early on, “Teacher, why are you white?” She is a Hindu girl who loves Jesus, and frequently writes in her journal about the ability of Jesus to solve all of our problems. Every time we collect the journals, we can be certain that Sravs has gone beyond what was asked of her and included plenty of her own poems, stories, songs, and pictures. Recently, she has starred in the role of Siri in the Railway Class 8A video project entitled, “Fight for Your Rights! Education for All” and it was so fun to watch her put her energy and dedication towards drama and performance. She is quite a talented girl and we are so pleased she is with us in The Modern Story class. – Kelly

S.K. Fuqrah Sultana of Railway 8B says her “life policy” is to make all the people in the world happy and healthy. She is a source of constant brightness in the classroom, living by this maxim with a sense of personal responsibility for the happiness of others and capable of making anyone feel that everything is well in the world. When Fuqrah was 12, her parents enrolled her in a madarsa, a school for the study of the Islamic faith. While there, she began to lose sight in one of her eyes, having developed a small tumor in her brain, and was kept out of school for two years. She was determined to return to school and enrolled in 8th class for the second time. At the age of 15, she is the oldest girl in our class and role model for the other girls. Writing with signature quickness and double spacing, she fills her journals with “thoughts” – such as the Marcus Aurelius quote “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts” – and dreams of becoming a professional animator. Authentic, imaginative, and full of wonder for all there is to discover in the world and compassion for others, Fuqrah is a very special young woman with enormous promise. – Emily

Kelly: As with most students at Sultaan Bazar, Kheertna is shy when it comes to expressing herself in words. She responds most commonly with “Yes, teacher” and excessive smiles and nods, but it is difficult to have her open up into conversation vocally in the classroom. That said, she is hard working and always arrives at least 15 minutes early for class, and I have been able to learn more from the writing she does in her journal. Kheertna has the meticulous work ethic of many of our students – the type that will not draw a line without a straight edge. While in the midst of preparations for a video project concerning conversations with the natural world, Kheertna characteristically spent days diligently cutting out a parrot – her favorite animal.  I remembered another parrot that Kheertna had drawn and went back to take a closer look – the parrot was drawn in response to a Gandhi prompt following Independence Day: “In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.” Kheertna responded to this quote by drawing a parrot and telling the story of her own capacity to think for herself…

 “Democracy: This parrot is my favorite bird and my parents are saying you get favorite peacock, zebra, but I like parrot.  But my feeling is my feeling and not another feeling is my parents. And friends say your favorite bird is parrot, but why? I will say yes my favorite bird is parrot.”

When asked for one unique thing about Zeenath, she replied that she is ‘punctual’ and in a similar fashion, this young girl is dedicated to hard work and studies. She is confident and vocal in class, and always willing to share insightful responses. She never misses a day of homework, and goes above and beyond what she needs to do in her journal at night. It seems that she must have supportive parents, because some of her homework responses incorporate information she has attained from the newspaper and current events that suggest family involvement in her education. She is also the star of MGM’s current video project, called ‘Sita’s Life,’ that explores the difficult topic of child suicide.  In her performance given this responsibility, she has displayed maturity beyond her years, as well a relaxation into the ‘dramatic’ process that was reassuring to see in this characteristically disciplined young girl have so much fun acting. One day I asked her if she enjoyed making the video project, and she responded with a big smile, “Yes teacher! All week I could not wait until Tuesday to come!” She has also been important for creative input in the project, contributing many ideas to the post-production editing. Zeenath’s father is a shop keeper and her mother is a housewife. Her ambition is to be a government official. -Kelly

Rahul is quiet upon first introduction and stands out among his peers. He is older, taller, and hesitant, unsure of his footing at times among the more vocal of his peers. He is intensely curious about the technological aspects of video production and editing especially. Rahul is most happy when seated at the computer in front of Windows Movie Maker, filled with clips awaiting his growing editing sensibilities. Rahul was initially one of our least engaged students. He seemed especially afraid of handling the equipment and his English skills were very weak. With the help of our high school volunteer Praneet, Rahul gradually came out of his shell and seemed to enjoy the class. It wasn’t until we introduced video editing, however, that he transformed. He began to ask questions, to stay after class and beg us to show him additional editing tips. Rahul went from barely speaking to us, to being one of the most vocal and interested students in the class. He continues to be shy around the camera but now makes an effort to stay focused in class and has one of the best attendance records of our students. Rahul’s father is a politician and his mother is a shopkeeper. -Dana

 Swarupa has a quiet introspection about her and is sharing more of herself each and every day. She has blossomed within the last few weeks as a prominent character in our short video project, demonstrating an energy and dry wit both on camera and off. When we first began teaching at Bansilalpet, Swarupa was the least talkative of our students, even at times appearing disinterested.  We were surprised one day when the other students convinced Swarupa to dance after class. We filmed her dance and ever since she has been interested in participating in class activities. From improvising lines in our short video project, to making jokes on and off the camera, Swarupa has become one of our most enjoyably unpredictable students. -Dana

 

19
Sep

2

Classroom News, Photo Stories, TMS Fellow Updates

A Spring Morning and Photo Story Round Up

Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Rory Sutherland

At this point, we hope you’ve moseyed on over to The Modern Story’s video page, taken a stroll in Rainbow Park while pondering a girl’s struggle for education, and eaten birthday biryani on a rainy day. Our final batch of photo stories comes from the 8th standard class at Railway Girl’s High School, an extraordinary school in Lallaguda that was been partnered with The Modern Story program for three years. In a unique departure from the traditional photo story format, this year marked the first time that a TMS project counted towards students’ quarterly exams (representing 25 marks total). Through a collaboration with the 8th class English instructors, Mdms. Shimla and Vimala, the photo story assignment asked students to create a visual interpretation of William Wordsworth’s “A Spring Morning.”

A Spring Morning Railway 8A from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 1: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 2: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 3: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

 

“A Spring Morning” is fourteen lines in length and describes the beautiful day that emerges after a rainstorm:

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the stockdove broods;
The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth;
The grass is bright with raindrops; – on the moor
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

A Spring Morning is also first poem in the English Reader textbook for all 8th class students in the state of Andhra Pradesh and between the five schools where we teach, it is one of the few common denominators. Nearly every student has some working familiarity with this poem and especially its resounding introduction: “There was a roaring in the wind all night.” A few have even copied a verse or two in their homework and claimed it as their own. But that’s another issue for another blog post.

More pressing in early July was the challenge of interpreting a remarkably straightforward poem in an imaginative way. “A Spring Morning” is fourteen lines long and featured Wordsworth at his descriptive best. Read it again and you’ll see. The poem is constituted entirely of images. It describes the beautiful day that emerges after a rainstorm, pregnant with the sounds of birds chirping, water flowing, and a hare bounding through puddles. This hare is the closest thing the poem has to a protagonist and his splashy journey the extent of the poem’s narrative, leaving those hungry for a plotline (or a story to digitize) wanting. And while the other TMS photo stories drew from the personal lives of the students, ranging from the everyday of cooking biryani to broader themes of caste division, and had clear narrative conventions (a main character, a beginning, a middle, and end), the story that landed in the lap of Railway was a snapshot of the English countryside written over 120 years ago. What possible connection did Wordsworth’s pastoral paradise have to their personal lives?

It was a question the three of us thought about for a long time, as we read and re-read those fourteen lines in search for creative wiggle room and a story to conceptualize. We had the students choose their favorite line of the poem and draw it. They wrote poetry for homework and read poetry in class. Kelly wondered if we could represent the emotional arc of the poem, showing the ascension of family calm after a storm of domestic violence. As a warm-up, she and Dana choreographed an expressive dance around the poem’s major images, which 8A enthusiastically memorized by heart.

Over in 8B, the girls turned the poem into a play – “acting out” what they read, roaring like a lion, chattering like a magpie, and raining like a flood. Neha and I were the costume department for that day, furiously scribbling “tree,” “sun” and that famous “hare” on pieces of computer paper and taping it to the front of their uniforms.

While these exercises helped the students in isolating the major “characters” of the poem, they didn’t generate a more profound interpretation than the literal fact of a spring morning after a rain storm. At first this disappointed me. Years of schooling had coached me in the “seek-and-ye-shall-find” methods of literary analysis, in which a careful reader cannot in good faith leave any symbolic stone unturned, but must dissect any verse with a mental scapula, extracting the meaning hidden by the all-knowing poet/creator/mastermind. If our students wanted to represent the hare as simply that – a hare – would we be allowing them to settle for a superficial interpretation?

Maybe. But maybe not. For there is another kind of wealth to be found in poetry that operates on the pure level of language, of words. And meaning revealed by the simple stringing of several words together. “All things that love the sun are out of doors.” To read these words on page, to understand them, and to represent them artistically is an accomplishment for anyone, let alone students whose second language is English. Any deeper meaning lacquered upon the simplicity of Wordsworth’s words does not indicate a more meaningful understanding of the words themselves. And the more we worked through the project, the more I realized that our earlier fixation on finding a deeper meaning distracted us from the beauty of its delivery. We changed focus from questions of message (What do we think Wordsworth means by a spring morning?) to questions of medium (How shall we recreate a spring morning? How shall we evoke the feeling of a spring morning?), recognizing the ample inspiration in this spring morning to produce a photo story of substance.

And that’s when the fun began. 8A brought the outdoors inside, hanging raindrops from the ceiling and birds from the window, and embodying Wordsworth’s menagerie by turning their cheeks towards Kelly’s face paint brush, grinning hugely beneath rabbit whiskers, chattering like jays and magpies with cut-out speech bubbles, and forming birds wings with their adjoined thumbs. With a little help from Dana and the Electric Light Company, they learned to read expressively, to make their voices rise calmly and brightly like the sun, matching the cadence of Wordsworth’s iambic pentameter.

After breaking into three groups, 8B received blank story boarding sheets.”You choose. Its your choice,” Neha and I kept saying when they asked what to do next and after some initial discomfort, each team attacked the project from a different angle, with a different story board to show for it. Velankanni and Shanawaz took digital photographs on the school grounds and created rain where there was none, sprinkling “dew” on grass blades, draping leaves in puddles, and commissioning a few of the Tiny Tots students to pose with umbrellas. When a downpour did come, Srilekha and Ramya Sree bolted outside with a video camera and returned triumphantly to class with a sound recording.

Other teams delved into mixed media collages and stop motion animation, condensing a series of 30 still pictures of a run rising upward or a hare moving forward into a four second clip. While teaching them these techniques, their application and execution was entirely up to the students. It seemed that the more free they were to experiment with different media and represent the poem as they wished, the more personal responsibility they developed, as they recognized this project was in some way an extension of themselves and there was no “right” way to complete it. “A Spring Morning” may have been written by Williams Wordsworth, but “A Spring Morning” photo story was all theirs.

Their burgeoning sense of artistic ownership culminated in a showcase of the photo stories for their parents during the annual Parent-Teacher meeting and for the head administrator of the Railway schools on Teacher’s Day (see video below). Our students spoke proudly about their work and what’s more, seemed astonished that they themselves (rather than another adult or teacher) were speaking on their own behalf and representing their original work. Watching them from the side, I realized it mattered little in the end whether we were in England or in India. These students were resourceful enough to illustrate “A Spring Morning” poem on the moon provided they were given the moon rocks to do so. And therein lies the true success of Railway’s photo story project: that the students experienced the thrill of creation and just how personal it can be.

 

5
Sep

0

Classroom News, Daily Updates, Project Tracks, Reflections

Brother Praneet

Praneet Reddy first approached The Modern Story in late June. He had just completed 10th class and was home in Hyderabad for the summer, looking for a valuable way to spend his time before pursuing his Higher Secondary School Certificate in Bangalore. He had discovered The Modern Story the way many people discover The Modern Story – through a chance encounter with our website – but took the extra step of contacting us directly and asking whether he could get involved.

Its a rare and wonderful step if you think about it –  the type of gesture that makes non-profit organizations such as The Modern Story possible. Ideas are only as powerful as the number of able bodied men and women to act upon them and doing so invites a certain leap of faith.  I cannot count the number of times I’ve stumbled across a web page for a cause whose work I admired, whose photographs I picked through, maybe whose newsletter I signed up for to give my time, eyes, and momentary attention. But it takes a special amount of courage, initiative, and character to send a cold e-mail and offer yourself. Praneet did this very thing and for six weeks, volunteered his creativity and English-to-Telugu translation abilities as a co-teacher at Audiah Memorial High School (during production of A Rainy Day photo story). We gratefully accepted, little knowing just how valuable he would be to our teaching and just how beloved he would become to our 15 students.

In the five weeks we had the pleasure of working with him, Praneet juggled a multitude of roles with steadfast calmness and  cheer. As a co-teacher, he muscled through every technical failure, every power outage, and every change in the lesson plan with patience. As a translator, he managed to digest our lengthy explanations into an abridged Telugu version faithful to (and often more articulate than) the English original, choosing those very words that would would bring a wave of comprehension across the faces of our Audiah students and draw our classroom back together.

Most importantly, Praneet was an unfailingly kind friend and role model for the students, answering questions, sharing stories, and alleviating any mental roadblocks so our lessons had traction. The early confidence he inspired in these fifteen students, both in the technical process and in themselves (“Yes, I can do this!”), has made all the difference in their long-term engagement. This is especially evident among our male students – Rahul, Rohit, Bhushan, Vinay, Asif, and Nagaraju – who sat resolutely in the back row the first two weeks of class, physically distant and distracted. Once Praneet became a regular fixture, this pattern broke down. The boys began to talk. To follow their curiosity and ask questions. To share. Rahul, who barely said a word and shied the camera, was a different person with Praneet in the room. The two of them huddled in quiet confidence was a common sight before class. These days, Rahul is among the most active and technologically savvy of our students, inseparable from Windows Movie Maker and endlessly curious. He continues the legacy of his former teacher and friend in ever question that he asks and every technology that he masters. Today we set up Rahul’s e-mail account and wouldn’t you know – Praneet was the first person he wanted to whom Rahul wished to address his very first message.