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Rachel

Dec, 2

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Classroom News, Reflections, The Modern Story Fellowship, TMS Fellow Updates, Videos, Watch

Mosquito Borne Diseases: Prevention is Better than a Cure

Sometimes, when negotiating make-up days for missed classes or lobbying for use of a computer , fellows are called upon to defend the TMS program. From curious teachers, to expectant headmistresses, to students who wander into the classroom, people often ask us to explain exactly what the TMS curriculum is and how it’s as beneficial to students as the English class or elective period or computer time it’s cutting into. I can’t think of a better defense than what I saw in the classroom I shared with Karis and our Teach for India partner Ramesh.

At Monarch, our TFI school, Karis and I had a really great opportunity to fold the TMS curriculum into what the students were already learning. Before our first class, we sat down with Ramesh over Osmania biscuits and talked about how to build digital storytelling into the curriculum Ramesh already had in place. When Ramesh told us he was working through a science unit on mosquito borne illnesses, we figured that would be the perfect place. Instead of just taking notes about mosquito facts and getting quizzed on disease prevention techniques, the students got to write narratives about mosquito borne illnesses and come up with ways to visually communicate the facts they learned.

Working at Monarch wasn’t always easy. The students there were a few years younger than students at the other schools where we teach, so we learned a lot about adapting the material to a younger audience. For example: having 12 and 13-year olds film mini stories around campus? Pretty solid way to let them practice their camera angles. Having 9 and 10-year olds do the same activity? Pretty solid way to end up with a group of children running around school and occasionally filming a few seconds of it. But Ramesh came ready with a handful of classroom management techniques that we ended up even bringing into our other classes.

One of the best things about the TFI partnership was seeing how the curriculum leads so well into students taking action. The students took the project outside the classroom and into the community, spreading their knowledge of mosquito borne illness prevention around their neighborhood. Watch the video to see how the students used their TMS skills to apply what they learned about mosquitos.

Nov, 10

0

Classroom News, Reflections, The Modern Story Fellowship, TMS Fellow Updates, Videos, Watch

West Marredpally: Harmful Alcohol

When you’re pushing to get a project done, sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of why you’re making the project in the first place. This was definitely the case with my class at West Marredpally as we worked to complete our video on alcohol. In my rush to move through the process of choosing a topic and writing a script, we ended up with a story that felt a little disconnected from the students’ actual experiences with alcohol in their communities. So, instead of moving on to the next steps of pre-production, we took a day to just step back and discuss the message we wanted our video to send. We talked through reasons why people choose to drink, researched the long-term and short-term effects of alcohol abuse, shared personal experiences of peer pressure, and in the end rewrote the script to be something the students would want to show their friends to encourage them to make smart choices about alcohol. From there, we plunged back into pre-production with renewed excitement. The girls put their all into writing a shotlist, rehearsing the dialogue, and decorating the set. As an added bonus, we filmed the birthday party scene on the date of my actual birthday. The students made me wear a sari (which they had to retie when I arrived at school) and once we finished filming, they turned the set into a party for me. This was definitely one of my most memorable birthdays, and that’s due a lot to it capping off a project that meant so much to the students. It wasn’t a celebration for me as much as it was congratulating ourselves for our hard work.

Here I am cutting the prop cake (not super tasty after three days of sitting on set).

Here I am cutting the prop cake (not super tasty after three days of sitting on set).

Aug, 18

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The Moving Bus

Getting around in Hyderabad is always an adventure. From crossing 8 lanes of full-speed traffic to colliding with a motorbike during a late-night auto rickshaw ride, getting from point A to point B often includes moments of mingled terror and excitement. The bus, our most frequently-used form of transportation, is by far the most unpredictable. Sometimes it’s so crowded that you miss your stop because you can’t squeeze your way out. Sometimes a fight breaks out because a man refuses to give up his seat in the section of the bus reserved for women. And very often, people jump into the open doors of moving buses. Recently, I decided to mimic this last behavior. I was headed to class, almost but not quite at the bus stop when I saw the 8A, my ride to school, begin to pull away. In the few seconds of sprinting to close the distance between us, I psyched myself up to do something I had seen so many others before me accomplish. I leapt onto the bus, just barely making it onto the step. My body slammed against the side of the bus and I gripped the railing for dear life. When I finally managed to pull myself inside, I was met with a mix of shocked, confused and concerned faces. But along with a wave of embarrassment and a badly bruised leg came another important lesson about life in India: things won’t always stop for you. Sometimes you just have to jump in.

This is definitely a lesson I’ve had to put into practice in the classroom. Holidays and a collection of unexpected hurdles have made working on schedule for our first project a challenge. But time doesn’t stop to give me another 20 minutes to talk about point of view or another week to get to know my students before I ask them to photograph their hopes, worries and desires. As a class, we’ve had to jump onto this bus already in motion. But unlike the gasps, chuckles, and stares that greeted me on the 8A, our big jump has produced two projects I can’t wait to share, and a level of trust between myself and the students I could not have imagined to find so early.

This new ease with jumping carried beautifully into our plans for this past weekend. The majority of my travel experiences have taken months of planning and preparation. But in this life of objects already in motion, deciding on Sunday to go to Mumbai on Wednesday  seemed perfectly reasonable. And though the overnight bus did stop to allow me, Karis and Dara to climb on safely, the experience still required a leap. The decision to jump is always rewarded, whether by a weekend full of memories, a productive and supportive classroom, or a fun story and battle scar. In all cases, I’m glad I managed to coax my feet off the ground.

Jul, 20

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The One and a Half Burner Cook

I love to cook. In college when I moved off campus into my first apartment, complete with four burners and a nice sized oven, I blossomed. So when I read that TMS fellows often cook for themselves I thought, “No problem.” Arriving in Hyderabad, however, my confidence deflated. In place of four burners and an oven, I have two burners, one of them less than consistent in its functioning, with an intimidatingly complex lighting system that feels vaguely like setting off a bomb. Needless to say, we spent our first few days here living off Maggi Noodles (the Indian equivalent of Ramen) and toast. But finally, once we got a little more settled in, we set out to make dal, a staple Indian dish of lentils and spices. Though far from perfect, our first real meal sent a message. In the sizzling of garlic and ginger, in the high-pitched whistle of the pressure cooker, I heard the words, “You can do this.” From there, I bookmarked a list of recipes to try out and quickly became what Karis has coined The One and a Half Burner Cook. After learning to work with the appliances and ingredients available to me, I can say I’ve made some things I’m genuinely proud of.

Stepping into my classrooms on the first day felt a lot like my first time stepping into the kitchen. At West Marredpally, I found out about two thirds of the way into class that the majority of the girls there had gone through the TMS program last year. So I’ll be starting over with an entirely new group of students this week. And when I showed up for my first day at Hill Street, fresh off the West Marredpally confusion and ready for something to go right, I was notified that the class time we had agreed upon would no longer work. After 45 minutes of discussion and compromise, however, we reached a consensus that the original time would work after all. So I used the remaining time to teach a very compressed and somewhat frazzled version of the lesson I had prepared. No four burners here. No nice sized oven. Just like in the kitchen, I’m learning in the classroom to make the most of what’s available to me. I’m sure somewhere in the clap of the chalk eraser, or a student’s voice calling “teacher,” I’ll hear those same words, “You can do this.” And just like the garlic butter pasta, spiced cauliflower, masala potatoes, and turmeric chicken pictured in this entry, I’m sure West Marredpally and Hill Street will end up with creations the students and I can all be proud of.

7
Jul

3

Reflections, The Modern Story Fellowship, TMS Fellow Updates

That Big Red Bag with the Brown Ribbon: My Fresh Start in Hyderabad

What is a fresh start? If I were to explain it, I’d say moving across the world one week after graduating from college is a pretty solid example. But in my first few days in Hyderabad, I found that even in this time of transition, and in this unfamiliar place, I had been holding myself back from the beauty and value that can be found in the start of something.

This lesson came to me in the disappearance of one red suitcase, distinguished by a brown ribbon on the handle and full to bursting with every comfort I could fit within range of the 50lb weight limit. Long story short, a fellow traveler mistakenly took my bag at the Mumbai airport, leaving an identical bag- save for its thinner size and lack of ribbon- in its place, and leaving me without the belongings I’d packed for my time here.

What’s incredible is that this mixup has actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Spending my first week in Hyderabad without the suitcase full of items I’d curated to make myself feel as at home as possible really forced me to immerse myself in the city more than I would have otherwise. And it wasn’t long after buying my first few pairs of loose, patterned pants and trying out coconut oil as a substitute for the hair products I’m used to that other areas where I’d had the urge to skip the starting stage began to present themselves. I wanted to bypass the point of building initial connections with my co-fellows and get to the part where we all feel like we deeply know each other. I wanted to slide past feelings of unfamiliarity with the city and get to a place where I’d know where to go, how to get there, and whether the auto rickshaw driver was trying to overcharge me for the ride. I wanted to avoid the the nervousness of speaking in front of the students and feel like a pro in the classroom. But I’ve come to see that acclimating to a new place, a new job, a new community, is a lot like Monopoly. If you don’t pass GO, you don’t collect $200. Skipping the scary or uncomfortable stages of a new beginning means missing out on what comes along with them. Even if that means getting lost in a new neighborhood or getting a few butterflies in the stomach in front of the class, it’s worth it to commit to the fresh start. Because that’s where learning happens.

To give an update, the airline has found my suitcase and it’s currently on its way to me. (When it will get here, no one knows. That’s another lesson about India for another time.) And though I’m definitely excited to be reunited with my contact lenses and granola bars, I’m grateful I had to spend my first week in India without that big red bag with the brown ribbon.

24
Jun

2

Pre-Departure, TMS Fellow Updates

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Meet Rachel

34 hours. That’s how long I’ll have between leaving my home in California and arriving in Hyderabad for the incredible journey that will be my first six months out of college. Between reading books from the list of selections we were given to educate us on India, tearing through Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed again to remind myself what good teaching looks like, and listening to the 16-hour playlist I’ve carefully curated for the long trip, I can only imagine that the rest of the travel time will be spent trying to contain my excitement (or sleeping, but excitedly).

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an interest in social justice. So when I decided to study filmmaking, it felt only natural for me to explore how the two could be used alongside each other. But the mainstay of social justice filmmaking, the depressing documentary, left a lot to be desired. After working with a nonprofit that seeks sustainable solutions to poverty over the periodic dispensing of charity and an organization that provides participants with the technical training and tools to tell their own stories through film, my curiosity about what those depressing documentaries would look like if their subjects were the ones producing them intensified. I was drawn to The Modern Story because they were asking the same questions I was. What would it look like if we helped empower those most often spoken for or never spoken about to speak for themselves? What would we see in those stories that challenged the script so often dispensed? These are exactly the questions I hope to see answered during my time in India. And these are the questions that will carry me through my 34-hour journey when the revolutionary words of Paolo Freire and the soothing sounds of Sufjan Stevens aren’t enough.