A Gap Year in India. Hearing these words often brings to mind images of backpacking along tourist trails, selfies with the Taj Mahal and partying in Goa.Whilst I may well do all of these things, I am mainly here to work. I am a volunteer teacher at Srirajini Primary School, Dhrangadhra.
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| My 'teacher' name |
Established over 30 years ago by my host Ba, the school resides in a corner of the palace grounds. Students from the ages of three to thirteen attend from a wide range of different backgrounds (scholarships are widely available), learning the skills they need to equip them for a bright future. Srirajini is a largely English-medium school and, unlike many Indian schools, strong emphasis is placed upon core values such as gender equality and an intolerance of the prejudiced social caste system. It is clearly a very special place.
So far, my role involves teaching students from the Fifth to Eighth Standards (roughly nine to thirteen years old) a range of different subjects, including English, Civics, Physics, Biology and Computing, as well as running Art & Craft projects. The day starts at 8:30am and finishes at 1:40pm, so as to avoid the heat of the afternoon. Whilst a 1:40pm finish may seem like I'm getting off likely, this does not include the 2-3 hours of lesson prep that I then have to do for the next day. Having just left school, with limited life experience and no teaching qualifications, I have well and truly thrown myself in at the deep end. Despite these many challenges (a large one being merely that of trying to keep the class quiet *), I can already tell that this is going to be a very rewarding experience. I have been given an incredible opportunity and intend to seize it with both hands.
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| The weekly timetable |
*Note: I am sorry to every teacher that I ever misbehaved for
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