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Published: September 25th 2015
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taking selfies with two girls from class four September has been a packed month of teaching, exploring and celebrating. Due to some stressful things occurring within my house, that were out of my own control, it has at times been very difficult emotionally, but I have tried my hardest to focus on enjoying my last months in Palampur and concentrate on my project at the school.
Now I have a set timetable at the school I’ve really enjoyed the regular daily structure of teaching. I have just finished a fantastic five week scheme of work on rhythm and counting in which I taught the children how to count crotchets, quavers and minims and to read rhythmic notation. I also put on a small assessment at the end and felt incredibly proud of their achievements in just five weeks.
For my last five weeks at the school I’m going to teach the children about reggae and rock music. I’ve just started this scheme and have taught them ‘Three little birds’ by Bob Marley, through this song we’ve explored the genre of reggae and even watched a video of Bob Marley live which the children loved. Next week I will be teaching them the Beatles song, ‘Here comes the
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two friends unite at a rally in Bhawarna campaigning against the deliberate abortion of baby girls during pregnancy sun’ and getting the children to think about song structure. At the end of the five weeks they will get the opportunity to perform their favourite song of the two and I will record them and they can then watch back.
On Wednesdays after school I have been running a recorder club for the two oldest classes in the school, 9
th and 10
th. It’s been a lot of fun (and very noisy!) teaching the recorder but some of the students are really picking it up very quickly. In my last week at the school I plan to put on a small concert for teachers and students where children will perform some of the songs that I’ve taught them and the recorder club will play a piece that they are learning at the moment. I also plan on doing music awards for each class where there will be prizes for categories such as, ‘best dancer’, ‘best listener’ and ‘most likely to become a popstar!’
I have now finished painting my music classroom and I’m so pleased with how it looks! With an amazingly generous donation I am now able to buy everything I wanted to get to finish the
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celebrating Raksha Bandhan (brother's day) with Anti's family - this is Anti's mum who introduced me to everyone as her daughter! classroom before I leave. Soon the classroom will have five keyboards, a variety of percussion instruments, plenty of wooden recorders to teach a whole class and a lockable unit where I can store all of these instruments. I feel very excited about the future of music teaching at DCS and the principal has shown a keen interest in wanting to learn how to teach music.
This year on the 5
th September there were two very important occasions in the Indian calendar. The first was teachers day, a day in which the children entertain their teachers all day with songs, dances and poems, in order to show gratitude to them. This celebration should have taken place on this day but due to it also being the Hindu God, Krishna’s birthday, DCS celebrated teachers day on the 7
th September instead.
So the 5
th September was a day of visiting temples. In the morning our Anti Binta (who is our cook at the house and all round superwoman) took Alex, my housemate, and I up a mountain to the Kali Temple. Kali is the female God of power and destruction and Hindus pray to her if they want to get rid
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at the top of the mountain where we visited the Kali Temple of anything bad in their life. I found the Kali temple to be incredibly calm and peaceful and it had amazing views looking down over the Kangra Valley where we live. After visiting the temple we went out for lunch and went home to rest. In the evening our local temple, Nala Temple absolutely came to life; there was music, lights and so many people celebrating the birthday of Krishna. Alex and I went over and enjoyed dinner there and sat taking in all of the traditional Indian festivities. Different people dressed up as the various Hindu gods and paraded into the temple and danced, many of the locals gave offerings of money, food and gifts to these people dressed as gods. Some of the younger members of Anti’s family even persuaded Alex and I to dance in the temple, which felt a bit embarrassing at first but after a while I didn’t really care who was watching and I had such a good time dancing with friends and soaking in the culture.
Teacher’s day at DCS was a really wonderful day. Myself, Alex and the group of volunteers from Durham University dressed in our Indian suits. I feel
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two people dressed as Shiva and Pavarti dancing at Nala Temple for Krishna's birthday celebrations that I should say something about the Durham group, otherwise known as the Ducks, who did an awesome job at DCS. They were here for four weeks and constructed a new water tank for the children of the school to use. They worked incredibly hard and I was in awe of their efforts, they were all super lovely people as well and I hope that we keep in touch.
Anyway back to teacher’s day! There was a fancy dress competition in the morning, a lot of the younger children dressed up and they all looked so cute! The Ducks and I were asked to judge this and it was very hard to decide the winner! Next I got the opportunity to put on a concert in front of the school with the children who had attended the holiday club. We performed 7 of the songs that we’d previously sang in the holiday club concerts and not only did the children perform really well, but it was really great to show the rest of the school the hard work that they’d done to learn the songs. Afterwards there were speeches, poems and dances all performed by the children, and the
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showing all emotions at teacher's day! head boy said a really lovely speech thanking me for coming to the school, I was really touched by that. The children gave us all cards saying ‘happy teacher’s day’ and there was also a big cake, sweets and chai! It was so wonderful to be invited to this annual celebration in India and it made me really feel a part of the school.
Alex and I spent a really good weekend in Mcleod Ganj a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to be Alex’s guide showing him around. We visited Bhagsu waterfalls, Shiva’s temple and pool, and also the Dalai Lama’s temple. I managed to be very controlled with my spending this time and instead of buying lots of jewellery as I usually do when I visit Mcleod; I spent my money on a beautiful Kashmir shawl as the weather is getting a lot colder now up north. It was a fun weekend of walking lots, eating loads and drinking so many banana lassis!
September has been a topsy-turvy month here but I have really appreciated and enjoyed the good times that I’ve had and I am looking forward to what October brings. It feels very
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two of my favourite people, Anti and little Peru :) strange to know that I only have a matter of weeks left in Palampur - my first day at the school feels like only yesterday! I often get sudden pangs of deep sadness knowing that my time in India is going by very quickly and in 10 weeks’ time I will be back in the UK. But I need to focus on the present and cherish every moment in the school, in Palampur and with the people that I have come to love and care for in India.
K xx
P.S. As part of Alex’s filmmaking project in India with Filmmakers Without Borders, he has to make weekly 2 minute videos on different topics. Last week his topic was about a teaching artist, so he made a video about the work that I’ve been doing at the school. To watch the video please follow this link
https://vimeo.com/139938206 and also please follow Karmalize Productions on Facebook at facebook.com/karmalize to keep up to date with Alex’s work in India. Thank you! J
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