Advertisement
Published: October 29th 2015
Edit Blog Post
639
Teaching piano to Manya and Anshika at DCS October Part 1 There have been so many amazing and memorable things happening over this past month, so I’ve broken it up and written it in two parts for you to enjoy!
In the school I completed my second 5 week scheme of work on reggae and rock music. The children loved the opportunity to learn all about these genres of music and the new songs that I taught them. For some of the classes I even organised them into small groups and they were able to create their own bands; performing the songs as I recorded them and then getting the chance to watch the videos back. I was fascinated to see many of the students really progressing well in this project; watching them working hard in rehearsals, being a great team member in their small music group and then taking real pride in their final performance. - There are some very naturally talented musicians in DCS.
Since managing to complete the music classroom with plenty of instruments for the children to use I was able to run an after school music club every day for some keen students. I would pair everybody up and give them
675
Outside Karmappa Monastery with the principal's family; Monika, Manya and baby Ayaan Mehra all a particular instrument, they would then have to go away for half an hour and create their own piece of music on those instruments. Afterwards I’d call everybody back into the music classroom and we would sit and watch everybody’s performances. I enforced the rule of no talking while other people are playing and at first they didn’t really catch on to this, but one day, as if by magic, everybody suddenly understood and were really paying attention and listening to their peers compositions and performances. In after school music club I was also able to spend some time teaching students basic piano; the names of notes and how to position yourself when playing piano. On Wednesdays after school I organised a recorder club for ninth and tenth class (the oldest two year groups in the school). They were each given their own recorder to bring to the club and take home and practise. Over the course of ten weeks I was able to teach them four notes on the recorder and two short pieces. It was amazing to see the change in those ten weeks from everybody playing very squeaky and loud notes to controlled beautiful music!
715
Dharamsala Cricket Stadium, the biggest in Himachal Pradesh On the 11
th October Alex and I were invited for a full day school outing with DCS, it was a really special day of visiting many different sites around Dharamsala and spending great time with the teachers and students of the school. The day started at Karmappa monastery, a Tibetan monastery in Dharamsala. It was a really beautiful place and we were so lucky to arrive just as the monks were chanting their prayers. This was amazing to see, I didn’t realise that monks had such deep voices! They also used drums, cymbals and horns, it was so great to witness such an ancient practise like this. After visiting the monastery we moved onto the Dharmasala Cricket Stadium, which is Himachal Pradesh’s biggest cricket stadium. It was huge and in such a beautiful setting with a backdrop of the mountains behind it – my boyfriend would have loved it! Next we visited a war memorial which was a very beautiful and peaceful place to visit, the design had been very carefully thought through. Weirdly at the back of the war memorial there was a playground, so all of the students headed there straight away but they had a lot of
734
Children from DCS playing at the playground at the war memorial fun! After the war memorial we headed to Dal Lake, which is close to Mcleod Ganj, it is a really peaceful place with beautiful tall pine trees surrounding the lake. This was where we had our picnic and the teachers and principal shared some delicious Indian vegetarian dishes with Alex and I. It was a lovely stop for lunch, photos, the boys played a game of cricket and I got out my guitar. The only slight drama was when a massive Ox nearly attacked some of the children as it was going for one of their lunches, but a man quickly appeared, grabbed its tail and pulled it away from the children! The day concluded in Mcleod Ganj where we spent about an hour looking around the market and eating ice cream! I was able to buy my bus ticket for the first part of my travelling adventure next month and I also bought some small gifts for various people in Palampur. It was a fab day and I was amazed by how well the staff handled taking over 100 excited children around various different sites for a whole day without any hitches!
During my whole time in India
753
Having a relaxing picnic (minus the Ox attack!) at Dal Lake, Dharamsala I’ve been welcomed by so many wonderful people into their homes and October was no exception to how welcomed I have felt. Both of the cleaning ladies at the school invited Alex and I for dinner and lunch on separate occasions and just spending quality time with these wonderful people has been amazing. Even though often there’s a huge language barrier between us, it never stops us from having a great time together. Love and kindness breaks all language barriers and creates true friendships.
K xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0575s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb