Red Bull Roses

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My hosts are collectively the most generous and gracious people that I have ever met. Evidence of this are the two guys in my room right now who are climbing in-and- out of the window to set up the internet connection especially for me. Did I request this, no. I mentioned a couple months ago that I’d hope to be able to get a connection while I was there. Nor did ask for the numerous delicious chai teas (best ever) that seemed to pop up regardless of where I was at. Nor did ask for all of the wonderful food, in fact I kept declining the offer. But seemingly out of nowhere amazing dosas, chutneys, samosas would appear. Keep in mind this is the school food and it is the best Indian food I’ve had to date.

I’m jet lagged no doubt, I traveled for 36 hours (9 on the nicest airline of all time, India’s Jet Airlines). When I arrived in my room around 3 am, I feel asleep after watching some cricket for an hour (my hosts are trying to get some tickets). I woke up at 8:30 and Devika and Rajagopal picked me up at 10:40, which was 10 to 10:30 Indian time. We conferenced in my room to make sure I was taken care of, everything and much more has been done, including the addition of a small fridge in my room.

After walking over to the bank, we grabbed a street side coconut juice. Which was carefully and quickly made by a guy hacking at a coconut, poking a whole in the top and putting a straw in. Navigating traffic is hectic in a 3-D frogger sort of way.

We then traveled to the school where I met many wonderful and intriguing people. I was welcomed with flowers and showed my appreciation to my fellow educators by giving:

- The head adviser a mini- New Mexico license plate magnet and a post card of an adobe house with chile ristras.

- The school principal and dean of all of the schools I gave a ceramic wall tile that said New Mexico.

The Dean and founder of the PSBB school Mrs. YGP is an intriguing and warm soul, who exudes wisdom, curiosity and industriousness. What was so equally as inspiring is that she has built a school culture that has endured an grown over the 48 years of the school's existence, that shines through from her teachers’ respect and admiration (she is 83-87 depending on who is admiring her). I can see why she has been recognized in her country and others with prestigious awards acknowledging her contributions and foresight as an educator. She was absolutely enamored with the idea of our high school and wants to learn as much as she can from my time here.

After our quick 15 minute meeting in the company of approximately 10 other educators, Mrs. YGP resumed meeting with teachers to individually talk about all 5000 students’ promotion to the next level.

For the majority of the afternoon I met with teachers and drank chai. First, I met with a senior student who will soon go to the United States as a participant in a Global Youth Leadership Summit. This guy was wicked smart and wants to do something meaningful with it, and he wants education to inculcate a sense of creativity and purpose. He believes that the knowledge is there, but he’d sacrifice knowledge in the hard sciences for exposure to the soft sciences. His example of why we need education reform was the inability to provide readily available vaccines that could be affordable to the developing world. Not only could he expound on how this affected various places in Africa, he was able to quickly describe the science required to make some vaccines. When I asked him what he would do to change education he said that he would have students learn by doing and ingrain everything in a sense of purpose. Our conversation got cut short by the parade of teachers in their elegant saris. 

I found the teachers to be equally as warm, welcoming, and contemplative as their leadership and their students. One teacher Jayr started the session by asking, “do you teach the negative and positive sides of globalization?” I explained that I try to teach both in order to instill a sense of responsibility and to provide students with the opportunity to seek equitable solutions as opposed to simply drowning in their own apologetic view of America. Eventually focusing on the negative will turn students away from learning and thus against their fellow man. This spiraled further into a in depth conversations about what content to teach, and the process in which to do it in.

Since I was juggling multiple intense questions at once I also explained what I taught, how I teach, and what I will teach. The student was still in the room, and he face lit up with excitement when I explained the integrative biology course. He left and we continued to talk about how to address the effects of biotech companies (huge topic), how our social safety net works (or doesn’t), my religious beliefs, numerous pedagological queries, my family, mountain biking, the use of technology……one more chai, and off to meet some more teachers.

At the school everyone stopped to take a picture with me, and I’m continually being referred to as a Fulbright Scholar and people ask big questions.

This is going to work- I like really nice people, big questions, and the idea of time being event based. I don’t mind, possibly like; the chaos, noise, the lack of tp and everything else that creates this lively ambiance.