India Summer: One School in Ahmedabad

Our rickshaw driver (cool t-shirt)

Today we took a rickshaw ride that felt more like a rollercoaster through the city streets of Ahmedabad except with a lot more exhaust. When we got out, for the first time since arriving, I felt like I was really in India—the India that I had imagined. Because of all the rain and all the cows, the streets are covered in mud (and various other mud-colored matter). All the storefronts are open and everyone is in the streets buying vegetables, getting haircuts, playing. There are no real sidewalks so walking in the street means being part of the traffic along with auto-rickshaws, trucks, motorbikes, cows, goats, dogs, and people. We came to see a few classrooms here that are part of the Gyan Shala project (http://www.gyanshala.org). The classrooms are located in people's houses. So we also got a glimpse into the homes of a few families, the neighbors of the classrooms.

Cow, rickshaw, mud

The Gyan Shala project is an organization that trains teachers in low-income urban communities in Ahmedabad. They believe that you do not need a school building to give children a good education. The two most important problems facing the children in the slums of Ahmedabad are: lack of transportation to school and lack of space for school. So, the Gyan Shala project found homes inside the communities to rent and set up individual classrooms.

Hello there Mr. Cow

Notice the cow shed behind these boys.
This is on the corner of a residential street.

They don’t rely on highly credentialed teachers either. This project has a team of curriculum designers (mostly former teachers) that writes detailed plans, scripts almost, for all its teachers. Most of their teachers didn’t go to college. As long as they understand enough of their subject to teach it and are personable and caring people, they could make wonderful teachers.

Gyan Shala has a two-week teacher training seminar every year that is free. After which the chosen teachers are invited to work for the Gyan Shala schools. Once hired, they enjoy training workshops once a week. All materials and curricula are provided.

We asked one of the teachers if she likes her job and she said that she is very happy. The language of instruction is Gujarati. There are Hindi and English classes in the upper grades.

A family on the street. In general the locals were fascinated by us.
They often want to say hello and shake our hands.

A second grade classroom. They turned on the light in honor of us.

Bulletin board of different flowers in Gujarati and English.

The curriculum designer from Gyan Shala demonstrated their math manipulatives. They use a very similar math curriculum to Hannah Senesh, also from Singapore.