A Day In My Life!

I woke up at 6am and headed to the basketball court to supervise PT for the 4–7th graders. As always, they played soccer and dodgeball on roller skates until 7:20am.

I quickly changed from my PT outfit into my kurta and rushed to meet the students on news this week. We always start by presenting in the assembly hall for 20 minutes and then they spend the remaining time researching answers to possible audience questions and rehearsing their main points. This is one of my favorite parts of the day because I work with the same four kids for two weeks and really get to know them.

After news, I headed to the Pre-K classroom to be a teacher's aid for two hours, until 10:30am. I began helping there this week since the children just arrived on campus and it is their first time away from home. As a result, they often have a hard transition, especially since most of them have never spoken English before. This is also the first year Shanti Bhavan has begun integrating volunteers into their daily lives, as they usually spend all their time in the preschool building, where they eat, sleep, and learn separately from the rest of the school.

At 10:30am I headed back to the main school building to get ready for assembly while the students had a 10 minute break to eat their mid-morning snack of porridge.

Right after assembly, I went to teach public speaking to the 8th graders. This is an entirely new course at Shanti Bhavan, and I have been working with the Academic Administrators to create a curriculum and teach the class on my own three times a week. In the first couple of weeks, we have been focusing on impromptu speaking in preparation for the upcoming competition, as well as brainstorming topics that students will write about for their final presentations.

After public speaking, I headed to the Kindergarten class for the time left before lunch at 12:30pm. I have been working in this classroom almost everyday since I arrived, usually helping a couple of students outside or walking around the room to provide support where needed. Today, the students were so proud of their progress writing X, Y, and Z that as soon as they saw my phone, they asked for a photo with their work.

Once class is over the students walk to lunch in a single file line with their hands behind their back, girls first then boys.

For lunch today we ate rice, a chickpea curry, an aloo curry/another form of potato curry and papad.

After lunch, I taught a 4th grade Creative Writing class. The class meets twice a week, and we have been working on using imagery to enhance stories - specifically focusing on adjectives, the five senses, and similes. Since the students were courteous and “beat the teacher” in behavior points by the end of class, we played Heads Up, Seven Up as a reward.

A first draft of story one of the students wrote :)

Today, several teachers were out sick, so I subbed for a 3rd grade typing class in the afternoon. The students used the computer lab and practiced on Typing.com. The class was a bit tricky because the power kept cutting out, so I had to improvise a new lesson without the internet. The students are very flexible and are used to adapting to situations like this, which made things a lot easier.

After typing class, I had some free time to prep for my lessons tomorrow, create the PowerPoints, and continue developing the curriculum while the students had their afternoon snack and changed for PT. At 4pm, I joined the older boys for a volleyball match. A couple of the teachers always join as well - some of whom had even played professionally before working at Shanti Bhavan. Since monsoon season was starting, it began raining halfway through, but we played through the rain, which made it even more fun.

At 5pm, everyone headed back to the dorms to shower before prep time. I went on a run around the 0.6-mile loop that circles the entire campus. Then I returned to my room to shower and change before meeting with Tejas in 3rd grade and Maria in 4th for individual help. From 6 to 7pm, students either have prep time in their classrooms or are pulled out to meet individually or in small groups with a teacher or volunteer.

When the tutoring session ended, I went to the library to pick out a book for the Kindergarten story time at 7:45pm. I then headed to dinner and ate with the younger kids (KG-5th) before meeting the kids outside the dining hall to walk with them to their dorms.

As soon as the kids saw a storybook in my hand, they got very excited and swarmed around to see the title.

Tonight, I read Goodnight Moon, a personal favorite from my childhood. After the kids sang the lullaby, I headed back to the dining hall to sit with some of the older students while they ate.

At 8:30pm, I met two of the news students in the computer lab so they could read their new articles for the next morning and begin research for their summaries. Usually, students head back to their dorms at 9:30pm and continue studying, but this month they are required to stay in the classroom until 10pm and study in their dorms until 11pm to encourage them to improve their monthly exam scores.

With the older kids being the only students in the building, I capitalized on the quiet and used the time to finish up any lesson plans that needed final touches. I then headed back to my room for the night and fell asleep!