Monday, October 27, 2008

Even the Best Laid Plans...

When it comes to trip planning, all my ducks are in a row. The piper has been paid and every single one of my eggs is nestled in diversified baskets. So when I got the email saying my flight had been changed, I was somewhat taken aback. Lumbering structural pieces of trips to India, like Health Insurance, Luggage Tags, and even occasionally Baggage Claim, were typically smooth sailing for me, clearing the way for the day to day mayhem and merriment of The Merasi School to confidently stride to center stage.

But this trip, I paid the price for three years of airlines never cashing in on my decidedly less pricey standby ticket. So, the last few days in the desert classroom were a phenomenal swirl of writing lesson plans, teacher meetings, rewriting lesson plans, and digging fiercely through the mighty To Do list with the ever-patient Sarwar Khan. And, as I wiped the dust from my palms and high-fived Fridah and Fridah, our two most dedicated students/floor washers (in truth, first we needed to have a short demo lesson on high-fives, underscoring the point that one doesn't move one's hand away when the high-five offer comes to town, but rather waits or even moves into the shared gesture of accomplishment), I was once again thoroughly blown away at the many different paces of change.

At times, change seems to bop along at the reckless pace of molasses mixed with maple syrup. Days, weeks, months go by and there is little indication of a shift in the scenery. Then some days, the garden shoots into full bloom, that little rascal Asif learns all of his ABCs and the ceiling fan you thought would come around the same time of the Apocalypse arrives, is installed, and shows signs of working. I think in the US, I've acclimated to a steady, constant, or at least predictable mph for change. But in that lovely little desert classroom of ours, change operates at about 15 different rates and, what I'm slowly beginning to appreciate is that no one is more valuable than another.

So, I'm back in the Red, White, and Blue, hashing through work from the trip, throwing my hands in the air for the Phillies and Notre Dame, and plastering my lawn with political signs. I will gleefully and merrily keep you posted this month on all that transpires on both sides of the ocean with our desert classroom. But only if you promise to do me one thing: VOTE on NOVEMBER 4th. At The Merasi School, we're big believers in little acts wielding big power. The Merasi are a population that has no access to political representation and we're working our hardest on changing that. So for now, take that beautiful right that you have and march to those polling booths in a few short days to show this world what you're made of. Because who knows? Perhaps the pace of change is about to take a step in your direction...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Eating Humble Pie

When it comes to immediate deliverables, education yields few of those satisfying visual markers of accomplishment found in bridge building or tinker toy assemblage. There isn't a whole lot you can point to with education and say, "Look at them apples, buddy. That kid's got EDUCATION. Plain as daylight. No ifs, ands or buts about it." Sure, there are benchmarks of information accumulation: Mr Akram Khan, a little lad who can't walk by a bucket without putting it on his head, now can recite the English letter names and sounds from A to Z. Suriya, a fierce gal with a big, bold voice that is only rivaled by the size of her big, bold heart, now can fire up a computer and type a flawless document about her favorite animals.

But what they know, a to z, computer literacy, is almost tangential to how they know it. In the process of learning C for cat and cream and 'caps locks' means ALL BIG, ALL THE TIME, what Sarwar and I really want to sink into Akram and Suriya's brilliant minds is the process of learning, of fostering translatable skills of constructive reasoning, critical analysis and creative problem-solving that have expansive value far beyond our little classroom. G for gorilla and learning the destructive power of the 'delete' button are finite chunks of information vehicles for developing these infinite skills of knowledge possibility.

But, as is an all too common occurrence at The Merasi School, I'm forced to sit back and eat a hearty meal of my own words. Last Saturday night, I was drinking an exceptionally sweet cup of chai and talking with Sarwar about our glorious little school. "The kicker, my friend," I said vehemently, "is that 99% of the time, I don't have a CLUE what's working and what's not."
"Well, kids still come to school, right?" he said, the telltale signs of his co-founder ascending the Whelan Soapbox of Righteous Indignation.
"YES, they still COME, Mr Khan. But what does THAT say? Do you want to know what I'd like to know? I'd like to know HOW their lives are different since they started thinking of themselves as STUDENTS, along with sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, caretakers and chai-makers. Is that SO much to ask?"
"Perhaps, Ms Whelan, they've told you ."
"TRUST ME, sir, they have not said a WORD. I'd notice. I'm very good about noticing these kinds of things. People often remark about what an excellent noticer I am. And this noticer would notice something like that. In fact, it's the main thing I'd like to notice right now." Sarwar nodded and the conversation slipped into other avenues.

Well, the next day, the Old Noticer took a big cream pie to the face. The pie came in the form of young Hayad Khan, a little fellow I've mentioned before, who shattered history when he walked in the door of The Merasi School and broke a 36 generation old trend in his family of life without education. But, that day, Hayad demonstrated that that alone wasn't good enough. Because, trailing shyly behind Hayad were two of his closest buddies who had never walked inside a schoolhouse before.
"They're my friends," Hayad said, his arms wrapping around the necks of the two little boys. "I wanted them to come with me to my school. I think they'll like it." So, for Hayad, it was not enough to rewrite history. He was going to spit in its face, then rewire the future's narrative as he saw fit.

The Old Noticer probably could have noticed signs of this along the way -- Hayad's increasing punctuality, the gradual improvement of his hygiene, the evaporation of cherry bombs in his chest pocket. But I was too busy looking for what I thought were signs that I totally missed what the students put forth as signs. And so, I happily went home that night and ate pan upon pan of humble pie.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The liceman cometh

There are a few things that make every trip to The Merasi School complete: a knock-down, dragout bout of food poisoning, an unanticipated interaction with a curious cow, and becoming the landlord to a rapidly proliferating community of lice. The first two I proudly checked off my list the other week, leaving the last and final lingering quietly in the shadows, waiting to pounce. And pounce it did, today at about 2pm.

Let me set the scene: I'm sitting in the classroom for Very Little Class, the youngsters still learning about ABCs and the importance of relieving yourself anywhere but on the rug. As is usually the case, the school house is jumping with kids cleaning slates, kids scrubbing walls, kids writing on walls, and the occasional roving dog. Fridah, a big-hearted girl from a small village outside Jaisalmer wandered into the classroom and began to play with my hair, a somewhat vicious activity not for the faint of heart, entailing grabbing, tugging, digging, and then, unsatisfied with the result, repeating.

After a few blissful seconds of having my scalp massaged with the caressing touch of a steampump, Fridah gleefully exclaimed, "Lice, Caitie! Big, BIG lice!" she held her hands about four feet apart to demonstrate the size of my new not-so-little tenants. Not wanting to comprimise a real time learing opportunity, I grabbed the chalkboard and began an impromptu lesson with Fridah on the Silent E, as manifested in lice, nice, twice, and splice, as several young girls combed through my once lusterous locks.

Lice is on the kinder spectrum of health issues facing our young ones at The Merasi School. Dehydration, malnutrition, and starvation are the fiercer evils that challenge that possibility and scope of Fridah and so many others' lives. As Sarwar and I look to expand and enrich our curriculum, relevant health education appears on the forefront of our priorities. Without basic knowledge about your body, a common cold can be as terrifying and feel as threatening as malaria. But knowledge comes in many forms, not only edification. We want a proactive kind of knowledge that instills in kids the tools to create environments and atmospheres where these health issues are a thing of the past.

So my lice and I sign off with a renewed commitment to the importance of education in all its forms for not just preventing disease and illness, but blowing the roof off the constrictive social casing that created these contexts in the first place.

Friday, October 17, 2008

The idea of pizza

At The Merasi School, we snap at any opportunity to talk about food. It would be a total anomaly in our desert classroom if a day passed without someone indulging in a bit of heartfelt praise of Good Day Biscuits, Chocolately Cake, or Mango Juice. In English Class, we are at our grammatically sharpest, linguistical best when discussing the color, shape, and price of our favorite vegetables. In computer class, the fewest mistakes are made when typing "I like yellow bananas" or "The orange carrot is big."

So the other day, young Rojieela, an aspiring teacher with a knack for turning any gesture into the beginning of an elaborate dance move, did not exactly stop traffic when she said that her favorite food was pizza. By and large, our little lads and lasses subsist on very modest, inexpensive diets of chai, rice, lentils, and flat bread with vegetables. Cheese would be an absolute delicacy because it requies refridgeration and is quite pricey. So the comment was a bit of a blip on the radar, but nothing that brought the class to a halt. However, when Akram stated that his favorite drink was coffee, I began to get a little suspect. But the cherry bomb that exploded it all was when Seema said her favorite person in the whole world was Hannah Montana.

So, we began to retrace our steps. I asked Rojieela what was in pizza and, upon reflection, she realized she'd never had it. I probed Akram about the taste of coffee and he said it tasted like Thumbs Up (if I may subjectively interject, it is a foul soda that would be much more productive if used to remove lead from all Chevy trucks). When we approached Seema about the color of Hannah Montana's hair, she said it was a blue-green-black kind of hue.

I think we're talking about ideas, here. The idea of pizza, coffee, and Hannah Montana has some decidedly American cache, which is powerful verbal loot to be lugging around. It's something of a social currency, in the same way that wearing Nike sneaks and reading Kant in the park is in the US. Generally, it's stuff we do out in the broad light of day to influence others' opinions of who we are. The red, white, and blue has brilliantly packaged and exported the idea of America through cheesy pizza, coffee, and that excellent cultural ambassador, Hannah Montana. But can you fault these little ones for wanting to buy in?

The idea of America, I believe somewhat rosily, is one of public libraries and government subsidized education, making gold from dust, and shattering molds of poverty and discrimination. Sure, we're loaded with heaps of less attractive, poetic ideals, but America, I have come to believe, is also an idea of hope, opportunity, possibility, and choice.

I think part of our work here at The Merasi School is to shake loose the good stuff from this idea of America, the glorious, generous notion of expansive possibility that sends folks up to the moon, down to the bottom of the sea, and around the earth on a sailboats and bicycles and determined feet. If we can squeeze out these thought patterns, these electical currents that charge kids with the very real idea that they could write their name, they could go to college, they could be a doctor, then perhaps it's an idea worth spreading.

If I could just add, though, Neil Diamond would be a far superior cultural ambassador of hope and opportunity than Hannah Montana .

Sunday, October 12, 2008

You're the cream in my coffee

You'd be hard pressed to find a cup of coffee in Jaisalmer. Not to be misleading, there are plenty of menus with 'coffee' on them and drink stalls that boldly advertise 'Hot American Coffee.' But do not be deceived, dear friends. It would be roughly the same as calling an archaic can of peaches 'Fresh Off the Tree! Organic and All Natural!' The coffee is a rather fascinating swirl of hot water, whole milk, heaps of sugar, and a powdery brown substance called Nescafe Cafe.

But here's the kicker: If I weren't looking for coffee, if I weren't expecting a specific French Roast brew, I might rather enjoy this steaming cup of enigma. But my expectations are framed by a finite definition of the taste, aroma, and atmosphere of coffee. So I position myself for crushing disappointment with each sip.

So as my wilting hour of 4pm in the afternoon creeps up, I often wonder if I'd be just a bit more content if I expanded out my cramped little definition towards a palette that is a tad more inclusive than the snotty little coffee club. And it's not too far from what frames our assessments and evaluations of The Merasi School.

I trot into class with crisp, parametered expectations of what 'learning' is. Everything that spills out of those walls couldn't be quite significant enough because it exceeds my categorization. But, what I am learning in fits and starts, is that learning happens, education occurs, and knowledge is created, developed, contributed to and challenged in all shapes, sizes, colors, and tastes. And it grows, digests, and ripens under a big, generous tent that puts my neat, prim little assessment rubrics to shame.

Suriya, Synah, Asif, and Sanwar continually remind me to check my sack of expectations at the door and open my eyes a bit wider to something a bit larger and more significant that I could even conceive of. And, the more that I do that, the more that I see that what lies outside the framework of definition holds a much more elegant, beautiful possibility than what lies within.

This is not to say that I've renounced fine French Roasts for cups of water and brown powder. But I'm trying, with minimal grace, mind you, to stretch around the edges a bit more and acknowledge that unmet expectations can be quaint, convenient excuses for sidestepping the surprising beauty and glorious complexity of what lies directly infront of us.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Margins of Error

Yesterday evening, I was walking down the narrow, cobbled street to the Merasi School. My traveling companion was a three foot tall stick of dynamite named Hayad who wore no shoes and had a chest pocket filled with little firecrackers. ABCs had not been sticking with Hayad, so we were going back to school to burn a bit of mental midnight oil before the test the next day. We walked side by side along the narrow road lined with rusty motorcycles, empty biscuit packets, and lethargic cows, talking about his favorite candy, a heavenly little chocolate concoction called Five Star bars.

All of a sudden, a green and yellow auto-rickshaw whizzed around the corner and Hayad instinctively turned his body towards mine. The rickshaw missed him by about three inches and continued to zip on into the night. Hayad resumed walking normally, not skipping a conversational beat. I, however, did not spring back to chitchat with the same ease. My little man had just missed severe injury by a finger's length. In my book, that was way too close for comfort.

Later that night, I sat eating an apple and trying to hash through what had rattled me so much. I'd seen much worse, heard stories that left your heart in wet, crumpled up pieces, and watched women return to husbands who burned and beat them. But this little rickshaw run-in had dug in deep under my skin and I think it has something to do with the fact that Hayad's existence has so little margin for error. His precious life is positioned on a delicate tightrope, where three inches can mean the difference between safety and destruction. Society has stingily given him next to no space for mistakes; there is no generosity or forgiveness towards Merasi who fumble. Bandaids, safety nets and cushioning to ease the fall are reserved for somewhat more privileged folks. If Hayad missteps, he tumbles heavily and fast.

Merasi School co-founder Sarwar Khan and I talk about education as nothing more and nothing less than nurturing the skills to create opportunity. And built into that is an expanded margin of error -- we are, as humans, expected and entitled to fall to our knees. Education strengthens the muscles that bounce you back, re-aligning your spine with a bit more ummmph and know-how than the last time your nose kissed the pavement.So, Hayad and I worked on abc's well into the night, with each letter, pushing to fiercely, constructively, and compassionately widen that tiny pocket of grace he' s been granted.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

All the comforts of home

There is an excellent passage from 'Nicholas Nickleby' that has been running through my mind these sweaty, dusty desert days. Nicholas, the gritty, big-hearted protagonist, has reached a lull in his adventures and so turns to his traveling companion, a young cripple named Smike and says, 'We're going to take you home now.' Smike looks at him and says plainly, 'But you are my home.' It was the first time for me that I became aware of home as not a physical location, but an idea of comfort, safety, warmth, and security.

If you trace the migratory patterns of college kids from bedrooms to dorm rooms to shoe box apartments, with each new location, few are trying to recreate the physical space of home, the flowered wall paper and patterned bathroom tiles, but rather the feeling, the essence, that indescribable x-factor that makes a cluster of rooms a space you want to return to after a trying day.

The majority of our students are born without a complete notion of home. Many of their parents and siblings create relationships of unconditional warmth and provide the utmost level of protection that they can afford, but large, hulking social factors of caste and economic marginalization that lurk in the shadows always pinch and pull and tug at the edges, oftentimes creeping into the heartbeat of these students' lives and robbing them of that feeling of total security, of purpose and belonging and being unconditionally wanted.

So we try to foster the tools necessary for students to be their own architects of home, to build and fortify the idea of place and safety. It happens slowly on an ever zig-zagging path, but we can begin to see little twinkles of foundations being laid. Akram bellowing 'Name 'a' sound 'ahhhhh,' while reading a sign that said 'Apples,' Suriya correcting a vistor that her name was not 'Suriya' but 'DOCTOR Suriya,' Frida yelling across the street to her mother that she'd written her name for the first time in her life.

And gradually, the wheelbarrows are being emptied, the cement is being laid, and the beams are lumbering into place. We're all set with Webster's for now; today, at the Merasi School, as with tomorrow and the day after, the definition of home is being written by Akram, Suriya and Niwab.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Red Herrings and Paper Tigers

A hale, hearty archaeologist friend once told me that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In essence, our reality is a bit holier than just the top soil would allow; only through excavation into layers of soot, undergrowth, and roots can we begin to get glimpses into the elegant complexity of human existence. There are times here in our desert classroom when I've been guilty of top soil evaluation. The other day, young Asif Khan stuck two cherry bombs between my toes and began to dance and jump around the room. My knee jerk reaction was to stick the cherry bombs between his toes and tell him he could enjoy the view from the inside of my suitcase. But, as I walked past a band of roving cows that night, I realized that if I dug in past the aesethic of Asif's action, the cherry bombs were nothing more than a red herring for the fact that he's starved for attention that his overworked mother and absent father can never give him. He'd do just about anything for acknowledgement of his existence, even if it means setting my toes on fire.

Every so week or so, we have a student who boldly declares, "I don't need The Merasi School. I can do just fine without it." This is never said quietly, in a corner, with venom coating every word. It is always loudly shouted with eyes darting between our teachers, looking for a reaction. In our teacher meetings, we've come to view these declarations as paper tigers, perhaps masking a desire to have influence on the world around him/her, to somehow, with their presence and actions, be able to shape or control the course of events. And, really, how can you fault the students? They came out of the womb being told they were of negative value, unable to contribute at all, let alone constructively.

Each of these actions is not evidence of an absence of ability or capacity in these students. If anything, I believe, it's an acutely felt absence in their own lives of evidence of their own worth. And that's our primary job here at The Merasi School. Through our presence, our actions, and our words, to provide constant and generous evidence of the tremendous worth and purpose of each student.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Five Minutes in India

I like lists, charts, and maps. This collection of little organizational passions takes a mighty step towards the back burner just about the minute I set foot inside The Merasi School. It is not that all is complete chaos and pandimonium, with students hanging from the rafters and drums flying through the air at all hours of the day. But the order and patterns here are a bit more subtle than my linear chronology would allow. And I think a lot of it can be traced back to that ever finite, but always constant resource of time.

It wasn't until I came to India that I realized I was the primary master of my time. By and large, I decide when I'm going to have a peanut butter sandwich, where I'll have it, what kind of bread to use, and who I'd like to share it with. Then I get to choose if I'll go to the bakery down the street for a cookie afterwards or head to the library to do the crossword. Implicit in each one of these decisions is an amazing privilege of choice that I didn't acknowledge until I saw (and felt just a bit) what it was like to go without.

For most of our students in The Merasi School, their time is not something they have control over. Schedules are dictated by familial needs -- if Iyeenah's father works from 7am to 8pm and her mother cannot look after her six sisters, Iyeenah's time will be spent making chai for her siblings, keeping them away from motorcyles and speedy rickshaw taxis, and scrounging together enough rice to provide an afternoon meal of some kind. Children are pulled in one direction or another depending on cultural forces: their family is called to perform at a wedding in a remote village, they need to help their overburdened mother support the family in the face of an alcoholic father, they have to spend an hour buying milk because the most direct path to the store takes them through an upper caste neighborhood where they are subject to physical and verbal violence.

So what is, say, five minutes in India? The literalist in me, which disembarks from the plane starry-eyed and hopeful would tell you it's five consecutive sixty-second chunks or the time it takes me to find all the countries beginning with 'A' on a map or the amount of time it used to take my dog Bozeman to process the command. 'Sit.' But, if you think of five minutes as a puppet, here in India at The Merasi School, this five minute puppet have about sixteen different puppeteers, from parents and siblings, to upper caste members and goverment restrictions, pulling and tugging the little figure in often contradictory directions. Kids are veritable contortionists with their time. So, when Seema tells me, "Caitie, no problem, I'll be back in five minutes," I could see her in 10 minutes or I could see her in five hours.

What we try to do at The Merasi School is instill in kids the fundamental skills to have more say over their time. If you can do basic math, you can make sure you're getting the right change when you buy milk. If you can read simple English and Hindi, you can tell if the expiration date on the milk has passed or not, preventing a store owner from getting a child to waste precious rupees on rotten products. Each one of these capacities builds up to give individuals more and more agency in the arc of an ordinary day and, incrementally, in the arc of their extraordinary lives. The cumulative impact, co-founder Sarwar Khan and I believe and hope, is that students are developing the skills to control, manage, and shape their time towards a day patterend with choice and opportunity.

This could, very well, take at least five minutes...