When Global Perspectives Collide

I feel fortunate to have had opportunities to travel around the world to both see, and experience various perspectives - particularly in politics. Often times the "things I learned in grade school" turn out to be incomplete, or not even true. These are some of the challenges and opportunities I see as a Fulbright Teacher for Global Classrooms. An incredibly stark example happened last week.

During my stay in Kerala state, I heard disturbing news back home in my small town of Indiana, PA. A white supremacist group had placed stickers all over town in advance of a rally organized in the public square protesting the treatment of immigrants on the U.S. Southern Border. This group was the one linked to the man sentenced to life in prison for charging his car into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville in 2017.

Being Vice-President of our Boro Council, and one of the public champions of efforts to make our town more welcoming, this incident hit me pretty hard. It was tough being so far from my family and feeling like our community was being threatened. The good news is that our local police were very responsive, and the investigation is continuing to see if they can't figure out who the jerks were spreading hate.

But here's the crazy thing: the stickers had the message "better dead than red" with a line through a hammer and sickle. The assumption is that this racist group would pick a common enemy, communists, to try and win support for their racist cause. At the time of reading this, I was in Kerala State, which happens to be run by a communist government. There are red flags with the hammer and sickle logos everywhere, including a massive monument on the beach. Keralinians are proud of their communist party; even the familiar silhouette of Che can be found adorning bus stops and auto-rickshaws.

So, what's going on here? I grew up in the 80s, when communism was such a known threat that when Sting suggested Russians loved their children, it was controversial. I asked every Keralinian I could what it meant that there was a communist government. To my surprise, the answer was always two things: it means there is 100% literacy, and that there is no caste system, everyone is equal.

That's not what Ronald Reagan told me. There are plenty of free markets happening in Kerala, plenty of private property, and everyone I spoke to loved their children, too. When I pushed people about Marxist doctrine, one friend told me that actually, the communists are just politicians like the rest of them.

It has left my head spinning, and highlights the incredible dearth of perspective shown by these jerks posting stickers in Indiana, and our education system's tendency to oversimplify global differences. I hope I can intelligently convey this to my students and community at home. 

Traveling in Kerala - Gods Own Country

The motto of the Southern Indian state of Kerala is God's Own Country. As we drove North from around Mahe in to the Wayanad district in the highlands, and then up the beach to Kannur, the scenery did not dissapoint. Rice paddies, tea plantations, and rubber trees dot the landscape across the country. Bannanas, coffee, and spices like black pepper and cardomom are also cash crops. These spices characterize Keralanian foods, traditionally served on a plantain leaf, and eaten with your hands.
More scenes of wildlife, and a monkey :)
The landscapes are beautiful in Kerala state; we crossed many rivers, and watched the sun come up over 150 year old tea plantations.
We stopped at a few historical sites, including the Wayanad Heritage Museum, a colonial fort,and the Edakkal Caves, where we found cave paintings from between four and six thousand of years ago.

And, the beach was beautiful, including the port city of Kannur.
My travel companions were a lot of fun, too. Here's Peter Boller, the Fulbright in-country coordinator touching a tea plant for the first time. We also took a lazy river float in Kannur, along with Rathnakaran's old college buddy. In true college form, he brought cocconut wine!

Desmos Activites are a hit in Mahe, India

Say Math!!

Our host teacher here at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) Mahe is interested in ICT in the classroom. Rathnakaran Kozhukkunnon Othayoth (Rathna) was a Fulbright scholar at Indiana University for a semester, and he mentioned in previous conversations that he brought back Kahoots and Quizizz to his staff. Desmos activities seemed like a good fit. I was so excited when, on the way back from the airport, he pulled up the Desmos App on his phone!  It turns out Rathna has even done trainings across the country on ICT, and Desmos in particular.

WODB

Our teaching schedule was intense; essentially every class was excited to have a guest lecturer, so my Fulbright partner, Dr. Bill Clark and I bounced around doing demo lessons, him English and me Math for classes 6 to 12. Despite the fact that the JNV Mahe has a Smart Classroom, I also wanted to be able to share some of my favorite lower-tech teaching protocols with students and staff.

Students were excited by the 4 Fours game, a chalkboard only puzzle that delves deep into the all important order of operations. I also went through a few Which One Doesn't Belong on solving equations, and asked students to try a few Open Middle tasks. These two protocols end up with students not just solving rote content problems, but analyzing the structures of how and why the structure of mathematics "works."

SUCCESS!!

My cross-cultural mathematics moment: being a foreigner standing in front of a classroom of 60 students with a sliver of common language can be intimidating for both sides, but, with just a little prodding we were all communicating in Al-Jabra, just like Al-Kwarizmi would have wanted.

Then, on to the Samsung Smart Classroom, where I led a class 12 session of Parabolic Marbleslides. And, just like students I've worked with everywhere, the audible sounds of excitement at solving each puzzle moved the class forward. Checking the dashboard, many students continued working well after then end of the lesson to finish the puzzles, coming up with some great solutions.

I finished the day with a short workshop for a small group of math teachers in the Smart Classroom on Desmos Activities. Teachers were excited, but I could tell a bit overwhelmed.

While tech resources across India significantly varies, the JNV network of over 600 schools across the country all have access to these Smart Classrooms. I reached out to the gurus at Desmos to see there is an opportunity for Rathna to get the same kind of support for his community as I have as a Desmos Fellow. The good news is that Rathna and I already have plans to follow up when I get back so that he, too, can bring this great, free teaching tool to hundreds of millions of Indian students.

Three days in Mahe

Bill and I have been honored guests at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyala, a competitive government boarding school. We have taught classes, workshopped with teachers, and even danced at the cultural celebration. Also, the town itself is where the Mahe river empties into the Arabian Sea. It is a beautiful place.

New Delhi sets standard for Social and Emotional Learning

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A theme during our stay in Delhi has been the educational reforms that this capital state has undertaken over the last few years. Similar to the US, Indian teachers have identified psycological struggles in students to be a significant barrier to success. American public schools have started to call this Social Emotional Learning. In Indiana, my home school, we've committed to learning more from what the research tells us, and making investments in our current curriculum.

IASD defines SEL

Delhi schools have also embarked on a journey to addressing the social and emotional needs that setstudents up to learn, called the Happiness Curriculum.

This two year old initiative includes daily lessons from Grades 1-8, that focus on brining harmony between one's inner state, relationships with others, and in society at large to encourage active, meaningful participation as an Indian citizen. Lessons include mindfullness, stories, personal reflection, and cooperative activities.

New Delhi schools focus on Happiness

The program was inspired by Deputy Chief Minister of Education for Delhi schools, Manish Sisoda, who we got to meet at the Khichripur School of Excellence this week. Unlike us, this is a true celebrity in Delhi schools. We also met Dr. Anil Kumar, principal of a teacher training school in Delhi who was on the team that created the Happiness Curriculum.

If the U.S. is interested in addressing the social and emotional needs of students, we would be wise to look to Delhi public schools as a model.

Dr. Kumar and his staff explain the Happiness Curriculum.