Gamru

Gamru is a local Indian village school in Himachal Pradesh where I spend my afternoons teaching English to 5th, 4th, and 2nd standard. It is so nice working there because sometimes it is easy to forget you are in India while in the Tibetan community McLeod Ganj.

I am enjoying my time learning about both Tibetan and Indian culture, and being able to compare . I am finding that the Indian locals may be over shadowed by the Tibetan situation, which has gained much needed global attention. However, because of it, local schools may not be receiving the same amount of support from the international education community.

Gamru was founded by Phil Adam in 2004 when he noticed the very issue mentioned above: much of outsiders attention was focused on the Tibetan in exile and not on other locals. The mission of the school is to promote health lifestyles for children and provide opportunities for as many as possible. This includes expanding knowledge beyond laborious work to expose children to math, Indian culture, world history, social science, technology, and English. The hope is to allow these children opportunities to seek any form of lifestyle they wish and not feel they are stuck in Himachal Pradesh. It also seeks to empower girls in the Indian working community.

My time in actual classroom is directly with the children. While they are eager to learn there is a difficult barrier of language. Even simple instructions require lots of acting, drawing, and creative body language to communicate. The younger kids have very elementary vocabulary learned, while some of the older kids have started learning gender differences, opposite words, as well as simple sentences. I have found the best activities are those which involve lots of repetition.

This week I worked on colors, shapes, weather and emotion with the kids, some of which they were familiar with. Combining two topics, such as "what color and shape is this object?" helps review two skills at the same time. Friday I used as a review/game day where I played a toned down version of jeopardy with the topics we have learned. They would have to identify the drawing on the back of the card correctly in order to earn the allotted amounts of points for their team. In the end though, everyone won, and earned themselves a star sticker.

Gamru overall seems like a great school that the kids are happy to be at. They are served lunch, loved, and supported. There also seems to be lots of chaos going on, and frequently kids are not showing up to classes. I hope I am being of help to their overall mission. Sometimes it feels like the kids don't understand anything I say but then there is moment when you see the light-bulb go on above their head and you know it is all worth it. It is hard to remember that I am only working with the kids for two weeks and it easy for my dreams for them to overtake reality. I frequently have to tell myself that little steps will help them in the long run, and even if they won't be able to read and write by the end of our time together, they will have positive memories of learning, which will encourage them to continue through school.