Day 13

First day of class! The kids are wonderful. Their attention spans... not so much.

I was expecting it to be difficult the first day. I wasn't expecting to get a workout.

Allie and I spent an hour last night coming up with a lesson plan we thought would be educational as well as hold the students attention. We came prepared with our books, and our crayons, and our basic hindi words. Then somehow, the ten or so fifteen minute long activities we planned out were over in less than twenty. That math does not add up.

So with a bunch of time left on the clock and nothing else planned, Allie and I did the only thing we could do… fly by the seat of our india pants.

We found a ball of string and played a version of the name game. That worked for a while until they started saying their name was "Donkey". So we played follow the leader, until the kids decided they would be their own leader and do whatever they wanted, usually accompanied by some strange monkey sound. We went through our memory bank of different songs we sang in preschool: ring around the rosy, old mcdonald…etc. But the kids just stared at us blankly. So we pretended to be animals, but that just gave them an excuse to butt heads with each other. Four kids had to be separated. Three went in the corner.

Did I mention we only had five kids show up to class?

Kamlesh is the brightest. He knows almost everything you ask him, and if he doesn't know it, he remembers it. The funny thing about Kamlesh is how serious he is compared to his other classmates. He will be the most attentive student when it comes to knowledge games and flashcards, but when it comes to playing games and acting goofy he will have none of it.

Laxmen is the smallest. Allie actually thought he was a girl all day because of his long mane of hair. He is very quiet and when we played follow the leader, he was constantly having to pull up his pants. Laxmen is bright as well, but he will only participate in the activities on the condition that the two older boys, Pawan and Puran, are participating. If they refuse to sing the alphabet so will he. I think the older boys must repay him for his loyalty by looking out for him, because honestly, a chicken could trample this boy.

Pawan is the captain of the group. Not only is he the oldest and tallest, he has also been in first grade the longest. He has covered all the material before and knows it well, but getting him to accept that you are running the show and not him is more difficult. He compensates by trying as hard as he can to create a classroom environment in which you feel you have no control.. and he is damn good at it too.

Puran is second in command. He is the bully and you have to watch out for him because if you turn your back for a second he will hit the first thing he sees. And he isn't ashamed of it either. If you put him in a corner, he will just sit there and laugh at you. I will give it to the boy though. He knows who he is. When we played the name game, he was the most assertive one of the group, shouting "I AM PURAN!" as loud as his little voice could manage.

Monika was the only girl today. She is a beautiful little child, as are all of them, and at first she seemed shy. However, within twenty minutes she was right there with the boys hitting Puran across the face when he took her crayon and doing everything within her ability to not pay attention to Allie or me.

…. I had to go back and recount the kids, because I had to make sure there were really five and not twenty!

Monday we should have eight kids total if everyone shows up, and if today is any indication of how handling the full class will be, the next five weeks should be very interesting.

At least I can say it will test the limits of my creativity and patience.

Tonight we go to the orphanage and do it all over again, only with fifty ten year old boys instead of five six year olds.

I better take a nap before we go. The power has been out all day and the lack of air flow in the house mingled with the first day of school is making me drowsy.