Plan B: Collaborative & Proactive Solutions

On Monday I conducted a workshop introducing about 20 Upper School teachers to Dr. Green's Collaborative & Proactive Solutions model.  This model is explicitly an alternative to contingency based models of behavior management, a model Dr. Green believes already leads teachers down a path of conflict with "challenged" students.  However the types of "behavior issues" that Taktse encounters are much lower level than what we are accustomed to in the US. My thought was that Upper School teachers can draw in both models as needed for different types of students. Some struggle more with motivation and some more with skills, whether these be emotional control, attention or executive functioning.  We had a discussion about the implications of the CPS model, as it is so antithetical to the hierarchical style inherent in Indian society and in traditional Indian schools.  With CPS, students in many ways are put in the drivers seat and charged with coming up with solutions alongside their teachers.

In my final week here at Taktse, I will be coordinating a study group with a core group of teachers and the new Dean of Students to explore this model in more depth and determine how it might be used at Taktse.

In the midst of an activity at Morning Assembly

Upper grade student and speaking with administrator

8th grade classroom

8th grade classroom

International Yoga Day Sunday

PM Modi declared Sunday International Yoga Day. However Indians regard yoga not as physical exercise as Westerners do, but rather as a practice laden with religious and spiritual meaning. Thus it has caused a great deal of controversy.  Read about it here in the NYTimes.

Students as young as 2nd grade are asking to commemorate this day at our school. I know our principal will encourage and welcome this sign of student interest and independent thought. I won't be surprised to begin the Monday morning assembly with a sun salutation. He has already declared Friday Dance Party Day!

Technology at the school

Technology is largely absent from the classrooms at Taktse. Yes, there is a computer lab that is occasionally used, and yes senior students have their own laptops that they bring from home. But otherwise you won't see teachers on computers.  No one is checking their emails, in fact I think email is rarely used (which explains the lag in response that was common when I corresponded with the school). There aren't even telephones in the classrooms. 

It does seem that this is not only a matter of cost, but also of philosophical belief (see student observations on the pros and cons of technology below).  Typing skills are expected and students begin learning typing in 3rd grade. By 8th grade students can type about 85 words per minute-- correctly! There is a huge emphasis on handwritten work and "reflection" pieces. 

Have we, as educators, questioned the downside to technology enough? It seems we believe it is "inevitable" and everyone else is doing it, so must we.  Are potential costs in creativity balanced by the benefits in efficiency?

On the road to town

Here is video from the school bus we take from Pangthang to Gangtok. The trip takes about 30 minutes but travel is painstakingly slow given the bumpy, twisty and wet road conditions. It is monsoon season so it is often raining and/or very foggy making for even trickier conditions.

This first video shows early minutes of our ride in our village.

The second video shows the final minutes of our ride in Gangtok, a city of over 100,000 people. Before reaching the city the road is seemingly wide enough for only one vehicle at a time, but somehow two are always accommodated usually with only inches to spare between vehicles or the roads edge on to careening cliffs.

8th grade classroom

This is for Mrs. Dana's 8th grade Spanish class who wanted to know what the classroom looks like.
Notice the desks that students use. No lockers here!

Here is a link to the Padlet that Mrs. Dana created to record the musical tastes of 8th graders in Cape Elizabeth, Sevilla Spain and Pangthang India. We will be adding more entries later today!

8th graders work on a science assignment with help from their teacher Mr. Bhaskar

The inside of an 8th grade desk. No lockers!

Jumping to Diagnosis

Lower Kindergarteners sit in rows and (4 year olds) listen to the teacher

There is no mandated special education in India. Children are not sent for expensive evaluations by their parents, nor are they medicated for psychiatric disorders. Schools often don't have social workers, counselors or psychologists. 

Back home, my inclination is to provide an answer, give it a name, label it and explain it for parents and teachers. I give a diagnosis and it makes sense to everyone. I make suggestions and recommendations about strategies that will benefit a student and our teachers can "run with it". 

But here, I am forced to honestly truly and unequivocally place the emphasis on strategies and interventions, as diagnosis holds no weight, opens no doors and has no meaning. In fact it may only stigmatize a student.  

Today when discussing a 7th grade student -- who was overly active, couldn't sit still, didn't retain directions, got distracted easily, was disorganized with his materials and had no other family or health factors -- I tentatively suggested that back home this might be a student with AD/HD. "What's AD/HD?" asked the teachers? When I explained the acronym, of course they knew what it was, but they said no parent would ever seek this label or pursue medication. With a wave of a hand, they explained that the typical societal response to a student like this is "its probably just a phase". Of course, the teachers themselves are hungry for more knowledge. 

So just like the towering Mt. Kanchenjunga has only been visible fleetingly on our trip, I am starting to get more first hand insight into how child development is perceived here in this part of India. 

Here are some of the issues teachers came to me with after my talk on Saturday: 

• How to approach the parents and help an elementary student who left a suicidal note in a school notebook?
• How to approach the parents and help an elementary student who is displaying pseudomature and sexualized behavior, and insists that he is a "girl on the inside"?
• How to approach provide instruction for an elementary student who has failed to make progress for several years and likely has a significant learning disability?

And as I talked with the Principal today I learned that the rate of childhood sexual abuse in India approaches 50%, especially among boys.  Sikkim also has one of the highest rates of suicide in India. 

An earthquake drill

Air pollution in Delhi is much bigger problem than in Beijing

"In some places in Delhi, the levels of fine particles that cause the most lung damage, called PM2.5, routinely exceed 1,000 in winter in part because small trash and other fires are so common, according to scientists. In Beijing, PM2.5 levels that exceed 500 make international headlines; here, levels twice that high are largely ignored."

See this recent NYTimes article for information and the experience of an American correspondent and his family who lived in Delhi for three years.