With all due respect to Lawrence High School, Phillips Academy, Northern Essex Community College, and the U-Mass system, it is very possible that my favorite school in the world is the Diamond Jubilee Girl's School in the Dongri neighborhood in Mumbai.
We headed to the Girl's School today to co-teach classes. The school was purposely founded to educate Muslim girls, at a time when Muslim girls had few educational opportunities. Over the years it has continued to serve this population, and has become very successful. The school serves 1,044 students, all girls, in split sessions. The morning session runs from 6:50am-1:00pm and serves grades 5-10. The afternoon session from 1:00-6:20pm serves grades K-4. Nursery school is split into morning and afternoon sessions. The building is well used, and FULL with 40-45 students per class. In most classrooms, you could not add another child, because she literally would not fit. All of the faculty are female. It is a place of female empowerment. Nearly 100% of their graduates from 10th grade have gone on to higher education. Many end up attending university, and alumnae have become doctors, teachers, and engineers. The girls are all part of the first generation in their families to achieve these levels of education. I remembered my visit there in 2015 fondly, and the teachers and some of the students remembered us. The students presented us with hand-made book marks and gift bags:
I co-taught two classes. In my first class, with Grade 9, I partnered with Tasnim Shikari, who like me is a 25-year veteran teacher. In this class of 45, the students are organized into groups, which have group names. One group of particularly sweet girls had named themselves "The Silent Killers." I asked about the name, and one said, "We do our work silently, but give a killer performance." Their group name sign has a skull on it:
We read the poem "Somebody's Mother," then I led a writing workshop in which I invited students to write about someone they know who should be celebrated, but is not. Students wrote eagerly, then we had a sharing session. Many students wrote about their parents. My favorite was a girl who wrote about the street sweeper, who every morning cleans the street in front of her house.
My afternoon class was with first grade, with Farheen Shaikh. She is a second year teacher with great potential.
We worked on vocabulary associated with rain, and had the children use their bodies to represent the words:
My colleagues, meanwhile, did some great work. I was able to watch Ingrid teach a brilliant lesson. First she drew on the board, a map of a mythical country - her own, fictional country. Then she said that in her country she wanted to have schools and books, so she drew symbols to represent schools and books. She asked students what should be in her country, and one called out, "Parks!" Ingrid said she thought that was a good idea, so she added parks to her map. Once she had created a map of her own fictional country, she asked students to do the same. Students then created maps of their own fictional countries, with the things they wanted in it, and for the things they didn't want, they drew a symbol of it, but then put an X through it. It was a brilliant lesson that got to the heart of social justice quickly.
I also watched Alan present a lesson on letter writing. The students did it through song - he composed a chorus, had students write lyrics, and then assembled it all into a song:
I also briefly watched Brendan teach a poetry workshop to second graders:
I was sorry I was unable to get to Julia's classes - all reports are she did great work. The students, teachers, and administrators of DJ Girl's School could not have been kinder, more welcoming, or more grateful. We were feted with presents and thanked more than we deserve. I hope I am able to return someday.
Thanks for reading,
Rich
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