Personal, Reflective Essay

Here was the essay I submitted for the program - Thank you to Manks and Pinki for helping me with it!!!!

Teaching for Harmony

In June 2005, I resigned my position at Genentech, the company that was declared by Fortune magazine to be the best company to work for in America, and headed to India for some “soul-searching”. Through this “soul-searching”, my dream of teaching and engaging with children and youth has reemerged. In the past 3 years, I have gone from graduating with a degree in the expanding and lucrative field of bioengineering to volunteering with a non-profit organization called Society of Integrated Development of Himalayas (SIDH). SIDH is an organization that is dedicated to bringing relevant, holistic education to the villagers of the Jaunpur region in Uttaranchal Pradesh that will enable these students to lead happy and meaningful lives. After my experiences in India and working with SIDH, I come with a broader global perspective, an inner fire to invigorate change to current unsustainable systems, a theoretical understanding of possible solutions, experience working in challenging and diverse classroom environments, refined skills in motivation and leadership, and an open-mind and desire to understand all the aspects of what makes an effective teacher.

In the human quest for happiness and harmony, teaching is my means to achieving this. As I explored India, I visited different non-governmental organizations working in the education discipline and other areas, learned the theory and the technique of Vipassana meditation at a 10-day camp, was introduced to the philosophy of Jeevan Vidya (knowledge for life), engaged with people who’s lives are being uprooted by “development”, learned about various Indian thinkers, and met inspiring people who have dedicated their lives to bringing harmony into this world. Through all of this, I have come to the premise that all people have a desire to be continually happy. Some people try to make lots of money, other people try to achieve a position of power, others try to help society. All of these people are doing what they think will make them happy based on their understanding of happiness. Most people do not seem to reach that unremitting happiness that they are seeking, because of a glitch in their understanding. For example, one may work towards positions of power because they believe this will bring them respect. Respect is a universal value that we all need to be happy. However, are people in power really respected, or is the respect only on the surface? Some people try to make more money, so they can have more luxuries that they believe will bring them their happiness. However, without harmonious, loving relationships with other human beings, those luxurious items will probably not help them out of their loneliness.

Where do all of these misunderstandings come from? Learning from my experience with Vipassana meditation and my basic understanding of the Jeevan Vidya philosophy, I am becoming more aware of the numerous influences around me. The media, the government, advertising, the “system”, our parents (who grew up with their own conditioning), our religion, and our own education system are all constantly conditioning my ideas on what will bring me happiness. A life without conditioning may not be possible, but a life being aware of my environmental influences is possible. As I free my mind and become aware, I am able to perceive that harmony is what will ultimately lead me to continual happiness. This harmony includes harmony with myself, family, society, and nature. Finally, this brings about the understanding that my happiness intrinsically depends on an awareness and understanding of myself; of my relations with every other human being; and of a sustainable, environmentally friendly society. Teaching allows me to work towards a happy, harmonious life in all of these different facets.

I want to teach because the times that I have felt the most fulfilled are when I have been working with children and youth. After exploring India and myself for five months, I knew that I wanted to pursuit a life devoted to education of youth. Back in August, I was visiting an orphanage called the Sri Ram Ashram near Haridwar. The Ashram also runs a school there for 500 students. I was appalled by the Indian education system that seems to be based mostly on rote memorization and standardized exams, and where teachers seem to be absent 40% of the time. More importantly, I treasured the challenge to step in and become a substitute teacher for a few days in a Hindi-medium school, when my Hindi was barely functional (I first learned Hindi in college.). At that moment, I realized that as a teacher, I have 30 developing human minds depending on me. I have the power to draw out genuine feelings, thoughts, and questions, but I also have the opposite power of dulling those minds. The word “educate” has its roots in a Latin word meaning to “draw out”. In today’s schools, I feel education has often become the “filling of a pail” instead of a “drawing out”. The purpose of education, in my view, should be to develop those faculties that are already intrinsic in the student that will enable them to free their mind. Examples of these faculties include sharp observation skills that allow students to become aware of the reality around them, critical thinking skills that enable them to be able to identify and analyze the problems (disharmony), and the sensitivity and creativity to come up with sustainable solutions. Depending on the drive and the inner fire of the teacher, he/she will either only “fill up” the student with knowledge from books and dull his/her mind, or will engage the student to question the world around him/her and search for answers.

That inner fire continued to develop in me as my exploration continued. Finally, it led me to the decision to volunteer at SIDH.

I have learned a lot being at SIDH, and many of my personal values and views on education have come into concrete formulation as a result of my experiences here. For over a month, now, I have been teaching English at the Hindi-medium school SIDH runs for sixth through tenth graders. Most of the children speak Jaunpuri at home, while some speak Hindi. Most are Hindu, while some are Muslim. Some are part of families that live off the land as farmers, while others own stores. The challenge facing me is immense. Firstly, I do not share their cultural or linguistic background. Second, each of their situations is different. Third, I have never been trained as a teacher. Lastly, English is very distant from their actual lives, and they also have preconceived notions that English is difficult and only for the “educated.” However, when I stepped into the classroom, and saw the 30 faces looking at me, I was determined to overcome these challenges of teaching. I knew that I was in my niche.

Over the last month, I have realized that each student must be treated as an individual, instead of the entire class being treated as a herd. I think many times in today’s school system, the teacher is teaching a class, but does not realize that that class consists of distinct individuals. As I go through this understanding process, I have seen that many times during class I make general statements, which I think apply to all of my students. For example, after I administered the same test twice in a four-day period, I said, “Those of you that did not improve, clearly do not think it is important to learn English, and did not put in any effort.” However, I failed to take into account that some of these students do not have time to study at home. They walk for two hours to get back home, and then must help with housework and work on the farm. On the other hand, the students that live in the nearby town go home, have no responsibilities, and have plenty of time to study. Each individual must be understood and given attention according to his/her circumstance. This is of utmost importance in a culturally and linguistically diverse class. I saw the significance of this and am attempting to form relations with students and understand their upbringing and home situations.

Making the subject of English relevant to their lives and helping them overcome their “fear” of English are other challenges. My first step was to discuss and come to the understanding with the students that English was just a language, no different from their local dialect of Jaunpuri, or Hindi. I continued the discussion with them and together we discovered that due to historical occurrences, English has spread into use all over the world, and therefore could be of importance to them. Along with the discussion, we conducted an activity as well. In class, they came up with many English words such as “computer”, “television”, “pants”, etc. that do not have equivalents in Hindi or Jaunpuri. When I asked them to think of words in Jaunpuri that had no English equivalent, at first, they were stumped. However, soon, the words came pouring out and their eyes lit up. Some examples are unkater (meaning a tree that has not been cut) and kandulo (a special container for chapatis – unleavened bread). Their homework was to go home and come up with five more words that only existed in Jaunpuri. In this way, their education was made relevant to their life at home, as they engaged with their parents and elders to come up with these words.

In today’s education, I think that students do not usually see the relevance of the subject material taught at school. Either the subject material may actually be irrelevant to their lives, or the teacher does not explore the relevance of the material properly with the students. Both of these situations must be addressed. To tackle situations such as these, I want to be in a classroom teaching and to be involved with education, taking advantage of my understanding and of various skills.

First, there are my leadership skills. A teacher is a leader in the classroom, and also should be a leader in the community. When I was a student at UCLA, I was the director of the Indian Student Union, an organization of over 350 members and a staff of 14. We were one of the most active student organizations on campus. I learned that to lead one must listen, understand, and discuss before coming to decisions. There were a few times when I made a unilateral decision and told the staff what they had to do. I had already reasoned to myself why that decision was the right one. However, because I did not go through the reasoning and discussion with the rest of the staff, the decision seemed to be ordered upon them. Their respect for me diminished and they were not as dedicated to their task. I realize that this same situation plays out in a classroom setting. If an issue is discussed in the open and a decision is reached upon, then that decision has more value because each student was a part of its formation. The second integral quality of a leader that I place emphasis on is to lead by example. The teacher must be constantly trying to improve his/her methods and further his/her understanding. The student seeing the effort put in by the teacher will naturally be influenced by it. I know that I will constantly be striving to “walk the walk”, as I am committed life-long to my self-development, and because I care. I have resolved only to get involved with work that I am passionate about. My experience at Genentech taught me that if I am involved in work that I am not passionate about, my best efforts will not come out, and I will not be happy. I have now left that behind. Teaching, education, and human relationships are things I deeply care about. Because of this, my relentless effort is not a question.

Another skill that that will be important for me in tackling the challenge of teaching is my ability to understand and convey concepts, especially in math and science, to others. I have an engineering degree, and in high school, the subjects that I performed best in were math and science. In high school and college, I tutored others in mathematics and continually thought of new ways to teach different concepts. It takes someone with ingenuity to make these subjects interesting and relevant, and this quality is what I bring to the table.

Finally, in order to understand and manage a diverse classroom, one must come in with a broad perspective. Over the years and through my varied experiences, I believe that I have developed an open-mindedness that is essential to teaching. I cannot say that I no longer look at the world through various frameworks, but I am constantly attempting to be aware of the framework that I am looking through. This awareness is the first step in getting rid of the framework altogether.

One framework that I believe schools have perpetuated is to constantly look outwards and learn about the world “out there”. However, where is the space for a student to study, learn about, and understand one’s self and what is going on “in here”? A common fear may be that such a process inevitably delves into religion. However, this easily can be done in a secular way. Self-reflection, self-awareness, and self-development are universal concepts that can be discussed in a classroom. J. Krishnamurti, a famous philosopher of recent times, pointed out, “Why are so we surprised that there is so much chaos in the world? Just look at the chaos within each of us. We must first bring order and clarity in our inner world, before we can bring order to the outer world.” I do not believe today’s schools create those spaces for students to explore their inner beings.

Another framework that is used by schools is that of categorization - for example, the categorization of subjects - math, science, history, English, etc. To understand various concepts, categorizing is necessary, but it must be explained that categorization is just a learning tool, and not an end. There should be work done on further integrating the various subjects. The framework of compartmentalization seems to carry on for the students through adulthood, where they put their career, family life, their religious life, and social life in different categories. Instead of being one whole, the individual begins to have many different, and sometimes conflicting, dimensions. One can see the cultural difference in India, where for people who live in the rural areas, work, play, family, and religion are all one.

A few weeks ago when I went on to Google searching for quality teaching credential programs, I came across The New College, and, immediately thought it to be the most harmonious match for me. At New College, I hope to continue to refine my views on what quality education is. I want to learn how to teach a class of thirty, but still take into account the diversity and individuality of each student. I expect to develop the ability to create a classroom culture where students are encouraged and feel comfortable expressing their genuine thoughts, feelings, and questions. I would like to explore the real relevance of all the subject material in the students’ lives, now or in the future. Additionally, I hope to learn and practice various methods of teaching different subjects in a relevant, interesting, thought-provoking, and curiosity-developing manner.

The bottom line is that teaching is real. There are students and teachers, and real human relations between the two. There is a mutual exploration of the self and the world. There is a desire to effect change in the world and to bring greater harmony to the world. To me, teaching is not a career, but a life-style.