FALL 2009 Synergy 21
the local government school. Armed with little teaching knowledge and even less language ability, I assiduously worked to make sure each student was able to have simple conversations in English. Many of my students were unused to the personalized attention that I provided them, and their responses to my interactions with them were often unexpected. On any given day, I was equally likely to break up a fight between students as I was to teach the difference between uppercase and lowercase vowels. However, on this holiday, my role as teacher and mentor was removed, and I was able to simply observe these children with new and curious eyes. Many of the students at this school came from abusive households, and others may have received their only meal of the day through the free lunch program at school. We could not expect these children to understand most of what we are saying, nor could they be expected to afford pencils or notebooks. Slowly, I learned to navigate through this storm of children who never learned how to catch someone’s attention without shouting and fighting. I found it easier simply to listen to them—sometimes too much and for too long if I was unsure of what to do. When even my loudest shouts were not loud enough, I could do nothing but listen. Even though I may have furrowed my brows and grown hoarse from shouting, I still loved those kids. Though they may not have behaved properly, they were surrounded by a certain kind of joy that only came from the enrichment of learning. All of the behavior issues that I witnessed were simple cries for attention—attention that I was able to give to them through teaching. In my Telugu class, there was a boy named Shankar who was one of my favorite students. He sat with the girls instead of the boys, and often tried to sit as close to me as he could. Though he may not have known as much English as the rest of the students, he worked quietly and diligently, and often drew pictures to illustrate the English sentences that I taught to the class. It was his love of food that helped him the most in learning his lessons, and in eliciting sympathy from me. One day, when we were teaching the alphabet, Shankar burst from his seat, yelling, “Ice Cream!” as loud as he could each time I arrived at the letter “I.” Shankar also asked me if it was lunchtime roughly every five minutes, but he did it in such a sweet, unobtrusive way that I could not help but sympathize with his growling belly. The Duke Engage team had arrived at the school a week before the monsoon on a holiday called Friendship Day, which is the Indian grade-school equivalent of Valentine’s Day. Classmates give each other “friendship bands,” which are ribbons with things written on them like “Best Friend” and “Friends Forever.” Like America’s Valentine’s Day, Friendship Day is heavily commercialized but also very sentimental to these children. Both holidays celebrate the profound relationships with loved ones, who share the same experiences as one another. When I came into class on Friendship Day, Shankar pulled me aside and held out his hand. He opened his palm to show me a bracelet with large alternating clear and rainbow-colored beads. Even though it was plastic, it was much nicer than any of the other Friendship Day bracelets, and was certainly not just a ribbon like all the others. “Happy Friendship Day!” he said excitedly, and tried to put the bracelet on my wrist.