Continuing from the previous post, let me write down everything that defined my work setup.
The Curriculum
This is where the fun starts. I worked with two different curriculum throughout the year. The school wanted me to teach the mandated Samacheer syllabus and the organisation that I work for wanted me to teach to the Common Core Standards. The Samacheer part contained the Social, Science and the “English as a subject” subjects to be taught, the organisation gave me Mathematics and “English as a standard” subjects to teach. It is actually painful to be a teacher and teach language either as a subject or as a set of standards. More on that separately sometime later (which is almost never).
The Red Ink
There were 37 notebooks for each (3) Samacheer subject to be checked and corrected 3-5 times in every term. Each term itself is about 3 or 4 months. And there where 2 mid-term term tests and 1 end of term test for each term. For the organization’s part, we were supposed to conduct Unit Assessments, which is one in 6 weeks, Weekly assessments and if possible Daily Assessments. I just did the Unit Assessments. Tried Weekly assessments but dropped it after a couple of weeks, it was getting out of hands. English made up for it, by making me correct a set of at least 10 questions every alternate day. I remember sitting, standing, sleeping, walking and even jumping on/off trains with my bag on the shoulder, papers on the left hand and red pen on the right.
The Sessions
The organisation’s way of making sure we are fully equipped to handle everything in the classroom. It was usually planned in the evenings after school when we are in our lowest glucose levels and looking out for a corner to curl. The sessions did make a lot of sense to the people who were organizing them. They were usually about how to teach, how to handle kids, how to understand a particular area in order to deliver it the way it is supposed to be. But one thing no one seemed to care/understand/grasp was there was no single way to do stuff.
The Printer
Canon LBP2900. One trademark of being a TFI fellow is we print more paper for each kid than what government or the school would. Having a laser printer really does help. One can be free of the timing restrictions imposed by the Xerox shops and save a lot more money. I printed about 8000-9000 pages in the last 4 months alone. 1500 rupees for all that paper and 400 rupees for the toner and the immense flexibility of being able to print whatever and whenever.
The Travel
The travel was two/three legged. I usually started off with short bus ride 5E/23C/49 from Adyar depot to Madhya Kailash, took a train from Kasthuribai Nagar station to the Beach Station, and then finally took 44C from Beach Station to the Power House stop. Sometimes the 5E-Train combo was replaced by the 21H/PP19 from Adyar Depot to Parry’s Corner. Initially used 6D from the backside of Adyar Depot, but extra 300m walking and having no alternate buses made me switch to other options. One thing good about the train travel is I always found space to sit and even work on the laptop if required. Having a monthly season ticket for just 105 rupees was another boon. Never had to worry about tickets/queues and oversleeping during return journeys.
These define the physical boundaries of how I worked in the past one year. But how did I actually work? What was “The process”?