Reflections upon Summer 2012 - Natalia Choi

Team member, Natalia Choi reflects on her experience in India working with ITSA Summer 2012

I guess the word I would describe my overall experience with India would be “Up Close.” This word has been in my head since the first day of the trip when little kids came knocking (and some climbing) on our van for money until the last night when our group gathered in a circle at night to share things we appreciated about each other. Being with around 12-20  people throughout the trip (I realized just how around people I had been when I was waiting alone in the Delhi airport for 12 hours…), we were first of all, physically “up close.” Everyday, we shoved ourselves into the 9-person “tourist vehicle” van, squeezing in and sitting on top of one another. Our record I’d have to say was the time when we left the drive-in theater when we fit 10 people in a small compact vehicle meant to fit maybe 5~6 people at most. And since we stayed together as a group most of the time, we spent A LOT of time with each other especially at Riana’s grandparents’ apartment which acted as the headquarter office for ITSA in India.

During my time in India, I also met wonderful people like my host family, Riana’s family, the ITSA India team members, and my workshop students. From them, I got to learn a little more about the Indian culture and also realize the culture I’m coming from. I’ve especially enjoyed meeting Riana’s grandmother “Dadi” who has fed us (almost literally since she stood over us at each meal to make sure we were getting plenty of chapatis to eat). Though I wasn’t always able to meet her standard for eating enough, we bonded over time and made chapatis together during the final week. My host family was also amazingly sweet and made me feel right at home making me the best masala chai and packing me a delicious tiffin (a stacked metal lunch box) full of yummy vegetables, rice, and chapatis for lunch. The many Indian college students who also volunteered with ITSA were also really vital part of our “ITSA family.” As our guides, they helped navigate the crazy-ness that is India by helping us bargain, to not get lost in the streets, and to take rickshaws. As our friends, they introduced us to the latest bollywood hits which we danced to together and celebrated festivals like Holi and Diwali.

Riana's Family, and their home crashers

The students I worked with in Ahmedabad and Rajkot also made this whole trip experience rewarding and inspiring. It was amazing to see how the lesson plans which we imagined were actually implemented to give ideas and thoughts for the students. I was especially excited for the lesson plan on modern day slavery since it is an issue that I had been much interested in. In this lesson, we first started by asking the students whether or not they thought slavery still existed in India. We had mixed opinions, some saying a definitive yes, some maybe in certain areas of the world, some “not in India.” So when students were given a fact sheet statistics and facts on modern day slavery, many were surprised by the magnitude of the problem. Through watching a video on child trafficking and continuing discussions about the effects of poverty on the security of human rights, students gained a deeper understanding of the complexity of the issue. Students also created a web with words like illiteracy, corruption, and globalization connected to slavery in order to learn about how interconnected issues were in society. I also shared my experience on leading a Fair Trade campaign during my high school to show them that high school students are very much capable of contributing a positive impact on the world. It was exciting to see how much students progressed throughout the workshops in understanding issues we discussed (slavery, corruption, gender discrimination, and environmentalism) and also in gaining a sense of social responsibility. Students cumulated so much energy to do something for the world that all the 60+ ITSAprenuers (workshop students) signed up to pursue social action projects at the end. Having worked with such an enthusiastic and bright group of students like our ITSApreneurs, I have gained more faith in the power of education and also hope for a better world.

How could I not? Doing my classic Natalia presentation spreading awareness about Fair Trade

Often times it seems that it’s the sites, the great monuments and museums that we pose in front of that we remember most after travelling. But I think once we get to spend more time in a place, it becomes the people we interact with and get to know that we remember most. Travelling with a large group in the second most populous country for five weeks, I think I’ve gotten to encounter people who’ve left a mark on the way I see the world. I’m grateful for having had such opportunity to meet such a fun and eclectic mix of people whom I’ll miss, but at least I have plenty of wonderful pictures (2000+) and unforgettable memories to look back on and smile on.

The Social Action Team in front of our 60 foot long mural!

My lovely host family!

Celebrating Diwali on our last night

Celebrating Holi, the festival of colors!

Launching ITSA's Student Mentoring Program!

Independent Thought & Social Action in India is an education reform organization that creates socially responsible youth leaders through critical thinking and social action. We help students convert their ideas into action helping them implement their own community-based projects. “Like” us for updates: www.facebook.com/ITSAInternational.


Mentoring 9th grade to college age students in Ahmedabad, India to:

-       Develop a close information sharing relationship between mentor and mentee

-       Improve student communication and articulation skills

-       Keep tabs on the student’s social action project and aid in its progression

Communication will be virtual through video chatting and email. 

Riya is an ITSA India student who implemented a waste segregation model in a slum in Ahmedabad collaborating with government officials whom we connected her to. Since then she has expanded to working in two different slums and has been able to raise awareness on hygiene, reducing disease in the slums.

“Why should I become a mentor?”
Because you will be:

- Creating cross-cultural connections

- Providing friendship and guidance to an enthusiastic and motivated young adult

- Improving your own communication and mentoring skills, especially on an international level

Submission form: To help us match mentors to mentees, here is the submission form  
bit.ly/ITSAIntMentor due by Saturday, April 6th, 2012.



Time Commitment: 5 Hours/Month, 8 months - July 25th, 2012 - April 25th, 2013.



Write to us with any questions you have at itsa@itsainternational.org.

ITSA: Inspiring Student Confidence

Rajvi Patel, a student who was part of the ITSA workshops recently wrote us the most touching letter. This is really encouraging to see, and these sentiments from our students are what keeps us going:

Rajvi, hard at work on her identity chart, reflecting on changes in her identity.

"The entire experience of ITSA was mind blowing. The workshops were great; there were so many activities involved. We played interactive games, had discussions and the program helped increase our awareness about the socio-economic conditions of our country. I now know that we are the future leaders of our country and this workshop helped me realize it.

The ITSA workshops are completely different from how we function at school.School is based on being disciplined, which makes it difficult to express ourselves the way we truly want to. We sit in front of a teacher lecturing while we try our best to stay awake in class,  Our dialogue in class, revolves around questions we have about our textbook material. ITSA made sure that we were truly using our mind and our own perspective to communicate. It was a platform to present ourselves with no restrictions or guidelines about how we SHOULD think. Not once during the workshops did I feel sad or left out; the atmosphere was cheerful and merry. It was Knowledge with fun and helped me truly grow!

In the ITSA workshops it didn't feel there was the teacher, as the disciplinarian, and the restof us were the students and receivers of information. We were all a big group of friends; that’s how it felt. This made for a healthy atmosphere and an open environment. The whole workshop taught me more than I had imagined to begin with; improving me as a thinker, being able to converse easily, a smile all the time, and so much more. My life has changed completely because of ITSA. I used to be a little shy and I couldn’t converse as easily before, but now, I have found my voice and more confident. It is because of ITSA that I believe in myself more than ever before and because of that self confidence, people believe in me.

My favourite activities were the Boat activity because it involved a lot of discussion as we determined who we saved.  We were all expressing ourselves freely without thinking twice and without censoring ourselves. The video activity involving the discussion of a movie clip was also interesting as we discussed the different characters in detail. The activities I liked were all based on freely communicating our thoughts and perspectives without any boundaries to restrict us. 

I truly believe in the message of critical thinking that ITSA brings to us and I will try to spread its message and values wherever I go. I believe ITSA is truly awesome and deserves to be recognized. It helped me so much and I honestly think it can do wonders for so many others. Thank you ITSA!"


Written by: Rajvi Patel, 9th Grade


Edited by: Ashni Tripathi

"We must keep the 150 kg, he is most certainly a wrestler!"

Hello bloggers!
        
So far, I have just posted blogs about the sightseeing that the ITSA interns have done in
Ahmedabad, but, as Emma already said, our reason for being here is not merely to explore the country, but to explore and gain a deeper understanding of the Indian education system. Before actually arriving here and participating in the workshops, Riana Shah & Jwalin Patel (the 19 year old co-founders and co-director of ITSA) had described the Indian educational system as extremely strict and rigid. The reason for this, she explained (I am going to give some brief history now, so stay with me), was that the Indian education system was set up under British Rule during the industrial revolution, and as a result was aimed at creating technicians, not independent thinkers. Consequently, the Indian education system involves a lot of rote memorization and teaching directly from textbooks, as opposed to discussion based, seminar style classes. However, not until I actually got a chance to participate in the workshops and talk with the students did this become evident. 

Above is Rajvi (right) and Paranshi (left), laughing while playing The Boat Game. They were, no doubt, laughing about the fact that another participant, Nishant, had just said, "we must keep the 150 kg man. He's most certainly a wrestler."

On the first day, every student was asked to describe themselves in one word (the workshop's theme was identity), and most of the kids described themselves as "obedient" or "tactful", or, most popularly, "disciplined", as opposed to what you might hear at Bard (to name a few: creative, independent, or a learner for the sake of learning). Afterwards, when we moved on to open-class discussion, most of the interns (myself included) felt that the students responded in a way that they thought we would approve of, instead of responding openly and self-critically. Riana & Jwalin explained this by saying that these kids had been hand-selected by their teachers to participate in the ITSA workshops, which means they already knew how to effectively promote themselves and give their teachers exactly what was expected of them. 


In yesterday's workshop, which was the fourth, we did a very provocative exercise called "The boat game." In the boat game, you have 15 people who are described in only a couple of words, like a sikh man in the army, a beggar woman, a muslim mother, a 10 year old maid, etc. The world is undergoing some sort of epidemic, like a flood, and only 10 out of the 15 can fit on the boat, based solely on their few word descriptions. What this exercise aimed at doing was to explicate the point that you cannot define, or stereotype, a person based on only thing. The man who was described as 150kg, might be a genius, for example, or the smoker--an engineer. However, interestingly we found that the students had many pre-concieved notions, no doubt propagated by their society, their parents, and their educational system. For example, all of the groups eliminated the beggar woman without much hesitation pretty early on, and seemed to have no concept that certain social structures might change once only 10 people were left on Earth. 


What this exercise, and the workshops as a whole, made clear to me is just how stifled these kids are when it comes to independent thought, and when it comes to doubting the structure of the world around them. In light of this, ITSA is like a breath of fresh air. In a set of interviews which we conducted yesterday (led by intern Mariah Widman), one of the participants, Paranshi, said, "every week I can't wait for Friday's and Sunday's to come, so I can go to the ITSA workshops! It's what I look forward to during the school week." And considering that sunday is the only day these kids have off, that's saying a lot.

~ Ana, Intern 2011

Bard High School Early College