A day in the life of an IDEX fellow

I’ve made it through my first week of working in the schools and have been blown away by how many new things have already been thrown in my direction.  It’s been good fun meeting teachers and kids in school (who all treat me like I’m a world famous celebrity) and I’ve really enjoyed learning how to apply the things we were taught during training to the real world. Although every day here is different, I have tried to give an overview of what I do in this blog post by writing a day in the life of an IDEX fellow. I’m sure if the other fellows read this they will give account of totally different experiences to mine, but hopefully they’ll be far too busy with their own work to check it out…

My housemates all setting off on their
daily individual commutes 

6.45am: It’s wake up time for me. I have a cold shower, get dressed in my kurta and dupatta and sit at my computer with a coffee for about 45mins going through my action plan for the day ahead. At this time I might also do bits and bobs of research on local social enterprises and send the odd email to our program managers or someone from an organisation we are working with. I leave the house via a quick outdoor breakfast stop the local idly stand on my. Four idly (a delicious steamed pattie made from fermented lentils and rice), coconut chutney, sambar (a thin and spicy vegetable curry) and a chai totals at 16 rupees (22p). Bargain! I have to take two buses to school on my hour -ong commute, the second of which takes me to Golconda Fort, one of Hyderabad’s most famous historical sites. Every day as I walk to my school from the bus station some helpful (and confused) local tries to redirect me the Fort, assuming I am a tourist. There aren’t many other reasons a non-Indian would be going to this area.

Kids in 4th standard

9am: I arrive in school and have meeting with school owner Mr Syed Arif. We discuss the things I am hoping to get done that day and he tells me all the new ideas he has had. Mr Arif was born locally and is part of a family very well known in the Golconda area, the predominantly Muslim old city of Hyderabad.  Like many of the owners of Affordable Private Schools, he started out as a teacher in another private school and made a bit of extra money (and developed a very good reputation) by doing after school private English tuition.  He was able to go to the USA on a teaching program in Atlanta for a few years to work as a teacher in an American school and came back to India and started his own school, Alliance International, with the help of government loans and family money. Alliance has only been open for 14 months, but already boasts 1,200 children – a high number for affordable private schools. The kids pay up to 5,000 rupees per year (about £75) and range in age from preschool (age 5) to 10^th standard (age 16).  It is very impressive that so many parents have chosen to send their children to the school when it has been running for so little time and when there are so many other schools in the area, but Mr Arif’s reputation as forward thinking as well as his international travel experience has gained him much respect and parental trust. He is hugely keen to maintain this reputation and provide a high quality service as the threat of parents pulling their children out of school is one that is constantly on the cards.

Myself and Vice Principle Miss Tahera in the school's the brand new library

10am: I start out my work in school for the day. Every day is different and the range of things I do varies greatly. I am currently supposed to be putting together a case study of the school so I often sit in on classes and observe the teaching and look through the children’s workbooks. Sometimes I sit in the office and go through finance or attendance records. Often I move around the school, which has three blocks (senior, junior and preschool), chatting to the headmistresses of each block and finding out what they are concerned (or happy) about. I also do some building assessments and look at classroom facilities and how they are being utilised. My school owner has recently opened a new library for the kids which is great, but I’ve yet to see any children in it. These are the sorts of things I have to note down. Sometimes I get roped into a bit of teaching by students or teachers who still assume that because I’m English I must be here to teach. But I try to keep this to a minimum. In addition to observation I am also trying to initiate some small projects in school time such as teacher training, guidance counsellor sessions with disruptive kids and helping teachers find new online resources for interactive teaching before launching into a full business strategy plan in September.

1pm: School is finished for the day. Normally it runs until 4.30pm with taught classes until 2pm and compulsory study time after that, but this month it is Ramadan and, since the school is uniformly Muslim and fasting is compulsory for every student over the age of ten, everyone is let out early to go home and rest and pray. I remain behind with some of the teachers for half an hour to teach them one or two games from our new program EIG – English Improvement Games. EIG was set up by myself and Miss Tahera as a daily way to make children more excited about learning English. We compiled a list of games (researched from the internet) which all involve some kind of English teaching. We teach one game to the teachers each day, then the next day they play them once or twice with their own classes. It’s very simple and free, but effective.

The teachers getting into some ball games during EIG

2pm: I take my buses back from the Golconda suburbs to the central part of town where I live. I often head to a smart local coffee shop which is quiet and air conditioned and equipped with wifi and terrific mango shakes. I find that even a morning at the school completely drains my energy – there is absolutely no alone time as everyone constantly wants to chat – so Ruci&Idoni is a pretty good place to have some downtime and reflect back on what I’ve learnt that day. I type up my notes for the case study of the school I am compiling, send some emails, and do some prep for the following days.  Today, I have been emailing the project manager of MILLEE, an organisation which helps train children in English through the use of a very specific mobile phone program, to tell her about how the program went. There will be much more info on MILLEE coming soon on this blog (watch this space).

5pm: I head back to my flat in Banjara Hills via the xerox shop for any photocopying I need to do for the next day such as handouts for school or notes for the school owner. Often at this time in the early evening the IDEX fellows have to either meet with Allie, our program leader at IDEX, to let her know how our progress is going, or with the working group we have been assigned. The working groups are small sets of IDEX fellows who meet to work on specific areas of the IDEX program itself. I am on the social business committee so our job is to organise trips for the fellows to visit other social enterprises in the local area. We are currently doing research on different kinds of organisations including microfinance groups and arts and cultural community programs.

8pm: The rest of the evening is mine to use, for any additional work to do, skype calls back home and dinner. Sometimes there are drinks parties at the houses of other people in the Hyderabad social enterprise field which is a great opportunity to find out about social development work done beyond the educational sphere. Generally I’ll just pick up some parantha bread and dhal and wind down with my flatmates at home recharging my energy for another day…