EmilyK | The Modern Story

25
Sep

The most recent census clocked the population of Hyderabad at 4 million, in a state of 8.4 million, in a country of 1.2 billion – the second largest in a world filled to the brim with 7 billion and counting. To name every person on earth, saying 10 names per second, would take 22 years (or my entire lifetime).

Inconceivable sums such as these dwarf the students of The Modern Story, who number 115 students between our five schools (to put it in perspective, I could recite all of their names in the time it takes you to read this paragraph). These numbers frighten one with their sense of scale, certainly, situating these 115 boys and girls within the colossal frame of the world. Statistically, they represent an infinitesimal blip, 115 stars in an oceanic sky. When it comes to the world, these 115 students are destined to be forgotten.

Which of course, is the illusion of quantitative data: it fails to capture the magnitude of these 115 students, how their spirit exceeds the boundaries of their 4-foot/5-foot stature and ages of 12. 13. 14. Numbers cannot do them justice. They have lived a lifetime – 115 whole lifetimes – and possess rich inner lives we catch only glimpses of in their journals and our conversations. They are all different. They write differently, converse differently. The light catches their eyes in a different way. The astonishing powers of Krishna, the boy god of Hinduism, were revealed when he opened his mouth and inside was the entire universe. Each of these 115 students has done the same – swallowed an entire universe of stories, a unique name, a home, a family. And as much as we write about these young men and women in the collective, as “our students,” “the class,” “Railway 8B,” etc., it is ever so important to honor who they are as individuals and how they have grown in the past three months. Here are six such profiles, written for Adobe Youth Voices, and our small attempt to capture some of their whole person on paper:

B. Sravanti, or ‘Sravs’ is one of the most unique personalities we have in Railway Class 8A. From day one, she has not been scared to face the ‘doubts’ in her mind and is brave in asking questions and sharing her ideas. I will never forget the sincere curiosity in her eyes when she asked me early on, “Teacher, why are you white?” She is a Hindu girl who loves Jesus, and frequently writes in her journal about the ability of Jesus to solve all of our problems. Every time we collect the journals, we can be certain that Sravs has gone beyond what was asked of her and included plenty of her own poems, stories, songs, and pictures. Recently, she has starred in the role of Siri in the Railway Class 8A video project entitled, “Fight for Your Rights! Education for All” and it was so fun to watch her put her energy and dedication towards drama and performance. She is quite a talented girl and we are so pleased she is with us in The Modern Story class. – Kelly

S.K. Fuqrah Sultana of Railway 8B says her “life policy” is to make all the people in the world happy and healthy. She is a source of constant brightness in the classroom, living by this maxim with a sense of personal responsibility for the happiness of others and capable of making anyone feel that everything is well in the world. When Fuqrah was 12, her parents enrolled her in a madarsa, a school for the study of the Islamic faith. While there, she began to lose sight in one of her eyes, having developed a small tumor in her brain, and was kept out of school for two years. She was determined to return to school and enrolled in 8th class for the second time. At the age of 15, she is the oldest girl in our class and role model for the other girls. Writing with signature quickness and double spacing, she fills her journals with “thoughts” – such as the Marcus Aurelius quote “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts” – and dreams of becoming a professional animator. Authentic, imaginative, and full of wonder for all there is to discover in the world and compassion for others, Fuqrah is a very special young woman with enormous promise. – Emily

Kelly: As with most students at Sultaan Bazar, Kheertna is shy when it comes to expressing herself in words. She responds most commonly with “Yes, teacher” and excessive smiles and nods, but it is difficult to have her open up into conversation vocally in the classroom. That said, she is hard working and always arrives at least 15 minutes early for class, and I have been able to learn more from the writing she does in her journal. Kheertna has the meticulous work ethic of many of our students – the type that will not draw a line without a straight edge. While in the midst of preparations for a video project concerning conversations with the natural world, Kheertna characteristically spent days diligently cutting out a parrot – her favorite animal. I remembered another parrot that Kheertna had drawn and went back to take a closer look – the parrot was drawn in response to a Gandhi prompt following Independence Day: “In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.” Kheertna responded to this quote by drawing a parrot and telling the story of her own capacity to think for herself…

“Democracy: This parrot is my favorite bird and my parents are saying you get favorite peacock, zebra, but I like parrot. But my feeling is my feeling and not another feeling is my parents. And friends say your favorite bird is parrot, but why? I will say yes my favorite bird is parrot.”

When asked for one unique thing about Zeenath, she replied that she is ‘punctual’ and in a similar fashion, this young girl is dedicated to hard work and studies. She is confident and vocal in class, and always willing to share insightful responses. She never misses a day of homework, and goes above and beyond what she needs to do in her journal at night. It seems that she must have supportive parents, because some of her homework responses incorporate information she has attained from the newspaper and current events that suggest family involvement in her education. She is also the star of MGM’s current video project, called ‘Sita’s Life,’ that explores the difficult topic of child suicide. In her performance given this responsibility, she has displayed maturity beyond her years, as well a relaxation into the ‘dramatic’ process that was reassuring to see in this characteristically disciplined young girl have so much fun acting. One day I asked her if she enjoyed making the video project, and she responded with a big smile, “Yes teacher! All week I could not wait until Tuesday to come!” She has also been important for creative input in the project, contributing many ideas to the post-production editing. Zeenath’s father is a shop keeper and her mother is a housewife. Her ambition is to be a government official. -Kelly

Rahul is quiet upon first introduction and stands out among his peers. He is older, taller, and hesitant, unsure of his footing at times among the more vocal of his peers. He is intensely curious about the technological aspects of video production and editing especially. Rahul is most happy when seated at the computer in front of Windows Movie Maker, filled with clips awaiting his growing editing sensibilities. Rahul was initially one of our least engaged students. He seemed especially afraid of handling the equipment and his English skills were very weak. With the help of our high school volunteer Praneet, Rahul gradually came out of his shell and seemed to enjoy the class. It wasn’t until we introduced video editing, however, that he transformed. He began to ask questions, to stay after class and beg us to show him additional editing tips. Rahul went from barely speaking to us, to being one of the most vocal and interested students in the class. He continues to be shy around the camera but now makes an effort to stay focused in class and has one of the best attendance records of our students. Rahul’s father is a politician and his mother is a shopkeeper. -Dana

Swarupa has a quiet introspection about her and is sharing more of herself each and every day. She has blossomed within the last few weeks as a prominent character in our short video project, demonstrating an energy and dry wit both on camera and off. When we first began teaching at Bansilalpet, Swarupa was the least talkative of our students, even at times appearing disinterested. We were surprised one day when the other students convinced Swarupa to dance after class. We filmed her dance and ever since she has been interested in participating in class activities. From improvising lines in our short video project, to making jokes on and off the camera, Swarupa has become one of our most enjoyably unpredictable students. -Dana

19
Sep

EmilyK

Classroom News, Photo Stories, TMS Fellow Updates

A Spring Morning and Photo Story Round Up

Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Rory Sutherland

At this point, we hope you’ve moseyed on over to The Modern Story’s video page, taken a stroll in Rainbow Park while pondering a girl’s struggle for education, and eaten birthday biryani on a rainy day. Our final batch of photo stories comes from the 8th standard class at Railway Girl’s High School, an extraordinary school in Lallaguda that was been partnered with The Modern Story program for three years. In a unique departure from the traditional photo story format, this year marked the first time that a TMS project counted towards students’ quarterly exams (representing 25 marks total). Through a collaboration with the 8th class English instructors, Mdms. Shimla and Vimala, the photo story assignment asked students to create a visual interpretation of William Wordsworth’s “A Spring Morning.”

A Spring Morning Railway 8A from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 1: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 2: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

Team 3: “A Spring Morning” (Railway 8B Photostory) from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

“A Spring Morning” is fourteen lines in length and describes the beautiful day that emerges after a rainstorm:

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the stockdove broods;
The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning’s birth;
The grass is bright with raindrops; – on the moor
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

A Spring Morning is also first poem in the English Reader textbook for all 8^th class students in the state of Andhra Pradesh and between the five schools where we teach, it is one of the few common denominators. Nearly every student has some working familiarity with this poem and especially its resounding introduction: “There was a roaring in the wind all night.” A few have even copied a verse or two in their homework and claimed it as their own. But that’s another issue for another blog post.

More pressing in early July was the challenge of interpreting a remarkably straightforward poem in an imaginative way. “A Spring Morning” is fourteen lines long and featured Wordsworth at his descriptive best. Read it again and you’ll see. The poem is constituted entirely of images. It describes the beautiful day that emerges after a rainstorm, pregnant with the sounds of birds chirping, water flowing, and a hare bounding through puddles. This hare is the closest thing the poem has to a protagonist and his splashy journey the extent of the poem’s narrative, leaving those hungry for a plotline (or a story to digitize) wanting. And while the other TMS photo stories drew from the personal lives of the students, ranging from the everyday of cooking biryani to broader themes of caste division, and had clear narrative conventions (a main character, a beginning, a middle, and end), the story that landed in the lap of Railway was a snapshot of the English countryside written over 120 years ago. What possible connection did Wordsworth’s pastoral paradise have to their personal lives?

It was a question the three of us thought about for a long time, as we read and re-read those fourteen lines in search for creative wiggle room and a story to conceptualize. We had the students choose their favorite line of the poem and draw it. They wrote poetry for homework and read poetry in class. Kelly wondered if we could represent the emotional arc of the poem, showing the ascension of family calm after a storm of domestic violence. As a warm-up, she and Dana choreographed an expressive dance around the poem’s major images, which 8A enthusiastically memorized by heart.

Over in 8B, the girls turned the poem into a play – “acting out” what they read, roaring like a lion, chattering like a magpie, and raining like a flood. Neha and I were the costume department for that day, furiously scribbling “tree,” “sun” and that famous “hare” on pieces of computer paper and taping it to the front of their uniforms.

While these exercises helped the students in isolating the major “characters” of the poem, they didn’t generate a more profound interpretation than the literal fact of a spring morning after a rain storm. At first this disappointed me. Years of schooling had coached me in the “seek-and-ye-shall-find” methods of literary analysis, in which a careful reader cannot in good faith leave any symbolic stone unturned, but must dissect any verse with a mental scapula, extracting the meaning hidden by the all-knowing poet/creator/mastermind. If our students wanted to represent the hare as simply that – a hare – would we be allowing them to settle for a superficial interpretation?

Maybe. But maybe not. For there is another kind of wealth to be found in poetry that operates on the pure level of language, of words. And meaning revealed by the simple stringing of several words together. “All things that love the sun are out of doors.” To read these words on page, to understand them, and to represent them artistically is an accomplishment for anyone, let alone students whose second language is English. Any deeper meaning lacquered upon the simplicity of Wordsworth’s words does not indicate a more meaningful understanding of the words themselves. And the more we worked through the project, the more I realized that our earlier fixation on finding a deeper meaning distracted us from the beauty of its delivery. We changed focus from questions of message (What do we think Wordsworth means by a spring morning?) to questions of medium (How shall we recreate a spring morning? How shall we evoke the feeling of a spring morning?), recognizing the ample inspiration in this spring morning to produce a photo story of substance.

And that’s when the fun began. 8A brought the outdoors inside, hanging raindrops from the ceiling and birds from the window, and embodying Wordsworth’s menagerie by turning their cheeks towards Kelly’s face paint brush, grinning hugely beneath rabbit whiskers, chattering like jays and magpies with cut-out speech bubbles, and forming birds wings with their adjoined thumbs. With a little help from Dana and the Electric Light Company, they learned to read expressively, to make their voices rise calmly and brightly like the sun, matching the cadence of Wordsworth’s iambic pentameter.

After breaking into three groups, 8B received blank story boarding sheets.”You choose. Its your choice,” Neha and I kept saying when they asked what to do next and after some initial discomfort, each team attacked the project from a different angle, with a different story board to show for it. Velankanni and Shanawaz took digital photographs on the school grounds and created rain where there was none, sprinkling “dew” on grass blades, draping leaves in puddles, and commissioning a few of the Tiny Tots students to pose with umbrellas. When a downpour did come, Srilekha and Ramya Sree bolted outside with a video camera and returned triumphantly to class with a sound recording.

Other teams delved into mixed media collages and stop motion animation, condensing a series of 30 still pictures of a run rising upward or a hare moving forward into a four second clip. While teaching them these techniques, their application and execution was entirely up to the students. It seemed that the more free they were to experiment with different media and represent the poem as they wished, the more personal responsibility they developed, as they recognized this project was in some way an extension of themselves and there was no “right” way to complete it. “A Spring Morning” may have been written by Williams Wordsworth, but “A Spring Morning” photo story was all theirs.

Their burgeoning sense of artistic ownership culminated in a showcase of the photo stories for their parents during the annual Parent-Teacher meeting and for the head administrator of the Railway schools on Teacher’s Day (see video below). Our students spoke proudly about their work and what’s more, seemed astonished that they themselves (rather than another adult or teacher) were speaking on their own behalf and representing their original work. Watching them from the side, I realized it mattered little in the end whether we were in England or in India. These students were resourceful enough to illustrate “A Spring Morning” poem on the moon provided they were given the moon rocks to do so. And therein lies the true success of Railway’s photo story project: that the students experienced the thrill of creation and just how personal it can be.

5
Sep

EmilyK

Classroom News, Daily Updates, Project Tracks, Reflections

Brother Praneet

Praneet Reddy first approached The Modern Story in late June. He had just completed 10th class and was home in Hyderabad for the summer, looking for a valuable way to spend his time before pursuing his Higher Secondary School Certificate in Bangalore. He had discovered The Modern Story the way many people discover The Modern Story – through a chance encounter with our website – but took the extra step of contacting us directly and asking whether he could get involved.

Its a rare and wonderful step if you think about it – the type of gesture that makes non-profit organizations such as The Modern Story possible. Ideas are only as powerful as the number of able bodied men and women to act upon them and doing so invites a certain leap of faith. I cannot count the number of times I’ve stumbled across a web page for a cause whose work I admired, whose photographs I picked through, maybe whose newsletter I signed up for to give my time, eyes, and momentary attention. But it takes a special amount of courage, initiative, and character to send a cold e-mail and offer yourself. Praneet did this very thing and for six weeks, volunteered his creativity and English-to-Telugu translation abilities as a co-teacher at Audiah Memorial High School (during production of A Rainy Day photo story). We gratefully accepted, little knowing just how valuable he would be to our teaching and just how beloved he would become to our 15 students.

In the five weeks we had the pleasure of working with him, Praneet juggled a multitude of roles with steadfast calmness and cheer. As a co-teacher, he muscled through every technical failure, every power outage, and every change in the lesson plan with patience. As a translator, he managed to digest our lengthy explanations into an abridged Telugu version faithful to (and often more articulate than) the English original, choosing those very words that would would bring a wave of comprehension across the faces of our Audiah students and draw our classroom back together.

Most importantly, Praneet was an unfailingly kind friend and role model for the students, answering questions, sharing stories, and alleviating any mental roadblocks so our lessons had traction. The early confidence he inspired in these fifteen students, both in the technical process and in themselves (“Yes, I can do this!”), has made all the difference in their long-term engagement. This is especially evident among our male students – Rahul, Rohit, Bhushan, Vinay, Asif, and Nagaraju – who sat resolutely in the back row the first two weeks of class, physically distant and distracted. Once Praneet became a regular fixture, this pattern broke down. The boys began to talk. To follow their curiosity and ask questions. To share. Rahul, who barely said a word and shied the camera, was a different person with Praneet in the room. The two of them huddled in quiet confidence was a common sight before class. These days, Rahul is among the most active and technologically savvy of our students, inseparable from Windows Movie Maker and endlessly curious. He continues the legacy of his former teacher and friend in ever question that he asks and every technology that he masters. Today we set up Rahul’s e-mail account and wouldn’t you know – Praneet was the first person he wanted to whom Rahul wished to address his very first message.

30
Jul

EmilyK

Photo Stories, Reflections, TMS Fellow Updates

Photoaugliaphobia (n): the fear of glaring lights

In the United States we say “cheese.” In Italy, they say formaggio. The Spanish chorus patata (potato), the Bulgarians chime zele (cabbage), and the Chinese beam with茄子 (eggplant), while most Latin American countries diga “Whiskeyyyyy!” The French grin at the sound of ouistiti (which ironically isn’t cheese at all, but the marmoset monkey). Among the students of Hyderabad, there doesn’t seem to a Hindi or Telegu word to prompt a smile before the camera. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much precedent for smiling in front of the camera at all.

This occurred to me my very first day at Railway Girls’ High School. After unfurling a bag of coloring materials, the students of 8B set to work writing their name on a half sheet of colored card stock and decorating it. Some drew Mehndi designs while others dotted their nametag with stars, chattering all the while, bartering for more markers, and scrunching their faces in intense concentration. There are few joys as universal as coloring (in my high school, the most popular organization was the coloring book club) and their delight over broken crayons and doodles raised my hopes for the next six months. If coloring could transcend linguistic and cultural difference, maybe cameras could to.

One by one, I asked each girl to hold up her nametag. And one by one, the bubble of excitement would burst the moment I raised the camera and trained the lens on their face. Their smiles would fall. Their mouths would clamp shut and their jaws would stiffen, as if bracing themselves for something painful. When taking their pictures, I was struck by the distinct feeling I was intruding on their privacy. That I was a member of some foreign paparazzi, freezing them atop a pedestal and forcing them into the limelight. These pictures would be put on the TMS website after all, into blog posts and videos, and liable to be seen by anyone. “Just one more moment teacher, I’m not ready,” they would say. The camera seemed to rob them of something they weren’t ready to give. “Don’t be afraid, it’s not going to hurt you,” I found myself consoling. “It’s just a camera.”

But wasn’t just a camera, not to them.

Though no more than a few scraps of metal, plastic, and glass, the camera is also an instrument of self-surveillance, enabling us to freeze frame our lives in excess. It often begins in utero. A report from the security company AVG revealed that 34 percent of American parents upload their prenatal sonogram to the Internet. And once this child is born, it’s only a matter of time until he or she is the subject of some blissful relation’s camera and his or her lifetime of digital documentation has begun.

Your life has most likely been documented ad infinitum. Think about how many pictures you’ve posed for. Think about how many pictures you haven’t posed for: candid shots, sleeping shots, atmospheric shots. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands of pictures. We take pictures of our vacations, our pets, of that time we ran a marathon, and that time we did absolutely nothing and took a picture of it anyway. The camera chastens us to leave no party unattended, no ice cream sundae eaten, and no muscle unmoved without visual proof. Bonus points if said ice cream is rendered in Instagram. And although our snap-happy love affair with the digital camera allows us to share our lives, it also encourages our vanity and cavalier attitude towards the camera. Who cares if I botch this picture when another opportunity is just around the corner?

As I clicked through the pictures of 8B, passing sullen portrait after sullen portrait, I wondered if these students had the same luxury. I wondered how many had ever had their picture taken before. All of them come from working class families, father who drive buses and autos, mothers who are housewives, as one of many children in houses where a camera was an unlikely possession (costing upwards of Rs. 5000). Was it possible that this was their very first? That this hasty, two-second snapshot of Sim Rani, of Ruhi, of Rubeena in front of a peeling blue door was one of the few that had ever been taken?

In the weeks to come, the girls began to bring in pictures of themselves as children. All of them were taken inside professional studios and staged by the invisible hand of the photographer. Baby Divya is adorned with flower gardens, gold bangles stacked around her tiny wrists, and gazing with bright eyes into the camera (or at some toy bird shaken for her attention). T. Sushma’s brother is donning a plaid vest and matching trousers, his arms hanging slackly from hands in stuffed pockets, arranged by an adult with blithe indifference for the oddity of this pose on a two-year-old.

You can make out the features of Nelofor inside the round face of her young self, as her mother, dressed in a beautiful red and gold sari, cups her protectively by the shoulders. Her father stands next to her mother in grey suit with a Winsor knot. His expression bears an uncanny resemblance to the frowns of my students. Solemn. Sullen. But filled with an emotion buried seven layers deep. It was the expression of a man who could not waste taking a picture of his family. Who couldn’t afford to pose with abandon because he wasn’t sure when another opportunity would come.

And in this way, the camera isn’t just a camera. It’s a looking glass—a medium that allows us to see ourselves as other see us with undoctored honesty. Growing up without a camera only intensifies its power, rendering you especially vulnerable if caught unawares. It’s little wonder why the students of 8B were poker-faced their first day in TMS class. To be on the receiving end of such an unflinching gaze, without a lifetime of instruction on how to pose and project some ready-made emotion, smiling must have been the last thing on their minds.

To encourage their confidence in front of the camera, we made a “practice” photo story to complement our “Girls Around the World” unit. Each team was asked to “tell a story about a girl” in relation to one of four assigned themes: friendship, a party, nature, and religion. Not only did this cement their technical understanding of the camera, but it also invited them to explore a range of emotion within the confines of a fictional character. Tapping into their inner Tollywood actresses (the Hollywood of the Telegu language), they could emote in a way befitting the heroine, father figure, friend, and villain of their story without the pressure to “be themselves.” Because let’s face it – being “yourself” in front of the camera is a performance of its own kind.

And so instead of soliciting a smile, Neha and I have been asking the students of 8B to simply let their guard down. We’ve told them its okay to look goofy, to be spontaneous, and to allow their personality to take precedence over their appearance, pulling whatever facial stunts feel right at the time and not worrying whether it flatters them.

Story of A Girl from The Modern Story on Vimeo.

In exchanging “cheese” for emotional honesty, the photographs for 8B’s “Story of Girl” ran the gamut of facial expressions: smirks, scowls, and twinkles, protruding tongues, blurred limbs, and raised eyebrows, gazes of burning intensity, of incredulity, of amusement, glares and glances that radiate their absorption in the present moment. 8B has a word for this now, borrowed from the life of the Hawaiian “soul surfer” Bethany Hamilton.

In 8B, we are striving to become “soul photographers.”

11
Jul

EmilyK

Reflections, The Modern Story Fellowship

One Month Reflection: Teaching in the Buff and Being Yourself

This week packs a nostalgic punch for us: it’s been almost one month since we stepped off our respective planes in Hyderabad and met one another (pronounced Hy-DRA-bad for anyone curious). One month of dodging auto-rickshaws, developing a chai tea habit, and waiting patiently, pleadingly for packages from friends and family (don’t worry friends and family – we’ve found the room, it’s the mail that’s a bit slow). It’s been three weeks since we began teaching at Railway Girls’ High School in Lallaguda and two weeks since we began teaching at our America India Foundation (AIF) partner schools: Sultan Bazar High School, Government Girls High School in Bansilalpet, and Audiah Memorial High School. And as of yesterday Kelly officially began teaching at our 5^th and final school—Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School—with great success.

With this day, the last wheel of The Modern Story flying machine has been set spinning earnestly in motion. It is a vehicle piloted by 114 students, their 10 teachers, and ourselves, built from camera batteries and tripod legs, story-powered and running on creative juice, buoyed by blind faith in each other and in our newfound family. We seem to have lifted off beyond all return, departed from any familiar ground to gaze down at our small June selves with amusement. A great many things have changed since then.

For one, the three of us have grown from being friendly strangers to a strange band of friends, known to the Abids neighborhood and often together. When separated, shopkeepers and waiters will inquire, “Where is Kelly? Where is Dana? Where is your other friend?” Both Kelly and Dana have spent time in India before and share a profound love for the country, its many languages, religions, and peculiar challenges. Kelly is always striving to get out and see more, following her curiosity (and encouraging mine) through the winding streets of Sultan Bazaar and into the pockets of Hyderabadi life: a chai tea counter, a yoga studio, and a Hare Krishna service. On a given day, when we find ourselves stuffed into the 8A bus, dripping with sweat, careening through the streets, and contorting our limbs to hold on to whatever pole, rail, or fixed object we can find for fear of falling, Dana will often break into an enormous smile and say: “I love India.” And she means it. In many ways, experiencing the country through their eyes has forced me to reconsider my own impressions, to knock down the pin of stereotype and romanticism all the more quickly, and live at the level of people, places, and things. Because that is, after all, what matters most: people, places, and things. Nouns. Any abstraction beyond that is a bit more complicated and requires one to venture into the realm of the storyteller. How do you tell a story about India that captures a whole noun? A swath of feeling? An entire month? I haven’t the faintest idea, but am going to try.

Two weeks ago, I was teaching the 8B standard class at Railway Girls’ High School in Secunderabad. I love working with these students – they are bright, kind-hearted, and keen to become good photographers and digital storytellers.

After showing the students some storyboards and comic strips, I took them outside in small groups to record voiceovers describing their favorite object. We stood beneath a tree – dubbed the “quiet tree” to deter background noise – and amid hushed laughter, the girls took turns speaking into the camera and recording one another’s voices. Everything was going smoothly, all too smoothly. I should have known. For somewhere in between Fuqrah explaining how her father bought her a diary for New Year’s and Sim Rani describing the fur of her teddy bear, a breeze passed by and gingerly lifted the edge of my long tunic, called a kurta. I felt the coolness of the breeze, as breezes are wont to cool the skin, but with a strange and startling proximity. As if the breeze was extra strong, or my pants – these billowy, pajama-like pants called salwar – were extra thin. Or missing entirely.

Somehow, in the haste of the morning, I had torn an apple-sized hole in the back of my salwar and was bearing my backside to the entirety of the sun-soaked courtyard. Panicked, I tugged my kurta back in place and looked wildly in every direction, like the periscope of some paranoid submarine. Had I flashed the students? A teacher? The Head Mistress Madam Janaki? If she didn’t tolerate short sleeves, indecent exposure would hardly earn her approval. I spent the rest of the day attempting to be streamlined, arms pinned to my sides like a water slide rider, walking slowly and trying to not make any sudden motions. I hobbled home with wounded pride and stitched the hole that weekend.

As a teacher abroad, it is too our benefit to approach new environments with utmost respect, to be mindful of what is said and done, and to consider the meaning of our actions in a new context. To comply with unspoken rules. To adjust accordingly. To conform. All month, I’ve been watching other teachers at our schools and trying to mimic their mannerisms, their tone, and their diplomacy. I’ve begun to wobble my head back and forth to mean yes, instead of nodding up and down, and adopted a clipped Indian accent to make it easier for my students to understand my English. This is made especially ironic by the fact that so many of the girls detest the sound of their voice, of their accent, and want desperately to sound like me.

The pressure to conform and blend in, especially in the conservative sections of Hyderabad where we live and teach, urges not only our compliance, but the compliance of my students as well. Many said their greatest fear in The Modern Story class was answering a question incorrectly. Many are hesitant to speak in class, often answering my questions in a synchronized chorus. The students of 8B wear the same neatly pressed blue uniform, hair spun in two smooth braids, and frequently copy their homework from textbooks, newspapers, and each other’s journals despite my insistence they write in “their own words.” But what value does a student’s “own words” have when having the “right answer” is more socially applauded? My students and I seem to be caught in a space of mutual imitation, suspended somewhere in the middle of this two-way mirror and trying so very studiously, even desperately, to be like everyone but ourselves.

In spite of our honest efforts, however, it has proven nearly impossible for my students and I to be anyone but ourselves. Scraps of personhood will continue to make an appearance: bursts of laughter, innocently insensitive remarks, and a wayward patch of skin beneath an otherwise perfectly respectable pair of pants. Though the desire to fit in persists, there is something to be said for standing out. And instead of suppressing these flares of identity and hanging their heads in shame, I want more than anything to show these girls the tremendous beauty and joy of taking pride in themselves. Of bringing their inner life to bear on paper and preferring to do so in their own words. And when hearing their voice played back, I want them to smile at the sound of it, to appreciate its musicality, its earnest curiosity, its liveliness, everything I hear when I listen to them speak and the ownership that comes when imitation isn’t nearly as satisfying as authenticity.

16
Jun

EmilyK

Pre-Departure

Emily Kwong, Fellow introduction, The Modern Story

A Hello from Emily

My name is Emily Kwong and I am thrilled to be a 2012 fellow with The Modern Story (TMS). In a world saturated by policies and percentages, The Modern Story valorizes the human voice—the human story—and empowers it to speak loudly and largely. Through student-created photo essays and micro-documentaries, it puts the powers of representation directly in the hands of a young person. It’s a toolbox that behaves like a megaphone, giving them the digital equipment and soft knowledge to share their words, thoughts, and feelings with each other, with their community, with the world. Go watch one of TMS’s 100+ videos on Vimeo. Try the news bulletin about child trafficking, the report about traffic congestion, or the spoken word proclaiming, “I am from the moon, from dilkush and butterscotch ice cream.” See what I mean?

In this way, TMS never purports to “give youth a voice,” but to turn up the volume of their voice. It was this singular, but crucial distinction that attracted me to The Modern Story in the first place. Now, writing this on the plane from London to Mumbai, there aren’t enough adjectives to convey the admiration I have for The Modern Story, the surplus of feeling I feel to be a part of this organization, and my excitement to work with the 2012 TMS class, all 8^th and 9^th grade students at government schools in Hyderabad, India.

I graduated a little less than a month ago with a B.A. degree and more questions than answers. Through my interdisciplinary curriculum in Anthropology and Human Rights, I become interested in ethnographic writing and the dissemination of personal narrative as rallying point for social change. Those four years were rich in exploration, with forays into print journalism, radio work, oral history and digital heritage work, youth media, and creative, project-based learning as a method of education. I researched digital heritage while studying abroad in South Africa, taught briefly at a youth media academy in inner city Hartford, CT, and interned at an education non-profit that explored global themes through art and media projects.

Were I to draw a Venn diagram with that generous, idealistic faith of a post-grad, these many interests and experiences share in common a desire to lend credence to small yet significant personal stories, undocumented in popular telling, but deserving of being heard. It comes from the value my family has always placed upon listening wholeheartedly to others. The more I learned about The Modern Story, the more its ideology corresponded with these deeply-rooted personal values, strumming the chords of my own belief that people needed stories to survive. It is an ancient phenomenon, an impulse that has sprung up spontaneously in all cultures across time and space. Only the need to nourish, rest, and breathe can claim the same level of vitality. Scientific research is beginning to support what advertisers, authors, and Aristotle have long known. Readers of fiction are revealed to be far more empathetic and socially aware than non-readers. Hooked up to an MRI and shown images of human faces, their hippocampus (that part of the brain dedicated to emotional response) lights up like a firefly. The more I come to understand the science and artistry of storytelling, the more I appreciate its power. For better or for worse, dramatic social change can be affected by one well-told story.

With any hope, we at The Modern Story can inform, inspire, and entertain you with compelling digital stories 100% created, produced, and edited by our students. Keep checking in for profiles of students, their fantastic multimedia work, lessons about teaching, and stories about storytelling. For now, thank you for reading and leave a comment. What’s your favorite story to tell? To hear? To read?

Meet Emily from The Modern Story on Vimeo.