Wednesday 14 July 2010

The Garodia School has ambition. Lots of it.

...Hi guys, we'd love for you to teach piano in the music school. Yeah definitely, we’ll come to India and do that! How about you help out with the other instruments too: drums, violin, voice and guitar? Yeah sure! Ok, and we’re going to put you in the International school with our music teacher Blaise – you can teach classroom music. Ok cool, we’ll do that. Oh and you can teach some of our pupils in the P.G. Garodia School too; choirs, classes, listening and things. Cool. Great – now we’ve started advertising a workshop for you to do on Saturday... two workshops, maybe 100 or so kids each? Yeah sounds good, we’ll get planning. Excellent. Right, sounds good to us – now how do we fit this all in...?

Add to that planned 3 workshops for the teachers in Mumbai, workshops with the British Council in state schools, and us taking the time to learn tabla, Indian vocals and the harmonium and we’ve already started cram packing these two months we’ve got here! We really are aiming to do as much as possible to help develop western music in India, working with the children (and having to go back to basics in the classroom) and – perhaps more importantly – the teachers.

Since starting, we’ve noticed that in quite a few cases, one ingredient is missing... FUN! In the classroom, children we’re being taught music in a lecture style; copying down from the blackboard whatever they were (meant to be) learning that day. That needed to go. We’ve been planning lessons that are getting kids out of their chairs and actively responding to music.

Listening is now integral, and something that we put in every lesson, after which we have a class discussion where pupils share their ideas and most importantly feelings about the music. We’ve also gone back to basics with the singing (as most of the children were unable to sing in tune), we’ve chosen to follow the Kodaly programme, which alongside rhythm practice is proving to be successful even in these early days.

We’re also encouraging extra-curricular activities and will soon be introducing an after school choir, recorders (classes and ensembles), and ensembles and bands within the music school to encourage playing together.

We’re thrilled that the response from the teachers has been so positive and in particular from Blaise, the International School’s music teacher. He really liked our ideas and we really wanted to make sure that when we left these ideas and teaching methods could be continued. Each of the younger years in the school has two sets due to the large class sizes, so we utilise this by us taking one of them early in the week, then over the week we talk with Blaise to ensure he understands what we did and why, and then Blaise models his own lesson on our shared ideas with the other class in that year group.

Piano classes run on Tuesdays in Bandra and Fridays at the school in Ghatkopar. We are currently running the Friday sessions as the teacher recently became ill with malaria (don’t worry - he is now well on the mend). We’re able to offer the pupils more one-to-one tuition at the moment, however we are trying to think of more effective ways to run lessons with four students at a time, which is the current setup...

We are living and teaching in Ghatkopar, which is in the central suburbs of Mumbai, and certainly a world away from London! The hospitality has been exceptional and Brian has taken us under his wing, showing us around, feeding us and inviting (or somewhat forcing) us to join in his dance academy in the evenings. There is video evidence (perhaps unfortunately)!

More photos and updates soon!

Ryan and Aaron, 14th July 2010

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