Philosophy of Teaching Statement, round 1

In an attempt to not be so overwhelmed by rewriting my philosophy of teaching statement, I'm going to blog it here.  The less formal medium and easy feedback option (please give me feedback) helps too.  I need to quit procrastinating this and just write, hence the blog:


My philosophy of teaching has taken a new form since moving to India in July of this year.  Though my conceptualization of learning is rooted still in Paolo Friere's understanding of the flaws of the banking method of education, I now recognize how my approach is akin to what is often deemed the easiest way to learn a second language.  Through various activities and exercises geared towards introducing students to the language and culture of philosophy and the humanities, both  inside and outside the classroom, I believe student best learn critical thinking, reading, writing, and discussion skills though immersion.

Though student's can't move to the world of philosophy as one can move to a new country to better learn its language, I believe students can engage with the class in a variety of ways that provide both formal and casual encounters with the subject, as one does in a new country.  For example, oral presentations, leading discussion, argumentative writing are all formal elements of class that contribute to a student's assessable development.  But weekly, reflective blog posts or tweets allows students a varied learning experience enmeshed with their everyday lives.  


Another means of facilitating philosophical learning in my classroom comes from living Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben's redefining of Aristotelian potential.  While Aristotle perpetuated potential and actualization as binaries, Agamben claims potential can exist in tandem with what is actualized, to the point the potential lives on, in a sense, due to and through what is actualized.  In the same way, each student enters the classroom with their classmates and myself, an equal participant, working towards an end goal--an Associates degree, personal enrichment, or acquisition of general requirements.  It is my task in each class to bring awareness to the potential in each student's journey towards their or the class's end goal of critical mindedness.  Yet, the potential does not end when the class is over--this is exactly Agamben's point.  The potential to continue to develop critically will never end.


I have a lot more to add, but I think this is where I call it a night.  Comments and suggestions will be much appreciated!  I'm also a bit distracted by the number of fireworks--happy Diwali!  Indians do fireworks about 5 times better than Americans on the 4th of July.  I'll post Bangkok photos next, promise.

Home

All students in the founding batch have to write papers on home--it's the theme of the Critical Thinking classes.  Between tutoring sessions and reading my own students' papers, I've been overwhelmed with new definitions and conceptions of what this word means for different people.  Yet, I've had little time to engage with it myself, outside of thinking back to my class on living Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in my undergrad.  He's all about rethinking the political realm with the concept of potentiality--there's a connection to home and working at a university writing centre in its first year there I want to write about.

But, now isn't the time or place to work through my thoughts on his philosophy; however, after a particularly tiring day at work today, I've come to the conclusion I'm pretty homesick.  My culture shock has been a slowly developing dust ball (it doesn't make sense to say snowball here) where I first felt fine and excited to be living in India.  Now that school is nearing our halfway mark, and I've finished reading and commenting on my students' second paper (and also because we had a counselor come and talk to us today about how we need to be writing about our experience), I feel like I need to purge.  

I'm frustrated by the politics and business moves that happen in a university/business' first year.  I can't help but feel like the student's aren't being looked after because of it.  I can't take a walk outside of my guarded society, as I've been warned of the potential dangers of being a white woman in the state of Haryana.  I have to hire a cab to take me to a market where I can buy fresh vegetables and meat.  Don't even ask how complicated it is to buy beer or liquor here.  On election day in this state (which happens to be this Wednesday, and classes are cancelled) we've been warned not to leave the society because politicians running for office give out free alcohol and, as I was just told today, supposedly heroine to entice people to vote for them--I don't want to believe this and am actually skeptical.  Supposedly, the threat of riots is pretty real.  I've lost about half my thickness of hair due to stress, lack of nutrition, and showering in less than potable water.  

I statements pervade the previous paragraph, and I realize how privileged I am regardless of all my complaints, and how important this experience really is.  But for now, I'm unhappy.  I mostly want to teach my own classes again, develop curriculum.  And also, to hug TTHT.  

I am very grateful for my roommates though.  I never thought I'd get along so well with such a bunch of misfits, but I really think I'm sane right now because of them.  I'm also very grateful to get to see my dad in Bangkok on Friday--it can't come soon enough.

Photo Updates and Sports Day

It's been awfully busy at work and my little red camera wasn't holding a charge, but now I've got some free time and the camera made it through.  Here's an update on the construction of the campus, and the first monthly athletics fest we had yesterday.

Here's a view from the Centre for Writing and Communication back about a month ago.  The view looks out on what a now completed sand track, volleyball/badminton and basketball courts, and Faculty housing.

A view from the 3rd floor (which is really the 4th) down onto the courtyard.

Same 3rd floor level, just looking north towards the mess and hostels.

A view of the outside walkway from the Admin Block where the CWC is located to the lecture rooms.

Down in the courtyard.

A westward view of the front of Ashoka.

A north-facing shot of the courtyard so you can see the beautiful lattice work.  The building was originally designed by one firm that wanted all glass--not thinking about how expensive it would be to cool those rooms during most of the year...it's still about 90 degrees in October.  Another firm was brought in to fix this issue and they proposed the lattice.  A third firm was brought in when the second one failed to do anything about building the lattice work.  Needless to say, it makes sense that even with three architectural firms, the campus is still under construction.

We have to take cabs from our apartments to campus and back everyday.  Photo credit goes to the wonderful Nina Sud.

Nina and Lauren in the cab, being their normal selves.

A lot of men bike around, but there aren't that many side roads, just the highway.  It's pretty scary.

 This is Parker Residency where I live.  My apartment is on the 8th floor of Tower 1--the one on the left.

This is the entrance to our society. There's usually a handful of stray dogs that hang out in the driveway.

And here starts photos from Ashoka's Sports day.  We're hanging out, waiting for the football (soccer) game to start.

Alana, Lauren, and Gabe on the sidelines.

Lauren's game face.

Chimi's game hair.

Gabe's spectator face.

My newly coined term, ladies selfie.

 Lauren and Aman.

I got roped into the game because we needed another girl.  I mostly stood around, outside of the times I used my body to stop the football player trying to score.  I fell a lot.

Lauren at halftime.  She's the main reason we won, until we were disqualified. 

Getting the star loose for the second half.

There were lots of weird faces in between games.  I was frankly sun burnt and done but had to stick around for the numbers.

Chimi stretching at the half.  She ran around a bunch towards the ball when I was happily standing near the goal, avoiding the ball.

More of Lauren's game face.

Lauren after she scored the first penalty kick!

I don't remember what this was from, sometime before we were disqualified because we were the staff team with two son's of a staff member.  Supposedly, everyone else was taking the game more seriously than us.

Me scheming how to acquire pizza and beer for the post-game party.  It worked out, but involved hiring a cab and paying the cab driver to buy beer for us.  We live in a state that isn't too interested in making it easy for a late-20s woman to buy herself a drink.

Another good shot of Chimi. 

Our team winning!

Me happy to be done!  I'm not very good at all at soccer.

This is right after Lauren scored the penalty kick that won us the game.

Catching Cori and Chimi laughing.

The happy star player.

Ramya very pleased with Lauren.  We all went back after this to celebrate and watch Bridesmaids which is actually really funny.

That's it for now.  I head to see my dad in Bangkok next Friday and can't wait to see him.  We're all pretty homesick right now, but the semester is keeping us busy enough.  

A special good luck to all the marathoners running in Chicago today.  Have fun and kick butt!

Writing Challenges and Pinky Swears

I know I'm long overdue for a post as school has started, the CWC has been built up, and I've bought another fun outfit to show off.  But until I post the more monument things, I'm going to post a challenge between me and one of the undergraduate students here at Ashoka.

During a tutoring session yesterday, a student and I discussed the difficulties of writing and how best to combat them, because, writing doesn't really come easy to anyone.  If it does, I don't trust that you're telling the truth.  So, I challenged her to write 10 minutes a day, maybe in the morning before classes.  And I said I'd do the same.   We pinky swore to it.

So here I am, writing just to write.  I constantly want to take a breather and think about what I should write, so that when I publish this it sounds interesting.  It's easy to fail at that.  Which is a good case in point to prove I need to just write a little bit each day.

Yesterday was my first very full tutoring day.  I had a relatively easy morning, but had tutoring sessions after lunch, commented briefly by email on a student's draft, and then had three back to back sessions during our late hours, 7-10pm.  Afterwards I was exhausted, but felt great that all my sessions had gone nearly the full hour and that I felt as though there was progress made.

Writing for ten minutes when you're gauging the time can be very strange considering I usually spend between 45-60 minutes on one entry.   I find myself wanting to read through all I've written to discover what should come next.  It's a little comforting to know I am struggling with the same writing procrastination as my students--the truth is that that struggle never disappeared.

And because this is a blog, and I don't have to make sense, here's a photo of the student's plan to create a mural in the CWC:

And here is me in my new outfit!

My Address

Though I have many photos to add and updates to provide (one of which is that I might be fighting off bed bugs, yay me), I have only enough time tonight to share my address:

Centre for Writing and Communication
ATTN: Katherine Brichacek
Ashoka University
3rd Floor, Admin Block
Plot #2, Rajiv Gandhi Educational City
Kundli, Haryana 131028

School starts tomorrow! I don't have my class (which meets Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays), but I do have hours at the CWC which will be my new home away from home! I'll post photos of the centre soon, I promise!

lvoes <3

Gouda Mac and Cheese

In the few days since my last post I decided to cook the rest of the fresh vegetables I bought and make some gouda mac and cheese.  Needless to say, I slept the best I have after this meal since arriving.

Lemon garlic green beans.

Cheese sauce from scratch.

All mixed together, with whole wheat pasta.

Final product!

A very happy Katherine.  In other news, I'm heading up to Kasol tomorrow night on an overnight bus.  It'll be around a 14 hour bus ride, but it'll get me to the Himalayas where temps are in the high 60s in the day and low 50s at night.  Considering the high this week is a consistent 104 in Sonepat, I'll gladly take the change.

Food Blues

I've been rather depressed about my eating in the last two weeks.  When I'm in Delhi at our office, I eat great south Indian food and sometimes go out to eat at restaurants where I can get pasta or pizza or lots of veggies or meat.  We're rarely at the Delhi office though :/

At home, we've finally got our fridge, hot plate, microwave, and electric kettle.  But acquiring vegetables is tough.  Last weekend we went into Delhi (a two hour, at least, endeavor--just one way) to go to a place called Food Hall where they sell many American and European groceries.  It is very expensive and hard to trek back anything nonperishable, but we got some basics.  A small zucchini cost 144 rupees which comes close to $2.37.  Though it's not that much in USD, that is very expensive for a little squash.  Mimi, I've never missed your squash as much as this summer!

I wouldn't be so sad about the trouble it takes to get fresh, clean produce if our food at the mess hall were a little more appealing.  The caterers have changed in the last two weeks, so there is now a little more variety.  But both lunch and dinner consist of rice (sometimes it's fried in lots of oil : /), a kind dal (lentil stew/soup), and some veggie (usually potatoes or chickpeas) that are generally very spicy and always swimming in oil. Outside of these categories, there's little change.  I liken it to having to eat camp food with little change between lunch and dinner, for 14 meals a week.

I can't emphasize enough how grateful I am to have the mess considering how difficult it is to acquire food to cook, and also considering how rampant the poverty is here.  I am just at the point (and it's only a month in!) where I loose my appetite as soon as I get into the mess hall.  I've looked online for meal replacement powders that have all the vitamins and minerals and fiber you could want, but can't seem to find one that's not for muscle building and working out.

Now to celebrate past meals that have satisfied me, a photo purge:

Lauren and Ramya enjoying ice cream, not from McDonald's, but from a little shop in the same mall.

My roommate Gabe and I split a pizza at the same mall.  We were all very happy to eat pizza that day.

Back to Lauren threatening to kill anyone who touched her ice cream.

It's very difficult to buy alcohol here, and nearly impossible to if you are a woman.  I get pretty upset about it, and no not just because I want to be able to drink, but much more because someone denies me service due to my gender.  My two roommates and I made friends with a guy who also lives at Parker Residency and offered to buy us some rum and vodka, but the place to buy it from is mainly a restaurant so we had to buy some chicken too.  It was delicious, so it ended up being a win-win situation.

Documentation of my first ever room service breakfast.  My fellow writing tutors and I went to a dinner party at our boss's house a few weeks ago and because she lives on the opposite side of Delhi, she put us up in a hotel (they're called guest houses here).  We got some omelettes and toast and coffee the next day.  We were so hungry we didn't wait to take a before photo.

These were taken at Fork You in Hauz Khas Village, Delhi.  When we were most homesick for meat, Ramya took us here.  I got a lamb burger with feta and cucumber, and in the background you can see the very delicious old fashioned I ordered.

On another note, we might be moving out of Parker Residency for reasons I'll disclose later.  I am hoping that we'll get to move into Delhi where it's safer and there's much more freedom to roam about and site see.  I don't know how much of a possibility it is though, so I'll keep you updated.  School starts the first week of September, so if I do move, it'll be in the next week or two at most.  Love and miss you all!