Skip to main content

Rainbow Primary School

Yesterday, the children, parents, and teachers picked the name for the school.

RAINBOW PRIMARY SCHOOL

I immediately ordered "Rainbow Head" wigs. Just kidding.

We all stayed after the meeting to remove a thick layer of sand from the floor of our hut. It was making a mess during school time, dust was always in the air. There were one hundred little hands scurrying to fill buckets with sand, then tussling over who got to use the shovel to put the sand in the buckets. Other kids were fighting over who got to take the buckets of sand to the sandpile. The teachers formed a bucket line to pass the buckets down to the place to dump the sand. I helped them. As buckets came by, we would say "This is ice cream!" or "This is veg biriyani!" There were also a few three- and four-year-olds who forced their way onto the worksite. They had tiny little buckets they would fill with sand, the put on their heads (like their mommies) and walk, very straight and tall, to the bucket line. Whenever we would see one of those tiny buckets come down, we would just crack up. Another amazing day at the school I will never forget.

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave a Message

Popular posts from this blog

On Monday, August 18, I was so happy to return to see the Rainbow School. The teachers have made a plan to shift from Telugu to English medium. My friend at Pratham, one of the largest education NGOs -- serving 5 million children in South Asia and Africa -- agreed to help my teachers. My co-partner, Kalpana, is taking the lead on a facilities upgrade. She will oversee an upgrade to the preschool and main building. Kalpana and I have found donors in India and the United States. The children were sharp, completely up on their marks. The teachers were creative, driven, relentless. More to come!
Post a Comment
Read more

"A" Grade

Our partner, Kalpana, reports exams are over. This year, the Rainbow School won "A" grade for student performance up from "B" grade in 2009. CONGRATULATIONS TEAM!! HUGE WIN! This means that the team is providing high quality teaching in a very sustainable way. Congratulations teachers! Congratulations Vijaya Madam! And thanks to all the partners, the Rainbow School is very lucky to have wonderful, wonderful partner organizations like WIM, Lion's Club, and the Naandi Foundation. Here are some of the students, taking part of their exams in the courtyard, back in 2009. Next steps: Compete with the local budget private schools, win best government primary school in the state, and English + Telugu instruction
2 comments
Read more

New Headmaster

Today we heard the news that our headmistress, Vijaya Laxmi, will be moving on to a new school. This suits the team at the Rainbow School very well, they needed a leader who was interested to engage the community. We do not know who our new headmaster will be, but we understand it will be a very senior man, one year from retirement. He will come with a junior who will take on the headmistress role after he leaves. More will come from our great, fabulous Mandal Education Officer, Jaganmohan Chary. Here is a picture of our first headmistress, Usha Rani, who was a stellar leader and has volunteered to help with the transition to the new headmaster.
2 comments
Read more