The Idea of India for Whom the Buzzer Tolls
september 2006 Newsletter The Idea of India For Whom the Buzzer Tolls Paul Chapman, Head of School Greetings from New Board Chair Robert Stein We are close to that exquisite moment in late August when the new school year begins. With the possible exception of some quaint provincial “school houses” in rural Wyoming or rustic Maine, the annual ritual no longer starts with a bell, but rather with the synchronization of electric buzzers in school rooms in tens of thousands of schools across the country. Kindergartners, truly the “new kids,” are primed for weeks or months, and stand anxiously at the school door, looking forward, sideways and backwards simultaneously, taking cues from their parents who are sometimes equally anxious. Compare them to the sophomores and juniors in high school, veterans of a decade or more of training, tests, successes, failures, Paul Chapman in India with children at the Udavia School, south of Chennai tryouts, fallouts, performances, dances (Madras) on the Bay of Bengal. and romances. These seem more like This summer I joined the National Association of Independent Olympic swimmers, 10 toes curled Schools (NAIS) Delegation for Diversity on a ten-day journey to India. over the starting block waiting for the A group of 55 educators, we traveled there in search of a better under- starting gun, as they have for years Robert Stein standing of our schools’ common commitment to developing global now. For all of them, the oldest and citizens. In India we discovered a land of extraordinary contrasts, a the youngest, there are sartorial issues (Is the skirt too short? Or too country of 1.1 billion people, with a third living on under $2 a day, that long?), gastronomic issues (Do you need your lunch packed today or also is leaping boldly into the 21st century as a leader in technology, just a snack? Are you still only eating organic yogurt?), and relationship science and engineering.
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