When a seven year old asked U.K. schoolteacher Lisa Heydlauff, "What is it like to go to school in India?" she answered by writing an award-winning book, Going to School in India. After that, she expanded the project to include a series of short films narrated by Indian children who tell about their home and school experiences. And that turned into a DVD which benefits the non-profit Going to School Foundation. School isn't compulsory in India and not nearly enough children attend, so the Foundation was formed in order to promote a "school is fun" attitude among Indian youngsters. But while Heydlauff's project is aimed at Indian children, "Going to School in India" will be of interest to children everywhere.
Filmed in the up-tempo, quick-cut style of "Popular Mechanics for Kids," with a kid narrator and non-stop, infectious Indian music playing in the background, these vignettes of life in India provide an excellent way to show Western children how some children would do anything to have the education that many here take for granted. But it's not all woe-is-them, we-have-it-great. Some of these clips are bound to inspire a little jealousy, if not a spirit of romantic adventure that might lead to some of our children wanting to see and learn about more of the world.
Take the opening sequence, "Going to School in the Lake." If I saw this segment when I was a kid, I'd be looking for ways to coax my family to move to Kashmir. In this beautiful northern section of India we meet 12-year-old Ramesh, a young girl who lives on an island with her family in a house on stilts. Like Venice, the only form of transportation is boat, and we see Ramesh and her sister paddling their canoe-like boat to go to a school on another island. There, they learn about the flora and fauna of their world, but they also learn things that children everywhere learn: reading, writing, and mathematics. Vikash Nowlakha directed this short film and most of the others on the DVD, which use kid narrators and, presumably because of the language barrier, dubbed voiceover narrators interpreting for the youngsters. The strength of "Going to School in India" is how personal the narrations are. These children know they have one shot to communicate with others, kind of like unseen pen pals, and they share items that are special to them, things they like to do for fun, and even what their ambitions are.
From a virtual paradise it's a real culture-shock to hear from 11-year-old Saddam what life and school is like in the bustling, traffic-congested city of Bombay. We're shown a tiny corner where he lives with his family. No TV, and just one game, which he proudly shows children elsewhere-the audience that each of these young narrators has been told they should address. Children in the U.S. and elsewhere who take the bus to get to school will find it fascinating that Saddam's school is the bus. The Door Step School has slates and educational materials on it, and for two hours a day. Then the school moves to another location and another group of children. The rest of the day isn't spent goofing off, though. Saddam is shown selling things on the streets in order to help his mother. His dream? To become a famous Bollywood actor and dancer, and he shows us a few of his moves.
"Going to School from a Tribe" introduces us to 10-year-old Sauda. There's a nice gender balance among the narrators, and we learn that while girls didn't fish in Kashmir they are allowed to use bows and arrows in Sauda's village. At school they take nature walks and, during PE or recess, take to the trees like monkeys, scampering up and down the vines that hang from gigantic Banyan-like trunks. The series shows how different school is for children in different parts of India, and how teachers instruct students in the basics but also try hard to make school fun. Why? Well, because they want students to return the next day, and if school isn't compulsory, it had better be fun. Here at the Government Primary School in Tarjasanji, Gojapati District, Orissa, students play a learning game where they pretend to negotiate in the marketplace. They learn how to bargain and, when all else fails, to trade for what their families need. And one of them plays a dog who steals some food from a vendor and is subsequently "beaten" (not really) by the merchants.
"Going to School in a Boat" is narrated by a youngster who is "eight years old, but might be nine." She is the first in her family to go to school, and Western children will be astounded to see that her entire family lives on a large canoe-shaped boat. They boil fish there (their only mean), they sleep there, and they play there. She takes a school-boat to a thatched-hut school on the mainland where she "still feels wobbly" from being on the water so much. There, with other friends, Durg, Veera, and Dana learn skills that their parents never learned.
amesh lives under similarly stark conditions. In "Going to School in a Mud Desert," we see his family's thatched hut, a small simple structure that rises from an endless cracked mudflat that is full of water just once each year, and dry the rest of the time. Ramesh thinks that all children in the U.S. live in "palaces," and certainly parents can point that, by comparison, many American homes are palatial.
Girls will be even more profoundly affected to hear Gamlesh tell how she must go to a special school at night, lit by solar lanterns because her village has no electricity. This, after working all day to tend the family's goats and do other chores, while the boys attend the government school. Boys don't have to work until they are 10, because they are expected to attend school by day. It's only the girls who really want to learn that are featured in "Going to School in the Dark." Gamlesh's classes include mock exercises in parliamentary procedure, grooming these young women to help change the laws that make them second-class citizens. "It is very different to be a girl in my world," the 12 year old says.
Diversity (and triumphing over adversity) is celebrated in "Going to School on Wheels," which shows 12-year-old Haider being picked up by classmates every day and wheeled through the streets in his wheelchair. As with the other segments, the conditions of the school are quite different, and the landscape also varies significantly. Most of the children in these segments clearly love school, but none more than Haider, who says that he would have no friends if it weren't for school. There, he comes to life, and says he wants to learn to become a teacher so that he can work with children like him with disabilities.
"Going to School on a Mountaintop" introduces us to a harsh climate where it is "very cold" with lots of snow. Nine-year-old Skarma brushes his teeth with a toothbrush left outside on a rock next to a standpipe and uses the cold water for his personal hygiene. In Tukla, there are no roads, and one striking image is that of prayer flags flown like laundry on clotheslines for "the old women with decayed teeth." Young children are taught to brush their teeth, but for the old ones, only prayer will help. There's a similar sense of the spiritual in "Going to School in a Monastery," where we're introduced to Lobzang, a 10 year old who's been living at the school since he was six.
"Going to School in India" won Best International Short at the Kids First! Film Festival and Best Family Film at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, San Diego International Children's Film Festival, 2006 South Asian International Film Festival, LA International Children's Film Festival, and Newport Beach Film Festival.
Collectively, the segments run around 76 minutes. "Going to School in India" is distributed by Master Communications (www.master-comm.com), but the foundation also has a website (goingtoschool.com). All proceeds from the sale of the DVD go toward promoting education in India.
Filmed in the up-tempo, quick-cut style of "Popular Mechanics for Kids," with a kid narrator and non-stop, infectious Indian music playing in the background, these vignettes of life in India provide an excellent way to show Western children how some children would do anything to have the education that many here take for granted. But it's not all woe-is-them, we-have-it-great. Some of these clips are bound to inspire a little jealousy, if not a spirit of romantic adventure that might lead to some of our children wanting to see and learn about more of the world.
Take the opening sequence, "Going to School in the Lake." If I saw this segment when I was a kid, I'd be looking for ways to coax my family to move to Kashmir. In this beautiful northern section of India we meet 12-year-old Ramesh, a young girl who lives on an island with her family in a house on stilts. Like Venice, the only form of transportation is boat, and we see Ramesh and her sister paddling their canoe-like boat to go to a school on another island. There, they learn about the flora and fauna of their world, but they also learn things that children everywhere learn: reading, writing, and mathematics. Vikash Nowlakha directed this short film and most of the others on the DVD, which use kid narrators and, presumably because of the language barrier, dubbed voiceover narrators interpreting for the youngsters. The strength of "Going to School in India" is how personal the narrations are. These children know they have one shot to communicate with others, kind of like unseen pen pals, and they share items that are special to them, things they like to do for fun, and even what their ambitions are.
From a virtual paradise it's a real culture-shock to hear from 11-year-old Saddam what life and school is like in the bustling, traffic-congested city of Bombay. We're shown a tiny corner where he lives with his family. No TV, and just one game, which he proudly shows children elsewhere-the audience that each of these young narrators has been told they should address. Children in the U.S. and elsewhere who take the bus to get to school will find it fascinating that Saddam's school is the bus. The Door Step School has slates and educational materials on it, and for two hours a day. Then the school moves to another location and another group of children. The rest of the day isn't spent goofing off, though. Saddam is shown selling things on the streets in order to help his mother. His dream? To become a famous Bollywood actor and dancer, and he shows us a few of his moves.
"Going to School from a Tribe" introduces us to 10-year-old Sauda. There's a nice gender balance among the narrators, and we learn that while girls didn't fish in Kashmir they are allowed to use bows and arrows in Sauda's village. At school they take nature walks and, during PE or recess, take to the trees like monkeys, scampering up and down the vines that hang from gigantic Banyan-like trunks. The series shows how different school is for children in different parts of India, and how teachers instruct students in the basics but also try hard to make school fun. Why? Well, because they want students to return the next day, and if school isn't compulsory, it had better be fun. Here at the Government Primary School in Tarjasanji, Gojapati District, Orissa, students play a learning game where they pretend to negotiate in the marketplace. They learn how to bargain and, when all else fails, to trade for what their families need. And one of them plays a dog who steals some food from a vendor and is subsequently "beaten" (not really) by the merchants.
"Going to School in a Boat" is narrated by a youngster who is "eight years old, but might be nine." She is the first in her family to go to school, and Western children will be astounded to see that her entire family lives on a large canoe-shaped boat. They boil fish there (their only mean), they sleep there, and they play there. She takes a school-boat to a thatched-hut school on the mainland where she "still feels wobbly" from being on the water so much. There, with other friends, Durg, Veera, and Dana learn skills that their parents never learned.
amesh lives under similarly stark conditions. In "Going to School in a Mud Desert," we see his family's thatched hut, a small simple structure that rises from an endless cracked mudflat that is full of water just once each year, and dry the rest of the time. Ramesh thinks that all children in the U.S. live in "palaces," and certainly parents can point that, by comparison, many American homes are palatial.
Girls will be even more profoundly affected to hear Gamlesh tell how she must go to a special school at night, lit by solar lanterns because her village has no electricity. This, after working all day to tend the family's goats and do other chores, while the boys attend the government school. Boys don't have to work until they are 10, because they are expected to attend school by day. It's only the girls who really want to learn that are featured in "Going to School in the Dark." Gamlesh's classes include mock exercises in parliamentary procedure, grooming these young women to help change the laws that make them second-class citizens. "It is very different to be a girl in my world," the 12 year old says.
Diversity (and triumphing over adversity) is celebrated in "Going to School on Wheels," which shows 12-year-old Haider being picked up by classmates every day and wheeled through the streets in his wheelchair. As with the other segments, the conditions of the school are quite different, and the landscape also varies significantly. Most of the children in these segments clearly love school, but none more than Haider, who says that he would have no friends if it weren't for school. There, he comes to life, and says he wants to learn to become a teacher so that he can work with children like him with disabilities.
"Going to School on a Mountaintop" introduces us to a harsh climate where it is "very cold" with lots of snow. Nine-year-old Skarma brushes his teeth with a toothbrush left outside on a rock next to a standpipe and uses the cold water for his personal hygiene. In Tukla, there are no roads, and one striking image is that of prayer flags flown like laundry on clotheslines for "the old women with decayed teeth." Young children are taught to brush their teeth, but for the old ones, only prayer will help. There's a similar sense of the spiritual in "Going to School in a Monastery," where we're introduced to Lobzang, a 10 year old who's been living at the school since he was six.
"Going to School in India" won Best International Short at the Kids First! Film Festival and Best Family Film at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, San Diego International Children's Film Festival, 2006 South Asian International Film Festival, LA International Children's Film Festival, and Newport Beach Film Festival.
Collectively, the segments run around 76 minutes. "Going to School in India" is distributed by Master Communications (www.master-comm.com), but the foundation also has a website (goingtoschool.com). All proceeds from the sale of the DVD go toward promoting education in India.
When a seven year old asked U.K. schoolteacher Lisa Heydlauff, "What is it like to go to school in India?" she answered by writing an award-winning book, Going to School in India. After that, she expanded the project to include a series of short films narrated by Indian children who tell about their home and school experiences. And that turned into a DVD which benefits the non-profit Going to School Foundation. School isn't compulsory in India and not nearly enough children attend, so the Foundation was formed in order to promote a "school is fun" attitude among Indian youngsters. But while Heydlauff's project is aimed at Indian children, "Going to School in India" will be of interest to children everywhere.
Filmed in the up-tempo, quick-cut style of "Popular Mechanics for Kids," with a kid narrator and non-stop, infectious Indian music playing in the background, these vignettes of life in India provide an excellent way to show Western children how some children would do anything to have the education that many here take for granted. But it's not all woe-is-them, we-have-it-great. Some of these clips are bound to inspire a little jealousy, if not a spirit of romantic adventure that might lead to some of our children wanting to see and learn about more of the world.
Take the opening sequence, "Going to School in the Lake." If I saw this segment when I was a kid, I'd be looking for ways to coax my family to move to Kashmir. In this beautiful northern section of India we meet 12-year-old Ramesh, a young girl who lives on an island with her family in a house on stilts. Like Venice, the only form of transportation is boat, and we see Ramesh and her sister paddling their canoe-like boat to go to a school on another island. There, they learn about the flora and fauna of their world, but they also learn things that children everywhere learn: reading, writing, and mathematics. Vikash Nowlakha directed this short film and most of the others on the DVD, which use kid narrators and, presumably because of the language barrier, dubbed voiceover narrators interpreting for the youngsters. The strength of "Going to School in India" is how personal the narrations are. These children know they have one shot to communicate with others, kind of like unseen pen pals, and they share items that are special to them, things they like to do for fun, and even what their ambitions are.
From a virtual paradise it's a real culture-shock to hear from 11-year-old Saddam what life and school is like in the bustling, traffic-congested city of Bombay. We're shown a tiny corner where he lives with his family. No TV, and just one game, which he proudly shows children elsewhere-the audience that each of these young narrators has been told they should address. Children in the U.S. and elsewhere who take the bus to get to school will find it fascinating that Saddam's school is the bus. The Door Step School has slates and educational materials on it, and for two hours a day. Then the school moves to another location and another group of children. The rest of the day isn't spent goofing off, though. Saddam is shown selling things on the streets in order to help his mother. His dream? To become a famous Bollywood actor and dancer, and he shows us a few of his moves.
"Going to School from a Tribe" introduces us to 10-year-old Sauda. There's a nice gender balance among the narrators, and we learn that while girls didn't fish in Kashmir they are allowed to use bows and arrows in Sauda's village. At school they take nature walks and, during PE or recess, take to the trees like monkeys, scampering up and down the vines that hang from gigantic Banyan-like trunks. The series shows how different school is for children in different parts of India, and how teachers instruct students in the basics but also try hard to make school fun. Why? Well, because they want students to return the next day, and if school isn't compulsory, it had better be fun. Here at the Government Primary School in Tarjasanji, Gojapati District, Orissa, students play a learning game where they pretend to negotiate in the marketplace. They learn how to bargain and, when all else fails, to trade for what their families need. And one of them plays a dog who steals some food from a vendor and is subsequently "beaten" (not really) by the merchants.
"Going to School in a Boat" is narrated by a youngster who is "eight years old, but might be nine." She is the first in her family to go to school, and Western children will be astounded to see that her entire family lives on a large canoe-shaped boat. They boil fish there (their only mean), they sleep there, and they play there. She takes a school-boat to a thatched-hut school on the mainland where she "still feels wobbly" from being on the water so much. There, with other friends, Durg, Veera, and Dana learn skills that their parents never learned.
amesh lives under similarly stark conditions. In "Going to School in a Mud Desert," we see his family's thatched hut, a small simple structure that rises from an endless cracked mudflat that is full of water just once each year, and dry the rest of the time. Ramesh thinks that all children in the U.S. live in "palaces," and certainly parents can point that, by comparison, many American homes are palatial.
Girls will be even more profoundly affected to hear Gamlesh tell how she must go to a special school at night, lit by solar lanterns because her village has no electricity. This, after working all day to tend the family's goats and do other chores, while the boys attend the government school. Boys don't have to work until they are 10, because they are expected to attend school by day. It's only the girls who really want to learn that are featured in "Going to School in the Dark." Gamlesh's classes include mock exercises in parliamentary procedure, grooming these young women to help change the laws that make them second-class citizens. "It is very different to be a girl in my world," the 12 year old says.
Diversity (and triumphing over adversity) is celebrated in "Going to School on Wheels," which shows 12-year-old Haider being picked up by classmates every day and wheeled through the streets in his wheelchair. As with the other segments, the conditions of the school are quite different, and the landscape also varies significantly. Most of the children in these segments clearly love school, but none more than Haider, who says that he would have no friends if it weren't for school. There, he comes to life, and says he wants to learn to become a teacher so that he can work with children like him with disabilities.
"Going to School on a Mountaintop" introduces us to a harsh climate where it is "very cold" with lots of snow. Nine-year-old Skarma brushes his teeth with a toothbrush left outside on a rock next to a standpipe and uses the cold water for his personal hygiene. In Tukla, there are no roads, and one striking image is that of prayer flags flown like laundry on clotheslines for "the old women with decayed teeth." Young children are taught to brush their teeth, but for the old ones, only prayer will help. There's a similar sense of the spiritual in "Going to School in a Monastery," where we're introduced to Lobzang, a 10 year old who's been living at the school since he was six.
"Going to School in India" won Best International Short at the Kids First! Film Festival and Best Family Film at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, San Diego International Children's Film Festival, 2006 South Asian International Film Festival, LA International Children's Film Festival, and Newport Beach Film Festival.
Collectively, the segments run around 76 minutes. "Going to School in India" is distributed by Master Communications (www.master-comm.com), but the foundation also has a website (goingtoschool.com). All proceeds from the sale of the DVD go toward promoting education in India.
Filmed in the up-tempo, quick-cut style of "Popular Mechanics for Kids," with a kid narrator and non-stop, infectious Indian music playing in the background, these vignettes of life in India provide an excellent way to show Western children how some children would do anything to have the education that many here take for granted. But it's not all woe-is-them, we-have-it-great. Some of these clips are bound to inspire a little jealousy, if not a spirit of romantic adventure that might lead to some of our children wanting to see and learn about more of the world.
Take the opening sequence, "Going to School in the Lake." If I saw this segment when I was a kid, I'd be looking for ways to coax my family to move to Kashmir. In this beautiful northern section of India we meet 12-year-old Ramesh, a young girl who lives on an island with her family in a house on stilts. Like Venice, the only form of transportation is boat, and we see Ramesh and her sister paddling their canoe-like boat to go to a school on another island. There, they learn about the flora and fauna of their world, but they also learn things that children everywhere learn: reading, writing, and mathematics. Vikash Nowlakha directed this short film and most of the others on the DVD, which use kid narrators and, presumably because of the language barrier, dubbed voiceover narrators interpreting for the youngsters. The strength of "Going to School in India" is how personal the narrations are. These children know they have one shot to communicate with others, kind of like unseen pen pals, and they share items that are special to them, things they like to do for fun, and even what their ambitions are.
From a virtual paradise it's a real culture-shock to hear from 11-year-old Saddam what life and school is like in the bustling, traffic-congested city of Bombay. We're shown a tiny corner where he lives with his family. No TV, and just one game, which he proudly shows children elsewhere-the audience that each of these young narrators has been told they should address. Children in the U.S. and elsewhere who take the bus to get to school will find it fascinating that Saddam's school is the bus. The Door Step School has slates and educational materials on it, and for two hours a day. Then the school moves to another location and another group of children. The rest of the day isn't spent goofing off, though. Saddam is shown selling things on the streets in order to help his mother. His dream? To become a famous Bollywood actor and dancer, and he shows us a few of his moves.
"Going to School from a Tribe" introduces us to 10-year-old Sauda. There's a nice gender balance among the narrators, and we learn that while girls didn't fish in Kashmir they are allowed to use bows and arrows in Sauda's village. At school they take nature walks and, during PE or recess, take to the trees like monkeys, scampering up and down the vines that hang from gigantic Banyan-like trunks. The series shows how different school is for children in different parts of India, and how teachers instruct students in the basics but also try hard to make school fun. Why? Well, because they want students to return the next day, and if school isn't compulsory, it had better be fun. Here at the Government Primary School in Tarjasanji, Gojapati District, Orissa, students play a learning game where they pretend to negotiate in the marketplace. They learn how to bargain and, when all else fails, to trade for what their families need. And one of them plays a dog who steals some food from a vendor and is subsequently "beaten" (not really) by the merchants.
"Going to School in a Boat" is narrated by a youngster who is "eight years old, but might be nine." She is the first in her family to go to school, and Western children will be astounded to see that her entire family lives on a large canoe-shaped boat. They boil fish there (their only mean), they sleep there, and they play there. She takes a school-boat to a thatched-hut school on the mainland where she "still feels wobbly" from being on the water so much. There, with other friends, Durg, Veera, and Dana learn skills that their parents never learned.
amesh lives under similarly stark conditions. In "Going to School in a Mud Desert," we see his family's thatched hut, a small simple structure that rises from an endless cracked mudflat that is full of water just once each year, and dry the rest of the time. Ramesh thinks that all children in the U.S. live in "palaces," and certainly parents can point that, by comparison, many American homes are palatial.
Girls will be even more profoundly affected to hear Gamlesh tell how she must go to a special school at night, lit by solar lanterns because her village has no electricity. This, after working all day to tend the family's goats and do other chores, while the boys attend the government school. Boys don't have to work until they are 10, because they are expected to attend school by day. It's only the girls who really want to learn that are featured in "Going to School in the Dark." Gamlesh's classes include mock exercises in parliamentary procedure, grooming these young women to help change the laws that make them second-class citizens. "It is very different to be a girl in my world," the 12 year old says.
Diversity (and triumphing over adversity) is celebrated in "Going to School on Wheels," which shows 12-year-old Haider being picked up by classmates every day and wheeled through the streets in his wheelchair. As with the other segments, the conditions of the school are quite different, and the landscape also varies significantly. Most of the children in these segments clearly love school, but none more than Haider, who says that he would have no friends if it weren't for school. There, he comes to life, and says he wants to learn to become a teacher so that he can work with children like him with disabilities.
"Going to School on a Mountaintop" introduces us to a harsh climate where it is "very cold" with lots of snow. Nine-year-old Skarma brushes his teeth with a toothbrush left outside on a rock next to a standpipe and uses the cold water for his personal hygiene. In Tukla, there are no roads, and one striking image is that of prayer flags flown like laundry on clotheslines for "the old women with decayed teeth." Young children are taught to brush their teeth, but for the old ones, only prayer will help. There's a similar sense of the spiritual in "Going to School in a Monastery," where we're introduced to Lobzang, a 10 year old who's been living at the school since he was six.
"Going to School in India" won Best International Short at the Kids First! Film Festival and Best Family Film at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, San Diego International Children's Film Festival, 2006 South Asian International Film Festival, LA International Children's Film Festival, and Newport Beach Film Festival.
Collectively, the segments run around 76 minutes. "Going to School in India" is distributed by Master Communications (www.master-comm.com), but the foundation also has a website (goingtoschool.com). All proceeds from the sale of the DVD go toward promoting education in India.
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