Mixing of Cultures

When I prepared for this trip, I was unsure how much I would be immersed in Indian vs Tibetan culture.  It has been quite a mix, but primarily Tibetan (with Western influence).  I'm not sure if the Western aspects are particularly for us visitors, or if they are also due to monks who travel and return liking certain Western things.

The food has primarily been Indian, with a number of (approximately) Western dishes.  There has been more food that is influenced by Chinese cuisine than Tibetan, if I understand the cuisines correctly.  The monks try to make Western dishes for us - there has been pizza, spaghetti, and penne pasta.  In addition to chocolate cake at breakfast, they have also made grilled-cheese and vegetable sandwiches (which are really good).  These are made on "normal" white bread, which I haven't otherwise seen used in the cuisine, so I think it is intentionally a Western grilled-cheese sandwich.

I wandered into the town that the Monastery is in - most people I saw were monks, but there were some Indians and Tibetans (not in robes). The writing, decorations, and architecture all looked Tibetan.  At the monastery everything is beautifully painted and there is amazing metalwork.  I didn't see this elsewhere in India (though what I have seen is very limited).

Everywhere the metalwork and painting is beautiful - this is in town.

I don't know if I could really tell the difference between Tibetan and any of the Indian languages only by hearing it, but I think everyone here is speaking Tibetan.  The writing at the monastery is always Tibetan, sometimes with English.

There are a number of things here, other than the food, that are more "Western" than I expected - I don't know if this is due to my expectations being wrong, or if they just make a special effort here to accommodate visitors from around the world.  All of the rooms - guest rooms and classrooms - have air conditioning.  My understanding is that one of the nearby monasteries (where ETSI also provides classes) does not have air conditioning, so this may be more about size/wealth.  There are many Western toilets (and toilet paper!) at the monastery; this was certainly not the case at the small airport we flew into.

The tea here is mostly "normal" black tea, though most everyone makes it with lots of hot milk (and possibly no water).  There hasn't been masala chai (spiced Indian tea), or the Tibetan butter tea.  There are some Tibetan medicinal herb teas that I tried; they were good, and quite different from what I am used to.  Given that I am not sick (yet?), I can't critique their medicinal qualities.

The biggest contrast between the Tibetan and Indian communities is at the construction site next to our guest house.  A new hall is being built - it has open sides and a roof, and will be used for debates and other activities.  It appears that it is built primarily by Indians, who live at the site.  They live in shacks made out of corrugated metal and cinder blocks.  The construction has been underway for at least a year, so I'm guessing that many have lived here for at least that long.  The shacks stand out among all of the Tibetan splendor.

View from the main temple building towards the construction site, showing the shacks the Indian construction laborers live in.

Sounds of the Monastery

In the future, I want to bring some sort of good microphone to record what it sounds like here.  The pictures can give you some idea of what it is like, but the sounds are far more amazing:

• That annoyingly loud bird that sings every (early!) morning in our courtyard clearly sounds "exotic".  While I imagine a toucan sitting somewhere in the tree, it is probably something that looks like a sparrow.
• The cows look a little unusual, but they sound much stranger.  It took a while to realize that is what I was hearing - the "moo" was much more like a roar.  Maybe it was a "I am so hot please bring me water" moo.
• In the evening, some monks are practicing musical instruments.  I have been told that a group of them will come and tour the US through Emory.  They have horns, drums, and cymbals.  I'm not entirely sure where they are practicing, or what it is supposed to sound like, but it seems to come from a nearby field.
• During class, when the students are reading the Tibetan text on slides or on the lab activity, they quietly read it aloud.  Having 100 students whispering Tibetan is incredible - since they aren't reading it in sync, it ends up being a continuous murmur.  
• The most amazing sound, which I can barely describe, is the chanting from the prayer hall.  I walk by open doors on my way to lunch when everyone is assembled.  Sometimes it sounds like singing - many voices on pitches that vary in time.  What is most incredible is the low notes that come out - we had to ask whether it was due to instruments or whether the monks themselves were singing that note.  They do throat-singing, where they are able to use resonance in their throat to produce more than one pitch at the same time.  Hearing this from the outside is indescribable, and I'm dubious that a microphone could truly capture it. 

Failure of my usual technique...

I had been concerned that I knew so little of what to expect here - in terms of students, structure, equipment - that I didn't think I could really prepare all of my slides ahead of time.  At Agnes, I have a fairly good rhythm where I can use previously-created slides/examples/images and pull together lecture in about 2 hours.  When the previous year's lecture was good, it can go faster.  This means that I can adjust to what the students are having difficulty with (as reported on the warm-up) and what there questions were in previous lectures.

I'm attempting the same rhythm here and having some difficulties.  Primarily, the issue is that I am lecturing 3 hours (180 minutes) a day, when I am used to prepping 50 minutes for lecture.  Even allocating for translation, that is much more content.  It is also much harder to make lecture, since I want to avoid putting words on slides.  I'm trying to find pictures to use as examples and express all of my ideas.  This is taking forever!

I had the majority of the math prepared before I came, and had notes on the physics, but no physics slides.  The math actually went slower than anticipated, but the first day of physics content went faster than expected.  This is good, in that it means I will be able to get to some content that I thought I wouldn't have time for.  This is bad, in that I think I spent 4 hours preparing slides yesterday, and they were not quite enough for today's lecture.  I ended by covering something that I hadn't had time for yesterday.

Unfortunately I am afraid I now need to spend almost 5 hours making the next day's lecture.  I do my best when I have a plan and organization, and I really do want to show pictures.  I also need to plan out demos and the afternoon activities.  Besides being more efficient in finding images, I'm not sure how to speed up the process.  This is hard since tonight we have a discussion with some senior monks; I'm looking forward to it, but I will have little prep time until after 9 PM.

I hope to keep finding time to blog, but it looks like I am in my normal academic pattern of barely having enough time to sleep.  Oops!

Measuring circles to determine pi from radius, area, and circumference.  So far my labs have seemed successful!

First lab=fun!

The lab sessions in the afternoon went fairly well.  There were a few issues, but mostly the same issues that I run into at Agnes Scott.  First, my instructions and figures weren't clear enough.  It could have been worse, given that this was a lab I was making up out of thin air.  However, the second lab group received clearer instructions.  There wasn't quite enough equipment, so we had to re-arrange some groups.

I was very impressed with the creativity and resourcefulness of the monks.  I asked them to use a vertical string to align two numbers - multiple groups found objects (pens, etc) to tie to the bottom of the string to make a plumb bob.  They found better ways to make the second measurement, compared to how the lab instructions were written - and both lab groups, independently, found some of the same solutions.  Of course they are smart and mature, but I wonder how much of this is not having the experience of American schools where students are repeatedly told to "follow the instructions".

Calculating trigonometry ratios on a smart phone.

Finding better ways to set up this measurement than I had thought of.

I was lucky, in that most groups had at least one person who spoke significant English.  My understanding is that more monks speak English than I realize, but are shy about it.  I was somewhat helpful during the lab session, but Tsondue (my Tibetan co-teacher) was much more effective.  I also had a few monks, who have previous experience with Physics, helping as assistants.

I initially had some concerns about how large the lab groups were - 6 or 7 monks working together.  This is one way in which my American pedagogy doesn't translate over.  The monks were all very engaged, debating and explaining with the other lab members.  They seemed to be having fun.  I'm not sure that they found the math itself fun, but it might just be the act in engaging in a different type of intellectual exercise from what they are used to.  I know I loved classes when I was a few years into graduate school and only did research all of the time...

First Lecture

Last night I was quite nervous about my lecture today - and I haven't been nervous about teaching since my first class at Agnes Scott!  I'm still a bit jetlagged, so I went to sleep very early and got up early to work on prepping.  I don't have all of my slides and labs finished - I wanted to see how the first day went, since I might have needed to make significant adjustments to how I was preparing materials.

My two morning lectures went great!  Each was 90 minutes, separated by a 30 minute tea break.  I started with a math assessment, and then covered some basic math.  There were a few places where my slides weren't detailed enough or where I forgot to explain a topic (that they hadn't seen before).  I'm using my think-pair-share technique, but having the students respond with colored notecards.  Most of the questions were correctly answered by almost everyone to begin with, so there hasn't been much of the "pairing" step yet.

My co-teacher/translator Tsondue is certainly doing the majority of the work.  He translates everything I say, but I can tell that he is filling in further details as well.  Some of the questions that the students ask he translates for me, but he handles most of it on his own.  I feel somewhat superfluous - clearly he could be explaining basic algebra on his own.  I'd like to think I am contributing in terms of pedagogy.

This afternoon the class will be coming in two halves, and we will do a lab.  Unsurprisingly, I didn't make it as far through my slides as I had hoped to, so we didn't quite cover the math (triangles, angles, and trigonometry) that I hoped to cover before lab today.  I think i can still make this work.  

Views from the Roof

After lunch today (again, delicious Indian-style food) we had a tour of the labs and the teaching rooms.  They have 2 computer labs, outfitting with a number of computers.  I'm a bit hesitant to try to do computer-based labs (such as PhETS), since the internet and power aren't guaranteed here.  We've already lost power once today.  While they do have generators, I'm sure they'd rather not be running 20 computers with them.

They have more equipment than I expected, but it is a bit eclectic.  There are plenty of meter sticks, spring scales, and marbles.  I will go back over later today to explore more and look for some particular things.  I have my first lab written (triangles and ratios) and passed on to the translator; I'll have the second lab (circles) written soon.  I don't have a good plan for the 3rd lab yet, so I need the equipment to help me brainstorm.

The classrooms are on the 3rd floor - and I think the "ground" flood that we start on is technically floor 0.  Quite some stairs!  There is an elevator, but our previous attempt to use it hadn't worked.  It turns out that the elevator is specifically for the Dalai Lama, when he visits, since his quarters are in the top floor of this building.

The building I am teaching in, taken from the roof patio.

The left corner is where the Dalai Lama stays, when he is here.  Sadly, he won't be here while I am.

Another gorgeous building, off in the distance.  There are a number of different monastic colleges here.

Staying at Drepung Loseling Monastery

I was very pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the monastery yesterday and saw where I'd be staying. We are staying in the "guest house", a small building very close to the main prayer hall. The accommodations are very "Western Style", and they left us many supplies. Not only did they provide 2 travel adapters, but a large selection of toiletries and laundry supplies. I could have packed much less! My room has two single beds, which have a lacy-style mosquito netting. Each room has its own bathroom and air conditioning. There is even hot water!

In the center of the guest house (which has about 6 rooms) is a open courtyard.  It is lovely, but was home to a very loud bird early in the morning.  I had gotten up to make sure the bird wasn't in my room!  There is a small kitchen area, with beverages and snacks.  For meals, we go to the main prayer hall where they have a buffet for us.  Dinner last night was good - the food seemed like Indian cuisine.  Breakfast was a bit more eclectic - eggs scrambled with vegetables, cereal, and chocolate cake.  The cake itself wasn't very sweet, but the monks definitely served us chocolate cake for breakfast.

So far I haven't seen very much of the monastery, except for our guest house and the dining area.  There have been some exciting wildlife sightings - there was a small lizard in my room, a number of cows outside of the guesthouse, and a few (seemingly) stray dogs.  While I did see two monkeys on the drive here (oh my goodness no one told me there would be monkeys!) I don't think I will see any here at the monastery.