School life
- Collaboration
Our experiences regarding our collaboration with India are overall pretty positive. We talked via Skype which was a very helpful and enlightening experience. The Indian students were lovely and answered all of our questions. They really helped us get a deeper understanding of what school is like in India and how it differs quite a bit to how we have school here in the Netherlands.
The timetables in India are comparable to the time tables we have in the Netherlands. You start early in the morning and you end in the afternoon. Of course the times may differ but that is expected. The way students go to school in India was at first by foot but later on it has changed to vehicles such as vans and buses. In the Netherlands it was at first by foot or with the bicycle and now it also is by going with the bus or train.
In the Netherlands and in India the appreciation for teachers and the discipline has changed a bit. At first they were in both countries very strict and the punishments were quite harsh. You had to have a lot of respect to your teachers. You could not talk about the quality of a teacher no matter how bad it was.You still have to respect your teachers but the relationships between a student and a teacher maybe has become a bit more personal. Teachers are now more involved in a students life and its not just a teacher who gives a student only information about the subject that is being teached.
We could also conclude that is was normal for Indian inhabitants that live as a extended family. A lot of families live with their grandmother for example. But this does not mean that all of the families have a nuclear household because there are still a lot of families who live in a nuclear household.
The difference in the subjects that ere being teached these days do not vary a lot compared to the Indian school. The only big difference is the growth of how it became like it is nowadays. If we go back a few decades, inda was far behind if you look at the Netherlands in that time. In India you only had 1 teacher that would teach all the subjects that were given. The most subjects were for example writing and reading. There was also a big difference in the classes. Boys and girls were separated and the girls were taught how to cook and everything that you had to be able to do if you are a housewife. The boys and girls were also separated in the netherlands but not all the schools did that. There were still schools who teached boys and girls combined. The Netherlands already had subjects that we also learn these days, so with that said it has not changed om that part. In India the students also have to wear a uniform, whereas in the Netherlands they do not have to wear it. The Indian students do not have an issue with wearing a uniform. Another difference is that in India the subjects are being teached in English which first were being teached in Marathi. An Indian language. It’s now being teached in English because India used to be a colony of England.
With all of this you can conclude that India has grown a lot, has a a lot differences but still is somewhat comparable to the schools in the Netherlands.
Here are a couple of photos of our group on a Skype call with the Indian students: