Sushrut

Now I have spent more than 3 weeks here and yet there is no single local resident who knows me by name or knows who I am. Excluding the work-place off-course, though that does not matter beyond 8-6.

And yet I am in no discomfort and still vocal about how great this place (and this phase) is.

Davis is one little town with outstanding mix of businesses, people and attitudes. Its not a super small super warm town where everyone knows everyone and so on. Its a biggish town, swells incredibly due to college students during semesters and then almost dries up summer, both literally and figuratively.

And this reflects. Everything around here is like a typical college town. But just to make this place different, the attitude of people is not the same. Many times I have seen landlords, business owners and people, not treating the "college students" well. But Davis isn't that way. Even the government, city council, police and the business owners take special care of the students and are open to accepting them. May be its the California's open nature or may be a conscious effort. But this is striking.

There are special bike routes in Davis, which are dedicated bike roads built and can be used by bikers (cyclists) and pedestrians ONLY. Its not just like a bike lane. Bike lanes are present too, but these roads, which literally go through back yards and lanes etc. are small 8 ft wide roads which greatly make biker's life easy, safe and ride-able. Davis is anyway on a flat land to encourage biking and these distance saving, safe, shadow bearing short-cuts (aka Davis bike loop) make it special.

Talking about businesses, I have seen all the "chain-restaurants" in here, from Wendy's to McD to every single one of them. But along with them, Davis has incredible number of special, one branch, (mostly) family owned restaurants. This little town has more than 7-8 Sushi places, a bunch of Thai, Mexican, Italian places for the savors. I just saw an Ethiopian place which is to open soon. I think its just fantastic. Even in the third week now, I continue living my dream of thinking of a type of cuisine and then walking into that restaurant a few steps away somewhere in the downtown to treat myself to a great meal! And I have never been disappointed. (If interested read about Davis' Murder Burger, a place which was and is popular for its burgers yet had this terrible name - and the residents made them change it.)

The life is pretty peaceful though. Perhaps as peaceful as it was in the final years in IIT. Largely due to this hotel stay, where everything is taken care of (thanks to DTL) and with no study after coming home, I have almost everything very peaceful out here except...

Anyway, so that's how the time goes, and with the new toy that I've got, I now feel the urge to explore beyond just the walking-distance-Davis that I now know pretty well.

Thanks to my internship, I am back to blogging!

This post mostly captures my first impression of the place where I will be spending my next 2 months and I am glad that it is so!

This situation is kind of a dream for me. I always wanted to be in a place which was exotic, away from home, beautiful, scenic and yet completely unknown to me. I always thought it would be great to just go around the place, figure things out all alone, be on my own for some time and live worry free. This is exactly what I am doing.

I am staying in a hotel, which by every means is a real hotel, with all plush amenities, breakfast and other servant-done things. The hotel has its own pool (not seen yet though) and is situated right in the downtown! I have a huge suit to myself, 2 TVs with all possible programs, internet and what not. After staying with flat-mates and cooking on my own for most of the last 2 years, this surely is a great respite.. but that's just a small part of the deal.

I get to stay in this place, which is outstanding in many aspects. May it be the downtown and classy restaurants, or may it be the bike paths, or the university campus and students or may it be the old-feel buildings or may it be the crisp air. I don't know but this town has a great feel and I am absolutely loving it.

As of now I do not know a single person in Davis (I am here 3 days). Absolutely no one! But still I am in no discomfort at all.

I have the best vehicle one could have in Davis - a bike - (more in a separate post) and I am living a life of a tourist! Like the one in Lonely Planet! I go to a new eatery/hotel every time to eat, think of a country every evening and search that cuisine. Many times it is somewhere next to my hotel and I end up strolling over. Not only I get interesting food, I get to know more about the town and people too. Its such a laid back, friendly community that almost feels untrue. Yet it by no means is sloppy or sluggish. The town is super clean, buzzing with students (undergrads) even in summer, has friendly people all over and is very safe to wander even at 1 am!

I hope I will be able to know some more people here, get to go to all the different eating places :D and also manage some good research while I am here!

I never wanted this thing to end but one day it had to. And it did.

Final week was more of fun, laughter, hugs and souvenirs and medals and tears!

All of them did pretty well in the final exam. I had a hard time preparing it, I really took good efforts and I am happy for that. They did find the worksheet for preparation useful and also the exam. After discussing the answers and seeing them do well, I feel kind of satisfied (and tired!). I didn't get to know what and how they did in the final test that PCA took, but I am sure they must have done pretty well.

Going to final dinner with the children was overwhelming, the little thing they made brought tears (which no one saw) to my eyes and Jenny's gift -bracelet- still remains in my bag which brings a smile every time I see it.

Pictures and "certificate" is all I am left with... and a hope to this all over again next time!

Pictures:

PCA

I have been enjoying this teaching thing more than I thought I would and before I can imagine, its about to be over now. I have some 4 days left of which I assume that last day would be the final test so as such I have 3 days now.

I could see the kids get emotional at times, getting a little friendly to me, a lot more friendly to each other. I saw unusual things like Eina talking out loud, Lisette getting her face up and talk, Cindy and Jose solve some tricky problems and also Francisco making a lot of improvement. Its all good!

I always write about people who struggle and people who make into my bad books. But I fail to write about people who come out of it. Jenny and Kim are kinda still in the RED but I admire the spirit shown by Francisco to overcome the problems he has, and also a bit Heather for trying and doing well in the test.

Offcourse, for me Cindy and Lisette remain the best pupils in my little class. I am really impressed with the knowledge and understanding they have. And to have this knowledge and ability to solve numerous sums one after the other, tirelessly like a computer, and then to write them with equal spacing and same handwriting, like a laser printer, I salute LISETTE.

Obviously I will miss them, after all they did give me a lot! They did instill in me, some confidence that I can teach math to all sorts of people and have the fighting spirit in me. Not just to teach, but to teach to every type of students.

I fail to be on terms with Kim and Jenny these days, and even after considering its majority of their failure and/or problem, I still feel that I am giving up half way due to time constraint. I could have done better had I not been preoccupied with my research and prelims. Since about week 4, my strategy to them has been ignore, smile and go ahead knowing that they are not 'there'. Anyway, its not possible to keep everyone happy and be happy too.

After the mid term, I had flown to DC for a cool weekend and so I came back to teach, after a 6 hour long direct flight in the morning and zero preparation. I didnt even know what topic I would start and so after I took the book in hand started with the topic that had maximum number of pages in the chapter - polynomials.

I perfectly know now, that students here fear math out of no real reason. They are just not fine with it because everyone says so. There are some real cool students in my class (Cindy, Star L and Jose) but they are just a few steps ahead. I give them a small tricky problem here n there, and they are nowhere.

I think the problem lies somewhere in the way in which they teach math here. The physical significance of math is not taught AT ALL. and there is some significance, after all math is not ONLY numbers. Moreover, they make it so much more mechanical for them, the students who one lag (for any reason) are just never able to catch up.

I am not a qualified person to talk on how things should be taught and I am only a makeshift teacher with hardly any significant experience, but I really do not understand some ways of teaching that are followed in this country. And easily enough, I think of relating those to failure of the system to teach math to average students.

Polynomials was hard to them, i made a change in HW pattern and assigned them HWs from the book. It was more of laziness from me but was OK for them, specially for copy-cats like KIM and this didnt surprise me. She is used to copy writing math, from the board/book/neighbors book/whatever.

Week 5 began yesterday and I started with important linear systems. Here lies another big monster in the name of word problems.

Not surprisingly, all students literally fear WORD PROBLEMS. They know how to solve the underneath equation but they are not able to FORM a 10 times simpler equation from a little 3 line question. Its intriguing to think why this must be the case, and opposite in India, 'cause as far as I remember my own childhood, I just loved word problems because they had so much data in them!!

Tomorrow, I will teach them a few inequalities (not really a good topic, they hate those) and then we will have chapter quiz on thursday to end penultimate week.

Due to voluminous amount of work that I have been doing this whole summer, I cant just find right time and mood combo to blog as often.

My third week of teaching was exactly that. Important topic of geometry and students are not really motivated. I dont know why they want me to include geometry in algebra but anyway. I am interested in geometry a lot so its not a pain for me, but it is, for some like, Kim, Fran and co.
Interestingly enough, I find Nora improved a lot, so also Eina and Jenny a bit.

They gave me this beautiful bracelet saying THXS SUSHRUT :) and it was a good feeling. Teaching them geometry is not fun though, since it is not the subject they know a lot about, or want to.

I also reaslised after teaching them about SIN COS TAN that since these are school going children, they need to be taught the way they are used to. They only understand SOHCAHTOA but not Sin is Opp by Hyp. Cindy was good at it.

Then on the 12th day, was their midterm and wow. They took it seriously and I am glad about that. They dont seem to be all that ill prepared either. I had to rush half way through to the MOST INTERESTING travel itinerarires till date to MD but anyway, they made a good attempt.

I realise that they are good at things they know well and at times they do well when they see unseen or different problems. They dont get scared or panicked too. Just that they JUST CAN NOT make out a tricky question. Harder questions have to be HARD for them and if they find a trick to solve a said HARD question in lesser time, they think they are wrong and they invent ways to make it harder!!!

Week 4 began yesterday and surprisingly I ran out of matter (my perenial fear) yesterday.. almost. I need to see how I can make things interesting to them when it comes to polynomials.

I can see people into 2-3 categories now. Francisco has improved a lot and more importantly WANTS to improve. Kim not so. Jenny too tries a lot less harder than she used to but is doing OK. Nora has improved a lot, Kashira does well at times but like Erik, sometimes makes surprising bloops. Things going fine, I dont know if Phillip et. al. are happy with my work, but I think the students are and I think that should matter more.

After steep learning week 1, week 2 started with a lot of comfort for me. I thought I knew what was to be done, and much of it has turned out in that way. Teaching them is now fun, easy and tension-less exercise for me, with my permanent fear of running out of topics to teach and half an hour to spend has now subsided significantly. I prepare for half an hour, mostly by reading into that fat book, preparing the next day's HW and deciding to teach them only that which is needed to solve that HW. Prof. Wagner's teaching style has had a huge impact on my way of teaching is what I feel. His utmost confidence about his own subject matter is what I was impressed most with and I try to maintain that while teaching. People like Jenny, Nora, Liss and Kim find it very valuable I think.

I can see a huge gap now forming with the backbenchers but I cant stop and hold back the class for them - a mistake I made in the first week. I have got to run, I have got to do difficult things in class, so as to keep interest of people like Heather, Jose and Cindy and at the same time, I have to atleast show that I am doing something for the back-runners. Tutors are indeed a big big help in this regard. I see them working tirelessly with disinterested, little (un) motivated students and yet never complain. I owe them for this.

Now my HWs are long, I am glad that a topic of functions was nicely learnt by most others. Now I hope this reflects well in the test too. I want everyone else to be at about the same level so that I can go along smoothly. I am impressed with Lisette's handwriting and tidy work, Erik/Moses's quick understanding, Jenny's ability to take efforts, Nora's frankness and Kashira's ability to perform well within her limits. Jose is been there done that and Heather is kinda smart but I dont have a problem with any one in the class. Not even Francisco, not even Kim or not Eli, who btw, remains the most mysterious person to me.