Feild Notes3

The day began with assembly after which we spoke to the Principal who told us that we could visit the staff room and take an interview. They were helpful and told us about themselves and the school. Tara and I wanted to begin an interview with Elsie, due to a personal reason she was late to school that day. So we went back to the staff room, where the others were taking an interview of the English teacher. Then we spoke to Padmini madam, who gave me a lot of details relating my topic ‘exams’. We had conversations with Kannada teacher and social studies teacher earlier from whom we got details of the class dairy, on how they prepare the test papers.

Later we went on to talking to the principal again during the lunch break, this time him giving us more details regarding exams and dropouts. Both Padmini teacher and the Principal Sir both told us that most of the dropouts were not due to exam pressure but due to family problems. We were late for lunch, but the helper had saved some lunch for the 3 of us who were interviewing the principal sir.

Post lunch, Elsie madam was back in school, but very busy with work that day, so Tara and I fixed an appointment with her for the next day. Then we joined in where the others were interviewing Shanthi teacher. She had different views about the school altogether. Having spoken to her earlier, I got few more information relating exams.

Recording interviews the whole day, this was our last interview for the day, the P.T teacher. It was a little difficult for the others to converse with him, because he spoke only kannada. So, Kiran and I did the translation for the others. He mentioned a good point about relieving stress, where the students are taught yoga to relieve stress during exams. He even went on to learn a technique of curing diseases just by pressing finger tips.

Next day began with interviews with students. Padmini teacher let us to go to any class and pick students whom we wanted to interview. We began with 8^th B girl who studies well; she wanted to become a teacher. She was comfortable in conversing in Tamil, so I translated it for Tara. Then, we had an interview with a boy of the same class who wanted to be a footballer when he grew up.

Later, we went on to interviewing two boys from 9^th std who are very naughty according to the teacher. One boy wanted to become a doctor and other wanted to join the army and fight for the country. One of them really good at art, draws really well. We got a different perspective all together in comparison with the toppers.

Lastly, we spoke to Elsie, who told us about dropouts from the school. She told us that there have been dropouts due to exam pressures, but she even told us that it was for a temporary period, later they would join back school. But, students who drop out due to family issues some return but most of them don’t. Percentage of boys retuning is higher that the girls.