The International School, Bangalore Workshop

I was particularly looking forward to the workshop at The International School Banaglore. This was the first international school that we were visiting and having been through the rigours of CBSE education myself, international schools bore a halo of sorts in my mind. Especially, since TISB, I was told, is amongst the best in Bangalore; I was quite excited to meet the kids and see how different, if at all, they were due to the curriculum they followed. They didn’t disappoint.

The excitement was palpable on the taxi ride to the school itself. Evinced by the fact that none of us complained over having to cram 4 people on to the back seat of an Indica. As is almost a habit of ours, for these workshops, we turned up late. We were quite bluntly reminded of that, and rightly so. The school infrastructure was immodest, to say the least. We were met by the faculty in-charge, who quickly ushered us into an expansive auditorium. Around 80 kids from various age groups were seated. Relative to the size of the auditorium, it was quite sparsely populated. Usually when we walk in at other schools, late as always, a sudden calm would spread. It’d seem that our mere presence warranted the attention of the kids. These kids were too cool for us. They went about with their chatter and laptops, it was not until the faculty in-charge took to the microphone fro perfunctory salutations, did the kids realise we had finally reached. 

It was evident from the beginning that we had to win the right to be heard with these kids. The same presentations that elicited awe and amusement at other schools, was received only with capricious interest. They were very easily distracted by talk. The involvement, even from the kids that seemed most interested and forthcoming wavered. They were demanding of us and had no hesitation in resorting to their friends, laptops or even sleep, unabashedly in the first few rows, to occupy themselves with. This was not to say they weren’t involved. Their education and social stature had blessed them with a complete lack of inhibition and the confidence, not what one would attribute to teenager, or at least not the ones we had met before. It was clear that they preferred discourse be interactive rather than lecture-ish. They were extremely keen to outdo one another. In all fairness, we were quite taken aback by the turn of events. After the first set of presentation, we all agreed a change of strategy was required. 

We decided we would give them what they clearly wanted and decided to scrap the rest of part in power point presentation, clearly where pictures and fanciful word play were enough to keep the other kids interested, they only managed nods and shrugs from the lot we had. After the break we introduced a number of commonly debated issues on to the floor and encouraged them to tell us what they thought. We were in for a pleasant surprise. 

In many ways, debating is nothing more than mastery of communication. Getting the right diction and articulation every time, is a skill that took quite a few years of honing for us lot. These kids already had it. What is probably the hardest skill to imbibe, was something these kids were equipped with and showed no hesitation in putting it to use. The surprises didn’t stop there. The demo debate, as we usually do it, consisted of 4 kids and two from our group. The demo debate further made it transparently clear that this bunch was ready for the podium, more so. For a first time speaker, doing 7 minutes itself becomes a major challenge. In this pursuit it is usually observed that the speaker begins to stall and becomes repetitive, making clear his discomfort with the arrangement. These kids were very comfortable with the podium and seemed unaware and unaffected by the intimidation of an expectant audience, constituted of their peers. 

We were still reasonably overwhelmed in the cab ride back. On hind sight, it was clear we were under prepared and caught unawares by the kids. It was clear the approach needed to change with these kids. The challenge was to earn their attention and the material we had clearly failed to meet the mark. A more innovative and interactive approached was clearly required. Nevertheless we were thrilled with what we saw. The kids clearly had it in them and it was only a matter of finishing that they needed. Despite the exhaustion, we spent the remainder of the cab ride discussing alternative strategies to use. The pervasive feeling was that it was 40 kilometres travelled for a worthy cause.

 
Karthik Sivaram,
Debater
Final Year Student, RV college of engineering.