“Until the lion gets a historian, the hunter will always be the hero.” As I observed a grade 9 English class in a Catholic school in Delhi, this week, I felt quite at home. The instructor was animated. They were discussing a book they were all reading called Malgudi Days by R. K. Narayan. It was teacher-led, but discussion centered. The instructor made lots of popular culture references, both Indian and western. He made the students laugh. There was a strong respect and rapport in the room. They discussed the fleeting nature of truth and the importance of backing up our opinions with facts. It felt like the climate in my own classroom. He was discussing the importance of reading and researching widely to support generalizations in writing and debating, and mentioned the lion saying above. I have been pondering it for days now, and I think it summarizes the closing leg of my Indian journey quite well. In a session on Wednesday, we talked about the importance as teacher/diplomats of framing our stories of our experience in India. Now this is an easy sell to me as an English teacher of literature and composition. But even I have to be careful in my word choice and in what I choose to share and how. There is the danger of overgeneralizing, romanticizing, and misrepresenting our experiences as guests in this country. The last thing I would want to do is give someone a false impression of my incredibly rich and diverse experience from these three short weeks. For me, storytelling is about anecdotes. Short little quips that illustrate one aspect of experience. I also believe that yes, we can frame our stories, but ultimately, the listener/reader perceives what he or she is the meaning of that particular anecdote. However, I have a duty, as I re-enter my school and larger community, to represent these stories with the least amount of cultural bias possible, and I am thrilled to share them with my friends, families and colleagues. As we discuss in the classroom quite frequently, there are many aspects of good storytelling - imagery, poetic devices, dialogue, overall coherence and meaning. But the main aspect of any good story is what makes It human. What do we learn about human nature, humanity? What makes my experience relevant for other people? We all love to talk about ourselves, but how to make it meaningful on a larger scale is the trick. Everyone has had the experience of listening to someone ramble on and on with vivid description and animation but not really getting the point or connecting with the story. My kids will often tell me, sarcastically, “Good story, Mom,” meaning I did not make it relevant for my audience. It meant something to me, but I did not frame it in a way that was meaningful for them. So our challenge, as I return, is to share a wide variety of experiences in an authentic framework that provides relevance to my audience, which is essentially the task of any act of writing. As I reflect on my time in India, I do think about the food and the smells and sounds and the massive traffic confusion, but more significantly, I will remember and talk about people. It is through human relationships and connections that I find meaning in life. I was fortunate enough to work with a small host community and build deep and hopefully lasting connections there for future collaboration. From the various speakers we have learned from, to the students in our school visits, to the drivers and hotel workers, there is always a story. My partner teacher, my cohorts and the alliances we have formed have strengthened and stretched me, personally and professionally, all in positive, enriching ways. And there are plenty of stories there. Our IREX and Teacher Foundation guides have provided us with thoughtful questions and considerate perspectives. These two also have their stories. Human stories are abundant if one opens their mind and eyes to what we can learn from others. I subscribe to the dictionary.com word of the day, and I thought it quite fortuitous that last week the word “glocal” popped up on my phone. I had never heard of this concept before my TGC coursework, and I was excited to see it! The official definition is “of or relating to the interconnection of global and local issues, factors, etc…” Gender equality is an issue, worldwide. But what achieving gender equality looks like in Boone, North Carolina, USA, is not the same as in Udaipur, Tripura, India. We share a lot of commonalities and problems with the Indian culture, but the differences, in some cases are vast. While we might worry about equal pay and better representation in Congress, access to reproductive rights, some Indians in the community I visited might worry about challenging the family structure to pursue one’s own dreams, about girls dropping out of school to take care of families, about early marriage, and division of labor in the household. This does not make the Udaipur community less developed or evolved than my community in Boone. It does, however, show that a glocal perspective is needed to understand the struggle in gender equality that we both face and how our differing cultures inform those challenges. There is a saying here in India, “my guest is my guide,” and while that may not have origins with an international focus, I think it applies well here. The Indian people are a culture rich with stories, religions, regions, languages, and thousands of years of history. Yet they embraced us these past three weeks with open hearts wanting to learn from us just as eagerly as we sought to learn from them. And maybe we Americans can gain something from that type of hospitality and excitement. Yesterday, we visited the Taj Mahal early in the morning. It was a serene and profoundly reflective experience, but I think the building itself serves as a nice metaphor for my experience here in India regarding perspective. From afar the building looks grandiose and as one. Upon closer inspection, you can see the multiple layers of craftsmanship and detail and individual components that make up the Taj. And that is true for India, America, and I would imagine any other country you visit. We can look at it as a whole or we can examine it up close. I am beyond thankful to have been given an opportunity to experience India up close. And this brings me back to the lion. I shall repeat, “Until the lion gets a historian, the hunter will always be the hero.” My experience here in India has allowed me to get to know the lion – a few untold stories in India. It is my hope, with many blessings, I will be able to impact others, in my classroom, school community, in India and other countries as well by keeping a glocal perspective and not portraying the people and stories I have encountered from the hunter’s viewpoint. To this end, the activity I taught in the classroom was one I frequently do in the states. It is a simple poetry activity, based on George Ella Lyon’s work, that includes imagery and metaphor and allows students to depict themselves in a cultural framework that is not limited place on a map but instead experience. The poems I collected proves my point that what makes us human is our stories of happiness and sorrow. And while languages and nations and politics might divide us, our experiences define and sometimes break down those walls. We are global, and we are local. Glocalization, as opposed to globalization, seeks to preserve the local, to celebrate the community while at the same time recognizing its piece in a larger scale, globally, in an attempt to let the lion’s voice be heard.
1 Comment
Libbie Lowe
7/21/2017 08:27:31 pm
Again, very informative, Robin.
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