I attended the India Masala event celebrating International Education Week 2009 this past Thursday, November 19th. The event included performances by various dance groups, as well as a viewing of the movie 'Dor'. The event itself was great, with tons of food for attendees and performances throughout the night. As others have already mentioned I think we all took something different from the night, and for me it was the infusion of hip-hop in most of the Indian dance performances. This was something that I had never known, and is definitely a way that our cultures cross paths. This event was also a good experience because I saw someone I knew here at NYU in one of the performing groups, and this showed me a new side of that person that I didnt know about. I think this is obviously important in our classrooms, as you need to try to find out all that you can about your students because they may have a passion or interest that you had no idea about, but might share.
The movie Dor also provided a unique little lesson for all of us that attended the event. The first 5 minutes or so of the movie was played without any subtitles, before they ultimately realized this and restarted the movie. In that time, the movie was confusing and hard to understand what was going on, yet once the subtitles were on and I could follow along it really is a movie that all can relate to. When you dont get to understand a culture (or have subtitles, in this case) it is going to seem so different from your own, and will seem like something you will never understand. If you take the time to understand this culture, (or have subtitles, to complete the metaphor) a lot of times you will realize that it might end up being a lot like your own and that there are many ways you can connect with others. Overall I had a good time at the event with the other students from our cohort, and am much more aware of student groups like this on campus.
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Corey, It sounds like you had a great time at this event. That is so interesting that you found an element of hip-hop in Indian dance performances. I would never expect this. I love hip-hop and am always so quick to write off any type of dance or music that is not hip-hop. I think what I will discover if I expand my "musical palate" is that hip-hop techniques can be found in other types of music and dance. It is great to see the intertwining (is that a word?) of many cultures to make a beautiful art form.
ReplyDeleteI like how you related this experience to your classroom. You mentioned how this shows you how important it is to know your students' interests and passions. I think this is so important. You can observe a student all day, but it is the things that are not obvious about them that make them so unique and wonderful.
In regards to the movie... you talk about how you cannot judge a culture if you do not understand it. Oftentimes, people disregard cultures that seem different but if they take the time to learn about that culture, they will see how that culture connects to their own culture. By opening your mind, you will start to see the interconnectedness of multiple cultures.
Sounds like you had a great experience... Thank you for sharing and I am sad I missed it!
I really wanted to go to this event, since I am Indian. I always try to see if I can learn something new. I understand the confusion you felt when there were no subtitles. My native language is Gujarati, but like most of the Bollywood produced films, that film is in Hindi. I never explicitly learned Hindi in school or from my parents, I actually learned it by watching Hindi movies with subtitles. It took many, many years to learn and understand the language, and even at this point I am barely conversational.
ReplyDeleteThis relates to our students who all come from a diverse group of languages. Many teachers (as we saw in the film) expect students to come and learn English as soon as they begin school. As we have all learned in our program, it is most helpful to learn a new language through connections in your own language. For myself, I picked up on Hindi because it is very similar to Gujarati. The same goes for when I learned Italian, its similarities to Spanish made the process a slightly more reachable.
Teachers who believe that students should lose their native languages and adopt English, or 'try harder' if they care, should be required to watch a foreign film and then told to learn that language on their own. Perhaps then they will understand the true process that students and people in general go through when trying to assimilate to a new culture and language.