Having just finished my third week at the school, facing just one week left in India before returnig to the United States, it’s hard to put into words how I feel. Overwhelmed is an understatement. Among other things I wish I could have more time here to work with the kids. It’s taken me a long time to understand them. They all are children from the slums, I think I imagined them having one of the famous American mindsets, of chasing “the American Dream”, wanting to escape their extreme poverty. Instead I’ve found the opposite: they all seem to want to maintain their staus quo and spend their lives in the slum.

I say this because they seem to have no desire to learn. Also, whenever I talk to them about going to college, after they finish at this school, they seem to try to avoid the subject in an embarrassed way like they don’t plan to pursue higher education. Of course, this might not be because of a lack of ambition from any of them, maybe they haven’t been fed the same speeches from adults, like I had been when I was their age, that education is the path to success. Also I suspect that because of the caste system here they may feel, since they belong to some of the lowest castes, that it is inappropriate for them to attend college. This may be evidenced by the fact that the highest castes alomst always send their children to a University for a formal education. Therefore, because of the all or nothingness of the caste system, they may think that they are unworthy to attend college because it’s only for the middle and upper caste children.

I did have a long converstation with an Indian man, who was very fluent in English, on the subject. He confirmed that for a child from the slum to attend an University and end up in a career where they earn as much as the middle class in India, it’s “one in a million” as he put it. He saidd he saw on his social media that there was a story that was trending of the child of a woman from the slums who sold vegetables on the street. He managed to get into college and become a chartered accountant. He said it was extremely moving and inspiring. The sad irony for me when I heard it, is that such stories in America of children from really poor backgrounds getting into college and ending up wealthy are so common we take them for granted.

At this point my plan is to learn more about this observation and try to get more information. If it is the case that they have given up on going to school because of their position in the caste system I want to try to convince them to try to break through any barrier as we enter 2025 the time should be ripe for cultural change in that respect. I do remember that when I was in High School there were students from Hispanic families that told me point blank that their families were working class and so they to were not going to college but instead would do what blue collar work that their families did. Maybe that manifestation plays a big role instead. In which case I can simply explain how much better their childrens lives will be if they receive a degree from a University and get a high paying job. With one week left I have a lot of work to do.