Teaching at Sharp Memorial - July 2024

    In July of 2024, I volunteer taught at Sharp Memorial School for the Blind located in Rajpur, located just north of Dehradun—the capital of Uttarakhand—in India. As the name implies, the school is accommodating to but not exclusive to blind children. The school is K–8 for , with one class for each grade. There are separate classes for blind/visually impaired students and students that visually abled students for grades K–5, and grades 6–8 have both students learning together, in the same class, with one visually able student assigned to help one of the visually disabled students. I had the opportunity to teach all grades at least once and different subjects, such as math, English, geography, environmental studies and Hindi. In addition, I made educational posters to aide in the students understanding of the material, since there were no Smartboards and only six computers in the whole school. In addition to no Smartboards, there were no water fountains, air conditioning, and only two toilets for boys and girls each for all 100+ kids to use. I truly saw a difference in conditions teaching here compared to my schools in the US whenever it rained. Since Rajpur is in a valley, even a small amount of rain would cause the children to have their homes and streets flooded—leading to a low turnout on those days. Also, many of the children did not have any basic school supplies—such as pencils, pens, erasers, and notebooks—which hindered their education. Upon seeing this on the first day, I went to a stationary store after school and bought adequate school supplies for the students to use. Throughout my time teaching at Sharp Memorial, I surely made a difference on the children's education and they have opened my eyes as well.