Class 2

After my first experience teaching class 2 how to draw a sad-looking, cross-eyed rat dog, I knew I had to be more prepared. Even with my art background, I'd never really learned how to draw animals, and the techniques I was teaching the older kids were too complicated for class 2. Using the internet, I taught myself how to do cute cartoon drawings of dogs and cats. I even taught them some of the drawings I was doing for the older kids-- they loved learning how to draw rockets.

Before I started teaching at Hopkins while working on my MFA, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it, but I realized that I absolutely loved it. When I began teaching the kids at the Naxal School, I wasn't sure if I would like teaching kids, but in some ways, I've enjoyed it even more than teaching college students. The kids have boundless energy, and at the end of teaching, when I am walking by the little pond and down the back paths of my neighborhood in Hadigaon, I find myself incredibly happy, and feeling tremendous love for all the children, as if they were my own. I'm sure if I spent all my time with them that my patience would be tried, but in class their enthusiasm gives me energy, too.

I enjoy playing soccer with the boys during the lunch break, or kicking around a bundle of rubber bands tied into a hackysack. After school sometimes, I talk with the older kids, and they teach me new Nepali Sign words while I teach them American Sign.