KNB Update

There's a lot going on here at KNB these days. Here's a few tidbits:

We hosted a former student named Waseem, who graduated with the very first class at KNB. He's now a successful filmmaker with his own company, who dabbles in a variety of other kinds of art, including drawing, painting, and sculpture. He spent about half a week leading an art workshop with the 5th-7th standards. Here's a 6th standard girl trying water colors for the first time. Especially vast work on the building construction forced everyone out of the usual classrooms, so they got to make masks and plan stories in a home next to the school.

Speaking of art, the 8th standard has just started working on a short play I wrote for their class. The plot is a simple adaptation of a children's book entitled: When the Monkeys Came Back. It's a cute little story about a monkey filled forest which gets destroyed by rampant development and then recreated by a determined girl. In the play, I divided every charactor into two or three smaller characters, so most of the class will either get to speak or be a monkey.
On our first day with the script they were so excited they refused to go on their break. When we got to the stage direction where the monkeys were supposed to hoot and yell, a rowdy classroom suddenly became very bashful. After three good tries to get them going I asked, "Who's brave enough to hoot like a monkey?" A room full of faces held their breath, until a short, bright boy near the front of the room looked up at me, smiled, and started hooting. Suddenly the entire room was full of hooting, laughing 8th graders. Thank you Milind. You carried us into the animal kingdom.

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