Collection for School Museum

I am sharing these pictures with so much excitement. Two members of my club made my Monday with so many artifacts, this is so much beyond my expectation at this initial time. Guess what, they say they have bigger wooden objects collected over the weekend waiting for transportation. I am going with a pickup truck this saturday.

As you browse down the pictures I want you to try naming the objects and stating their uses. Give yourself 1 point for correct name and another for knowing its purpose. There are nine objects and the total score is out of 18. Send me your score. I am trying this because in my staff room filled with adults from my generation there was nobody who could score 100%. Sad.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

I am getting gentle warnings from some concerned people about the danger of spirits following old objects I am collecting but I assured them that I am after things that are of no interest to any spirit. As far as I know spirits follow valuable and conflict objects. Or so I assure myself.

A notable scholar, Dorji Penjor agreed to help me put things in place based on his vast and relevant knowledge. My high school friend Kunga Lhendup promised me his helping hand from across ocean. Here at home some of my teacher colleagues are determined to get me some stuffs though they couldn't do the quiz well. 

Do you have something to offer? Please write to me. 

Rural Heritage Museum in My School

Much of what I had seen in my village as a boy has disappeared over the years. The rural heritage gave way to modern conveniences so easily within these three decades. Even during my days in school we had children who grew up away from their roots and had no idea of the life in countryside. Now we can only imagine how ignorant this generation of children will be about our roots.

Sometimes I wish we could preserve a village, freeze it in time, untouched by the forces of change, to be a standing history of our ancestors. But our hard past could hardly withstand the luxury of modern life. We have changed faster than we feared. Even yesterday is too far away. No village will agree to this idea.

A few year down the line we won't be able to distinguish a Bhutanese home from a western home, we can't do it already in the urban homes. Soon our original heritage will become a piece of memory dying with the last generation or a few pages of some books written by foreign writers.

I am going do a little something to leave behind what I have in my memory in a form of a School Museum in Bajothang. All thanks to my friend Ugyen Tshering for the inspiration. I have begun a new Club called 'School Museum Club' with 22 culturally rich children. We are going to create a house of rural history in our school. We have the perfect building in the center of the campus, which carries lots of history with it to house our idea.

This will be the Museum (Click on the pic to read about it)

In few months we would have renovated the interior of the house to make it look like a typical village home and furnish it with the artifacts that we are collecting now. Our search for exhibits are devided into four categories- Kitchen, Store, Personal, and Outdoor. Four teams are on it.

Our Basic list of Exhibits (Understandable to ourselves)

We are researching and creating picture catalogue of our target collection, but some excited children already came with some interesting items. I can already see it happening. I have called my mother to help me extend my list and to gather old stuffs from my village. She is already on it just like some parents of my club members.

Collection begins...

The whole project will be executed with no fund at all. There are few things that might cost money in doing this, rest will be about passion. The house makeover might cost few thousands, for which I have word from a friend. If you wish to support us please donate old artifacts. 

I will tell you when everything is done, then bring your children over to show them our rural heritage.

A Piece of History in Bajothang

There is an old traditional house standing in Bajothang School and it seemed to have been there before the idea of school came around it. The school itself was founded in 1997 and the building looked like it was there for ages.

The old structure didn't receive any renovation and is slowly giving way to its unknown age. However, my school uses it for storage of books and sports gears, it also houses the Geography lab, and on the ground floor one huge room is used for carpentry and other equally big room is the school agriculture store.

The new developmental plan has two huge structures coming up and to create space for growing numbers of cars in our parking, school has planned to demolish the old house to expand the parking lot. Aesthetically, the building is an eyesore in the beautiful campus and I was looking forward to the change.
However, one afternoon I had a history lesson from the contractor who was building our new structures. He presented a vivid picture of Bajothang some 40 years ago, with names of people who had anything to do with the old house, as if things happened yesterday. His father was among the men who had worked here and he happened to visit the place with his father.

It was during the Third King's reign, when idea of business was farfetched to Bhutanese, that his majesty, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk ordered the construction of the house. It was intended to be the business center for the people of Wangdue, Punakha, Gasa and probably even as far as Trongsa. It was the first known shop in the entire region, and was operated by people on rotational basis. Those day, the entire Bajothang was uninhabited and it was the first and only structure standing. His Majesty instructed people to come and settle in Bajothang but people found the land infertile and not many came, just like the history of Changlimithang.
The business center was later handed over to Tencholing Army and they handled the business until the shop shifted to a new location in Tencholing, currently known as Army Canteen. The man who sustained the business and flourished was granted Royal Kasho to run the business as Army Canteen for generations to come.
After the shop was shifted to Tencholing the house in Bajothang became the center for Agriculture, from where seeds and tools were distributed to people. When the center first brought in a power-tiller and did the demo somewhere near the present football ground, the news reached far and wide. Large number of people came with packed lunches and to see the 'Iron Ox' ploughing the land. 

After hearing the story of the historical house, I went to my principal and shared it, but to my surprise he knew the history already because his brother had engineered the school back in 1997 from whom he learned. He gave me clearer details and when we were finished, the idea of demolishing the house seemed very brutal. We then discusses the possibility of converting the house into a Museum. Though the idea is wild and vague at the moment I strongly that the house deserves to stand there and tell tales of modern business in Bhutan.

***This is a weak attempt to write history, which was not written before, therefore I am in search of more information and old photographs. IF you happen to have please post them to my inbox.

The Freedom Writers Diaries- A Movie for Teachers

A blogger friend and fellow teacher, Ugyen Dechen sent me two movies. One was The Lady, biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, which Dechen reviewed in her blog last October and the other one was surprisingly The Freedom Writers. I was craving for this movie ever since some friends talked about it, and there it was in the pen drive Dechen sent me.

This is yet another movie that touched my soul. Just last month I watched The Ron Clark Story which Monu sent me, and here is another one shaping the teacher in me. The Free Writers is a 2007 American Drama adapted from the best selling book The Freedom Writers Diaries (1999) by the teacher in the story herself, Erin Gruwell.

The Real Ms Erin Gruwell- The Teacher, The Writer

She takes up the job of teaching English on Long Island at 23. She is put into a class, which is almost a war zone where children nearly of her age and a lot bigger than her size are divided by racial hatred. These children walk with guns in the pockets and bitterness in their hearts, looking for any chance to start a fight. They come from a community that is divided into gangs and has a bloody history.

The Freedom Writers Diary (The Book) How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them is a non-fiction 1999 book written by The Freedom Writers, a group of students from ...Wikipedia Published: 1999 Author: Erin Gruwell Original language: English Genre: Non-fiction Adaptations: Freedom Writers Freedom Writers (The Movie) Freedom Writers is a 2007 American drama film starring Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton and Patrick Dempsey. Wikipedia Release date: January 5, 2007 (initial release) Director: Richard LaGravenese Screenplay: Richard LaGravenese Story by: Erin Gruwell, Freedom Writers Producers: Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Danny DeVito

Our problems are nothing compared to what Ms Gruwell faces, she teaches in a classroom filled with resentments, where every careless word every minute starts up a fight. Her initial efforts to unite the divided class ends up making herself another enemy for them. The turning point in the story is a cartoon of a thick-lipped black boy passed around in the classroom that catches the attention of Ms Gruwell. Deeply saddened by the racism in the classroom she relates that cartoon with the cartoons of big-nosed Jews drawn by the biggest gang ever. She tells them about how that gang hated other races and divided countries and how that ended up in holocaust, taking away the lives of 6 million Jews.

Surprisingly, except for one, none in the huge class ever heard of the Holocaust. Ms Gruwell then goes looking for reading materials but the school denies her any book. She takes up two other part-time jobs to afford Diary of Ann Frank for her students, but in her personal life, her extra involvement with her class costs her own marriage.

The book does magic to her children, each could relate their lives to that of Anne Frank and the story made them realize how much hatred could destroy. Ms Gruwell takes her kids to the Holocaust Museum to see what Nazi and their hatred for Jews has done. She further invites Miep Gies, the lady who hid Ann Frank in her attic, to talk to her students. Lady Miep Gies shares about how she did what was right and she tells the kids that anybody can do what she has done, therefore everybody is a hero.

Ms Gruwell gives every child a notebook to start their own diary and every child writes about their lives, which is later compiled into a book by Ms Gruwell and calls it The Freedom Writers Diaries. This connected me so much to the movies because besides being a teacher I also love writing my diary. And you are reading my freedom diary.

The Real Freedom Writers

A lesson to teachers in Bhutan: We all begin our teaching lives at about the same age as Ms Erin Gruwell but we are lucky to walk in any classroom and have our students standing up in respect. She faces cynicism for her passion, she is denied of support, her successes are criticized and she is deprived of basic resources like library books, yet nothing stops her, then why should anything stop us?

Anne Frank, The book I am reading next!

Dechen blogs @ Dechen's: The World I Know, My Small World