Harking back to Bagmati’s glory days
“When I was around 6, I remember going to Bagmati with a pot to fetch drinking water for our family. And I used to bathe here when I was 16. The water then was so clean!” reminisces Gopal Prasad Ghimire, 80, a resident of Bhaktapur. “Now, it is so disgusting I do not even want to touch it with my feet.”
Back in 1940s, he remembers walking all the way from Bhaktapur to Pashupati to worship at the temple and just hang out with his friends. “I came here once every two days,” he recalls. Vehicles were extremely rare at the time, and Ghimire would rush to the road to see if one zoomed by. On foot, it took him an hour to reach Pashupatinath temple. “I used to gather 4-5 friends and we used to start at 4 am from Bhaktapur. We would be home by 8 am. Now, I try to come here once a month.”
Kancha Shrestha, 72, who is originally from Ramechhap, migrated to Kathmandu in 1960. “At that time we used to wash our clothes using cooked ash mixed with water and take bath using red clay on the banks of Bagmati. Soaps were not available. Our clothes were clay dyed if we wanted some color in our clothing,” he says, remembering the “simpler times”.
But, in recent times, unregulated ground water extraction for industrial and domestic purposes, along with unchecked waste disposal along the river bank, has greatly polluted the water of Bagmati. It has become unfit for human use and inimical for the survival of aquatic plants and animals.
But there have of late also been some laudable clean-up efforts. With the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), local community clubs around Pashupati area are making an effort to clean up the sacred river. ADB’s ‘Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project’ focuses on better water resources management at the Bagmati River Basin. According to an ADB report, projected improvements include “an upstream water storage dam system to increase the river flow in the dry season and riverbed oxygenation weirs”.
The Department of Irrigation has initiated the construction of a 24-meter high dam in Dhap area of Shivapuri. This dam is being constructed at the headwater of the Nagmati River, a tributary of the Bagmati River, in the Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
One community club involved in clean-up efforts of Bagmati in order to restore its recreational and cultural importance is the Nawa Amarkanteshor Youth Club-Pashupati.
Treasurer of the club, Pralhad Lama, 29, says he grew up in the Pashupati area. Now he is a resident of the area around Guhyeshwari temple, a kilometer east of the Pashupatinath temple. “It was so clean before. Forget octogenarians! Even I remember swimming, taking bath and washing clothes in Bagmati. Now, there is no water to swim, just sewage.”
But Lama says the condition is improving, “at least here in the Pashupati area due to our weekly cleaning efforts.” Lama’s club is involved in cleaning up the stretch of the river around Pashupati. (Other such clubs have the responsibility to clean up other sections of the river.)
He grieves that even though there are fines for polluting Bagmati, some people still sneak at night to dump their waste into the river. “We need to somehow stop those polluting the river. Only then will the river become cleaner,” he says.
Seasons of Nepal
Nepal has six seasons of weather. Do you need me to list them out? No, because Google is your friend right? Anyway, despite the fact it would appear the weather got stuck in shishir (winter) this year, we enjoy many other seasons too. I’m sure we all remember the bandh season. An annual occurrence, usually around grishma (early summer), when the temperature begins to soar, literally as well as figuratively. Then there is the wedding season, or should I say, seasons—because there are more than one in a calendar year. We are now entering the ‘traditional festival’ season. Or did it start with Shivaratri? This stretches till the monsoon hits and then reappears at Dashain, plunging us again into weeks of eating, drinking and celebrating.
In more recent times Nepal has managed to successfully integrate several festivals from around the world—Christmas, the Gregorian New Year, and some which are not even festivals—Valentine’s, Halloween, etc. One festival that hasn’t made it to Nepal is Easter—not entirely sure why. Bunny rabbits and chocolate eggs have overtaken the religious meaning, so what’s not to love? These ‘imported’ festivals seem to be geared more towards the young, and the young-at-heart. But it’s the restaurants, bars and hotels that really put their heart and soul into the festivities. And money into their cash registers! On the other hand, ‘traditional festival season’ brings traffic jams and delays. The roads of Kathmandu were not built for wooden chariots AND cars. Plus, the low-hanging wires were not there when the original two- or three-story high chariots came into existence.
I’m usually at a loss trying to keep up with the festivals—those red days on the Nepali calendar do not really help me, a non-Nepali speaker, much. I often don’t know it is a festival until I go outside to discover the larger shops are closed and, damn it, so is the bank!
Then there is the addition of music, art, dance, film, and theater festivals, all designed to keep our social diary full of cool stuff. It’s easy to miss something really interesting in the flurry of ‘red calendar days’ or Facebook event invites. It seems the local communities have also discovered this is a way to bring people to their area, and teach us something about their culture. Recently there was a Kirtipur Woman’s Festival showcasing the traditional culture of that town, with particular focus on the role women play.
There is an interesting photo exhibition on Panaulti (a small Newari town near Dhulikhel which should not be missed), an annual event called Echoes in the Valley, which highlights traditional music from the Kathmandu Valley—and there is so much more to see, visit and do. One begins to realize the reason behind things being a bit slow and unplanned. Why the person you want to see is not at his desk (his deity is being celebrated at home perhaps?), and the reason why art of every genre exists in abundance in Nepal. My only real complaint here is—I have to work. So I miss many of the festivities, even if I do spot them on the calendar. Like many in Kathmandu, I find the old (read festivals) and the new (read 9 to 5 jobs) do not sit well together. Traditional festivals were arranged around the agricultural seasons so as to not interfere with working the land. Who the hell invented this 9 to 5 stuff anyway?
Meantime, although we are witnessing climate change ‘as it happens’, and we may lose some of the six weather seasons, let’s hope the festive seasons of Nepal continue to enlighten, entertain and ground us for many years to come. With that I’m off to the Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival. Today is a ‘traditional’ festival day after all, and my office is closed!
19 things teachers can do in 2019, Part II
Dear teachers,
In this second part of our article-series, we share three more research-based ideas that can significantly increase our teaching efficacy and eventually help students improve their learning. Please reflect on them and think about how you can adapt these ideas to your context.
Practice the eight-second rule of silence
Will you be surprised if we say that teachers, on average, reply to their own questions within one second of asking them? We realized this after listening to an episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
This is what teachers usually do in the classroom.
Step 1: They ask a question.
Step 2: Students don’t/can’t answer it right away.
Step 3: They answer the question within one second.
That can’t be true, we thought. So the next day, we tried to see if it’s real. One of us stayed as an observer and checked the pattern of classroom interaction. Apparently, teachers can’t keep their mouths shut.
We expect students to raise their hands right away, but when they don’t respond, the silence fills our mind with doubts. Maybe I didn’t teach them effectively and therefore they can’t answer even simple questions. Maybe these students are stupid. With longer silence, that doubt grows and we start questioning our teaching efficacy. Maybe I couldn’t make them understand.
Here’s one way to embrace silence.
- Throw a question at the students and stop speaking.
- Wait for at least eight seconds. Or even 15 seconds sometimes.
- Hold that urge to open your mouth (and hope at least one student will respond).
And, when a student starts to respond, just listen. Don’t interrupt. After the student is done, regardless of the answer, acknowledge his/her attempt right away.
This way, when they see you allowing them time—letting them make mistakes and validating their attempt—they will trust you.
Observe—be observed
Have you ever asked your colleague, “Hey, can I come and observe your class?” If you have, you might have given him/her a minor heart attack. For two reasons.
First, most teachers have been working in isolation, probably because everyone’s overburdened with extra classes and duties beyond the class.
Second, observation has got a bad reputation because it is usually seen and used as a punitive measure against non-performing teachers.
But what if teachers could manage time to observe, share feedback, and learn from each other? Why? Because, teacher-observation is one of the most effective ways of professional development and it can have an immediate result. (We’re citing John Hattie’s Visible Learning, again.)
Here’s how teachers can implement this:
- Start with a teacher whom the students admire.
- Ask him/her that you want to observe and learn.
- Develop a system for documenting the process. Video, audio, or plain old note-taking.
- Have a pre-class discussion on what you want to focus on, and a post-class reflection on what you observed.
- Build on it.
Or ask someone to observe your class. Tell him/her that you want to improve, for example, your delivery skills and thus would love to get constructive feedback. (People love giving feedback, so finding an observer for your class could be easier.)
Even Bill Gates is a proponent of this idea. He says, “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve”. Watch his Ted Talk titled Teachers Need Real Feedback.
Retrieve, not review
“Alright students, here’s what we did in the last class. We did this, we did that. Today, we’re going to build on that concept.”
“Alright students, we learnt a new concept in the last class. Now, without going through your notes or books, please write down three things you remember about this new concept. And today, we’ll build more on the concept.”
There’s a small but significant difference in these two opening methods.
Of course, the first one allows students to recap the previous lesson. But not the negative side. As you must have noticed, the teacher is the one doing the recap, not the students.
The second method assigns the responsibility to the students. It demands that the students jolt their memory and pull the things out. It gives the students a chance to assess their learning and break their “fluency-illusion”, to borrow a phrase from Benedict Carey (How We Learn).
In theory, the second method allows the students to perform retrieval-practice, a simple method of taking the information out from their memory once the learning has been completed.
In the last few years, there has been a lot of work on retrieval-practice and how it helps students learn better in the long run. We can incorporate this idea in many ways—a short quiz to start the class, giving low-stake multiple-choice questions in between lessons, asking students to share what they learnt two weeks back, etc.
Please check out the work of Robert Bjork. His theory of ‘Input less, Output more’ has changed the way we look at teaching and learning. And, visit the website www.retrievalpractice.org for numerous practical ways to incorporate this idea in your teaching methods.
Umes Shrestha
Udgum Khadka
(Both writers work at King’s College and conduct workshops for teachers through Empowerment Academy)
Also read
Creating Nepal’s own brand of orchestra music
In Nepal, traditional folk music still sells the best. Post-modern genres like pop, rock and hip-hop are fast catching up. In this climate, Western classical music seems to have limited scope. There are enough students learning to play violins, violas and pianos yet the opportunities for them to showcase their skills are few and far between. They are limited to performing on small stages and quiet venues in duos, trios, quartets or even quintets but a concert for a full-fledged chamber orchestra is a rare occasion.
The Annapurna Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble of talented and experienced musicians playing different instruments that is trying to change the orchestra scene of Nepal by organizing shows and giving platforms to young musicians. Led by Rajkumar Shrestha, a veteran musician and music instructor who is also the director and conductor of the orchestra, the orchestra has around 40 members in its senior team and 30 in its junior ensemble.
Internationally, a chamber orchestra is considered a small orchestra with from 30-40 instrumentalists playing together, but in Nepal, seeing so many musicians perform on stage at the same time is a unique sight. Founded in 2014, the orchestra has been performing at different venues in the country and is in the final phase of its registration as a non-profit.
“Our goal is to give our students a platform to perform on stage and at the same time create a written archive of Nepali music”
Rajkumar Shrestha, Director and conductor, The Annapurna Chamber Orchestra
“Our goal is to give our students a platform to perform on stage and at the same time create a written archive of Nepali music,” informs Shrestha, 59, who has been a musician and music instructor for over three decades now. Shrestha adds that the orchestration of old Nepali music will create a timeless history and the scores produced in the process can in the future be performed by all musicians who can sight-read and play music.
Shrestha’s students and also the founding members of the orchestra—Yogesh Dagoriya, 33, and Sudhakar Wosti, 37—agree. “Our students are thrilled when we give them the opportunity to perform for an audience as it helps them enhance their skills,” says Dagoriya. Adds Wosti: “We can also create more interest in the audience by orchestrating Nepali music and showing them that Nepali music can also be performed on classical Western instruments.”
The orchestra, its members inform, is an ensemble of three divisions of violin, as well as cello, double bass, woodwind section, brass section, along with the traditional sitar and madal. More than limiting itself to paying classical canons as orchestras abroad do, the Annapurna Chamber Orchestra looks to blend a bit of Eastern music to create interesting music for Nepali audiences and foreigners alike.
The senior orchestra consists of prolific musicians aged 10-50 (skill has got nothing to do with age here) while the junior orchestra has students aged 7-15 years perform together. All the orchestra performers learn and practice their parts on their own and meet occasionally to rehearse the whole set.
“Lack of proper space is our biggest problem,” Shrestha says. “We sometimes have to practice in a group of 40 and finding a hall big enough to accommodate us is difficult.” The orchestra, being a non-profit, also suffers from lack of funds. “But we have been able to get along with the help of our friends and well-wishers,” he adds. “My friend Jayadev Krishna Shrestha has been our biggest patron yet and with his support, we have been able to organize rehearsal sessions and concerts.”
The orchestra is all set to perform at the Rastriya Nacchghar, Jamal on April 14 which is the Nepali New Year’s day. The free concert will have both the junior and senior ensembles performing orchestrated arrangements of classic Nepali patriotic songs. (We have a short video with the article to give our audience a feel of what to expect.)
