Salam to Everyone!

My name is Sharareh.  I am currently living in Kathmandu.  My mother is from Iran and my father is from Nepal.  I am a student at a Fine Arts College, and I am interested in arts education.  I have been going at least once a week to a small government school in an area of the city that is becoming an 'inner city'.  We have been working on creative arts activties. 

My main concern in terms of our education system here is the way people's creativity becomes squashed.  We teach people how to not think for themselves.  We teach people to look for their answers in other places, largely away from oneself and one's surroundings.  This is what I am facing and hoping to find ways to counter.  In terms of fahm vs. vahm, I have been trying to find some concrete examples in order to make sense of it.  This incident is what I came up with. Please let me know if I am understanding the issue correctly.

In our most recent project, the children have been working on recording their daily activities through drawing.  On this particular day, they had been doing sketches in a small notepad which they have been taking around with them. Recently, in class, I asked them to draw a map.  I had a whole cacophany of groans build in the small, crowded classroom. I was deeply amused by their reaction.  The word 'map' is 'naksa' in Nepali.  For them, the institutional meaning of 'naksa' was to draw the map of Nepal and to show how they had memorized the districts, zones, rivers, etc.  This understanding of the word, 'naksa', led to their collective declaration that I was asking them to do something 'hard', and their usual excitement when I propose something was replaced with a complete lack of enthusiasm.  I immediately clarified that we were going to be doing a completely different type of map.  I began to demonstrate a wild journey of twists and turns which take me from my home to my early morning classes in a far away city.  There were great giggles and surprised faces which breaking out in the class.  'Oh, Miss, that is easy!'  Then, industriously went to work, discussing their days with each other. 

So how does this relate to fahm vs. vahm?  It seems to me like the word for 'map' or 'naksa' was using the children instead of having them feel like they were using that word.  The reason I say this is because of the limited vision they had of a map.  Instead of seeing the word as something that they could use to help them in their everyday life or as a thought process, they saw it only in terms of the institutional meaning of the map of Nepal.  

This is a small example, but I thought I would throw it out there! 

I hope you are all well.

Sincerely,

Sharareh Bajracharya < sharareh.bajra@gmail.com >