McLoud Ganj

The Tibetan people have come together here and are working hard to preserve their culture. One main way that they are doing this is through the schools.I had the privilege to visit and volunteer at Yongling Creche and Kindergarten. This school has been around for the last 25 years and is for children one and a half to six years old. At the school, the children learn English, Tibetan and math.
When I helped out in the classroom, the students were practicing their printing, both of English letters and numbers. While their I realized again, that teaching is what I want to do with my life. I was working with this little girl on writing the letter "b". At first she was having problems, but I helped her and she started getting it. I left her to go and help some of the other children. Then she grabbed my attention to show me her latest "b". It was beautiful. I was so happy for her. Those moments are what I want to spend the rest of my life working for. Another amazing thing for me to think about, is how much you can communicate with someone, even though you speak two different languages.
At the school, they end the day by singing Tibetan songs. This is one of the ways that they keep their culture alive. The teacher sang a line of the song, and then the children sang the line back to her. Even though I didn't understand it, I joined in with the children.
After the children graduate from the Yonglin Creche and Kindergarten, most go on to the TCV (Tibetan Children's Villages) school. There they have grades one through five, after which they move on to the upper TCV school. Sadly I didn't get to spend much time at the TCV school, but I did find that they are keeping their culture alive by teaching in Tibetan, except for English class, and have song spirit once a week where they learn Tibetan songs. The students also have art once a week, but the students are too young to do traditional Tibetan art. However at the upper TCV where they have older students, they teach traditional Tibetan art.