INDIA AND PAKISTAN:
THE HISTORY BEHIND THE HEADLINES [pg 1 of 2]
WHEN CHARLES CALHOUN started planning a teacher symposium on India and Pakistan, “The History Behind the Headlines” seemed an appropriate tag line. Although the symposium was almost a year away, it was safe to assume that this volatile region would be in the news when it took place. In fact, violent attacks on Mumbai exploded into the headlines less than one week before the symposium, prompting Maine students to pepper their teachers with questions, adding urgency to the teachers’ desire to understand the region.
The fifty participants who crowded into Bowdoin’s Cram Alumni House on December 5, 2008, arrived with solid knowledge of India’s colonial past, independence movement, and postcolonial condition. They had all read Pankaj Mishra’s Temptations of the West, the book they received from the Council. Still, many admitted to staying just ahead of their students in the textbook’s South Asia unit, and almost all identified the 1982 film “Gandhi” as the major “text” in that unit. They were in familiar territory when Professor Rachel Sturman projected a slide of Gandhi wearing his famous loincloth, but she reminded them that before he ever assumed the garb of a Hindu holy man, he’d spent many years as a lawyer, dressing in Western-style suits. And then she questioned the film’s treatment of Pakistani leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a villain. His original vision of partition was peaceful and inclusive, but he died before that vision could be realized.
Professor Sturman teaches a survey course on modern South Asia at Bowdoin, but until the Council approached her about leading its teacher symposium, she had never tried to cover this immense topic in a single day. She displayed impressive stamina during her six-hour presentation. In written evaluations, teachers praised her expertise, even-handedness, and “willingness to take so many questions,” which “added a more dynamic element and showed how very knowledgeable she is.”
Midway through the day, as they waited in line for lunch, two middle-school teachers expressed their appreciation for Professor Sturman’s knowledge. “There’s only so much a seventh grade social studies textbook covers,” said Holly Groom, who teaches in Cumberland. Kathy Letsch, who reads the novel Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan with sixth graders in Whitefield, agreed. Her students can’t believe that the 13-year-old protagonist is already locked into an arranged marriage when the story begins. Letsch hoped that the insight she gained from the symposium would help her explain this character’s plight in the context of Indian culture.
“This was well worth the trip,” wrote one teacher in his evaluation—and a significant trip it was for attendees who traveled to Bowdoin from South Paris and South Berwick, Bethel and Bangor, even Presque Isle. Judson Raven and Mike Felton took the boat from Vinalhaven on the day before the program. (They would have left before dawn on the day of, but the marine forecast looked foreboding.)
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