Student Voices
Student Voices brings together some creative self-expressions and comments from First Year Hindi students at UT-Austin, that offer an insight into the impact of the inclusive Hindi project's materials and approach.
Creative Self-expressions
All creative self-expressions of student voices shared below, are done so with permission of the students to whom these voices belong.
1. सुंदरता क्या है?/sundartaa kyaa hai? (what is beauty?) by Vandana George, is a sensitive poem on societal standards of beauty seen through the eyes of a child to a young woman. Gradually as she grows, the young girl starts questioning the standards of beauty of the world she is growing up in, and as a young woman concludes, "they all are wrong, 'coz. when they are not wrong, I am not beautiful!"
A beautiful rendition of सुंदरता क्या है?/sundartaa kyaa hai? by Vandana George (in her own voice!) :
सुंदरता क्या है?/sundartaa kyaa hai? (what is beauty?) by Vandana George in her own voice
2. In his quest to figure out his identity, Edwin Grove's British Edwin and Indian Edwin have an internal dialogue, debating whether he is British or Indian. In the process, while he recognizes a bit of both in him, Edwin comes to the conclusion that due to casteism in India he does not want to be called Indian, and due to racism in England he does not want to be called British. He ends stating, he is both, Indian and British, but would like to be a world citizen.
In this cleverly debated - sometimes lighthearted - identity quest, we learn the bitter truth of caste based discrimination faced by Edwin's maternal grandfather.
Read Edwin's internal debate in his own hand:
3. मेरा नाम!/meraa naam! (my name!) Richa Gadre's short story chronicling the journey of a nameless Dalit woman, ends on a note of hope, when finally, the woman decides to name herself.
Hear the author narrate her story in her own voice:
4. Bergen Goldsmith poses the million dollar question लेकिन क्यों??/lekin kyo?? (but why??), only to conclude that perhaps Socrates was correct as "अब मुझे पता है कि मुझे कुछ नहीं पता है!"/ "ab mujhe pataa hai ki mujhe kuch nahi pataa hai!" ("now i know that i don't know anything!").
Hear Bergen's moment of enlightenment in his own voice:
Comments
Some anonymous student feedback from end of semester course surveys:
"........... I can't describe enough how much I truly appreciate the inclusion of so many inclusive options (i.e. including nonbinary terms)."
"......I enjoyed working on the caste system as it was also teaching more in-depth about culture and provided a vocabulary that was bigger than classroom discussions. Overall, ...........I am confident in my improvement from the beginning of the year to now."