We intended to do clay modelling today at the center and we had an art teacher come in. The art teacher is from the community and has worked with both the Kannada and Urdu medium schools. I had talked extensively with the art teacher multiple times about what we’re doing and how we plan to go about it. The art teacher too shared his experience about working in these schools and gave the air of knowing how to work with these children. He was not exactly open to trying what we had in mind. He was telling me how the children at the Urdu medium school were a lot worse and that these children would listen to him. The art teacher spent some time making the clay for the modelling to happen. He engaged some of the children and took their help to make it happen. He also wanted to send one of the boys close to his house to bring an empty sack to place things on. When Venkatesh offered to get it by bike he insisted on having the learners do it. I have noticed that most of the members in the community tend to treat children as someone subservient. The art teacher wanted us to have a dialogue with all the children to explain the benefits of clay modelling. To achieve this we gathered all the children around and honestly I was a bit disappointed in the way this ended up becoming a classroom style session. The teacher made it clear that he was a master and was quite didactic. Very often he would seek my help to quieten the children so he could continue. Some children too asked me to raise my voice and shout so that the art teacher could do his thing. The influence of the education system is very strong and it is clear that when there is someone from that world, the children and facilitators do change to match them. I was quite disappointed that some children wanted me to ask my mother or Venkatesh to shout and quieten the children down.  Clay modelling started with an instruction on how to make a Ganesha. I tried to talk to the art teacher to do something more inclusive but he told me how he had done this in the Urdu medium school. He was also intent about telling the children about Ganesha and saying how it was important everyone knew. I was quite disappointed in this but also wanted to give him the freedom.  I made sure the art teacher spoke in both Hindi and Kannada but he was not keen on being inclusive. He was convinced that they could all speak Kannada and they were just acting. Luckily I pushed the issue and the teacher took my concern seriously. Later on however he was telling me how in other states everyone spoke the language of the state but in Karnataka that didn’t happen. He believed that if everyone spoke Kannada they would be more disciplined. After the Ganesha there was once again chaos and I noticed one of the facilitators got angry at the children. Earlier I too had tried and failed to settle things down. Seeing an outsider get worked up clearly changes facilitators as well. We felt the urge for the children to settle down rather than putting the onus on the art teacher to be more engaging. Being over didactic and boring clearly took the learners interest away. When the clay modelling itself was happening, the learners were quite interested and participating. For the second piece I asked the art teacher to allow the children to make whatever they wanted. The teacher insisted that they would waste all the clay and ended up having the children make a bird. Once again I wish I had put my foot down but it was a difficult situation to work with. I definitely need to be more okay with putting myself in uncomfortable situations and stand up for the children. We can’t just call ourselves learner centric but need to show it as well. It is going to be a challenge integrating outsiders while retaining our core values. I had expected the norms of the center to take precedence but clearly outside influences are strong. I myself struggled to be the voice for the learners.  I would say however that while I’m being somewhat over critical, the children thoroughly enjoyed doing the clay modelling. The art teacher while not entirely conforming to our center norms did end up making a lot happen. For the most part he kept the learners’ interest and 30-40 learners ended up making things with the clay he had brought. Clay modelling is an inherently fun activity and I feel we should make this happen more as well but with more freedom for the learners.