Saratoga News

Education

Foothill students getting grand attention

By Michele Tjin

The professor faced his students and waited for a hand to go up in the air. Dressed in dark slacks, a blue vest and a blue tie with red specks, he drew diagrams on the board with arrows pointing this way and that.

"What is gravity, this mysterious force?" the professor said.

No, he wasn't trying to be poetic about science in a college auditorium. Sunthara Gnanalingam is a retired physics professor who taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, but today, he is sharing his knowledge with Sia Marks' third-grade class at Foothill Elementary School.

"I've always wanted to teach the basics of physics using experiments," he said.

He's used to teaching naval officers who are working on their master's degrees, but he easily adapted his teaching style to fit the group of students sitting cross-legged on the carpet and looking up at him.

"I usually have a lot of mathematical symbols," he said. Today, though, he relied mostly on arrows to make his point.

Gnanalingam, 82, is one of several grandparents in the Foothill community who volunteer at the school. They may be entering their twilight years, but that doesn't mean they're slowing down. The school benefits from having a few extra hands that can help out, while students learn from someone much older than they are.

"They learn to respect," said Nancy Rafati, a parent volunteer. "It's something we need to emphasize more in this society."

When Foothill parents think of grandparents on campus, they usually point to Shefali Sinha's mother and mother-in-law, who have been fixtures at school whenever they are in Saratoga. The two stay with the family for several months at a time when they visit, and they have done it all, from setting up computers to helping with crafts to doing lunch duty.

For the past five years, whenever Vidya Sinha is in town, she walks to school at 7:30 a.m. to help students get out of their cars, so the queue of vehicles lined up to drop off children moves safely and efficiently.

"I go early in the morning, and I see all the happy faces," Vidya, 65, said. "I make good use of my time. Because I walk to school, I get good exercise, too."

She formerly taught English as a second language in India, and it was very easy to get her mother involved at school, Shefali said.

"She likes Foothill as a school, and she likes the cause of education," she said.

Shefali's mother-in-law, Surya Thanawala, makes sure there is order on the playground when she has lunch duty, but the 63-year-old woman is known for single-handedly getting 20 of the school's computers in the lab ready to go. The school had received a donation of 35 computers, and Shefali had trouble finding volunteers to set up the lab, until she approached Thanawala. Plugs, power supplies, cables and software were no mystery to her.

Back in India, Thanawala ran her own business, providing lighting for special events. She said she doesn't know much about computers, but she does enjoy surfing the Internet and has an appetite for news.

"I followed [Shefali's] instructions," she said. "She told me what to do, step by step."

Shefali said her two daughters enjoy seeing their grandmas at school, and the grandmothers, likewise, welcome the chance to be there.

"They love it," Shefali said. "They're part of the community, and they do this out of the sheer goodness of their heart."

For Jeanne Davey, being a retired teacher doesn't mean she had to stop being with children. Each year for the past four years she has volunteered to put together a song and dance routine for the school's variety show. Usually, it's a scene from a Broadway musical, and this year eight children under her tutelage have been practicing The Sound of Music.

She and her crew, which includes her two granddaughters, begin rehearsing in September. On every minimum day, she invites the children to her home to play and practice. The variety show isn't until March, but she said she tries to get in as much practice so the children don't get stressed. After the variety show concludes, Davey holds a cast party with a cake and a special lunch.

"The reason why I do this is for happy memories," she said. "I want the kids to have wonderful memories whenever they hear those songs."

Davey never gets tired of children. At Harker School, where she used to teach, she put on yearly drama productions with 90 children involved, and currently, she tutors some of her former Harker students. At Foothill, the variety shows are a labor of love, but Davey said any grandparent who spends time at school would have similar feelings.

"It shows students how much they're loved, that grandparents want to spend time with them," Davey said.

Anu Arjavalingam, 9, said it was fun to have her grandfather, physics professor Gnanalingam, come to her classroom for a day.

"I'm proud," she said. "He teaches me about motors and electricity at home."

Others are just as impressed. Rafati serves on the school's Parent Teacher Association and frequently interacts with other volunteers. Seeing the older generation at work has left her inspired, she said.

"When I'm a grandmother, this is what I want to be doing," she said.