Project Overview

“Every Face Has a Story” was the final product of the 7th grade learning expedition “Who is a Gurgaonean?” which was team-taught by all subject teachers at the Heritage International Experiential Learning school located in Gurgaon, Delhi National Capital Region, India. There were several themes woven together to form the compelling topics at the heart of the learning expedition. PARI’s journalistic work In India is driven by a mission to tell the untold and undocumented stories of many of India’s marginalized or forgotten segments of the population.

The core research experience was the intense fieldwork where students spread out across the city of Gurgaon, in small groups, entering spaces and talking to people from all different backgrounds whom they never would not have typically interacted with in such a meaningful way. Students conducted multiple interviews, took photographs of their subjects surrounding environments, and created a black-and-white portrait of each interview subject. In our revelations and debriefs after fieldwork, again and again students shared that they would “never be able to look at (group of people) the same way again.”

This project certainly produced high levels of achievement in all three of EL dimensions of student achievement. However, the character growth in students was truly awe inspiring. Please take a moment to read the student reflections on page of the book to get a sense of this.