Wearing a salwar kameez outfit she acquired during her recent educational trip to India, Jane Dwyer, principal of the Pine Glen Elementary School in Burlington, Mass., reads Indian folk tales to the third-grade class. Photo by JULIE MASIS

BURLINGTON, Mass. — It is Friday afternoon, and boys and girls at Pine Glen Elementary School are listening to their principal read an Indian folk tale from an illustrated children's book.

The principal, Jane Dwyer, whose fingernails that day are painted purple to match the salwar kameez that was custom-made for her for $5, has recently returned from her first trip to India. She brought back postcards with tigers and two puppets from Rajastan: a man and a woman, whose facial features are outlined with black paint.

But her third graders seem more interested in the practical aspect of things.

How much do things cost in India, they want to know. How many Indian rupees can you get for a dollar? What does Indian money look like?

Dwyer agrees to bring some in to show them. 

Between the 13th and 22nd of February, she was one of 17 Boston-area public school educators who participated in a tour of India. English teachers from Brookline and Marblehead, a drama teacher from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and an art teacher from Milton came along. The tour, lead by Sharmila Sen, who has also taught South Asian literature courses at Harvard, was focused on giving teachers an opportunity to study Indian literature in India. They stayed in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and finished three novels by Indian authors, including Salman Rashdie's "Midnight's Children."

It was the first time that "Teachers as Scholars," a Newton nonprofit that organized the trip, took teachers to India, according to its director Henry Bolter — and it was also the first time in India for most of the teachers, who are now incorporating their experiences into their classrooms. 

John Andrews, a high school English teacher from Brookline, brought back ties with elephants, tea for his friends and family — and pens with mirrors and fake jewels for his students, reminiscent of Jaipur's Mogul forts with mirrored ceilings.

"They were all excited they had pens from India," he said.

Jane Dwyer, the principal of the Pine Glen Elementary School in Burlington, Mass. looks at the puppet she bought for $1 during her recent trip to India. Photo by JULIE MASIS

Next year, his 12th grade English class will read parts of Salman Rashdie's "Midnight's Children." Andrews said he will use the novel — in which the main character's life parallels the story of India — to teach his students about writing styles and the different ways to begin a story.

"It's a book I've read a few times before going on the trip, [but] I like it even more now that I've seen parts of Delhi that the book describes," he said. "[The trip] brought the book alive for me."

Monica Murray, who teaches theater at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, brought back saris and Indian fabrics for the different characters in next year's school play. Her students will stage Shakuntala, a play based on an ancient Indian folk tale,  for next winter's state high school drama competition.

"It's a story about a young queen or princess and a king from another land who meets her and they fall in love," she said. "It's an old Indian love story that goes back to antiquity."

In Milton, children at the Charles S. Pierce Middle School will learn about symmetry in architecture from studying photographs of the Taj Mahal with Karen Slodden, an art teacher who went on the trip. Slodden will also bring in some Indian textiles to show students examples of block printing — and she is helping the social studies department put together a Power Point presentation on the history of India. The department changed the curriculum this year to include Asia, she said.

Back in Burlington, Dwyer said she traveled to India because of the large and growing number of Indian students at her school — which she estimates are probably between 10 and 15 percent of the student-body.

"What really drove me there are the students in my school," she said.

On her second day back, she wore her new salwar kameez to school and the children loved it, she said.

She will continue reading Indian folk tales to her students and plans to also buy an illustrated children's book about Gandhi.

"We'll certainly talk to children about nonviolence, it's always nice when we can connect it to an individual," she said.

In the meantime, she is waiting for a student's grandmother to return from India to help her put on her new sari. And, she said, she would definitely like to go back to South Asia one day.

"I realized I really enjoyed my trip to India, but I realize what a small part of India I saw," she said.