I was going through some of the older mails and I came across this mail to Prayas group in response to a very serious discussion going on at that time. I think this was my original and consolidated thought and I want to share it now.
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In our last meeting, I said that we need to observe the failure reasons of our common schooling system FIRST as it is not the case of only 10-15 kids of Evening school of IIT or 400-500 kids of Opportunity school or some thousand students of Kanpur or few crore students of India. It is a common phenomena through which every single child goes through. Now is it the appropriate process, is it the right methodology through which 80% of them are going through or rest have no access even to that. It may appeal sound or even more demanding, more challenging to deal with underprivileged children or migrant labour children or handicapped children, but would that serve any purpose to the common phenomena. What I mean, is that whenever any of us go to any Juggi or any village or railway station or MT section or canteen or just pass through GT Road, definitely observe the pity situation around. You go to any school, you observe the lack of understanding about the whole learning process. Hardly few teachers know the pulse of learning.
Now the pulse in itself includes so many things that people may dedicate themselves to explore the things within. But some of the major techniques, which have come out from the last researches need to be quoted here.
Child psychology, free discipline, rooted curriculum, parental awareness, effects of punishment / awards on child’s growth, interactive education concepts are some of the major findings which require our attention at this stage. ( By ‘at this stage’ I mean the stage when we have got enough exposure to nearby schooling system and can comment on it without having any biases to anything) .Right now we are good in number and our team is motivated enough to try out some alternative solutions, so my proposal is to take these abovementioned points into considerations.
Suppose we find that the situation of
Since most of the children in villages and even in city, are attached to the government schools, we should think of some solutions in context of government schools. We would have to work hard to prevent migration from villages to small cities, from small cities to big cities, and from big cities to foreign countries. That is one of the areas, some of the educationists in our country are working on. They call it ‘Rooted education phenomena’. We would have to come out with a good number of good citizens for our social growth. Right now we are even not in the condition to think some alternatives to be implemented. Because our power structure does not allow it. That’s why few of the activists force on power politics. It is very true that we need to have power for implementing the alternative educational / learning system at mass scale, given the assumption that we will achieve alternative education system before alternative power structure. But where is the alternative?
We always talk of doing good for a smaller section. We don’t talk about its generalization. I think that we are not estimating ourselves judiciously. This is the time and we are the people, who have to bring out the alternative system. We have to come out a better learning process for a child, for a youngster, for an adult and for everybody else around.
We would have to do enough experimentation with every kind of children, with every kind of parents, with every kind of activists, with politicians, with educationists, with the curriculum and what not. At this time we can not concentrate only on a smaller section, we need to write down our views. We need to supplement ourselves with the better techniques of learning. People are even thinking of ‘No Schooling’ concept. We need to understand why they are saying so and what is the alternative offered. What are the different practices of learning everywhere in the world? What ‘John Holt’ has to say on ‘Child Psychology’? What ‘Giju Bhai Badheka’ has to say on ‘Child Psychology in Indian context’ ? What ‘Gandhi’ and ‘Ravindra Nath Tagore’ has said about the educational structure in
What really these ngos are working on? Vivekanand put the point of ‘Education for all’. But is this the education,we want to offer to our further generations? Definitely there is a need of Quality Improvement. There are government schemes, there are NGOs working on these issues. But we would have to make some rational judgements before going into actions.
How we can start ? (A possibility)
- study circle on education
- visit to govt. schools
- talking to parents
- start an vocational training center
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6 comments:
I'm very curious to know when was this mail you have posted was written? I guess we had some of these questions coming up more than once, in many different forms in discussions in prayas/individual talks.
I would just like to point out a few things which I felt were important to consider while reading your mail:
- One has to specify and differentiate different processes involved in 'child development'. I use the later term because you talk about child labor, migrant labor children, education and national growth, to name a few. Now, first one has to clearly state its goal. Are we talking about improving the general condition of children all around the country or are we talking about giving them all formal schooling (note: i didn't use the term education here)? Why is this distinction important? Though it might seem that if we manage to provide formal education to kids we are in a way improving their quality of life. But I beg to differ. Is it necessary that a village boy who has enough skills do all sorts of work available and find means of living there itself, should be subjected to the formal schooling which would deprive him of acquiring the above mentioned skills and require him to find work in urban settings? Hence, my point is simply not to confuse pity situation of kids with lack of education.
- If we have two problems now: 1) very poor standard of living
2) lack of formal education; we need to tackle them separately. Child labour in itself is a well debated issue. A child who labors in factory is often called child labor, while the child who spends his entire day in field taking care of his flock of animals is not a child labor. I understand the difference b/w the two situations, but what i am trying to say is just that it is important that before we start looking for answers, we analyze the problem again and justify to ourselves why we think it is a problem at all. If we are living with assumptions that going to the school is the best possibility for children, we need to realize that this is a hidden assumption behind all our reasoning.
-On a personal note, even after reading and discussing all those great thinkings and philosophies, one may not reach any conclusive end. I mean before we start reading anything, we need to have some concrete questions with us. What is it that we are looking for. Though I see there are many things that "disturb" you and make you think, you don't have any concrete questions. There are no whys, hows here. It is more like a obligation to see something closely when you can't observe it very well from a distance. As soon as you have observed the pattern closely, you are now left more confused and without any insights. You don't know how or why that pattern exists. You don't know why you are standing there observing that pattern. I personally believe, the most important question is the last one. What is your role in the whole scenario?
There is one more thing I would like to add regarding the 'power politics' and the 'alternatives'. One can not hope to get the most robust alternative 'in air'. Beyond a point you just have to have access to schools, and be able to refine your ideas.
And if you ask me, there is enough understanding amongst a lot of people who have done some field work to that extent.
The so called 'power politics' is a more critical bottleneck in my opinion.
@anu:
I too feel that the role in the scenerio is the critical point. I am trying to figure it out. But I thnk u will never find a perfect role, so u wud have to start from somewhere and then refine the role in real time.
@vaiby:
I didn't get this point: "Beyond a point you just have to have access to schools, and be able to refine your ideas." and otherwise if u find power politics is the bollteneck and people have enough understanding who have gone thru some feild work too, why does not it appear at little large scale. I agree with u at some point. but still I don't feel confidence ki power politics ka constraint nahi ho to people will be able to manage.and that's what APS or Rahul (and at least DS)has been saying that even communists don't have their ready alternatives.
I think what Vaibhav means is that in terms of educational research (pedagogical/curriculum/etc etc) we have enough thinking minds and people with experience. But we still don't see large scale impact because of 'power politics'.
I have my doubts regarding the same, because there are too many private schools at a large scale in the country as of now - both feeding to urban elite, or like the ones in which prayas kids go. But still, we don't see any educational reform in these schools either?! We do see a few urban elite schools trying to follow progressive ed. style, but the curriculum or pedagogical practices don't trickle downwards. Why is that? Ofcourse, money is a major source to power and hence we can in a way say its again a game of power politics. But then that could be the solution as well. If we can have such organizations which can build a model that caters to all private schools belonging to different sections of the society, giving them similar progressive educational help, independent and politically free in its working - we have utopia! don't u think so?
But how can we achieve that - is the question.
@all
oops! sorry, didn't check back the blog since a few days.
Regarding 'power politics' I basically said what Anu interpreted. I do have a feeling that it is what is the more critical of the things.
First to answer Himanshu, yes no one has complete solutions, forget the communists. But how far can we go without having access? Without - say - the possibility of removing a certain kind of examinations and a certain kind of textbooks?
The example I had in particular in mind was Eklavya. Regarding science teaching in least, they had moved a lot forward because they had a certain kind of space in the setup. The space gone, there is more than immense limitation.
To answer Anu.
"We do see a few urban elite schools trying to follow progressive ed. style, but the curriculum or pedagogical practices don't trickle downwards. Why is that?"
Why is that, is exactly the question. I think the volunteers in Prayas were bottlenecked, apart from the personal capacity (an individual can do as much!) by the fact that children had to conform to certain curriculum. Certain expectations from parents. And that in a setup in which they can be provided with only a "disjointed" exposure. (Disjointed meaning, disjointed from their real experiences. You can teach them the most advanced and exciting (to us) ideas, they have only as much possibility of relating to it after all).
Add to it the "politics" of voluntary activity. Did children/parents had the right to assert themselves in the process? May be you thing it doesn't matter, beyond a point it certainly matters only as much, but then it does.
Coming to the so called middle class setups, I guess both Himanshu and I have gone through a process facing extreme expections. Success in JEE, Medicals, or Boards is what a school must produce to convince wards as much as children. Is it not to a large extent a product of uncertainty that surrounds us, the middle class, caused, at least in part, by the visibly humongous rifts in the society? Had we not been doing engineering, we could have been facing significantly worse conditions - We all do have friends having passed through such situations ... this in spite of the IT industry that has absorbed a lot at significant income levels.
Perhaps it is the reason why urban elite schools find it simplest to break away from the traditions and move towards newer methods. The parents must find it more comfirtable to experiment, less "risky".
But in any setup, they too have to be, at least marginally, constrained by the surroundings. As they visibly are.
"If we can have such organizations which can build a model that caters to all private schools belonging to different sections of the society, giving them similar progressive educational help, independent and politically free in its working - we have utopia! don't u think so?"
Let me slightly change your question a bit.
Remove the word "private", was it needed?
And "politically free". That is just too dicy. What is "politically free"?
But perhaps we only differ on the meaning of the word "politics". You perhaps mean the interference of the political kind - that is done in the interest of power, and power politics. That is intended to work against the rational judgments. Judgments that were made in the interest of many over a few. There we agree.
(note the statement: 'interest of many', to me, it is politics. Of a certain kind.)
You know what, such a body was conceived since long ago. If you read the articles from time of freedom struggle it is usually referred to as the "welfare state".
That refers to the government.
Thanks Himanshu, Vaibhav and Anu for providing me half an hour of compulsive reading. I am sure the 'debate' would not have ended here. May be you guys felt blog/writing was not the best way out. In any case, THANK YOU.
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