Notes from Paatashaala session on May 5, 2007

My brief notes of the discussions on 5^th May are as follows:

Participants present for this session were Akila, Sangeetha, Naveen, M. Ramachandran, Ranjan De, Srinivasan, Nithiyanandam, Ram, Prasanna and Priya.

During the session on 5^th May, we started the discussions with Ram explaining why we at Samanvaya saw the need to initiate such a forum on education and our earlier experiences with such discussion forums.

A brief summary of the above: The education scenario is changing rapidly, what with advancements in technology resulting in access to information as never before, changes in curriculum particularly to an Indian framework, mainstream schools trying to improve and incorporate alternative methods and tools of pedagogy, while on the other end of the spectrum, we still have a large number of 8^th and 10^th std drop-outs and pathetic conditions of schools especially in the rural areas. A much smaller percentage of the school-going population actually finish 12^th. An even smaller proportion steps into and gets degrees from colleges and further. Can we critically examine education in India, and understand the issues related to it before going on to do something about it?

As most first sessions, ours meandered through a whole host of topics. Starting with each one’s experience with, and take on education led to discussions on fun and innovation in learning, different perspectives of education, happiness as the goal of life and education, education for underprivileged children, modern education system stifling, Dalit education, Connections between Geography and Tamil literature, alternative and mainstream education, schools as asylums, aspirations of the vegetable vendor, understanding schooling / learning / education, quality in education, Euro-centric perspective of our textbooks, English vs Tamil medium schools and so on.

Some initiatives in education also came to light as part of the discussion:
- Suyam’s (Chennai), who do not have the conventional classification of subjects. They have for instance, a session called Kitchen, in which students would learn language, mathematics, science, history and so on.
- The Virudhunagar Nadars and their education initiatives.
- SMILE (whose representatives, Srinivasan and Nithiyanandam, were present for the session) and its role in providing education to underprivileged children was also profiled for the group.

We also had a spontaneous learning session on puppet-making lead by Ranjan De, who conducts similar sessions regularly. We made various things with our respective paper cups once we were done with the coffee!

We were all basically trying to explore our own and each other’s perspectives and thoughts on education and related topics. Hence, it came about that it would be useful if we can each write a piece on our experience with education and learning, and through this process arrive at some basic definitions for the group.

We also decided to have an online presence for discussions and communication. You would have independently received an invitation for the group. And you are reading the blog. :) Currently, it is moderated. Please send your comments and opinions to one of the authors for them to be published on the blog.
- Priya