Notes from 2nd July 2007 session

Participants: Chitra Nagesh, Sumitra, Ranjan De, Prasanna, Karuna, Sangeetha, Priya, Ram, Akila, Shuba, Giridhar, Dr. Saraswathi

Note: The two primary areas for this session were social sciences textbook review by Chitra Nagesh and a briefing of the multiversity initiative of redesigning social sciences curriculum at the university level, by Ram.

Introduction to Samanvaya and the Paatashaala initiative was given by Ram.

Sumitra’s question at the end of the introduction was that these are all very new and different things and how do people accept new and different things. Some amount of discussion and Ram’s response was that there are neither ready-made problems nor ready-made solutions, so we have to go with new and different.

A free-flow discussion followed from the introduction and centered around the condition of schools today and activity based learning methods as well. One of the opinions from the people working with schools, children (Ranjan, Giridhar) was that activity is taken up as an independent thing to be done, but not understood as to how learning can happen and happens through this activity. Ranjan is now actively working with the deployment of the ABL method at different levels of the government hierarchy and shared his experiences with the teachers.

A theme which took up considerable energy and time in spurts through out the session - was parents’, their attitude, values and how they view school. Some felt that parents must take part in the education of the child and with school activities and others that this must not be so since they go by media and “expert”-touted trends which actually hamper the child’s learning. Parents push their children in to various classes so that they are ‘all-rounders’ but ultimately leave the latter with no time to just be. They also play an important part in conditioning children to look towards education as a tool for employment and higher paying jobs. However, this issue has many connected aspects that needed deeper analysis, and many were unwilling to slap a value judgment on this. Shuba expressed the quintessential conflict of the parent, that “I know it is wrong, but I am still pushing them into it” (where the ‘it’ may be many things including school, numerous classes, the rat race, value of consumerism… in the context of this discussion). Other related topics that came up were choice of schools and how parents decide which school they must put their children in, who are role models – teachers and parents as role models, values today (it has become a matter of pride that “my child earns as her first salary what I took home at retirement”), career options and how parents completely impose or take over the decision many a time.

Mrs. Chitra Nagesh reviewed the class XI social sciences textbook as a sample of the changes that have come about in content and presentation, according to the national curriculum draft 2005. Some of the points raised by her and discussed are :
- too much material and too exhaustive, swamping the child and leaving no motivation to explore on her own,
- something should be left for the respective imagination and individuality of the teacher and children. Everything is given, and nothing to tease the child’s curiosity and incite her to explore further.
- however good the textbooks may be (if they are), ultimately all schools are exam-oriented and hence the result may not be unlike what has always happened – cramming and hurrying to finish portions, mugging answers etc. Infact the tension and stress on both teacher and child would be much more because of the increase in material and the information overload
- the text material does not have a natural flow from the earlier standard

A discussion here on rote learning and repetition and whether this is healthy. The two almost-opposing perspectives were that nothing stays until it is done with understanding, hence rote learning should not be encouraged at all, and that there are some things that are learnt by repetition and it is good for this to happen, for instance, multiplication tables – this is not to say that understanding should not be facilitated. A linked subject was that of discipline and process of discipline - should it be enforced sometimes, all the time or not at all, will it be effective only when it comes from within, but should this be taught, how will a child know discipline, is it that discipline is a corollary to interest and enthusiasm, then how can pursuit of interest and passion juxtaposed with what needs to be done for a particular situation, be balanced… As several other discussions, no definite conclusions were drawn.

Other discussions pertaining to the textbook review
How many teachers would actually get the time to work with so much material and give it their best? Also, all this material is today available over the internet. What is the purpose of the textbook? There was also a thought that it will take a few years, but if we keep working with the change process, better things will come. At least where there was nothing, there is a change process that has started. The teachers have to be better oriented, with more practice, and even other changes to the content itself. A question that was raised was whether teachers were included in the national curriculum draft process. And any rural teachers, at that? Any teachers from south India?

Regarding exams, a question that came up was, should open book exams be taken up or no exams at all for these textbooks re-orientation to make an impact? Another reasoning was that the approach to the book was more important than the information overload, but then how many teachers would actually read the introduction and preface section, which explains the approach, and actively practice and internalize it? The approach cannot be forced. Ram’s take was that the person who wrote the preface was a visionary and would probably not have done the actual work on the textbook which is a whole lot of graphic-rich information taken from the internet

A summary by Mrs. Chitra is also uploaded into the online group space as a pointer for reflection and further discussion.

Miscellaneous related discussions
Creativity is lost. Educational institutions have become sorting machines and so this has an impact on the choice of parents. Students coming out of a particular school or college are in a certain way or have a certain label.

Thinking for oneself doesn’t happen for an individual suddenly in 10th std, this quality in the child’s nature has to be encouraged right from the start.
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Redesigning university social sciences curriculum
Ram’s Introduction: This particular initiative is still more in the minds of the people working with it than ready tangible output and deliverables.

Many groups are wanting to come out of a colonial mindset and chalk out fresh paths of study and exploration that come from their own culture and strength. Today, much of what we read and write has the “hangover of the Raj”. Multiversity was born out of a complete rejection of this. In the social sciences, which define “identity”, there has been no larger movement for such a process. We have largely a colonial identity as far as academia or formal education is concerned. And this slowly percolates into other areas. Anthropology is the study of the brown or black man by the white man. The base of such a colonial study is that the brown man is a heathen. And he needs to be educated. There could be a science, knowledge, a culture that is his, is completely unacceptable and systematically negated. So, today an astronomist who wants to understand astrophysics in India – where does he go to access this science here?

For instance, there are traditional boat builders in Ramnad, who are fast becoming an extinct community, who built boats with such precision and knowledge that the earliest repair to one of their boats is at the end of 8 years of use. But where is his science if someone wants to understand. This initiative is to bring these different things available today together as a curriculum. This entire problem of schooling content could be solved if we look at this curriculum approach.

The Rush for 'Professional Courses' at all cost!?!

Akila Writes:

It so happens that at this point of time i have 5 youngsters in the immediate family circle who have completed their plus 2 this year. Let me start with good things first. My niece no.1, is a parent's dream of a child - Attitude-wise and performance-wise. Her parents were cool and confident that they wouldn't have to go rushing after management quotas. They were right, she's scored 97% and can get through comfortably.

The second of my nieces is a severly traumatised girl, because of a very unreasonable parent who made life living hell for everyone in the family. None of us even consider her a normal child, but she's gotten through with 87% which is amazing, given her circumstances. I am yet to know what will happen to her and can only keep my fingers crossed that she isn't forced willy nilly into something that someone with no knowledge of today's world forces on her.

the third girl is a doctor's daughter whose parents were on the wall about management seats, but i don't know what happened now, cos they're hotfooting it to negotiate for a medical seat which has been pulled down from 25 lakhs to 20 lakhs now.

the fourth is a nephew who after 14 years of lack lustre living suddenly became conscientious about his life . before writing his exams he gave his parents to understand that he is the latest wonder in nature, but after his exams he said maybe they had better book a seat in the management quota. Having talked nanotechnology non stop, he insisted on bio-techonology from a particular institute and got his parents to spend 9 lakhs on a seat which they believed was money worth investing until his results came today and he's just scraped through in all the major subjects. He has not even done biology in his 11th and 12th.

The last is a nephew whose parents paid 3 lakhs for a EEE seat in a college far far away from home, because the ones closer home insisted on 80% of marks and said they would refund the donation otherwise, even though they demanded much less than what his parents ended up paying.

What prompted me to record all this is this:

The unquestioning readiness with which the parents of the non-performing kids sprang into action and started working out a solution for their seats. What makes the Indian parent think that he must dump all his life's savings on someone who doesn't deserve it in anyway? Is there no right and wrong about it?

What makes the kid accept a largesse like this as his birthright? Is this how he is conditioned to think that he will and must always receive a free lunch?

I dont' even want to talk about the inequality of those whose parents cannot afford such expensive gifts of life? But what kind of a society are we if we always give money the power to overcome incompetence?

(I am posting this for Akila who has sent me this write-up, hopefully, she will start her own posts soon)