ABL - How's and What's - 12 January 2008

Participants: Vijaya, Alexander, Ranjan De, Amukta Mahapatra, Dr. L.S. Saraswathi, Reineke, Melinda, Subha, Atmapraana Amba, Nishkaamya Praana, Nidosha Praana, Ram, Priya

Note: Amukta joined the Paatashaala session to talk about how ABL works, the philosophy and methods of ABL and how they developed it.

A summary of Ms. Amukta Mahapatra’s talk and discussions
Amukta started the discussion by saying that why ABL was conceptualised and introduced is more important than the genesis itself. The problems that were identified by the government were many and ABL came as one way to tackle some of these problems.

The primary problems were that children were not learning and there was only a one point source of teaching – the teacher. In the class room the children were just obedient or not; nothing else defined them within the classroom – many problems were identified with the classroom processes. ABL was introduced as the solution and it has achieved a couple of things in the last 5-6 years since it has been brought in –

- It has succeeded in changing the geography of the class room

- Children can do things on their own. Teacher is not the only resource in the classroom

- It has helped the teachers re-look at their own roles in the classroom

ABL has opened up methodologies and ideas. For example, instead of the conventional class rooms, there are subject class rooms like maths room and language room, and the group is a mixed age-group… this has brought in newer ways of learning like never before. For instance, child-to-child learning.

An ABL classroom:
There are 6 circles / groups of mixed age children in one class room. These groups are formed on the basis of their learning, like “Teacher needed”, “Peer support”, “Self learn”, “Partial teacher support” and so on.

There are activity charts for the children, and there is the ladder chart for each subject with milestones on it for the child to see for herself what her progress is. Textbooks are not used by the children in the conventional way of mugging up. There are flash cards that are colour coded for the different levels, with each containing one concept. This is what is used primarily by the children along with the activity charts and a few other aids. The activity is curriculum driven and the child does not choose.

The subjects are Language (English, Tamil), Maths, EVS, Social studies and Science.

The questions that came up for discussion are as follows:

- How have the teachers taken the change and transitioned from earlier to now

- On what basis are the 6 circles chosen

- Is not this class room process difficult when the teacher has to look after 40 students

- How do teachers identify when some circle who are on their own have learnt correctly

- What is the feedback from the children

- How do they learn English language and grammar

- How is it decided which group does a child go to

- Which class / Std is the child in then

Amukta spoke to the group about the nature of the circles, that they are dynamic and keep changing according to the learning needs and progress. This is determined by the evaluation charts by which the child knows how much progress she has made and what she has to do next. All material is learner’s material, not teaching aids. This is important to remember, and it is the learner’s responsibility to learn and finish. The onus for learning has shifted from the teacher for 40 students to each child for herself.

Philosophy behind the restructuring of the classroom

But the concern remained among the group that the teacher still has a lot to do, since she has to individually spend time with the children at all 6 levels and whether this would be happening effectively.

Questions and a discussion on the philosophy behind the restructuring of the class room followed. The concern was whether this is only going to be a structural change or it would go deeper. One of the participants, Alexander, pointed out one problem that he has noticed, of contrariness of values, which would not change if things remain at the structural level – he spoke about how the industry and professionals are constantly asked to cultivate or given training in team work, but in schools, al the focus is on the individual and individual identity.

The other associated question was whether this was connected to real life for the child; that this is methodology but how is it changing what she is learning and in what way – the content. Apropos, the other concern was that there is no change in the value system.

Amukta spoke about how even if the content of textbooks has not explicitly changed, such methods cannot be practiced without some changes in the way the content is looked at, which in itself is a major change. The teacher’s solitary authority in the class room is now questioned; there are other resource points for the children. This leaves the teacher to engage with the children freely and the scope for the teacher and child to co-learn expands dramatically. It is true that though all are in their circles, the learning happens individually and hence the teacher has to be aware of each child’s learning level. This, from what is happening on the field, is not so difficult, and teacher training and meetings at every level is being given importance. The one thing to remember even the classroom processes should not be rigidified, as this would again create problems.

Dr.L.S. Saraswathi mentioned here that even the terms ‘content’ and ‘methodology’ are obsolete; If we were to look at them as ‘process’ and ‘practice’, then the entire dynamics would change and how can there be a change in one without affecting the other? She also said that value is in everything, they cannot be taught separately as one component, they will have to be part of everything that they child does.

There were other miscellaneous discussions on parents and their expectations from the children as well as the school, peer support etc.

In summarising, Ram said that it is always taken for granted that private players are pioneers, but in this the government has come forward with the change and this is very good. HE continued saying that however there are huge obstacles to cross, since this is still in transition phase and our very language and terms of reference will have to change.

Amukta concluded saying that a mention has to be made of Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan Official, Mr. Vijay Kumar, who has made all the difference and made this change possible.

Amukta’s Inputs on the Board
Problems in Present schooling system	Changes seen as a result of solutions presented by ABL	Difficulties at Field Level
- Herd teaching - Children not learning, even reading, writing and maths - teacher is a mere policeman - children idle most of the time or tracing mechanically - all children doing the same thing at the same time in the same manner	- individual, group and collective learning - children able to read and write by class 2 - maths skills are pretty high - each child learns at her / his own pace	- not enough teacher support in the field - training is too brief, focused on ladder, logos and charts - circle, not child directed - danger of mechanical learning if not enough care

- Priya

Response by Ram, Chief, Samanvaya to Reflections by Prasanna

The debate on education is never ending, at least criticisms are not new. I would like to react to some of the observations made yesterday.

1. On relevance of this group

2. Meaning of Education

3. Who is being educated?

4. They Vs us

5. Tradition, families, values, and modern schooling.

This group I believe sets to achieve understanding of education, learning, schooling. This is not new; we have seen these kind of initiatives before, we very well understand the shortcomings of the curriculum, schooling, and one need not be a rocket scientist or traditional panchayat or caste (community) leader to understand. The relevance of this group is not understanding and learning, because many in the group have strong view points, inspite of lofty motives it will end up in debates, arguments, and any research undertaken will be to prove already existing views. I suggest let us join a group of active members who are working for the poor, whose sole aim in their life is to make others join mainstream schools, come out of traditional occupation and who aspire to attend English schools. Let us join them as participants not as a dialogue initiator, not as a moderator. Let us fight there, argue with them and try to convince them of our ideas.

[Chief:>]" I agree that there have been others who have debated education before, as a system, process, methodology, experience, ad nauseum. I also agree that there is always a need to broad base the forum, yes, when there are people with strong views and ability to articulate them, often we end up only with discussions that are down the no way street. I however will caution out the 'pro poor' kind of view which has been the bane of our government policies as well as on completely negating out the role of a thorough analysis."

For me need of education has three components:

1. Employability

2. Ability to face challenge

3. Grow as a concerned citizen

I am not bothered whether he understands atman, or whether it makes him eternally happy, or whether he understands tradition, history, or whether he is indianised. I am westernized, I am not ashamed of that fact. So far I have not read any Tamil classics. I don’t think I have missed any great knowledge or values. I may enjoy reading them, but still the values are largely western liberal, individualistic and rational thinking. Indian system may have it, advaita, naya, and Buddhist might have perfected the art of logic and rationalism, but I learnt it from the books of western authors, and films. I don’t think I am in any way worse than the traditionalist. "Kural" perhaps suggest that discerning truth is knowledge. Ironically Tamil Nadu doesn’t have a tradition of critique as an art, I have never seen or read any books critically examining Thirukkural, kambaramayanam etc. today there are voices questioning the relevance of those doctrines, this is essentially because of western education.

[Chief:>] " I need to again caution this attitude, with all respect to Prasanna, he has the attitude of many of us who with the sense of having 'arrived' acquire the view, 'I am this this and this (and I am fine/o.k./perfect/good enough) and so, if I am this (a system produced me / a lack of that that and that didn't affect me) then this is good enough for everyone else. I think he has articulated the objectives rather clearly, that is fine.

And then there are contradictions in his statement, if one of the objectives is to 'grow as a concerned citizen' I am not sure if that is possible without knowing the history, tradition or be Indianised. When Prasanna makes the statement that he is westernised, I think he once again exhibits the dichotomic view that is owned up without much application of mind. He is no 'western' as in some one who can be western in his attitude, priorities and perceptions. What he implies is that he has been through an education that was designed without challenging or questioning the notions, assumptions and priorities of a western life. If he hasn't read any Tamil classics, he cannot say what he has missed, that is again rather contradictory. I am happy that he has pride in being 'western', 'liberal' (or 'western liberal' which is different), 'individualistic' and 'rational thinking' and ascribes all these to western authors. I think many of us have acquired and indeed realized the value of our own traditions only because we were exposed to the western authors and through their influence realized that the traditional scriptures too had these and perhaps much more than this. A 'traditionalist' is often a streotypes image of someone who wants to 'go back to traditional times' and Prasanna seems to reflect that view. Unfortunately, these acquired categories of understanding are the beginning of many problems. There is no going back to 'tradition' today as there is no memory of this society ever being fully 'traditional', such ethereal 'traditional times' have been portrayed only in literature. If anything one can only provide the tradition as another option to learn the values of liberal, rational and individualistic apart from other values which may also possible be carried in them.

I will not respond to the issue of absence of critic in art, it is presumptuous in a state whose political discourse (and indeed survival) of more than half a century is founded in faulty scholarship and the only way any academician could prosper is by either escaping this state or adhering to the political line."

Who is being educated?

Well everybody is: questions like who are we to educate them, were not they educated before the schools were established, is not traditional wisdom superior. Points well taken but i don't think it serves any purpose. People send their children to schools for money, and career (apart from other things), they send them to schools hoping their children don’t meet the same fate, not just to get wisdom. To expect a school kid to have wisdom of philosopher is ridiculous. If an IIT student is asked about the possible solutions to solve problems of world, he would think in terms of technology. To expect a 17 year old student to critically examine the implications is a bit too much. Schools are not multi dimensional, it approves certain kind of intelligence and abilities, in fact it admits only certain kind of people, but I guess this will always be there. I wish to quote the old and famous pandit and boat man story.

Inspite of the shortcoming I refuse to believe that schools are bad. Schools have kept the spirit of questioning and learning. Today we find the kids more enterprising than before, every parent vouches for that. In fact it is better than ever before. It is in the school the child learns to be a rebel, the relationship with the teachers are better. The modern fathers and mothers are liberal, friendly they may read books about parenting that is because they want to do and be the best.

[Chief:>]" I agree that every one is getting educated and that it is wrong to expect students to critically examine everything. The problems are not with the power of knowing as much as the power of doing things often at the cost of others based on what one knows. It is not the student of certain type of technology as much as an ambitious professional with that knowledge wanting to generate profits / successes.

I agree that schools are not bad. I would add that they can be better. I am against the schools that drive the students into an uni-dimensional idea of 'employability', 'facing challenge' and 'citizenship'. I quote the same pundit and boat man story. I am not sure whether the statement that 'today kids are more enterprising' means anything, perhaps it was 'kids are more artistic' before or 'kids are more warrior-like' before. It is the overall environment in which we all grow up that highlights certain values more than others, it could be enterprise, arts, literature, ...these the priorities of our times and the emphasis on current issues extends to the kind of orientation (expectation and exclamation too) that education acquires. Perhaps Parents today have access to more information about more things, but, access does not either guarantee practice or quality."

Traditionally sons and fathers never converse. Fathers and gurus were authoritarians. Perhaps under the strict guru and father, they learnt it better. Today we may not have produced great musicians and dancers but we have more musicians, dancers. Look around us people are experimenting with everything. I see this as the best period for art, music and literature. If schools were just schools as we assume to be, then how do our kids have their spirit?

[Chief:>] "The first part is his personal opinion and I don't want to respond. Far too many assumptions here too, that volume is better than quality, volume is good, experimentation in many things (and excelling in none) is better, school is responsible or encourages this experimentation and this spirit is because of this."

Education and schooling to Dalits are not as same as these are for others. Concerns about he losing his traditional knowledge and occupation is farcical at best. In fact attempts are made to put them to schools to move out of traditional occupations. I am bored of listening stories about the dying art of pottery, weaving and other traditional community work. I would like to hear us talk about asking Brahmins to send their kids to veda paatashala, today we don’t find have enough sama vedis, how about we taking up this art. This would be much easier for us to do because many in the group are Brahmins, there are mutts teaching this, and this could be a lucrative one.

[Chief:>] "It cannot be denied that the oppressed communities in this countries and those who have been relegated to do repulsive tasks on the basis of their being born in a certain community have used education as a tool to raise their social status, repeatedly. It is important to realize that education, schools have played a major role in their lives. It has opened up options that are otherwise not available, nay, denied to them. I agree that the talk about dying traditional arts is not to be given too much emphasis at least as a traditional occupation. The advent of modern 'pottery galleries' in Mumbai and people from NIFD taking to traditional weaving as an career option is an indication that arts that can be valued and appreciated find their space in modern careers too. However, the problems will be for a poor person from potter family to go through an education of 15 years to get a job as a night watchman outside the same gallery, to realize that there is value for his traditional skill and yet failing to understand how come no one told him so. Today schooling opens up a set of options and blinds one to other options. Same with brahmins, but, many brahmins start at a different level. It is a reality that there are brahmins who have lived abroad and come back and dropped out of their careers and have joined veda pataashaalas, I know of three cases in my immediate surrounding. But, the problem is their security is not at risk. They start at a different level, the potter's son doesn't. Traditional skills/occupation as viable options are negated from more than one platform, maybe, we understand it to be a natural course and say that if already the NIFD and others are doing these arts, then there is no problem, that traditional people can get out of this and that is fine. This argument extends to farmers can get out of farming, now that corporate houses do large scale contract farming, traditional water management can be dropped out, now that corporates can own water bodies, etc. and as long as the modern, liberal, individualistic, rational mind can understand from its western (market) paradigm that cost of living is conditioned to grow always in the upward direction and willing to work for it, then I think this trend should be welcomed. But, the newer western thoughts are talking about 'holistic living' 'green house emissions', about 'carbon footprints', etc. and one of the reasons is the corporatization of everything - agriculture, arts, appreciation of arts, water, etc. Do we wait for these current western thoughts to percolate to us over a period of time or lookout for alternatives while we still have existing alternatives?"

And I would like the communities to be referred as caste not as communities, Nadar is a caste, it is not a community. It is misleading to refer it like that.


[Chief:>] "I realize that this is his personal problem with what I had to say during our earlier meeting. There are far too many debates on this subject in India. Caste presupposes an hierarchical system and all its negative connotations, communities are geographical location based groups, owning up to certain identity that could be occupational, cultural or familial. Wherever I refer to a community I am conscious of the differences, I mentioned the Nadars of Virudhunagar as an example, they are a community there, you need to visit them to understand this. I am not giving all the credit to tradition for this either. I refuse to use 'caste' unless it is applied in with all its connotations. I need to use a different term mainly to differentiate it to preconditioned (and strongly held views) minds. "

Finally if we are to be sincere to the problems of education, we need address the fundamentals of all the "Caste". Vaidya is not a vaidya by chance, he is by birth. Nadars worrying about their children not taking up trade, is a genuine concern, but are they willing to teach it to other castes, this way they can save their traditional "Trade". The question is not just about preserving traditional wisdom, it is also about that caste people willing to teach and share it to others. Perhaps all traditions occupations can be saved this way. I am sure there will be a dalit who would like to learn and become a purohit, and Brahmins to learn weaving etc. Of course some traditions and rituals associated with the art or occupation may go, be it. In the pretext of preserving traditions we can perpetuate caste differences.

[Chief:>] "Precisely this is what I meant by creating options for different types of careers, learnings and possibilities. Which a modern school with its limited understanding and articulation of 'livelihood' ends up curbing inadvertently. "

I sincerely believe that if the group has to have relevance we should disband this group and join other groups working for education cause perhaps groups promoting SSAs. I dont like the idea of just inviting others for a guest lecture. I hope the group motive is just not to talk about what is education, if be the case, i think should all buy JKs book and be satisfied with this.

[Chief:>] I think the group is relevant because it can produce this mail from Prasanna. I am interested in what is happening in education / learning / knowledge assimilation / schools / universities, because the formal education system is increasingly where many young minds acquire all that they know apart from the visual media. Nuclear families and both working parents as a growing trend, both in urban and rural areas has meant that the environment and opportunity to learn anything in the home front unless it is a well-off family doesn't exist. I recognize nuclear family as a changing reality and am not talking about a revolution to stop it. Similarly, the pressure to finish their syllabus, the pressure to ensure that the students acquire higher marks are part of the teaching career today just like the pressure to produce higher ranking students and 100% pass out is accepted as an achievement of schools and higher ranking students and very good jobs based on campus interviews are accepted as an achievement for colleges and universities. These are realities. Somewhere in these changing realities, common sense, joy of learning and the freedom of growing up strong are curtained / restricted / hidden / conditioned. If SSA is providing some options, we need to learn from them what are these, if NCERT is doing something, we need to know that too. I don't think the idea is to have guest lectures, I think it is to understand and express ourselves, because while I wait for my daughter to grow up as a 'concerned citizen', I cannot keep quite as a concerned citizen myself in understanding and expressing my concern on issues of this country / society. If we were involved in 'just talk' we will be a talk shop, we can understand by talking, doing, experiencing, silence, thinking,...the tools for us to learn about the changing realities of education are as many as the ways of learning themselves.

Paatashaala appeals to me because there are not many spaces where people gather to understand and explore things openly. The much denied 'critical thinking' that may produce critiq on arts, literature, etc. will only emanate if spaces for them are created and this is one such platform, it cannot extend its scope, nor constrict it.