Alternative Education for Social and Political Change
Sambhaavnaa Institute and Adharshila Learning Cent re
8th to 10th November, 2014
A three day workshop to reflect on the role of Education for Social and Political Change was conducted from 8th to 10th November 2014, facilitated by Jayashree and Amit of Adharshila Learning Centre, MP and logistic support provided by Sambhaavana Institute.
Need for Workshop
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There are a lot of expectations from the education system, teacher and children ranging from teaching / learning to read and write to nation and character building. Many times, most of us involved in the daily grind of schools don’tget the time to think about the larger issues of education due to the need to focus on the immediate day to day needs of the school. This workshop was planned with the idea of giving participants an opportunity to think about education in the larger context. It would also give an opportunity to understand and learn from each other’sexperiences. The objective of the workshop is to engage young practitioners in the field of education in discussions on the various related themes to develop a holistic picture of the education scenario in India.
Concerns about the present education set-up
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In the present economic scenario it is increasingly becoming clear that most children from marginalised communities or those belonging to landless/small or marginal farmers will form the bulk of the labour market. They are finding themselves alienated from farming land, forests, rivers and or any other natural resource that traditionally provided livelihoods to their communities. The whole focus on competition and mastering a given syllabus and the culture of individual success alienates the urban child also from society at large and dulls her/his thinking capabilities. So what is the role of education in this scenario? Just skilling to fit the lower level service sector of the economy and non thinking middle level workers or something more like thinking about alternatives to strengthen local economies too? Or to really try and develop the talent and possibilities hidden in different children? Many people, organisations, communities,all over the country are struggling to challenge the current development paradigm by stressing on the local and asserting control over resources as well as knowledge. We have also seen people challenging existing social relations based on caste and patriarchy . So we have to figure out what role education can play in developing progressive attitudes and aiding people’saspirations for change.
Proposed Themes for discussion
- Aims of education and questions of pedagogy, in the social and geographical context of children, and inculcating new values.
- Consequences of privatization of education on various sections of society.
- Tyranny of the school: Structure, curriculum, Pedagogy, hidden agenda of schooling:- promote hierarchy; religious and cultural homogenisation; mainstream ideas
- Examples and possibilities of interventions –Challenges and experiences in Alternative Education
Do we see any role of education in preparing the children and their parents for these changing and often clashing cultural values? Another challenge of educators is to create citizens buying raining the values and habits of thinking and behaviour aspired to by the constitution – democracy, secularism, equality and so on. So what could be the ways in which the school curriculum could contribute to develop the understanding and commitment to these constitutional ideals?
Workshop Attended by 40 participants- The background of the participants were extremely diverse, ranging from people running schools for the less privileged children in Gurgaon and teachers from Teach for India to trade unionists and left leaning activists from remote places difficult to find on the map. The good thing was that almost all had direct teaching experience with kids and an interest to engage with new ideas
Workshop Highlights
The discussions of the topic were divided into three parts –Why, What and How of Education.
Why Education?
Aims of Education:
It was interesting that most suggestions related mostly to values,character traits and qualities that children should imbibe. Also the desire to develop thinking skills was very high.
Aims of Education for diverse groups and stakeholders (the viewpoint of business groups,religious groups, children and parents belonging to different economic and social backgrounds.):
To understand these viewpoints the participants were divided into groups and each group was asked to think from the viewpoint of these different groups and figure out the desirables in education which would benefit the group most.
Some realizations that emerged
- Most groups had nothing of what the participants. Only the social activist group’s presentation matched the participant’s list.
- Most of what the business and religious groups thought desirable was anti to what the participants wanted.
- Most groups wanted education to create followers and not thinkers!
- Education was intrinsically linked to the prevalent economic system. This is also reflected in the fact that the Ministry of Education was renamed as Ministry of Human Resource. This shows that the main aim is to develop human resource according to the requirements of industry and economic system and not the development of the child.
- For education to be an agent of social political change it has to be linked to social-political movements. In isolation education cannot be expected to do magic.
Presentation on Historical Contex t of the Modern Education System covered
- the evolution of the present system from the British time
- the ideas of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule,Gandhi’sNai Taleem, Tagore’svision of education.
What for Education ( the Curriculum of education).
- We dwelt on the meanings of some common words which are wrongly used synonymously for eg. Education and schooling, curriculum and syllabus.
- Curriculum vision of Nai Taleem, Cuban education system and Krishnamurthy were shared.
Five groups brainstormed the various aspects of Curriculum –
- Topics of study
- Values
- Infrastructure- aims and environment of the school
- Teachers –quality, relation with children and perspective
Presentation on Anand Niketan Democratic School, Bhopal.
- The participants could get a feel of how an abstract concept like democracy can be incorporated in the school curriculum.
- It was a great example where children decide what they want to learn during the day .
- They also shared the experience of language teaching where children learn in a text rich environment without any conscious teaching.
- The love and affection for the children and the work was written all over the faces of the teachers. A very inspiring presentation.
Presentation on Adharshila Learning Centre
- a slide show, showing the children’s work at the Adharshila Learning Centre
- gave the participants many pedagogical insights about how children can be engaged in projects to learn mainstream topics like history, health, biodiversity, science etc. through interaction with villagers and observing their surroundings.
- also got a glimpse into the life of children at Adharshila.
- The slide show was followed by a lively question answer session to discuss some ideas in detail.
The last two sessions were devoted to recalling the main learning’s of the workshop and feedback from the participants.
Feedback and Takeaways
There was vibrant interaction during the tight breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks. The bonfire music session was fantastic with some really pro singers. One night we saw a film on the Chile student’s movement against privatization of education which led to a larger anti globalization movement. Another film showed the homogenization of culture that the present schooling brings in.
The main feedback was that time was very short. Considering the number of participants discussions had to be stopped, sometimes short of conclusion. The main technique of the workshop was to engage the participants in thinking out the topics in groups. This required all the more time to present and discuss. Most participants wanted a phase 2 workshop to dwell deeper into the topics and also on out of school education processes. Language was also an issue and took up major feedback time. But for once the English speakers were on a back foot!