Yasmin Jayathirtha The school that I am a part of was recently visited by an education official. He looked in on the classes, appreciated the exploratory lessons and the library. Afterwards, talking about the school, he said, “This is all very nice but I am worried about the future of your students. What do they do after their +2 programme? Most of them go on to college, they do BA, B.Sc… BA, what can they do, doing BA?” This disdain for subjects, from a person involved in education was disheartening, and I began to wonder about the attitudes we have towards different subjects. These are not unique to India, and one reads discussions about putting more science, more maths, more poetry, more writing, more history, more Sanskrit depending on what we feel is wrong with the younger generation, what we feel the society needs and what we think the subjects do. For the last 50-60 years, society has become more technological, so science has been on the ascendant. It has been considered important and given more prominence. The developing countries decided that the way to modernization was to emphasize science and technology. This has led to some very piquant situations: Britain, wanting to be like Singapore, wanted to increase math and science classes, Singapore wanting the creativity of Britain, invited educationists to advise them on the so-called soft subjects. A 100 years ago, the preferred subjects would have been the classical languages, literature, grammar, all of which required the use of logic and abstraction, unlike science which emphasized experiments, lab work and observation of the real. The hierarchies seemed to have changed and what is the problem with that? There are several issues that I feel have a direct effect on our lives and that of our children’s. When we glorify the acquisition of knowledge by the mind, whether literature or chemistry, we discount the real learning and skill in working with our hands. We consider the skill of abstraction by the mind as higher than the skill of abstraction by the hands; as in pottery, art and other crafts. Another danger is that it leads to students ranking themselves and others – making them arrogant if they find mind work easy and defeated if they don’t. The third problem is that we narrow ourselves to skills that we feel are on top of the list, are marketable. We want to become engineers, doctors, computer programmers or managers, however insecure we are with our expertise

Pooja Keshavan Singh Mathematics is the most ‘difficult’ subject known to some individuals and yet it is the most ‘creative’ and ‘beautiful’ for a few. Some of us have also suffered from math anxiety where a confrontation with numbers is a matter of jeopardising one’s self efficacy and solving a Sudoku with numbers (and not arbitrary symbols) also appears to be an achievement in that case. This range of feelings is unique to the discipline of mathematics. But why? Popular shows on television also reflect an aversion towards the subject in the general public. This is dangerous. Let me explain it with an example. While watching some cartoon series with my kids, I have seen certain episodes where school-going children joke about mathematics saying that it is an ‘impossible’ subject; that even ‘black magic’ cannot solve their mathematics homework and that zeros are most common in mathematics. Young minds watching these episodes tend to imbibe such values unconsciously. Even in daily soaps for adults, the protagonists are seen to be saying things like, “I was scared of mathematics all my life.” It is almost as if it is cool to dislike mathematics. We don’t hear such things about other subjects. In a survey done by Bliss magazine, when school students were asked to express their views about mathematics, it was found that mathematics teachers were voted as being the most ‘evil’, probably because of the hours of boring lessons that they made their students endure (Boaler, 2002). Each year I am confronted with a question by students of mathematics, “Who created mathematics?” They want to know, not out of curiosity but because of the peril they experience. They say it as if they want to settle some scores with those who invented mathematics or with those who wrote their textbooks. It is painful to see how students have no idea about the long evolutionary history of mathematics. Students begin by cursing the mathematics teacher and end by disliking the subject. In this article, I aim to put forth two possible reasons associated with the dislike for mathematics, which has led to mathematics being termed as an ‘elite’ subject meant for a select few who are ‘intelligent’. I also briefly discuss ways which can remove these misconceptions so that mathematics is understood by every student. Mathematics is a highly structured discipline in which further understanding depends on previous understanding. For example, when a student starts learning Mensuration, he/she should know the related concepts of decimal numbers,

Shravan Kumar Pendyala Visual arts, music, dance and aesthetic studies have been part of our lives supporting its very existence by developing our perceptive abilities. Since prehistoric times to contemporaneity we learnt to perceive “life” through these art forms. Further, these skills of various arts enhanced our lives today. These art forms/subjects (as we call them in academics/institutions) and their categorizations were made based on historical factors and situations. Maybe, understanding the histories of these subjects and how these soft “sciences” have developed human understanding and outlook towards life will make it easier for us to see the nature of these subjects. That it matters to think about them is also important, considering the cognitive, epistemological, psychological, social, economic, and political dimensions around them. Feldman (Feldman, 2002) briefly describes these dimensions in his book, Philosophy of art education, as an individual’s experience, leaving it to the readers to explore the potential of every dimension around art. This needs attention, observation and aptitude (by every individual) to experience the importance of art in our lives. I would like to quote a few experiences I had concerning the perceptions on art and art education. This will give an idea on how the arts are approached, studied and practiced. Interaction I: A casual interaction with students outside the classroom as an artist Teacher: What would you like to become when you grow up? Student 1: hmm… artist! Teacher: Why? Artist! Student 1: Because, artists sell their paintings and they are rich!! Student 2: No, doctors are rich! I want to be a doctor. Student 1: Then, I too want to be a DOCTOR! It is unpredictable how some casual interactions with students make and mould their ideas. How impactful will they turn out in their lives? But, what they perceive at certain moments in their educational experiences will surely make a difference depending on the skills they acquire and the exposure they get. Nonetheless, their own interest matters. As individuals we have a right to freedom and expression. Why not exercise and execute them in our own lives? While learning, what kind of importance and preferences do we give to different subjects in our schools? This kind of introspection will help us respond to children when they ask questions about career options and livelihood. How are we reaching out to them? Is it according to our own interests? What do we suggest that they pursue? These questions again remind me of a few more interactions with students, teachers