Life as a laboratory
Ananya Pathak
Creative pedagogues are known for their lifelong ability to introspect and to never miss an opportunity to innovate, question, improve upon and alter their ways of teaching in light of new exposure. Pedagogues of this kind do not stagnate in their vocation, they keep growing. This quality adds to their pursuit, a freshness and vibrancy that maybe missing in a classroom where the pedagogue has lost her passion. As a keen observer of the educational scenario in the country I have often come across the fact that teachers who keep growing have dealt more smoothly with the generation gap between themselves and their pupils than those who refuse to grow.
Today’s children have at their easy disposal abundant sources of knowledge and often they may see a contradiction between what the textbooks teach and what is actually seen in the larger society. This contradiction between the ‘word’ and the ‘world’ can give birth to two dangerous tendencies – cynicism/scepticism and fatalism. Children, for instance, read how the constitution is envisioned on the principles of equality, freedom and justice, but in the real world they find innumerable instances of poverty, malnutrition, denial of basic rights, crime and corruption. They may read how the anti-untouchability movements and legislative mechanisms ensured that an institution as oppressive and ugly as the caste system has been abolished from the country but news on television about atrocities on dalit youth and discrimination against children from backward communities in schools may compel the child to question these facts. Caught between the conflicting suggestions of the word and the world, the children may now have the need for a pedagogue who responds to the many questions that are sprouting in their young minds.
Herein comes the task of the creative and passionate teacher who wishes to familiarize the children with all that is there in the textbook but at the same time also wishes to take a few steps beyond as well. Say for example, students are being taught about the abolition of child labour and the enactment that has technically banned it – let the child learn all the articles that speak about it, the statistics that prove that it exists but let the teacher invite the learners to walk out of their protected environments and interview a child labourer. Let the two children find an occasion to relate, to discuss, to empathize with and learn from mutually; just by looking up information in libraries or on the Internet, children will seldom have a taste of what is truly critical to education.
We teach the concept of ‘unity in diversity’ to children and describe how despite our ethnic and religious differences, India as a nation has survived. How does the child make sense of this in her real life? Why not initiate a food festival in the classroom and ask children to bring a sweet dish from home made for Diwali, Eid or Christmas? Let the children learn a folktale/myth that is passed down from generations in their families, or speak before everyone in their mother tongue. The Indian classroom represents considerable diversity and difference, and when we teach many of our social science topics we can use so much from this resource to enliven our dull classrooms. In higher classes, students learn about the concept of adult franchise and how the federal structure of power makes the Indian democracy possible. Classroom elections, distribution of everyday responsibilities, election of suitable candidates as representatives of the larger voice of the class and accountability in these roles tell us how on the larger scale this intricate mesh of roles and duties operate.
I can think and suggest a myriad possibilities of making classroom teaching an enriching process for both the learner and the teacher. We often end up thinking that innovation requires many tools and infrastructure that maybe expensive or elitist, but from my experience of working in extremely poor/ humble settings I have learnt that the only solid and uncompromised resource that we need is the passion and zeal to make learning meaningful. Then we are able to manufacture and devise our own resources according to whatever is available. Role playing, storytelling, debates, discussions, field visits, watching films on important themes, interviewing community elders and cultivating among young learners an openness of mind are all critical to this discourse. Just as a science teacher must take his students to the laboratory where chemicals are mixed and reactions are seen, similarly the social science teacher too must take her students to the world outside the classroom.
Only when the humanities are taken up by pedagogues who cultivate and nurture an open spirit in the classroom and encourage the culture of questioning and dialogic disagreements will the contradictions of the word and the world be somewhere resolved. This only requires a passionate and willing pedagogue and not necessarily lavish infrastructure.
The author is Features Editor, The New Leam. Her areas of research are critical pedagogy and innovative feminism. She can be reached at ananyapathaak@gmail.com.
