In search of beginnings
Madhulika Sagaram
As I travelled across India through hamlets and towns, gaining insights into the varied learning systems spread across the length and breadth of the country, I began to understand indigenous pedagogies of India in a greater depth. Pedagogy that is indigenous to India is preserved and propagated through narratives and art forms that link several aspects of life and lived experience together. I engaged with artisans to understand the pedagogy of their artform, with women folk working in the fields to understand their ways of learning through different phases of the day. I studied indigenous place-based knowledge building through temple learning systems and the associated lived experience of dance, drama, sculpture and scripture-based learning. There were several common links that indicated clear grounding in education psychology and applied psychology. Pedagogy in the Western paradigm has moved from teaching and learning methods towards experiential approaches, constructs and frameworks in the last half century or so. However, indigenous learning systems across the world have been rooted in experience since time immemorial. The indigenous learning systems of India are no exception and are gloriously continuing the threads of ancient wisdom that are expressed through varied ways of life across the length and breadth of the culture.
Indigenous pedagogy: India
India has an extremely heterogenous culture and great variety in food, art, aesthetics, clothing, belief systems and spiritual practices. Hence, indigenous pedagogy also exhibits the same pattern of heterogeneity amid layers of cultural and social constructs. Across India, pedagogy can be identified in mundane day-to-day activities. Since ancient India functioned predominantly on an occupational structure, there is great value in understanding pedagogy in various professional and occupational pursuits.
For e.g., several occupations that are now labelled or given an artisan status were once full-fledged professions with a legacy of research and practice that was passed down from one generation to the next. Potters, gold smiths, cobblers, etc., had very nuanced pedagogy associated with the process of creating something of value. In fact, a lot of learning that is rooted in occupation especially of that related to a clan or family involves dissemination of knowledge through observation, oral histories and trial and error.
Preparation for life
Indigenous pedagogy in India is rooted in the varied ways of life that rely on the fundamental understanding that learning occurs through a cycle of action and conscious reflection when individuals are working and interacting with others in the community. In this perspective, individuals construct their own understanding conceptually through lived experiences with and within society. These phenomenological experiences gradually accumulate to form the individuals’ basis of learning through life.
Unlike modern learning systems where education is seen as a means to employment, indigenous learning systems used the occupational knowledge to further deepen the understanding and experience of life! For example, a potter’s child learns the art and science of pot making through continuous observation of the sound that is emanated through beating clay to mould it into a certain shape combined with the visual of the movement of fingers to overlap with the sound. Similarly, a very common example of indigenous pedagogy and its strong rooting in awareness of sensory perceptions is in cooking. The women folk who make millet roti or bread do so by hitting the hard dough with their hands simultaneously rotating it. This understanding of coordination and combination with skill comes from a keen observation using sound, touch and sight as the filters for learning.
Sensory perceptions
Teaching and learning are a process of expanding perception through enriched life experiences, and pedagogy in Indian learning systems celebrates this aspect of the existential paradigm. Learning happens in relation to perceptions, not memory as is generally assumed. Perception expands through engagement of senses and emotional development. Information is getting confused with knowledge in contemporary times. Knowledge cannot be distributed by an entity to the population. Knowledge must be constructed by every individual based on their lived experience. As technology advances, the amount of information available at our fingertips is increasing day by day and more and more focus is on content rather than lived experience.
Indian indigenous pedagogy is deeply rooted and celebrates the role of the senses and hence does not differentiate between the mundane and the learning that happens through a natural thread of informal learning and practices in day-to-day life.
Indigenous pedagogy across India was rooted in the association of ideas and continuity of experience as is evident in rituals, traditions and celebrations that are passed on from one generation to the next. While the method of transfer and construction of knowledge through oral history was predominantly in use since ancient times, it was not to promote rote learning. Folk artists, to this day memorize verses, songs and stories but the meaning of the engagement was never taught to them just to recite but keeping with the two approaches of association of ideas and continuity of experience. The meaning of the verse occurs in a flash to the learner through lived experiences at different points in time, i.e., across space and time often guiding the learner or audience and reminding the individual of their life and connection to learning. So, the combination of sensory perception, phenomenology (understanding of experience) and gestalt (flash in the aha moment) is fundamental to Indian indigenous systems of learning and pedagogy.
Phenomenology
Our senses and outward sensory perceptions are at the heart of indigenous pedagogy in India. All our experiences emanate from within our being and our limited sensory perceptions create our narratives often becoming barriers that can confound clarity, originality and authenticity. It is thus, imperative that our senses and their perceptions are clearly understood to engage them appropriately in learning environments. Indigenous pedagogy in India celebrates the nature of experience through its colourful festivals, fairs, art forms, percussion instruments, dances, crafts, food and spiritual practices. The most striking feature of Indian indigenous pedagogy is its rooting in phenomenology and in using every experience, emotional, physical and intellectual, as a learning tool bringing in the energies of both mind and body.
For example, dance forms such as puli vesham (tiger costuming and dance) in fairs bring a very sensory experience through sight and sound. Likewise, food and dietary practices across India are a strong case for informal learning through combining sight, smell, touch, taste and sound.
The crux of the phenomenology at the heart of indigenous learning in India is that ‘you cannot teach anyone anything’…only opportunities in everyday lived experience can be provided where learning can happen. Such opportunities where clarity in perception can be created should be constructed so that the learner can see people and things the way they exist rather than colour them with his/her own conditioning and emotions.
Observation and reflection
Ultimately, Indian indigenous pedagogy in its informal learning practices, symbolic rituals, ways of life and celebrations is rooted in taking the individual from self to consciousness through stimulation of sensory perception. Along with perception is the setting in of clarity through experience and continuous questioning through identifying how to delve into deeper insights with every ritual or tradition or experience. Observation and reflection are central to Indian indigenous pedagogy. While, this thread seems to be lost in the urban frameworks in India, it is quite vibrant when one travels across the rural areas and hamlets especially in zones where nature is revered with great gusto! Almost all native indigenous pedagogy in India follows the construct of observing one’s own self, identifying patterns and then reflecting on the world around to find similar patterns or vice versa. Systems of learning that are rooted in observing and reflecting on self, have formed the bulk of spiritual practices across India while those that use the external to observe and reflect on the internal have included rituals, practices, festivals, traditions, community celebrations, art, craft, architecture, etc.
Implementation of indigenous pedagogy in the classroom
Having understood this, we attempted to see if these approaches could be transferred to the conventional contemporary classroom. The implementation of indigenous pedagogy in the classroom was done in various ways in several schools in Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Nainital across the socio-economic strata when they adopted the accelerated learning program offered by Ajahn Center for Pedagogy. It was identified that learning mathematics was a hindrance because of the mismatch of learning approaches. Majority of children learn by touching, feeling and experimenting with materials. However, the predominant form of facilitation of mathematics in India has come to be the logical problem-solving approach using formulae, without any focus on understanding of concept. Children are expected to memorize formulae without knowing or understanding the basis of the formula or its application. We attempted to change this approach to learning mathematics and have been quite successful. Paper-bead making, painting, origami and tribal art were used to connect mind, body, heart and the senses to help children internalize the process of learning. The whole body engages in learning; several approaches were developed that engaged the children in understanding patterns in the world around them. Several fine motor skill development activities were linked to the development of mathematics proficiency.
For example, tribal art was more useful in helping younger children understand geometry, patterns, repetition, etc. Mandalas helped learners understand symmetry; most children cannot visualize 3D geometry in 2D and understanding mandalas enables them to construct 3D artefacts.
A very powerful example of spiralling indigenous pedagogy with western constructs is that of 9th grade children learning about European Renaissance. While this topic is relevant to Europe, when Indian children must learn it without any learning of art and sculpture from their own culture, this content becomes imposed from outside of lived experience. Pedagogy that is situated in the local understanding of culture and history was therefore applied. Children were asked to research and find out what was occurring in the local area during the same time as European Renaissance. They came back with inputs about Buddhist art and culture being prominent in the area. Then this learning was compared to the history from their own villages and native places. Finally, all of it was interpreted through European theatre, Indian traditional theatre and role playing to contextualize a topic that was outside of their lived experience.
Otherwise, the content and context were not fitting with each other and the form of the resulting learning was distorted. This distortion of form manifested in the form of a schism between physical and emotional development, with the latter lagging and rendering the content in a non-understandable condition for the child. It is imperative that the content to be learned be aligned with the cultural context for learning, the failure of which will distort the understanding of the surrounding world. For example, I have personally engaged with several children who are confused when their Montessori teacher tells them not to read books based on indigenous fables like Panchatantra or puranic tales because they can be classified as fairy tales in the Montessori system. However, such an imposition might have a very grave consequence for the child because the child’s personal value system might be aligned to an understanding of indigenous learning through narratives. Another fine example is the difference in narratives itself; western stories for children usually begin as stories of time as in ‘Once upon a time…’, whereas indigenous stories of India usually begin with stories of space as in ‘Far far away …’ because space is considered more fundamental in the indigenous traditions of India and time emerges from space.
The key is to dissolve the boundaries between the classroom and the child’s home environment. Indigenous pedagogy is not a silo to be implemented in the classroom, it is related to the parent’s profession, the child’s value system and how the child perceives the world based on his/her cultural context.
The author is a researcher, educator, facilitator and artist. She is the founder director of Adviteeya Bharatam, a platform integrating indigenous learning systems and knowledge traditions of India with research and facilitation (Ajahn), outreach (Adhya), and consulting (Anahata) in schools and colleges across India. She also operates an online learning platform called Adhbhuta that provides complimentary learning opportunities for children along with conventional schooling. She can be reached at adhbhuta2020@gmail.com.
