Simple steps to develop the Critical Edge
Pradita Nambiar
“Believe nothing….
….merely because you have been told it,
Or because it is traditional,
Or because you yourselves have imagined it.
Do not believe what your teacher tells you
Merely out of respect for the teacher.
But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis,
You find to be conducive to the good,
The benefit, the welfare of all beings,
That doctrine believe and cling to,
And take it as your guide.”
– The Buddha
This Buddhist saying is visible on the notice board along the corridor in the school I teach in Hyderabad. This teaching of the Buddha offers guidance to all the teachers and students to use reason and thereby immerse themselves in an education that is not just for any individual’s selfish ends but for the welfare of all beings. It is this invocation that I draw upon here to examine the conditions under which critical thinking is attempted to be developed in the children of this school. I have used appropriate pseudonyms for the children mentioned in the anecdotes.
It is morning time; the eight-year-olds leave their bags in the classroom and walk to the open space to seat themselves on the floor for an assembly with their teacher. The teacher had been noticing, in the last few days, that the children were being careless with their personal belongings like pencils, shoes and bags. This prompted her to engage in a discussion on climate change and the ways in which young children can contribute to the conservation of life on Earth. The teacher asked, “Do you think we are taking care of the Earth?” The children said, “Yes teacher, we do not cut trees and we do not harm animals.” She agreed with them on that, however she presented a scenario and asked the children, “What do you think will happen if we leave our bags or shoes carelessly?” The children responded saying they might lose them or that they could tear. When she asked what they would do if either happened, the children’s immediate answer was that they would buy another one. She then went on to explain that treating the objects in such a manner would create a huge pile of bags and shoes that are worn out very soon and we would be damaging the environment with this build up of garbage. And if we use all objects with care, it will help the soil and water from getting polluted. After this, the teacher called for suggestions in their actions that would directly have a positive impact on the environment. As the children sat thinking, she told them how she intended to contribute towards this endeavour. She promised that she would buy all her provisions from a shop that would pack her dals, rice and other things in old newspapers so that it would reduce the use of plastic bags.
Taking a cue from the teacher’s example, slowly a child said she would stop using rubber balloons for her birthday. Just then another child said, “But how can you have a birthday without balloons and decorations?” This suddenly opened a world of creative ideas from the children on the kinds of decorations they could make with colour papers and other bric-a-bac that’s available at home. Another child whose father is a hotelier pitched in to say that he would speak to his father and ask him to use only reusable water bottles in the hotel.
This interaction reminded me of the lines from the Buddha, where children examine and analyze the problem and come up with creative solutions within their sphere of influence. Former NCERT Director, Professor Krishna Kumar in his article ‘The NEP and liberal arts education’ defines critical thinking as the ability to place ideas and problems in a larger context and find creative solutions. It was critical thinking that was being practiced during this assembly of primary school children. These 20 minutes of interaction and deliberation with the teacher during the assembly in school sets the tone for the method of teaching for the rest of the day inside the classroom.
The earliest reference to critical thinking in a policy document in India was made in the National Policy of Education 1986 under the programme of action for empowerment of women to develop the ability to think critically. This parameter was imagined as a way to enable women to participate in the process of social change. Subsequently, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 dedicated an entire section to critical pedagogy keeping in mind the primacy of the active learner. I will be drawing heavily from this document to strengthen my case for critical pedagogy.
The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 visualizes that children in the secondary stage move away from content and focus on learning how to think critically and solve problems. In line with this, assessment is proposed to be made easier by testing students in two parts- objective and descriptive and also at two levels-one that is standard and the other at a higher level. To realize these objectives, some of the preconditions will be that the schools and teachers understand and embrace the notion that children are competent in whichever phase of development they are in. This will require our teacher education programs to be tailored to foster this new way of imagining children and not place them in the position of incompetence. Lastly, this 21st century skill needs to be practiced in our daily actions and not treated as a separate subject with very little relation to the social and emotional capacities of children. In the above example, the children were able to think of creative solutions only when they were emotionally connected to the issue on hand.
You may have also observed that in the relationship between the teacher and the student, there is neither the authority of a prescribed textbook knowledge nor the teacher’s word. This way of engagement brings in a certain sense of equality between the children and the teacher, where the participants are critical observers of their actions and solutions to the problems are devised by the children based on their requirements. The teacher encourages them to think and reason independently rather than handing down solutions to them. This act of inquiry and deliberation leaves very little room for authoritarianism and fosters a sense of responsibility among the students.
When the teacher acknowledges the child’s need to decorate the house for the birthday, there is an implicit value placed on the experiences and emotions of the children. This acceptance of children’s choices and decisions in classroom discussions is a fundamental aspect of a democratic form of engagement. As a result of these participatory discussions and acknowledgement of the different views, the children in the group arrived at a collective promise to not use rubber balloons and other confetti during any celebrations.
Critical thinking and problem solving have obvious implications to the development of children all the way up from the pre-primary stages. Children learn to reason by making the connections and using information and concepts they have learnt in various subjects. Pre-schoolers do this by referring to the situations that are presented in stories to engage in reasoning with the adults.
One of the critical elements of this pedagogy is the framing of open-ended inquiry questions rather than didactic ones. Some of the ways are to ask, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘How would you describe?’ or ‘What do you notice about?’ This challenges them to make connections between objects, ideas and their own experiences. The children then are able to describe, interpret and gain an understanding of themselves in relationship with others. The discussions also enable the teacher to understand what the children know and how they explain this understanding. This exploration into the workings of the minds of the children thereby provides an opportunity to place alternate ways of thinking that are more challenging than the ways in which the children had imagined earlier.
If one observes the conversation that the children and the teacher had during the assembly, the children are viewed as active subjects rather than as passive recipients of knowledge. Considering the child not as an object of development gives the interaction a pedagogic edge which in turn creates a desire in children to pursue inquiry. This sharing of collective experiences motivates children to question, compare and comment on the environment around them fearlessly.
However, this form of learning is not always a smooth ride. It is fraught with a number of challenges for the teachers and children. The teacher is very often faced with issues of everyday conflicts, whereupon she is called to address and resolve them. The situations of conflict can be used as windows of opportunity to initiate discussions and help children dive deep into the problem and make them aware of the nature of the conflict and their roles in these situations.
Neha was a child with autism and specific sensory processing disorders. She was supported at play and learning by a shadow teacher during her time in school. In one such instance, the teacher of this class noticed that Aditya, a classmate was making fun of Neha’s specific ways of responding to the various interactions in the class like flapping her fingers when excited, angry or just plain bored. The teacher decided to address the issue of inclusion in one of the 20-minute assemblies. She made up a story with characters and events similar to the class so that the children are able to walk in the shoes of the characters and access their lives by being inside the experience. She then asked the children what they thought of making fun of children who socialize in ways different from themselves. As this behaviour seemed to resonate with Aditya, he was quick to respond and said that he finds Neha funny and different from other children and therefore he ends up laughing. The teacher asked Aditya to look around and see if there was anybody in the class who was exactly like him in his ways of behaviour like laughing, talking, running and so on. Aditya gazed all around the class and started listing how each of his friends was different in some way or the other and finally concluded that there was nobody like him. The teacher then went on to explain that all of us are uniquely different, both in our physical appearances and behaviours, hence laughing at another person for being different may hurt the feelings of that person. She noticed that at the end of the assembly, he still stuck to the point that he found Neha’s way of talking ‘funny’. But the teacher was hopeful that this conversation would help Aditya and the other children to pause, think and consider reflections of themselves. Here, critical thinking was employed to generate moments of connectedness among the children and help them feel less alone. Children also learn to listen to other classmates in the class even if there are opposing views. This places them as active learners by considering multiple perspectives and thereby develop the ability to make informed choices.
To conclude, critical thinking is not just about having a participatory discussion, it needs to be directed towards specific issues or problems that we encounter as a collective, the ways we visualize responses and act upon them. The few minutes of everyday assemblies in school is just one of the ways in which a safe space is provided for children to not only express their fears and emotions but also an opportunity to help them practice this critical life skill that is important for dealing with the challenges of everyday life.
The author is a teacher at Vidyaranya High School, Hyderabad. This writing is an attempt to share her work and initiate reflection with other teachers. She can be reached at pradita_n@yahoo.com.
