Children Deprived of Learning Experience.

It was during the journey to Madhya Pradesh, I could enjoy the company of a 4 year old girl Roshni. She belongs to a rural area of Gorakhpur district born to a farmer family. Just like any other girl of that age she explored all the opportunities for fun and excitement with fellow passengers. Gradually I turned my focus on reading a book and others slipped down to silence. She could observe the stillness and grabbed a notebook from her mother’s bag and started scribbling Hindi alphabet and drawing some pictures. No one advised her to do so and it was her own initiative. 

Teachers and parents who always attempt ‘creating interest’ in children to learn lessons, acquire knowledge and skills often are unmindful of the fact that children are self motivated and there is an inherent urge in them to learn new things and experience the joy of exploring the unknown. There is pure desire for development which is shaped in their own pace and nature. Disregarding this universal fact, we use coercive strategies and classroom and home give them undesirable moments of tyranny. What could have been realized just by creating conducive atmosphere and supplemented by some kind of stimuli turns to be hegemony of the elders over children to achieve certain results without considering the organic system of childhood. 

The situation in most of the  rural public schools  are different though they produce the same result of their semi urban/urban counterpart of private schools that practice non productive education which impart curriculum with information that are transmitted to children through conventional pedagogy. Different situation does not mean productive atmosphere, on the other hand it is rather free of pressure from parents, teachers, peers and community at large. Most of the rural Government schools are last shelter for vulnerable children who can’t afford private school expense. Public education system has not moved forward from rudimentary facilities of all weather building, black board, chalk and text books with few teachers, in most of the time inadequate to maintain the approved child teacher ratio, to run the show sponsored by the state. In the midst of this deplorable condition few children acquire the status of being literate that enable them to reproduce information (not knowledge) without understanding which is the beginning of rote learning. The other children remain drop out (actually they are pushed out as the eminent educationist Prof. Anil Sadgopal describes due to the discouraging and unproductive classroom experience) or continue attending class without learning anything substantial until they find a compelling situation to earn a living. 

It is important to investigate why children who have the instinct to learn, to enjoy the excitement of discovering new things and grow remain stunted in the schools. Every year Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) analysis by Pratham reminds us of the poor learning outcomes in the Government schools which promote the capable parents not to send their children to Government schools. Children at the age of 2 to 4 learn a language fails to learn anything more in the classrooms prove the dismal atmosphere they are made part of. It is important for every educator and responsible citizens of our nation to recognize why our schools fail to encouraging children to develop inquiring minds and ability to find answers to millions of questions through personal and collective investigations. 

It is hard to find any objects in the Govt. schools that stimulate the children to learn and attain knowledge through action. Even library and laboratories are luxurious and unimaginable amenities in Government schools. Children in these schools are denied every opportunity to work and gain knowledge which is beyond the conventional chalk and talk pedagogy. There is neither opportunities for them to acquire knowledge nor to be creators of new knowledge. The situation embarks on catastrophic end when the content of curriculum and pedagogy are completely disconnected from their reality. Children in the rural areas do not find a linkage between the lessons given in the prescribed textbook and their realities and finally withdraw themselves from the system. Most of the teachers who are burdened with responsibilities of maintaining records are discontented about their job for various reasons and they do not make any effort to contribute something of their own to improve the miserable state of affairs. 

It is obvious that children in every school should be given opportunity to work with equipments and experience knowledge through doing and observing rather than unreceptive storing information to reproduce to prove their competence. The aim of productive classroom should be to build conscious citizens for a truly democratic, egalitarian, secular and enlightened India. Therefore it is essential to create classrooms that foster creativity, innate desire in every child to learn and experience the joy of productive knowledge considering the diverse needs of young minds and socioe-conomic realities.  

Lessons from Mr. David and Issues of Development

Development (Vikas in Hindi) is the rhetoric that resonate every sphere of life including political speech and Social work. The more you deal with the core of the topic, the more you get into the labyrinthine arena of its uncertainty that would lead you far from any definite conclusion of its means and ways. Like any other person involved in development I too was indulged in the multifarious tasks of project activities with fusion of confidence, skepticism, satisfaction, disillusionment and of course optimism that emerges out of lessons leant from everyday experience while working with people and environment. Such was the experience bestowed upon me and my colleagues while working with Mr. David Syme, a veteran development consultant from Australia. He came to Gorakhpur as the team leader of the Mid Term Review of a project that is implemented for the mainstreaming of Persons with Disabilities. In the introductory session of the review he termed the process of evaluation as ‘an appreciative enquiry’ which would be participatory and looking at the positive side of whole affairs.

I do not wish to write about the evaluation and its outcome but about the process and an important lesson that I could absorb as a splendid principle of development and of course life. During the process he was very particular to ensure that diverse voices were heard during the field visit to interact with community members especially persons with disabilities. He interacted with them without discrimination in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding. Thus all the participants could express their view and experience freely and generously. 

I was amazed to find how he facilitated the discussion with patience and great sense of understanding. He was not in a hurry to get the participants to reply immediately after a question ( it was not a question, but an enquiry into their realities) but allowed them to take time and express themselves. During the conversation he reminded the team members “we should even appreciate their silence because we should not expect the community members to respond immediately after a question placed in front of them. They need to understand and reflect in their own pace and manner.” He also reminded us we should not be in a hurry to define change but rather we should allow people to express what they consider as change or development. What you define as change may not be so for a community in a different context.

Now about the splendid principle of development that I could absorb from Mr. David was his comment during a conversation which I consider the ‘manthra’ of development or even as a core value of human life. He said “My duty as the leader of evaluation team is not just to throw ideas into various stakeholders but to facilitate them to move towards the desired direction and support them to attain it in diverse means.” This statement really touched me as I find the absence of this core value in various spheres of life including development activities, where we sometime even go to the extent of coercion. The best example in development is the way Government conceive the whole idea of eliminating open defecation from rural and urban areas. Wide range of programmes including Total Sanitation Programm, to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and now Swatch Bhrart Abhiyan were Government centric and the Government expecting the people to change towards adopting safe disposal of human waste after constructing the toilets at subsidized rate without even creating demand. Millions of rupees from the exchequer were invested to construct toilets and vast majority of them are used by the people for various purposes such as a store room and they remain dysfunctional. 

As Government deal with development issues, teachers at school, parents at home, priests at temples, churches, mosques etc., leaders of organizations, managers of the firms, the intellectuals in seminars and workshops play the role of reservoir of ‘progressive ideas’ and agents of change that are more enthusiastic to make others feel inferior and make them aware of their drawbacks. Thus blaming, paying  focus on weakness along with possible solutions becomes the central areas in the above mentioned fields of life. In development sector one can find two groups, one the providers (knowledge, ideas, resources) and the other at the receiving end. The providers always believe they are infallible and its their duty to provide others solutions that they believe the right thing to adopt. I found a bold departure in David’s approach towards people in enabling them to become agents of change themselves. The whole approach was not to dominate the other with his wisdom and experience but to assist people towards the desired changes or progress. He interacted with various stake holders especially who are key people in the project implementation side at various occasions with the keen intention of a better project cycle management. He was not just pointing out the errors or weakness but facilitating all of us towards the change.

Finding faults, drawbacks, sharing solutions and bunch of advices are a common man’s cup of tea but without a judgmental attitude, respecting diverse views, and facilitating people towards change without imposing an inferior feeling into the minds of others is possible only for persons like David who are blessed with decorum, insight, and true wisdom.

Schools That Do Not Accept Diversity

School enrollment, dropout rate, low language and arithmetic skills and the absenteeism among the children and teachers have become a routine discussion that does not evoke curiosity. Always the focus stretches across Govt. schools and their counterpart in the rural areas where children from economically backward status study. Since there are lots of Private schools in the urban areas, there is always an assumption that the situation is better and issues of education remains only for one section of the community, the economically and socially backward. Low grade Govt. school Vs High standard Private-English- school is a stereotype that overwhelmingly influences the mass especially urban middle class. It is very obvious that the middle class who is desperately in search of their economic upward mobility blindly believe Private institutions as the panacea for all the problems in the Govt. institutions. 

Let’s see what happens in the mainstream successful schools? They all have a legacy of their children going out of the school ‘with flying colors’- what is described as ‘Hundred per cent success’.  The strategies and formula of success begin from the enrollment of children in the pre- primary or primary class. Conducting interviews even for primary school (recently I found a Centre for coaching preprimary children to get admission in one of the mainstream schools), result oriented teaching practices, cramming sessions, rigorous disciplinary actions, firm focus on curriculum, continuous exam oriented drills and minimum extra- curricular activities are some of the common strategies practiced. The situation becomes awful along with peer and parental pressure on children for ultimate objective of best academic achievements. 

It is common that children with intellectual, physical and sensory disabilities are always excluded from enrolling in these schools as they pose threat to the system to the extent that some school are feared of bad parental opinion for the belief that such children’s presence would minimize the competency of their abled children. The so called ‘slow learners’, children with learning disabilities, children with hyper activity and behavioral issues are already screened during the interview by experts. Among the several applicants the luckiest ones with best performance and some children having parents of high influence are getting admitted. 

More interestingly parents blindly believe the admission into the popular schools make their children’s future secure unmindful of what happens on the school campus. They do not even care the absence of individual care due incongruous teacher student ratio which sometimes accedes 1:50. Stereotype teaching methods, adopting disciplinary measures that would stifle the child’s innate curiosity to experience and know new things, class room rules that do not accept and respect the rights of child to make decisions and participate in the decision making, authoritarian decision making of the school management to control the children with multiple interest, behavior, learning capabilities by suppressing their expressions and such many other practices leads to breed stereotyped successful children.

School management believes it is their duty to ‘produce’ success through rigorous management and teachers believe they have to be part of the system for their survival, job security and above all for the convenience of their job. The situation become dreadful when teachers do not foster diversity, creativity, freedom of expression and more importantly democratic practices in the classroom which are beyond imparting knowledge and skills. The million dollar question is how they can deal with souls and hearts rather than performing stereotype teaching method in front of a passive audience of young buds. 

It is important for our mainstream school system to recognize and accept diversity and embrace the values of preparing the young minds to find meaningful life, for that they should respect rights of child and childhood and give opportunity for every child an opportunity for growth and development without discrimination for any reasons. Schools should be a place where all kinds of children live together, experience life, understand the broad spectrum of world and find means of cooperation rather than cut throat competition. In such an environment the scope education and role of educators could be stretched beyond producing stereotype breeds but the realization of the basic reality of life that is the significance and beauty of diversity.

When shall we end the Molasses Classes?

Having completed reading ‘The End of Molasses Classes’ by Ron Clark, I wish if I were a child in his Academy or at least a faculty member who can be part of the marvelous endeavor. The book was so compelling, memorable and staggering.  The Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia started from the ground-up revolution, and over ten thousand educators from around the world have visited the school to learn about the unexpected ways the teachers and parents of RCA that helped the children achieve great success.  The professional development experiences they offer are unique. Ron Clark Academy is the brainchild of Ron Clark, the man with sense of adventure, creativity, innovation and above all with determination to commit himself for the venture he is indulged in. He has written three books, The Essential 55, The End of Molasses Classes, and The Excellent 11 that serve guidance for parents who want more for their children, teachers who need strategies for helping students achieve success, and communities that hope to uplift every child and improve the education of the next generation.

What is special with Ron Clark Academy? It is not something because it is established in United States of America but for the simple reason that there is man with his wonderful team having a vision, commitment, innovation and above all passion for educating children behind the venture that started in Atlanta by renovating a one hundred year old factory into a school that would affect the lives of children all over the world. He had no financial support or other resources at hand while he passionately decided to start the school at the abandoned building. 

In his book The End of Molasses Classes Ron Clark narrates with candor his struggles, commitment , challenges he faced in the beginning, innovative practices, creative class rooms, strategies to support the child to achieve success and the experience of children, educators and parents in transforming the lives of thousands of children.

For every child a day at her/his school is a unique experience of learning and a step towards excellence. The committed educators make the children believe in themselves and do not destroy their dreams. They give all that they have to their children even though they may often receive nothing in return. They get to know their students in non -academic setting. Rather than finding excuses, they search for solutions and make it happen. Thus they create moments that will have a lasting impact on children’s lives. They treat every child as if he or she were their own. They accept and celebrate diversity in the class room. 

Though we consider education is the panacea for all development issues, In India we could not realise quality education for every child. The issues of our education system are unfathomably complex and the quality of education remains deplorably low. However much can be done if each teacher is equipped with skills to deal with children from multiple backgrounds and passion for educating them through strategies that aim at excellence. Teachers at RCA have invariably proved that teaching is not just a career to earn a living. They show us the true meaning of relationship, how to be humane, understand the children and guide the parents and community to support the future generation towards the pathways of quality life.

Ron Clark Academy is not just an institution that gives quality education to children through successful strategies; therefore its lessons are not exclusively for educators or educational institutions.  It is an excellent atmosphere where every educator, staff is inspired to work to attain the vision and mission of the endeavor. Academy gives excellent lessons to organizations, leaders and to every individual working with people about human resource management, the secret of success of a team work and above all the true sense of commitment, creativity and innovation that could bring about wonders.