by Ganesh Karapakula on Monday, September 5, 2011 at 2:19pm
“I don’t teach,” a ‘teacher’ said to me, “I learn.” She didn’t like to further define her job. It took me quite a while to understand what she said. I have been gazing at my relationships with most of my teachers. In their lectures, they talk, and I listen to them. We often converse too. Moreover, essentially, there is something happening at a deeper level. We interact. We are ‘inter-actors’. I have seen that in the ‘play’ of our interactions, we are real ‘actors’. My teachers seem to be powerful and effective actors. Their power does not lie much in influencing my thoughts or action, but rather in igniting my mind. In the beautiful words of Khalil Gibran, “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” They are effective actors in the sense that they form an effective bidirectional bond with me so that learning may not happen in just one fixed direction. I had a conception that the school stages our play, but I have come to a realization that the play is the school itself. I like to think of school as a huge web, and my interactions with my teachers take place over that magnificent web. And, I am grateful to my teachers since they are the ones who have woven the web. Happy Teachers’ Day!
Pasted from <http://www.facebook.com/notes/ganesh-karapakula/my-teachers-and-my-self-we-are-interactors/279979315361487?notif_t=like>
I began writing this post many years ago, in July 2002 to be precise. Not that there's a date to refer to, but it begins with a reference to a muggy July day fourteen years before, which, as it happens, was definitely 1988. Amongst old, abandoned, dusty files I found three sheets of rice paper with a series of thoughts that began an exploration of the human tendency to "institutionalize" anything and everything. I think in the context of the drama-in-real-life that recently unfolded at the Ramlila Grounds, it all ties up, somehow, and a question resounds through the cosmos… (Ah, wait for the question, you'll hear it!)
The three sheets of yellowing paper were neatly handwritten in double-line space which came naturally before my blogspot days. I wonder why I preferred to handwrite my thoughts as they flowed through those days. Ironically, nine years later, too attuned to the laptop as the great vehicle for outpouring, as I began working on this again, I had to start by handwriting this post as my laptop screen had shaken violently the last time I had switched it on.
This post is not about the joys of being able to pen my thoughts [literally speaking]. That skill has become endangered and may completely die out with my generation. But I do not share the general pessimism that parts of the brain will never become activated if a child is not taught to handwrite. Who cares?…. But more on this later. Let me rewind to thoughts that plagued me nine years ago and build them towards, if possible, some logical conclusions.
THE SCHOOL THAT I DREAM OF
Fourteen years ago - a long time to hold on to a memory - on a muggy July day just like this one, I walked through the portals of Mirambika. The fire of inspiration burning bright in my mind, passion unhindered by common sense - to change the world one school at a time, equipped with a mission plan that only a twenty-one-year-old can dream up, I walked into the most marvellous school anyone could imagine.
The sight was enthralling.
No walls to separate rooms, no chalk-dusted teachers trying to inculcate discipline in children, beautiful trees growing out of every nook and cranny, even in the middle of classrooms. Laughter echoed off the trees - children laughing , adults laughing along with them…. Enchanting!
Mirambika has often been described as an experimental school, usually in a slightly derogatory/judgemental manner, and this description has unfortunately had the detrimental effect of limiting the true potential of an institution such as this. The criticism it faces because of the word "experimental" has resulted in many hours of needless soul-searching amongst the faculty - Are we playing with the lives/minds of children? The undeniable fact remains - only a person truly committed to education would choose to work in a school like Mirambika. [The deeper, more valid, questions to ask would be, "Which system, created by adults, is NOT playing with the lives/minds of children?" And, "Why is it that an adult is considered better equipped to judge what and how a child should be taught?"]
Child-centred education is not a new concept. Thanks to much available literature, this "experiment" is known to have been around for a long time - most "enlightened" people are familiar with the phrase. How many people actually understand the true import of the term, however, is open to question. The assumption, of this path of education, is that the child WANTS to learn and is perfectly capable of doing so if a suitable (read stimulating but safe) environment is created, and the educator in charge plays the role of the facilitator of that learning. Another popular theory is that in times of stress, when our survival depends on it, we learn best - and most mainstream education bases its pedagogy on this, to the extent of threatening our physical well-being on occasion. But this one, again, is part of another post.
To develop the thought of situations in which children CAN or WILL learn, a century ago, in January 1906, Dr Maria Montessori was given charge of fifty-odd "wretchedly poor children" of a workers tenement. All that was initially required of her was that the children not "be left to play on the stairs and dirty the walls or create disorder." [Mo. M., The Secret of Childhood, Orient Longman, 1936, p. 145] Like all truly pioneering people, she did not have to dig deep before she struck gold. The spark ignited by the sight of her hapless students formed a dream in her mind, and the Case dei Bambini (Children's Homes) were born. A century later voices of "reason" seem to have drowned out the essence of Montessori, retaining only the physical manifestation and vague, meaningless terminology like the "play-way method".
Dr Montessori, it is completely certain, would want to disassociate her name from the myriad neighbourood schools that, without a qualm, paint her name on their display boards. In fact, the Montessori name has been murdered repeatedly and violently by institutions that do not even claim to have read her work in the field of education. The magic she created for the bambini that she worked with, her dream of schools that care, have been distorted beyond recognition by the very institutions that lay claim to the legacy.
Where is the gap, then, between her dream and our reality? Where, indeed, is the gap between our dreams and our realities? Like a chinese whisper the dream travels from person to person, from generation to generation, from teacher to trainee, from magical practice to theory to literal practice…. And somewhere along that journey it, at best, loses itself and at worst, is distorted beyond belief.
So, really, the school that I dream of does not exist. Indeed, it cannot and must not exist except in the realm of my imagination. It must remain a dream to work towards much like the star the sailor steers his ship by. For it is in the nature of institutionalization to destroy the very core of an idea and retain only the trappings and trimmings.
Why should this be so? Why does institutionalizing an idea, sometimes even a brilliant idea, spell out its own disastrous death? Perhaps the most obvious answer is that an institution does and must run on a systemic format. For each human being involved, a set of guidelines, rules if you like, dos and don'ts, pre-define how s/he must function in order to reach certain common goals. But is your dream the same as mine? Is your method a replica of mine? And if not, why do we follow one method, one model, one syllabus, one curriculum? Who decides which is better and which not?
A system, by its very definition, is the absence of chaos. Therefore, if anything happens to disturb the system, the result is (at least temporarily) chaos. It depends on the nature of the event (or psychological/technological invention) on how big or small the resultant chaos is. And when threatened, it is the tendency of the system or institution to fight back.
Therefore, we have crucifixions - both literal and metaphorical - of individuals and groups who bring in new ideas or fresh approaches of looking at the system. And, in the murder of the fresh breeze lies the stagnation of the little pond and all the fish in it.
My favourite example for this: About 30 years ago, IBM launched its first personal computer. Since the item was expensive to produce initially, the system of handwriting took a very long time to feel shaken, till in the last decade or so when it began fighting back. It fights with the most dangerous weapon of all - the Fear of the Unknown. What will happen to the brain…. etc. It is fighting the easy database provided by unlimited access to the Internet - what will happen to our capacity to memorize facts and figures if we can access them within seconds?
A few lone voices have pointed out that the technological revolution has made the world "flat" [Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, Allen Lane, 2005]. Information is no longer a matter of access, or even one of financial wellbeing (one is not talking about the extremely marginalized, of course). And yet, as the system fights back, we are rendered suspicious of long-term effects.
Furthermore, what of the many who fell by the wayside earlier because we did not have the technology to help any special needs they had? Those who did not like to or could not write, could not see enough to write, who had problems with spelling, with drawing graphs, who could not hear, who could not organize their lives, and indeed those who could not memorize effectively ....? Why were these voices that oppose technology today not loud enough in their demand for changes in the system to make sure that the playing ground was flat for everyone?
This is where the system of education ties in with such systemic, anti-change reactions. Education, it is well-known, is a well-defined system of indoctrination. This is not a meaning I have imbued the word with. It exists in objective spaces where definitions have a finality and have been agreed upon by the greater common people. Education, as a system, fights back whenever we try to change or even to question its basic foundations. Could this be, perhaps, because the primary objective of this system is to ensure that a body of knowledge built up over many generations is passed on to the new generation? And when we say body of knowledge, we must include in it many ways of being-- acceptable, appropriate, unquestionable. Within the system there is no scope, no means with which one can deeply ask the W questions - Who, What, Where, When or Why. The very day that one begins to ask these questions, one ceases to be an Educator.
Ironically, it was in a school that I became aware of the difference between an Educator and a Facilitator of learning. The difference is vast and the two terms spring from divergent/opposing philosophies of shaping destinies.
Ironically, it was in a school that I became aware of the difference between an Educator and a Facilitator of learning. The difference is vast and the two terms spring from divergent/opposing philosophies of shaping destinies.
The word "educator" from "educate", defined as "give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (a pupil, esp. a child), esp. a formal and prolonged process" [reproduced verbatim from The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, OUP 1995, p. 431, incidentally my all-time favourite book]. The word "learn" on the other hand, is defined as "gain knowledge of or skill in by study, experience, or being taught" [ibid., p. 774]. Instantly, you see the horizons open up. While you "give instruction" as an educator, as a facilitator of learning you aid a process or journey undertaken by the learner.
So, the approach of the facilitator could roughly be: first, provide some sort of stimulus, if required, and have a discussion with the learner; second, s/he could ask the learner to define, even vaguely, what s/he would like to explore; and finally, in a collaborative setting, both could draw up an action plan for the exploration, create a list of resources/resource persons required, etc.
Yes, yes, of course, you can do this in your weekly hobby club, we hear them say. The chorus grows louder: "How will the facilitator ASSESS that learning has taken place?" It is not enough, of course, that the child engaged with the process in a completely self-motivated way. However, one doesn't blame the chorus for asking that question - it is wearing the wrong hat. By its very definition, education requires an end; it is product- or result-oriented. In the absence of the product or result, education would come under the scrutiny of the powers that be - it would be questioned on what the student had "learnt". Can the student construct grammatically correct sentences, speak clearly, loudly, prove theorems, calculate the distance travelled by x if the windspeed is y and the resistance is z? And finally, can the student classify, organize, analyse, comment, decipher, synthesize, evaluate…. and petrify the learning? Because then, and only then, will s/he be given those pieces of paper which will open doors to universities, jobs, lives or life-styles.
There is an assumption here that learning has happened. That the idea of transferring knowledge to the next generation has been successfully turned into reality. The value of such a transfer is not something one questions at all.
There is an assumption here that learning has happened. That the idea of transferring knowledge to the next generation has been successfully turned into reality. The value of such a transfer is not something one questions at all.
And so, let me recount a lesson, or perhaps it should just be called an experience, which has haunted me for a while:
"I am not here to offer any words of wisdom," the Teacher said. "I am, however, very willing to listen to anything you want to tell me."
Puzzled, the students looked up at her, wonderingly. "What of the syllabus, then? How will we cover that?" asked the Highly Motivated By The Prospect of Marks (HMBTPM) child.
"You tell me how you would like to cover it," the Teacher responded. The HMBTPM child looked even more puzzled.
"I hate poetry. I hate reading. I hate all types of studies," said the Switched Off From Learning (SOFL) child.
"Yeah, I can relate to that. I hate anything I'm forced to do," the Teacher responded. The SOFL grinned.
"So, can we have free periods every day," SOFL asked.
"Define 'free period'," the Teacher said.
Several hands went up. The Teacher invited the one who had chosen the last seat in the last row to speak. Shyly, she said, "A free period is one in which we can do anything we like and don't have to study."
"OK. Now please define 'anything we like'. What is it that you like?" the Teacher asked.
Several other hands went up. This time the Teacher asked another child in the last row to speak.
"We could chat with our friends, we could go on the internet, facebook, whatever."
"We could go and play soccer," added one in the front.
The HMBTPM child raised his hand. "But aren't we here to study, to learn?"
"You tell me what you are here to do. Are you really here to study, to learn? Or are you here because someone, perhaps your parents, perhaps the government, decided that between the ages of 4 and 18 you have to go to school every day? And you went along with it because you were powerless to resist people or forces so much stronger than you, especially because you were dependent on some of those powerful people for all those things you like to do - you know, have a computer so you can go on the internet, facebook; someone who will buy you a soccer kit, or the next generation iphone… Tell me, how many of you are here because you know and understand the function of school in your life?"
Slowly, reluctantly, one hand went up. It was HMBTPM, of course. "So," the Teacher asked him, "what is the function of school?"
"To get an education so that I can have a career, one that I want…?" He ended his statement with an upward inflection, like he wasn't really sure.
"And once you have a career, what then?"
"Well, I just do my job, earn money, live the life I want." This time, the confidence with which he said it was almost endearing.
"So who told you that you can't live the life you want right now?" the Teacher probed.
"My parents, teachers… uh… other teachers. Well, they didn't exactly say that I can't lead the life I want right now. What they said was that if I don't study now, I won't have the choices I want later in life."
The SOFL child spoke up. "This made sense to you? Postponing your right to live? Do you remember the boy who died two years ago? Just after his board exams? He got straight A's. Didn't live to see his results. And no fault of his, either. Just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the drunk man in the car crashed into him. He was going to the market to buy bread for breakfast. I used to know him. My elder brother and he were great friends. He was over very often. Great fun to be with. Always joking around. Computer whizz. Knew stuff most of us don't… what choices did he have or not have? And what choices did his straight A's get for him?"
"What are you trying to say? That we should stop studying because one guy died when he was 16 years old? Have you thought about what will happen to you if you live to be 21?" the Motivated Child was almost offensive in his wish to see the future.
The Quiet Back Bencher suddenly jumped up. "Don't you realize what they are trying to do to us?" she shouted. "They don't want us to think! They want us to follow! They don't believe that we are any good till we are 21 - so they lock us up in institutions till that time. By the time they are through with their mind-alteration, we cannot think any more. We are just clones of each other - the only thing we are good at is imitation. And then we are really "ready" for the world - to follow, to obey, to never question anything, to go from one boring day to another boring day till the time we die - either of boredom or of old age. They say that school is a dress rehearsal for the real world. Well, sure, it is. It definitely teaches us how not to ever, ever, ever ask "why". Because they don't really have the answer to that except to say that it will be useful in the real world. Well, I don't agree! Because who MADE the real world? Who set down the rules and the laws that say don't question, don't think, don't be different, DON"T YOU DARE? And who, after asking 'why', has been allowed to survive even in the real world? And seriously, have you ever thought about what will happen to you if you live to be 21?"
*****
And so, to end with that cosmic question, the human race and its need to straitjacket, to clone every great idea till it is merely a heartless, soul-less similar looking replica, feeds upon the great human need to create institutions rather than ideas…. institutions in which we "grow old rather than grow up"; places in which no matter what the philosophy espoused or the pedagogy touted, at the end of the day it is that piece of paper that you can frame and hang on the wall where it has pride of place. The end product of education, my friends, is not even you or I - it is a gold embossed cursive written A4 sized paper that you can wave at the world to let them know that you made it out alive.
Or did you?
