Reflexive Pedagogy: A Candid and Mordant Gaze upon Teaching and Teacher Identity
Interrogating
assimilated educational perspectives succumbing to unsettling accommodations
Are we witnessing the decay and death of teaching and
teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System?
Bequeathing to our children and posterity an education that is centred on human welfare, particularly in times of rapid economic and social change – is easily the central concern of government officials, social innovation practitioners, social entrepreneurs, civil society organizations, as well as students who would like to contribute to the common social good.
The promise of Education, ostensibly demonstrated in the
levels of learning and captured by influential reports such as the World
Development Report 2018 (WDR 2018), the twelfth Annual
Status of Education Report (ASER 2017:
Beyond Basics) and the National Achievement Survey (NAS) November
13, 2017 by NCERT, indicate a consistent and coherent pattern of a all-round ‘decline
in learning’. Has the ‘decline’ in India anything to do with the teaching and
teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System?
Decrying the ‘decline of learning’ among
the school going cohort the World Development Report 2018 (WDR 2018) - LEARNING to Realize Education's Promise, the first ever devoted
entirely to education, unequivocally declares the decline as a ‘moral and economic
crisis’.
Charting the decline of learning among learners subscribing
to Public Education in India, particularly upto the secondary level, has become
routine. The routine findings of earlier ASER and its latest the
twelfth Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2017:
Beyond Basics) and the National Achievement Survey (NAS)
conducted throughout the country on November 13, 2017 for Classes 3, 5 and 8 in
government and government aided schools by NCERT, fail to elicit even the most
muted of surprise or emotion. The diagnostics and prognostics have embarrassed
and urged those employed in the Public School Education Sector to pull up their
socks – mercifully in a tropical climate such as ours … ‘colonial attire’, shoes
and socks were never in fashion. The cleverly crafted and bandied images of
bare bodied and discalced teachers of yore clearly indicate that these ‘men’
and their ilk had little or nothing to do with the fine art of weaving or
curing and fashioning leather for either practical and or ornate use. One is
left to surmise that their ‘teaching’ had more valuable import.
Who were / are the revered icons of India’s tradition of
public intellectual engagement from of yore to the present day? Who were / are
the intellectuals who enjoyed and enjoy a status as the ethical lodestar of our
nation’s life? Current findings pertaining to the recent history of teaching
and teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System, shows how
often, and how profoundly, it has fallen short of the ideal.
With neither a best-selling author nor any meaningful research
that examines the troublesome phenomenon of teaching and teacher identity in the
Indian Public School Education System, we desperately need a critical review of
its current manifestations vis-à-vis India’s tradition of public intellectual
engagement.
We need a critical examination of how teachers in the Indian
Public School Education System have succumbed to unsettling accommodations. Who
are the nation’s scapegoats for a new generation of public intellectuals? The
need to identify and engage with those possessing an intimate knowledge of the teaching
and teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System is urgent,
first to lament the degradation of teaching and teacher identity, and second to
question the value of that class at the best of times.
Reflexive pedagogy while drawing parallels and mixing reminiscence with analysis, calls for a characteristically candid and mordant gaze upon teaching and teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System of today.
Reflexive pedagogy while drawing parallels and mixing reminiscence with analysis, calls for a characteristically candid and mordant gaze upon teaching and teacher identity in the Indian Public School Education System of today.
Labels: assimilated educational perspectives, unsettling accommodations