A Delhi Metro Ride: How do we learn?

Thank God for the Delhi Metro! July 11, 2016 5.30 PM, hot, humid and waiting at the Green Park Metro Station, I boarded the one headed towards Jahangir Puri. Most passengers who’d managed to get a seat, I know for some time now, is no accident. To secure a seat, commuters plan carefully, some travelling backwards, others strategically positioned to barge in as soon as the doors opened, to board an empty train for the long ride ahead.  Quite a distinctive feature of the evening yellow line, I imagined but I now suspect it must be the same for the other lines as well. Speaking of other lines, ‘violent line’, comes to my mind.

Sajjad is quite soft spoken, and his gentle smile instantly draws you. Speaking of his commute back home from office, he describes the optic and haptic tumult that the commutes have to contend with in the Violet Line. He has rechristened the Violet line to Violent Line. No points for guessing the reasons for his choice. Has he has ever boarded a Mumbai Local?

With ear phones plugged in and mobile handsets playing downloaded movies or games, most seated commuters settle down for the ride ahead. Some if not most of these commuters distinctly appear to look forward to their metro commutes.

For passengers boarding in between, some, like me cast a quick, surreptitious, careful look, without making it too obvious, quickly attempting to judge who’s likely to deboard at the earliest and position ourselves as close to the intended seat at possible. At times this anticipated posture is a bit too close for comfort. More than once, I found myself wishing my knees would magically sprout wicked fangs/claws, not too sure which, but vicious was on the menu, where as soon as the optimistic commuter, came a bit too close for comfort or accidentally pushed against my knees … snap and ouch!

The anticipated wait for a seat is fraught with a range of emotions. Like the other day I boarded the yellow line at Malviya Nagar and was headed for Vishwavidayalaya. One, particular commuter, gave off all the appropriate signals of ‘deboarding soon’ – wow, a seat so soon, I commended myself for having chosen well. He, carefully, unplugged the ear phones, put away his mobile phone, and glanced at the neon signboard. To help him I, offered, ‘AIIMS, next station, hai’ He smiled his gratitude. The AIIMS stop, came and went by, disappointed… but wait he’s upto something now. Two metro stops later, he collects his bag from under the seat and grips it in a way to indicate, he’s all set to deboard, well this is it, I think. Four metro stops later, he, hunches forward, and peers at the neon board again. By now the evening crowd of commuters had made the coach feel overcrowded. Disappointed and annoyed, I decide to let the ‘idiot’ see the board for himself, my enthusiasm to help him, had significantly subsided, quite a while ago.

When he showed no signs of deboarding at Rajiv Chowk. I was not willing to give up, perhaps at Kashmere Gate, I told myself.  Nearing Kashmere Gate, he fishes out this mobile, ‘Bhai, abhi Kashmere Gate ke paas hain … time lagega …’ that’s it, how could I have been so wrong. This idiot was not getting off at Kashmere gate. Angry and God knows what else, I almost lost it, when he asked me, ‘Kashmere Gate se Samayapur Badli Kitne door hai’ mustering up all the sanity I could, ‘bus dus minute ka rasta’ I offered viciously, two commuters seated nearby gave me look, that screamed, ‘says who?’. I got off at the Vishwavidayala stop and my intended seat was still ‘occupied’, but by now it did not matter, before getting off, I managed to get a good look at the ‘idiot’ – vowing never to fall for the trap again. Noticing the neon sign that declared that the train was bound upto Jahangirpuri, made me feel a little better, he’d have to get up! 

Walking back to the Hostel, still seething with disappointment, I consoled myself saying that at least I would never make the same mistake again. Wait, what was I thinking? Fine, I would, be careful never to stand in front of that person (… if, I recognize him …). What was the learning from this experience? Was it a learning moment?  When do people learn? What causes learning? What could have caused learning or should we ask ‘better learning’ … if I had gotten the seat, or if I did not?

Teaching and Learning: Exploring spaces for individual and collective interrogation of assimilated educational perspectives

 

 

 

 

It’s Teacher’s Day in India – Wishing all the TEACHERS a day to Remember, Rejoice and Renew.

When did you last feed somebody? We are not talking about family and friends. This question, I suspect, may seem odd to the western mind. In India, feeding the other, despite vestiges of despicable want and misery, is quite common place, from insects to evolved and evolving simians, everybody get a bite!

What is your image of a teacher? Have you ever imagined the teacher as one who feeds his/her learners? What If teaching in India, is understood as feeding? All of a sudden, one makes sense of the range of models that account for the act of feeding - the charity model, the throw away model, the religious compunction model and what have you … trust the diversity and complexity of our Nation to account for all the permutation and combination of models. Feeding in India is fine, but what about teaching in India - Teaching in India is, at best, a contested construct.

The systematic denigration of public education, notably by the States’ own acts of commission, omission and neglect, has led to the corporate takeover of public education resulting in myopic curriculum standardization. William Ayers, ‘In Teaching Toward Freedom’, contends that this promotes “a curriculum of facts: incontrovertible ‘Truths,’ uncontested and measurable, inarguable and beyond dialogue or debate” and vitiates against the development of the learners and "their fullest democratic humanity."

How many Teachers do you know of, who view their calling as organically related to teaching and learning, as concerned with internal capacity building in response to state-imposed accountability pressures, and as an existential process of writing one's autobiography through their day-to-day work?

Teaching and learning continuously challenges us to redraw the lines concerning how we teach, why we teach, and what we find when we help students become independent, restless, and engaged learners.  

The vision of the school should speak of the extraordinary possibilities awaiting discovery. Education is not simply about educating minds, but about developing whole persons - cultivating meaning, community, and moral responsibility.

While Teachers Day calls for Celebrations, the call to Renewal is a tough one – it demands of teachers to “let go” of the need to be right, safe, and certain. The call to renewal is a call to engage with Truth Skills.

Susan Campbell’s Truth Skills, in ‘Getting Real: Ten Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life’, could well applying to teachers in India. ONE Stop Being Right and Start Being Real TWO Experiencing What Is: To Get Where You Need to Go, Be Where You Are THREE Being Transparent: Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Hide FOUR Noticing Your Intent: Is It to Relate or to Control? FIVE Welcoming Feedback: It’s How We Learn SIX Asserting What You Want and Don’t Want: Supporting Your Feelings with Action SEVEN Taking Back Projections: Discovering Your Other Side EIGHT Revising an Earlier Statement: It’s Okay to Go Out and Come In Again NINE Holding Differences: Seeing Other Viewpoints Without Losing Your Own TEN Sharing Mixed Emotions: You’re Not Crazy, You’re Complex ELEVEN Embracing the Silence of Not Knowing: Entering the Fertile Void TWELVE Serenity, Presence, and Compassion

Teachers, in India today, and I suspect elsewhere as well, are at risk of intellectual docility and passive acceptance of assertions and assumptions that are arguably raised without substantiation. A tryst with Susan Campbell’s ‘Truth Skills’ could set off convictions - critical and visionary, dystopian and utopian.

An individual and collective interrogation of the assimilated educational perspectives and the world offers an ethically compelling vision with concrete proposals that can rally, empower, coordinate, and guide the efforts of activist educators and innovative teachers as they contribute their own brand of action to school reform, democratic community, and social justice.

Wishing all the TEACHERS a day to Remember, Rejoice and Renew!

 

Decoding Learning: Teacher Learning, Prof. Krishna Kumar and Soren Kierkegaard

..The gloomy outlook ... for education, particularly School Education in India... is all out there... ‘Blind Faith’ (Krishna Kumar, Indian Express, April 23, 2016, p. 15). For want of a better lollipop ... 'education' in India (the packaged public variety) continues to seductively sway ...fervid minds.

The 'inputs' to 'packaged and programmed public instruction/education' have predictably failed to translate into any discernible learning outcomes, ask ASER! So here's my take ... let’s attempt to DECODE LEARNING ... and spare our children the ignominy of measuring their ... 3R's (ggrrrrrrrrr ... ASER). 

I was recently awed by Pratham Education Foundation’s Faiyaz Ahmed and Samyukta Subramanian when they spoke about the amazing efficacy of a three month CAMaL model to implement targeted instruction (IIC, Delhi, April 14, 2016). Stumbling out the stupor of, ‘yeh to kamaal ho gaya...’ I realized ... it could well be a cabalistic attempt to valorizing reading and ... raising questions about the rigor and relevance of Teacher Education.

How would an attempt to DECODE TEACHER LEARNING sound? I want to believe that rigorous and relevant attempts to understand TEACHER LEARNING ... (a fervent appeal to PRATHAM, ASER) could automatically ensure ... STUDENT LEARNING...  and, Pratham, you’d mercifully spare young hearts and minds the torture of stammering out ‘expected responses’ to ‘inane stimulus’ and the ensuing predictable collective angst of a suitably inured general public. Reliable sources claim policy makers, are delighted with the ASER ... findings!

Let’s get back to Delhi. I would love to be part of the 90 that is all set to visit the UK ... WOWO....I am trying to imagine their shopping lists ... A 10 day training in Leadership in Oxford for 90 Principals (Indian Express, April 23, 2016, p. 15)... at best it could be a 10 day dabbling with dappled notions of School Leadership.

'Blind Faith' ... is how Prof. Krishna Kumar, chose to call it ... but... why not... even as we grapple with the question of whether Religion is a question of identity or faith ... perhaps, we’d do well to ask ... the same of EDCUATION particularly school education in India ...

‘Control’ and ‘autonomy’ are highlighted as the areas of concerns of the good professor and I wholeheartedly concur. Given the current collective penchant for reducing complex and diverse notions, for example patriotism and other concepts into ... attractive alliterations ... our 90 School Heads raised on the staple of compliance, would set off ... to ‘discover’ albeit in foreign shores ... the blind adherence to standards, compliance and accountability. One is reminded of the Talmudic saying, ‘we don’t see things the way they are, we see them the way we are’. Such an outlook strikes at the very root of an individual’s sense of responsibility, caring and autonomy.

It’s not all gloom and doom, while the 90 Principals get to dabble in School Leadership ‘best practices’ in Oxford, they all be soon back. A sign of hope for me would be, to set off on attempts to “Decoding Learning: Shifting the Conversations from Student Learning to Teacher Learning” Here’s something to help us along ... ‘Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.’ – Soren Kierkegaard. Ever wondered, how fraught today’s teachers are ... valiantly attempting to alter their students ... I am reminded of the ‘serenity prayer’.