Educating India: Colleges

Colleges will train teachers for

1. for democratic pedagogy: It is not easy to grant rights to minors and listen to their valid demands.
2. for life-oriented learning: Teachers should become innovative and mix different techniques to make learning enjoyable and worthy of hard-work. This means that learning has to be oriented towards lives of students.
3. to remove teachers' own previous biases and background: We all are humans, and carry our 'culture' with us. It is important to unlearn our habits and past karma, at least to certain degree become aware of them.

Several schools embody these principles (and more), JK Foundation runs 'Rishi Valley Schools', then there is 'Geniekids', or 'Srujan Anand'. However, relatively very few schools also go on to train more teachers in a more systematic way. Geniekids, and now Azim Premji University aspires to do this. This has to grow as a movement, spread as a contagion and take roots as a Banyan tree...

Educating India: Schools

Here I will elaborate the idea first introduced in the earlier post, where I proposed an outline of my solution to India's chronic problem of education.

The proposed plan is to have schools where students enjoy learning, live without burden from parents and explore their own life. I am impressed by Summerhill, Tottochan and scattered readings of Tagore. If you are interested in these books and similar other books/ articles, go to Arvind Gupta's excellent website.

Before we look at schools and colleges, here are the basic set of principles:

• Happiness is paramount, therefore learning to be happy is of utmost importance.
• Children should move/ play/ act, not sit idle and cram material at one place.
• Anyone's worth is not measured by her/his productivity or knowledge, therefore education should be geared towards learning what one likes to do, and emphasizing the pleasure derived from it.
• Adults should not enforce their sense of morality, importance and life on children.

So, here is what the schools should do:

1. Students set their daily lives and ground rules: periodic and out-of-turn meetings of the entire schools will set rules for daily lives and punishments for breaking the rules. What is excluded from their purview is: academic matters and dealings with society outside the schools.
2. Classes are optional: most students play, read books, listen to stories/ music, learn dance, engage in outdoor/ indoor sports. These rules will be set by rule 1 above.
3. Learning is by demand: teachers assist students when they demand. Teachers will be trained to provide Montessori education to younger ones. The older students (12-16) will be essentially on their own, reading and working. The scientific laboratory spaces will be manned by assistants for safety purposes.
4. Grading is oriented towards learning: There is no scope for points-based grading in this system, forget 99.23% kind of silly scores. The teachers decide who has gained skills at what level, and when a student is ready, she/he can attend ICSE/ CBSE kind of examinations for their own satisfaction. We will develop alternative to other colleges, where students can register for degree or certificate courses to obtain their livelihoods.
5. Schools are residential: Parents are responsible for most problems in their children's lives. Schools will be entirely residential and students go home only twice in the year (around December and May-June.)

How we treat children is most crucial here. They have to be treated with respect, sincerity and honesty. Why did Summerhill succeed so much in bringing back so many apparently wild, unruly children to the main-stream? Neill understood the way children approached life, the role honesty and kindness while dealing with them. He never moralized them, never forced them and never judged anyone based on history.

There are many elements here that we want to keep in mind before running a school. John Holt summarizes the bit about 'permissive schools' (please read the entire piece) as follows:

....

In any case, to call Neill permissive is not just an oversimplification but a serious mistake. Let me cite an example that is widely, indeed almost always misunderstood-the matter of his rewarding with a gift a child who steals something. When Neill gives a child sixpence for stealing, is he "permitting" him to steal? Nonsense! If Neill meant to “permit" it, didn't care whether a child stole or not he would simply take no notice. But in fact he takes a very particular kind of notice, whose meaning is not for a second lost on the child. The child knows, when Neill gives him the six- pence, that he is not saying, "Sure, stealing is fine, go steal some more." The child knows already that Neill does not steal and does not want stealing around the school. What then does he hear Neill saying with this gift of suspense? He hears him saying, "I know you are not a thief." He is rightly amazed, thinks, "Not a thief! Of course I'm a thief, everyone tells me so, all the time. Besides, I just proved it, by stealing." To these thoughts he hears Neill’s silent reply, "No, not a thief. If I thought you were a thief, and would go on stealing indefinitely, I'd be a bloody idiot to give you money every time you did it, wouldn't I?" No way to argue with that; Neill is clearly no idiot. "No, at heart you're not a thief. You may be stealing now, trying to satisfy important needs that you don't know how to satisfy any other way. But there are other ways. I am ready to help you look for them, and I think you will find them.”

...

There is a good deal of child psychology to understand, develop in-house and internalize in practice. This also means that the school gradation is going to be unique, not the usual 10+2 gradation each year, with x/10 point system. Heck, even home-work will not be mentioned here.

Indian is not a free, as in free thinking. There are several things considered taboo, and children being thought as 'minors' will be one of the hardest to beat. Therefore, a free/ democratic school described above remains a huge challenge...

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How to address India's education problem - II

This post is second in the series after the first one. First we need to identify the real problems, for which we need to look at a number of symptoms of this decease carefully (e.g. why don't Kerala students go to schools as much as earlier?):

1. There are not enough schools (which adds to parents stress) therefore, those existing ones have arbitrary entrance tests, even for admission to nursery classes!!!
2. Even average, no-good schools charge extra-ordinary fees, and if some parents complain, children are humiliated as a punishment for their parents' action (showing how much they must love those kids in the first place.)
   
3. Many students (from poorer families) can not go to the 'established aided schools', Some schools even deny entry to many students. Students are thus forced go to horrible government schools, so many patronize smaller private (un-aided) schools instead. Of course, these private schools are often run by a small team, even then they outdo government schools, for
   
4. Government schools do not have enough trained teachers (heck, some states did not bother to have any norms to employ teachers), and many of teachers do not report to work. Those who do teach, are forced to also do menial jobs (for the same salary), such as cooking, census duty and election work. Note: no retraining of teachers or gradation based on teaching skills.
   
5. It is not just school teachers, the whole pattern of Indian education system is like a badly-made, well-worn quilt. There are only a handful of schools who care for their students' learning: Hrishi Valley, Genie Kids, (once upon a time) Shanti Niketan...
   
6. Against no-fail policy, schools fail students in 9th standard, only allowing the brightest students to appear for 10th examination under its name. This explains 100% pass percentage and guarantees that more students will flock to that 'good school'.
7. No wonder, students do not want to be in schools and schools are not relevant and do not respond to their lives' demands.
   
8. Those students who stay in schools are stressed (can you believe this: some schools have removed ceiling fans so students can't hang themselves ?)
   
9. If all this was not enough, there are school examinations and other prestigious examinations to appear for, and students have enormous stress from exams as well. In 2006, about 6000 students killed themselves over examination stress, and many deaths were possibly not reported as such (where are Roy's, Hazare's and Baba's now?)

Simplest things to make out from above are:

1. Schools are designed not to be fun and are disengaged from students' lives: so students are stressed.
2. If schools are just about tolerable, there are 'tough' examinations, where gradation is disengaged from learning: so again students are stressed.
   
3. For many students, being in school does not give returns in terms of skills for survival.
   
4. Most school managements do not care for points above, and are interested in status quo (which includes removing ceiling fans, of course.)
5. Government makes rules/ laws (who runs a school or how to employ a school teacher) and they do not work, which is not surprising, for
6. Most government rules are arbitrary, without any love or care for children underpinning it or even simple market economics.
   

Now, read how Tagore approaches schooling. This is the angle we will pursue further about how schools ought to be (did you not guess it from my previous posts?)

Summerhill is an island...

ओ मांझी रे, अपना किनारा, नदिया कि धारा हैं |


Summerhill is an island. It has to be an island, because its parents live in towns miles apart, in countries overseas. Since it is impossible to collect all the parents together in the town of Leiston, Suffolk, Summerhill cannot be a part of Leiston’s cultural and economic and social life.

I hasten to add that the school is not an island to Leiston town. We have many contacts with local people, and the relationship on both sides is a friendly one. Yet fundamentally, we are not a part of the community. I would never think of asking the editor of the local newspaper to publish success stories about my old pupils. We play games with the town children, but our educational aims are far apart.

Not having any religious affiliation, we have no connection with religious bodies in the town. If Summerhill were part of the town community center, it would be obliged to give religious teaching to its pupils.

[Summerhill A RADICAL APPROACH TO CHILD REARING 1968, A. S. Neill]

Summerhill, the book

You can download this book: "summerhill" by A S Neil. It will change your views about children, learning, and education. It will educate you once more.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5081386/summerhill

This much is a great post in itself, I will quote more from this book soon.

Summerhill Education vs. Standard School Education

Here is a passage, where Neill explains the difference between his school and standard schools.

Summerhill Education vs. Standard Education

I hold that the aim of life is to find happiness, which means to find interest. Education should be a preparation for life. Our culture has not been very successful. Our education, politics and economics lead to war. Our medicines have not done away with disease. Our religion has not abolished usury and robbery. Our boasted humanitarianism still allows public opinion to approve of the barbaric sport of hunting. The advances of the age are advances in mechanism--in radio and television, in electronics, in jet planes. New world wars threaten, for the world’s social conscience is still primitive.

If we feel like questioning today, we can pose a few awkward questions. Why does man seem to have many more disuses than animals have? Why does man hate and kill in war when animals do not? Why does cancer increase? Why are there so many suicides? So many insane sex crimes? Why the hate that is anti-Semitism? Why Negro hating and lynching? Why back- biting and spite? Why is sex obscene and a leering joke? Why is being a bastard a social disgrace? Why the continuance of religions that have long ago lost their love and hope and charity? Why, a thousand whys about our vaunted state of civilized eminence!

I ask these questions because I am by profession a teacher, one who deals with the young. I ask these questions because those so often asked by teachers are the unimportant ones, the ones about school subjects. I ask what earthly good can come out of discussions about French or ancient history or what not when these subjects don’t matter a jot compared to the larger question of life’s natural fulfillment of man’s inner happiness.

Summerhill: Happy School

Summerhill democracy makes it a happy school.

Summerhill is possibly the happiest school in the world. We have no truants and seldom a case of homesickness. We very rarely have fights - quarrels of course, but seldom have I seen a stand-up fight like the ones we used to have as boys. I seldom hear a child cry; because children when free have much less hate to express than children who are downtrodden. Hate breeds hate, and love breeds love. Love means approving of children, and that is essential in any school. You can’t be on the side of children if you punish them and storm at them. Summerhill is a school in which the child knows that he is approved of.

Mind you, we are not above and beyond human foibles. I spent weeks planting potatoes one spring, and when I found eight plants pulled up in June, I made a big fuss. Yet there was a difference between my fuss and that of an authoritarian. My fuss was about potatoes, but the fuss an authoritarian would have made would have dragged in the question of morality--right and wrong. I did not say that it was wrong to steal my spuds; I did not make it a matter of good and evil--I made it a matter of my spuds. They were my spuds and they should have been left alone. I hope I am making the distinction clear.

Let me put it another way. To the children, I am no authority to be feared. I am their equal, and the row I kick up about my spuds has no more significance to them than the row a boy may kick up about his punctured bicycle tire. It is quite safe to have a row with a child when you are equals.

Now some will say: “That’s all bunk. There can’t be equality. Neill is the boss; he is bigger and wiser.” That is indeed true. I am the boss, and if the house caught fire the children would run to me. They know that I am bigger and more knowledgeable, but that does not matter when I meet them on their own ground, the potato patch, so to speak.

When Billy, aged five, told me to get out of his birthday party because I hadn’t been invited, I went at once without hesitation --just as Billy gets out of my room when I don’t want his company. It is not easy to describe this relationship between teacher and child, but every visitor to Summerhill knows what I mean when I say that the relationship is ideal. One sees it in the attitude to the staff in general. Rudd, the chemistry man, is Derek. Other members of the staff are known as Harry, and Ulla, and Pam. I am Neill, and the cook is Esther.

In Summerhill, everyone has equal rights. No one is allowed to walk on my grand piano, and I am not allowed to borrow a boy’s cycle without his permission. At a General School Meeting, the vote of a child of six counts for as much as my vote does.

Summerhill: Lessons and Exams-- 2

This is what Neill says about the exams:

...
All the same there is a lot of learning in Summerhill. Perhaps a group of our twelveyear-
olds could not compete-with a class of equal age in handwriting or spelling or fractions. But in an examination requiring originality, our lot would beat the others hollow.

We have no class examinations in the school, but sometimes I set an exam for fun. The following questions appeared in one such paper:

Where are the following:- Madrid, Thursday Island, yesterday, love, democracy, hate, my pocket-screw driver (alas, there was no helpful answer to that one).


Give meanings for the following:- 9 the number shows how many are expected of each)- Hand (3)…. Only two, got the third right – the standard of measure for a horse. Brass (4)…. Metal, cheek, top army officers, department of an orchestra. Translate Hamlets, To-be-or-not-to-be speech into Summerhillese.


These questions are obviously not intended to be serious, and the children enjoy them thoroughly. Newcomers, on the whole, do not rise to the answering standard of pupils who have become accustomed to the school. Not that they have less brainpower, but rather because they have become so accustomed to work in a serious groove that any light touch puzzles them.

This is the play side of our teaching. In all classes much work is done. If, for some reason a teacher cannot take his class on the appointed day, there is usually much disappointment for the pupils.

David, aged nine, had to be isolated for whooping cough. He cried bitterly. “I’ll miss Roger’s lesson in geography,” he protested. David had been in the school practically from birth, and he had definite and final ideas about the necessity of having his lessons given to him. David is now a lecturer in mathematics at London University.

A few years ago someone at a General School Meeting (at which all school rules are voted by the entire school, each pupil and each staff member having one vote) proposed that a certain culprit should be punished by being banished from lessons for a week. The other children protested on the ground that the punishment was too severe.

My staff and I have a hearty hatred of all examinations. To us the university exams are anathema. But we cannot refuse to teach children the required subjects. Obviously, as long as the exams are in existence, they are our masters. Hence, the Summerhill staff is always qualified to teach to the set standard.

Not that many children want to take these exams; only those going to the university do so. And such children do not seem to find it especially hard to tackle these exams. They generally begin to work for them seriously at the age of fourteen, and they do the work in about three years. Of course they don’t always pass at the first try. The more important fact is that they try again.
...
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Summerhill : Lessons and Exams -- 1

Here is what Neill has to say about examinations and lessons in his introduction to his school.

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What is Summerhill like? Well, for one thing, lessons are optional. Children can go to them or stay away from them--- for years if they want to. There is timetable--- but only for the teachers.

The children have classes usually according to their age, bue sometimes according to their interests. We have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters much. Whether a school has or has not a special method for teching long division is of no significance, for long division is of no importance except for those who want to learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will learn it no matter how it is taught.

Strangers to this idea of freedom will be wondering what sort of madhouse it is where children play all day if they want to...
...
[story of a student]

This story shows that learning itself is not as important as personality and character. Jack failed in his university exams because he hated book learning. But his lack of knowledge about Lamb's essays or French language did not handicap him in life. He is now a successful engineer.

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Summerhill -- A S Neill

Summerhill is not just an idea, but an ideal. For a times on this blog, I will now copy and paste paragraphs about this wonderful Summerhill School from A.S. Neill's old book copy. I intend to buy multiple books about this school and related topics. If you have not seen this book, or read the link, I will strongly urge you to give a brief read once, at least. So, here goes the first update.

...

When my first wife and I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child--- instead of making the child fit the school.
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I have taught in ordinary schools for many years. I knew the other way well. I knew it was all wrong. It was wrong because it was based on an adult conception of what a child should be and of how a child should learn. The other way dated from the days when psychology was still an unknown science.
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Well, we set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this, we had to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all my training, all religious instruction. We have been called brave, but it did not require courage. All it required was what we had, a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being. For almost forty years, this belief in the goodness of the child never wavered; it rather has become final faith.
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My view is that a child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestions of any kind, he will develope as far as he is capable of developing. Logically, Summerhill is a place in which people who have some innate ability and wish to be scholars will be scholars; while those who are only fit to sweep the streets will sweep the streets. But we have not produced a street cleaner so far. Nor do I write this snobbishly, for I would rather see a school produce a happy street cleaner rather than a neurotic scholar.

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Lessons for my child: logic and rationality

Let us start with a story of a girl, who went to school regularly, studied on time and had her fun on playground. She was obedient, respected her parents and believed deeply in God. When going for an exam she would bow to her Gods, and then touch her mother's feet. She always received highest scores in exams.

Over a few years this became a pattern. However, owing to a relative's illness, her mother had to leave their home for a few weeks. The girl was without supervision, and over those weeks, she did not study well, and wasted her time in front of television. When it came to exams, she realised that she could not touch her mother's feet, since her mother was not at home. She was terribly anxious and nervous. She did poorly in exams, and to believe that her exam scores had something to do with touching her mother's feet. It required her mother all her (mother's) wit and patience to point out the obvious flaw in this logic.

Touching feet was a sign of respect, not the cause of respect. Touching feet followed from loving her mother, and acting according to mother's advice. If the girl failed to respect motther's advice about timely studies in mother's absence, touching feet would not bring in results. This is rational thinking, it connects one thought with another, and makes one 'logical' chain.

So, here is what I would emhpasise on:

1. An enquiry into natural world has to be rational, and not based on only faith. Thus, the enquiry is not based on some book, some (God-) man's words, or Nobel Laureate's recommendation. Logical connections remove individual subjectivity, and bring in an element of unbiased understanding of nature's work.
2. Simple explanations of phenomena are most profound, think of Einstein's equation (energy is equivalent of mass times light-velocity squared) or Newton's law of gravity.
   
3. There is no role for any dogma, religion or faith based. This is not to say that science opposes any religion. Quite the opposite, as Einstein said, "Subtle is the Lord, but malicious (S)He is not". In order to understand God's (substitute with karma, nature, whatever) creations, we have to believe that He obeys his own rules, laws. Those rules have no bias or arbitrariness. To illustrate the above, think of the following: "It rains because it is God's will". This statement is very agreeable, however does not give us any predictive power. Therefore, this statement alone is not very useful. We always knew God does everything. However, a statement like "Clouds cause rains" is very useful. Again, one can discount "Clouds are because it is God's will" as per above logic, and continue to resort to natural explanations to understand the phenomena of rains.
4. Question everything (including this statement) rationally, everything! Why, why not, what, what not, how, and how not... Convince yourself of your chain of logic entirely. It should allow you to have confidence about predicting something using your logic. Only then it will make any sense.

After all, we started with why think. It was to make our lives better, more meaningful, whatever that means. This may take you Buddha's way, or along with the Western civilization. Keep working , and keep thinking.

When you do that, remain open to enquiry from others, learn to respect opinions and debate honestly. That is going to be next in this series.

Lesson for my child : Curiosity

Humans are curious about variety of phenomena in our daily lives: rains, fires, hurricanes/ storms, waves, tides. It also applies to things that we can not experience using our senses: clear sky, ocean depths, stars, Sun, Moon, etc.

1. Throughout their existence humans all over the planet have asked questions about things that were around them: their surroundings, our planet, the cosmos, the origin of all the things, and where were all going to end. वेद, or the Vedas called them पंचमहाभूत, or the five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Sky. Everything is made of them. It is not important if Vedas were correct or not, what matters most is that, humans thought of the cosmos. The surrounding natural elements and cosmos on the larger scale made an impact on those early Hindu thinkers.
2. Those Hindu thinkers related various phenomena as manifestations of those five elements. This is characteristic of humans: we relate seemingly disparate phenomena using fewer logical elements. At one level, we should understand that those associations are not real, but they allow us to comprehend phenomena in an organized manner; and if the exercise is successful, we can predict certain things using those associations.
3. Curious human will observe and think about apparent patterns. This is most crucial for the survival of species: food resources, predicting natural phenomena (predicting tides is crucial for fisher-folk, rains are important for farming).
4. This curiosity also leads to betterment of lives:

-- waves/ tides and fishing
-- rains and paddy farming
-- diseases and micro-organisms

Here is a true story of a Goan boy who was bitten by a snake. The snake was of harmless kind, although very similar to poisonous adder snake in its appearance. A Tantrik was summoned by parents to `cure' their boy of the poison. No wonder, the boy was fine after the Tantrik performed his rituals. It so happened that the boy was bitten by a snake again, however, this time by a real poisonous adder. His parents preferred the Tantrik once more, however, all his rituals took precious time away. The boy died the next morning.

The story is important, in that one has to be curious and understand that poisonous snake alone cause harm. As far as we can make out patterns on the snake-back, we are safe, else we face grave consequences. The same goes for the rest of the nature.

Life is precious and there are no guarantees. However, curiosity and learning allow us to survive in this world better, and also make it a richer experience.

What I want my child to know

I hope to be a father soon. As a good father, I would present the best part of me to my progeny. Apart from my genes, the best thing I can pass on to my child is what I learnt in my long education in my life so far. It is the rational/ scientific thinking and attitude, along with the self-awareness, that identifies humans.

In a series of posts, I will now outline my thoughts on scientific thinking and self-awareness. One day my child would read this, learn something, and perhaps laugh.