### Chapter 1 — What is Worth Teaching? - In India we don't question the curriculum much. It is taken as a given set of knowledge and not as a problem to be solved. Particularly we accept the huge disconnect between the curriculum and the socio cultural reality of the children. - There are three fundamental questions in education? - What is worth teaching? - How should it be taught? - How are the opportunities for education distributed? Though they appear independent they are connected at a deeper level. - There are two routes for solving the first question - Decide what is worth in view of the learner's needs and abilities - Determining worth in terms of the intrinsic value of what we want to teach In this book, Krishna Kumar chalks out both those routes and evaluates them. Route 1 - Learners viewpoint - Immediate challenge is that everyone has different interests, and we will have to be content with a generalised set - Second challenge is we may not really understand children well and think on their behalf - Today most of the world's children are being taught by Rousseau's reflections and ideas of individuality and freedom when industrialisation was happening in the West. - There are a few reasons why understanding children's view points is challenging - Children are interested in all kinds of things and can be interested in anything depending on how it is presented - Children can't be expected to articulate their view on the worth of something as abstract as knowledge. They can express liking or preference easily. - Assuming that we must think on behalf of the children one thing we can try — something is worth teaching only if it can be learnt. - Even though it's a very rudimentary condition, this in itself is not something our current curricula are catering to. There's a massive mismatch between what we have and what child psychology tells us. - One more challenge with route 1 is that it doesn't help us in a lot of topics. For example to determine if folklore should be taught we can't rely on psychology and pedagogy but rather must make a decision based on the socio-economic and political underpinnings of these choices. - Route 1 only leaves us with one condition — something must be learnable. Route 2 - When we look at route 2 we start from philosophers who consider what is true knowledge and not since that's a good indicator of something intrinsically valuable. - However, in this path despite our best interest what ends up happening is that curriculum ends up being a reconstruction of existing knowledge that has been passed down from a different era and a different location. - For India it's like a watermark of its colonial routes what curriculum we decided to take on. - In India science got contextualised with the dynamics of colonisation. Science became the target in many anti-colonial struggles and apathy and hostility towards science grew in nationalist movements. - Fear of science and all that it stands for continues to be embedded in our school culture and curriculum. - Gandhi's proposal for basic education attempted to introduce local crafts and skills in the school. This was for two reasons to ensure schools could sustain themselves but also two to include in the curriculum knowledge developed by and associated with oppressed groups. However, this never really got implemented since it disrupted the prevailing hierarchy. - The problem with determining worth of a form of knowledge is to an extent because of the existing distribution of knowledge and because of the symbolic associations in play. Need for Deliberation - The issue of curriculum cannot be dealt with as an act of social engineering, but it has to be through deliberation. And a deliberation where no voice is silenced. - The failure of education to reach the oppressed groups is actually a lack of this deliberation process and a narrowness of curriculum. - The wider the reach of curriculum dialogue the stronger it's grasp on the social conditions in which education has to function. This is why it's important to include teachers in the process of curriculum deliberation. - Unfortunately in India, the teachers are seen as subordinate functionaries with no voice but only the skill to teach. - Issues that common people are grappling with find no reflection or trace in school curriculum. A colonial educationist noted - "When the educated Indian is most himself, he shows the least trace of what our schools and colleges have given him" - In India pedagogical planning has bypassed this dissociation by alluding to child psychology. - Advocates of this approach argue that the objectives of curriculum must only be to create behaviour as outlined in Bloom's taxonomy (analysing, translating, inferring) and that the knowledge content is used to achieve these aims is immaterial. This idea called the process model emphasises the process of learning more than the content. - This model has had an obvious appeal for Indian educationists since it allows them to transcend the socio cultural milieu. It allows them to see the socio cultural milieu as an obstruction rather than an asset for education. - The fault of this model is that actions or behaviours do not have a one-to-one relationship always. They are polymorphous and may change depending on the circumstances. - By taking this behaviour label route we do not solve the problem of curriculum formation but rather evade it. - Science education is supposed to be conducive to secular values precisely because it makes ascribed authority redundant. But if science is taught with the authority of the textbook and the teacher's word the whole point is defeated and science becomes an instrument for authoritarian control. - For some time now we have been discussion the issue of curriculum load, but the problem is misdiagnosed. No solution can be found if we consider the curriculum as a bag of facts and teaching as a successful delivery of known facts. - Curriculum planning involves a selection of knowledge and teaching involves the process of creating a classroom ethos in which children want to pursue inquiry. This can only happen if we recognise the teacher's right to participate in the organisation of knowledge and the child's right to autonomy in learning. ### Chapter 2 — Origins of the Textbook Culture - Textbook symbolises the authority under which teachers have to work. It emphasises their subservient status. It's like a strict boundary in which the student and teacher must operate. - The roots of the textbook culture in India can be traced in to the early 19th century when the East India Company took measures to establish an education system. - The aim then was to acculturate Indians to European attitudes and impart them the skills to work in lower and middle rungs of administration - All indigenous schools were asked to confirm if they wished to receive government aid - Colonial education meant that the colonised would see themselves as consumers, receiving knowledge from the coloniser and not producers to create knowledge. - The previous system while definitely influenced and rooted in caste hierarchies gave autonomy to the teacher and had no imposition of choice in the form of a curriculum. - In this new system the teacher also went from a revered position to someone subservient and menial. The salaries of a teacher were often a tenth of those of the officers. Record keeping and administrative tasks ended up becoming a big chunk of the duties of a teacher. - Printing houses like Oxford, Macmillan, and some missionary houses ensured that the status quo remained since they had a vested interest in selling their textbooks to the public. - Examinations in the mask of impartial assessment played an important role in the development of a bureaucratic system of education. The examination system served the purpose of instilling in the public that the colonial rule was fair and free of prejudice. However, these exams only tested for rote memorisation of texts that the Indian populace was altogether unfamiliar with. It made no effort to test for their understanding of concepts or problems. - In 1845, the narrowing increased even further with the exact “portions” being set in place for each examination. Anything that went outside the scope of this would not be deemed worth exploring. This is how theoretical knowledge, particularly literary gained a dominant place in our education system since it's easily bounded. - A centralised curriculum also meant that most of the content was alien to a large part of the Indian populace. India is incredibly diverse and an effort to standardise just could not work. - Alien ideas of Wordsworth poems talking about the English seasons or Victorian literature about how children have fun were not something the Indian milieu could easily understand and lead to a culture of memorisation. - Another concern with examinations is that when opportunities are low by definition the exams need to be made tighter so it appears meritocratic. Higher failure rates then created a fear of failure which then was internalised. - The need to learn English further exacerbated this issue. For students learning a language it's idiosyncrasies itself was hard. Now they also had to learn to study and communicate their ideas in this altogether alien language. - Colonial education survived long after colonialism and the same problems from before continue to persist in India. The NCERT further ossified a centralised education and the textbook and curriculum culture. ### Chapter 3 — Implications of a Divisive School System - The common argument people make in education is that when you go for quantity you compromise on quality. That is by aiming to reach more people we reduce our capacity to produce excellence. - Krishna Kumar argues the opposite he says that one of the reasons our education system does not fail to produce excellence is because it is too narrow and does not serve everyone. - School drop out rates are incredibly high in India. Of every 100 students who start primary school only 37 finish (might be outdated numbers). The drop out particularly in grade one to two is really high. - The other main problem with our system is that there are two distinct tracks — public and private. This leads to separation between those that have and those that do not have at a very early age. There is an anxiety among white collar parents to 'protect' their children from the rougher poorer ones so they pay for private schools. - This private school phenomenon is not new and has been in India right from the British time. The British elite were looking for ways to maintain their social hierarchy while also being true to their utilitarian values of a just system. The private schools were free market and hence seen as just. To further justify their belief in meritocracy these schools set up scholarships for poorer students. - In India there is a pressure to appear unbiased and not show any favour to those that are in the upper strata of society. This means that we come up with such schemes to give the illusion of fairness. For example even the government has a meritorious residential school 'Navodaya'. - The problem is that these exclusive and elite schools operate in a bubble and separate these students from the larger social milieu. The only way to counter is this for schools to be serve children in their neighbourhood. - We talk about whole child development a lot in the instruction, but that is not at all possible unless we allow children to develop in a diverse environment. When we make the schools exclusive and homogenous there's no way for the child to develop holistically. - Because this diversity is lacking elite schools push students to be more competitive and encourage individualisation. They push children to learn more, be better and better. This goes against the grain of any modern pedagogical ideas which all agree that learning has to happen at its own pace. - Pressure to learn faster and learn more is not the right way to do school. Children need large blocks of time to immerse themselves in a particular activity. By speeding things up we kill all intrinsic motivation. - Why have the elite schools of our nation not been able to produce huge advancements in technology or science? This is partly due to the British influence on our school systems but also because our competitive ethic is more suited to maintain exclusivity and status not to foster excellence. - The common schools follow the elite schools because they are seen as the ideal. They push children in the same way and obsess over the reputation of their school. Despite all this they feel demoralised as they are more and more regarded by society as a second rate school. - This oppression of the child and rejection of their autonomy is what contributes to our economic and cultural life being backward. ### Chapter 4 — Reading in the Primary School System - Majority of the discourse around the reasons children don't go to school and become literate is around poverty. The classic reason given for the poor performance of primary schools is that the children need to go to to work since the parents are poor. Rarely do we question the pedagogy in these schools. - The government data around enrolment in school and actual figures vary a lot. The teachers have pressure so they enrol children but that doesn't mean that they attend school. The data from census and department of education show widely different results. This is the phenomenon that we widely refer to as dropping out. - Most studies cite that poverty is the cause of dropping out. This argument is typically made because of the wide incidence of child labour and because the highest drop out rates are observed in the poor. - But we observe that there is a high degree of drop outs from grade one to grade two. This makes no sense since with the explanation that poverty is the reason. There is no biological reason that children suddenly become better for child labour starting from grade two and not grade one. - The question to rather ask is if school makes sense for the child. The primary motivation for a child at this age is to make school make sense. Even with poverty and malnutrition this desire cannot be wiped out entirely. This innate curiosity is something our current pedagogy just does not support. Most children at this age are made to learn the alphabet and how to write it and are repeatedly asked to write it. There is no attempt to engage their curious minds and help them make sense of the world. - The author hypothesises that this reading pedagogy is the reason so many children are dropping out of school. This is not to say that the other factors don't play a role but this should also be considered a factor. - Reading as it is currently thought has a very high initial investment before pay off. The child must persist learning alphabets, committing it to memory and then learn basic words before getting to a point where it makes sense to them and read and understand something they're familiar with. According to the author, the more contemporary research leverages the fact that the child wants to make sense of the world and reading should serve that purpose. - The current reading approach also suffers in that it makes the children focus on alphabets and recognising them rather than focusing on the meaning of words and comprehending them. - The pedagogy of reading comes from a time when reading was just something the elite would learn to afford them social status. It is not designed for the masses and for everyone. - The main problem with a country like ours is that we think primary education is cheap. They think it's better to prioritise secondary and higher education. Rich countries spend five times as much as poor countries on secondary and higher education but they spend thirty times as much on primary education per child. ### Chapter 5 — Storytelling: What is the use? - The author suggests that a story telling period could really help ameliorate some of the challenges in children not enjoying school. This is not a silver bullet by any means since there is a need for systemic change but this could help. - If every primary school teacher can master thirty stories and be able to tell them in a relaxed, confident manner with expressions and excitement it could transform the first two years of schooling. This is not a lot to ask from a country that has thousands of stories and a rich oral culture. - The author emphasises traditional storytelling in particular that is Mahabharata, Panchatantra, Arabian Nights, Gulistan, Akbar and Birbal etc. These create a sort of magic that is absent in stories from magazines and textbooks. - Let's consider a simple story like the rabbit and lion story where the rabbit makes the lion jump into the well seeing his reflection. This story though appears simple actually explores complex themes - the rabbit surviving in the face of brute power, the morality of the rabbit's actions, the confidence and courage of the rabbit to remain calm etc. Many children really enjoy this story since they are able to relate to the rabbit a powerless creature in the face of authority. - The morality in this story is quite questionable and it's just about self survival. It's important to keep in mind that the best stories need not necessarily have morals. The purpose of stories is not to teach children morals but rather : - Promoting good listening. Listening is a really important skill in the work force now and it's good to work on it in the formative years. - Providing training in prediction. Children like listening to stories again and again. They enjoy being able to predict what happens and get trained in predicting which has huge value in maths and reading. - Extending our world. Children are bothered by random ideas and events that they might never encounter. For example they are intrigued by the idea of a bad person who they might never meet. Stories allow them to imagine and learn about things that are outside their immediate world. - Gives meaning to words. Children are able to make meaning out of words. If the child knows what it means to be hungry they might be able to recognise how the lion feels and then understand that that is what hunger means. Stories become a precursor to reading. - But beyond this storytelling is a cultural practice that has value in and of itself. It's a beautiful practice that ought to be passed down and enjoyed notwithstanding these four uses. - Stories become characteristic of cultures over time. By telling stories we invoke the particular culture that gave it birth. - Stories also move away from the literacy obsessed education system and offer a space for the child to be comfortable in an oral environment. We don't value oral tradition and skills as much as they should be. ### Chapter 6 — Growing Up Male - There is an important architectural difference in girls and boys schools that might shape how we view girls and boys. The girls' schools are often more secluded and confined while boys' schools are open and free. - By separating the sexes unnaturally we are creating a very strange system which defies all logic. - This separation causes a lot of issues and is often promoted as something good to promote girls' education. It ensures that the boys never learn to see girls as objects rather than individuals to form relationships. His desire for sex is transformed to a need to oppress. - Co-education is not just the simple answer for this. Enough studies show that co-education offers fewer opportunities for girls than all girls' schools. So we also need to simultaneously train our teachers so they don't end up discriminating and stereotyping. - Another problem is that our syllabus tends to celebrate celibacy by talking about many great celibate saints. It kind of paints this picture that they were saved by not getting married to a woman. - It's not just in school but also outside that boys learn to see girls as objects. School just ends up being a reflection of the outside world and perpetuates this. But as educationists we must believe that education can be an agent for change and bring about a counter socialisation that changes this narrative. ### Chapter 7 — Secularism It's Politics and Pedagogy - In the context of pedagogy, secularism implies the ability for a child to learn from one's own experiences rather than from an authority figure. Unfortunately that's not something that's always affordable. Most schools only have an authority figure in the teacher and a textbook to learn from. - So far in India no serious attempt has been made to use education as an agency for socialisation of secular thought. Instead, it was just used as to propagate information about secularism. - Our schools simply talk about secularism but make no effort to be secular in nature. In the west secularism is a way to question religious authority. Here we just have authority figures and textbooks talking about secularism without practicing it. - In some ways secularism has now become something that the elite use to separate themselves from the masses. It has become a tool of the bourgeois and has become the basis of a class ideology. - Secularism became tied to education. Those who are educated are secular, those who are illiterate didn't. But this didn't take into account the socioeconomic conditions that play a huge role in whether someone is secular or not. For example when unexpected deaths, and child mortality reduces, healthcare is better than people have explanations for things outside of religion. ### Chapter 8 — Peace with the Past - In India and Pakistan, history is taught primarily as a means of citizenship training for nation building. There is no pedagogic role for history at all and they do little to invoke curiosity about the past or imparting any intellectual skills to make sense of the past. This is further exacerbated by the recall culture in exams and the linkages to prescribed textbooks. - The textbooks also try to instil a sense of moral superiority of Indians over Pakistanis and vice versa in Pakistan. They make us believe that the two states have irreconcilable differences with each other. - In India the narrative is that we have an accommodative, rationally organised secular nation that is superior than the communalism and regressive forces in Pakistan. In Pakistan narrative on the other hand denies that India's struggle for independence was secular at all. - That there were Hindu communal forces in the Congress and that they played a great influence in the political and cultural ethos of the country would spoil the narrative so they are completely removed in India. - All Indian freedom leaders end up becoming a homogeneous bag of values. Tilak, Gokhale, Lajpat Rai, Bose, Nehru and Gandhi should be regarded as distinct figures with different values but instead we have no analysis of these leaders and they are clubbed into the neat bucket of secular freedom fighters. - The problem with this type of narrative and selecting details to share in textbook can really create confusions in learning. The pedagogic cost is that the 1940s come as a surprise for most students studying Indian history with the sudden emergence of the Muslim League as a powerful actor even though this was the most natural course of events. Textbooks gloss over the events after Quit India movement and rush towards partition. - The children are deprived of any rational means to comprehend the overlap between the secular and communal nationalisms. Instead they see Pakistan as an illegitimate achievement. Meanwhile in Pakistan, all effort is made to see India as a Hindu nation. - The horrors of partition too find no mention at all. Millions of ordinary men and women's suffering receive just two lines of treatment in both Indian and Pakistan textbooks. - In India, history ends in 1947 barring a few small events like the making of the constitution and Gandhi's assassination. Partition appears as the last major event to have occurred in India's history. For more recent news they must rely on movies like Border and Ghaddar. ### Chapter 9 — Listening to Gandhi - The two most important ideas that Gandhis shared are local self reliance and imaginative action - translated to a pedagogical lens these would mean the freedom of initiative, not depending on a single source and the tenacity to persevere. - Some of these ideas also align very well with modern child psychology. Here are some implications of the Gandhian ideas of education: - The child's immediate surroundings must serve as a resource for knowledge discovery - Children must have freedom to create their own models of the world - Learning must provide for opportunities for children to be physically active - Classroom activities must resonate and extend the child's life at home - The other key idea is the insistence of traditional handicrafts to provide an axis for the school's daily curriculum to - Bridge the school with the world of work - Impart an activity orientation - Inculcate a sense of self reliance - Another major point of Gandhi's basic education idea was that children's consent to learn was paramount. This is in alignment with the ideas of child psychology as well. - That basic education did not work as well as was expected in the sixties should not make it a bad idea. There were lot of external factors that made it 'not work' and some would even argue that it did work in many ways. - The following core areas might be an attractive curricular for a basic education program - Core Area I - Health and hygiene, nature study, social study - Core Area II - Heritage craft, toy craft, clay work or any other handicraft - Core Area III - Expressive arts, reading, writing - Core Area IV - Mathematics, sorting and representation of quantitative information - One organisational change that would help a lot in this realisation of a good basic education program is the involvement of the local health worker. The health worker often has a lot closer ties to the family and the community than the local school teacher. - Finally, it's also important that the teacher and community interact and are closely connected. This might mean setting up housing for the teacher in the school or creating other such mechanisms for the teacher to be entrenched in the community. ### Chapter 10 — The Concept of Quality in Education - There is a lot of debates around the idea of quality of education and much of this is because quality itself has not been clearly defined. Also the impetus from quality largely comes from a 'developmentalism' ideology where global Western powers use norms and goals on developing nations using indicators from their countries. - The other issue is the pushing of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as a marker of quality. This is dangerous since it reduces and trivialises education to simply a transfer of information. - Today, the limited view of quality in education is far from holistic and takes a very limited view based on primitive behaviourist ideas. 'Outcome', 'result' and 'accountability' seem to be the buzzwords around education quality and has diminished intrinsic motivation, diversity of styles and context specificity. - Our current system is set up in a way where universal education is done first and then infused with a quality ingredient. Somehow this approach has created the idea that there is a tension between quality and quantity and that we must compromise on quality to create equality. - The term 'agency' has also been growing in popularity in education discourse. The idea behind the term is that someone with agency has the freedom to make a choice. However, in certain neoliberalist discourse agency has simply been reduced to choices and one most stop and question this. The main difference is that agency has an inventive idea about it and is not purely just a choice of things already invented. Similarly education is for humans to set their own goals and learn accordingly than choose from a set of preordained goals. - For education to claim quality and achieve gender equality it must not strive to include specific curricular and pedagogic practices to overcome the gender inequality in the world around it. Quality of education cannot be viewed as only within the walls of the school isolated from the rest of the world.