Our host guru, Indira, introduced us to the Indian education system in one of our sessions last week. She reminded us the Buddhist parable of the six blind men who are trying to figure out what an elephant is by touching individual parts of it. They all have vastly different ideas about what the elephant could be, but none of them perceive the elephant as a whole, only a part. Obviously, the parable speaks to us about perception. Indira used this parable to describe Indian education as a whole, mainly to demonstrate the lack of cooperation and disparity in the various forms of education in the country. As our engineer session leader mentioned, “what’s missing in Indian education is that most people have not been taught to work in a team.” This past week in Bangalore, we experienced two vastly different school experiences that brought Indira’s teachings to light.
Some background facts and figures: There are 1.2 billion people in India. 418 million of them are children who are of school age. There are 22 modern languages represented by the state, 1796 regionalized languages and 1576 indigenous languages. The literacy rate, as defined as “the ability to read and write one’s own name” is 69%. As a whole, parents are willing to spend up to 40% of their incomes on their children’s education. An estimated 1 million students do NOT attend school, even though attendance is mandatory for ages 6-14. There is a teacher shortage of 1 million. As I have observed, and many of my hosts and students have mentioned, India is in a period of transition. There is a constant pull between the modern and the traditional. Education, as it is evolving in India, is being pulled by this dichotomy. Indira referred to the “colonial hangover” that India is still experiencing and its effects on the education system. Traditionally, Indians have been taught in a rote memorization and lecture style. The government curriculum, for government sponsored schools, requires them to do the same thing on the same day in preparation for the test. The students who will graduate from high school are pushed to be doctors and engineers. One student on the panel at an army school, who attends university in New Jersey said, “arts are fine, but this is not what India needs.” Immediately after she said it, the younger students vehemently contradicted her. They imagined the potential to explore careers in the humanities. The idea that India needs more doctors and engineers is still quite embedded in young people’s minds from both family and societal pressure. It is true that parts of India needs students to excel in these areas and promote change and innovation in their communities. But it is also true that students, while still feeling an enormous competitive pressure to receive high marks rather than think critically, are beginning to experience learning from varying methods and techniques and value learning for its own sake rather than performing for a test. The tests are still there, but some students and teachers are starting to see value in progressive pedagogies that promote engagement and 21st Century skills. We visited two schools – one a government/management funded school for traditionally impoverished castes and the other a large Army school. Despite the readily apparent differences, several things remained constant. Students respect their teachers. When a teacher or adult enters a room, they all stand up and say, good morning, ma’am. Only a few of my students back home even greet me. A few special ones thank me as they leave. Bless them. Indira told us that the hierarchy of values in India was father/mother/teacher/god(s). So you can see that teaching and learning forms an important part of their cultural identity built into their customs and value systems. Another similarity I noted was the eagerness among the students to interact with us as visitors, and that kids are just kids wherever you go. They act silly, full of contagious energy, shy, embarrassed and often ask poignant and profound questions. My own students provide me with motivation in their innocence and optimism and these students are no different. The experience at the government/management school consisted of a more traditional type learning. The English medium school is about 100 years old and has other branches in Bangalore. I first went and sat with a man who runs the computer lab. He has 28 desk tops. They weren’t working, probably an electricity issue, which tends to go on and off in India. He told us that many of the students would come after school to work and that teachers brought their students to the lab. He had been in the army for 17 years and came back to Bangalore and thought it was his dharma and an honor to work for the school. His children, however, went to a private school. As I walked around the school, on the boys’ side, I saw kids working, but chattering away, with no teacher in any of the rooms. Indira mentioned there was a lot of absenteeism from teachers. But I surmised that perhaps they got the lesson started and then left for a meeting. The lesson I observed was a 10th grade social studies class. The enthusiastic teacher taught a basic lesson in English on the difference between cities, villages and tribal communities. She defined them on the board. The kids wrote it down, recited it back to her and then they listed the pros and cons of each together. It amused me to see the students so enthusiastic to call out the pros and cons and the teacher struggle to keep up with their answers as she wrote them on the board. The same thing happens to me. As in any country, the kids pointed out that in cities had access to more resources but more pollution, while the heart of India’s cultural traditions lay in the villages, that often lacked resources. The teacher used her cell phone to show a video of a village (or rural community – not tribal). I found this interesting in that she was creative enough to find a way to use technology to deliver part of the information, even though there was none in her room. She brought great passion to the classroom and the children were clearly engaged. Their homework was a recall of the lesson. As we walked out the students we met in the hallways kept politely to the other side but they all wanted to greet us. As we met with the head of the school, the principal and the teacher over tea, we began a candid dialogue. One of the TGC fellows asked the teachers what they saw as the greatest challenge in Indian education. Their passionate response resonated with the challenges in American education: government mandates. They felt that the constant pressure of the state adding more to the text and curriculum as well as the looming presence of testing. As we left the school, the principal of the high school wanted us to sign her visitors’ book. Meanwhile the girls were all lining up in the courtyard for a group picture. Several U.S. teachers were positioned prominently in the middle and the girls yelled and screamed for the man who was taking the pictures. After we took several pictures the girls all crowded around us like we were rock stars and wanted us to take selfies with them (on our phones – they had none). They were silly and giddy and full of life. I could not stop smiling for hours. The demographics of the families of these children differs not only because them come from poverty, but that poverty causes the mothers to have to work, which puts a strain on the family life so very important to Indian culture. Also, the parents tend to not value education and often do not speak English. The students are unable to receive help and support at home if their parents can not understand the language in which it is written. The army school (also English medium), less than a kilometer away from the partial government school, had about 3000 students and a huge facility with interesting circular architecture, kind of like the Globe Theatre. The children there had moved around from state to state with their fathers’ positions and had varying perspectives on India, having traveled and moved frequently. This family structure also affected the students in that the mothers were often illiterate, non-supportive and unable to help their students at home because of their various responsibilities with husbands in the military. We listened to a panel of students, two 11th graders from that school, two graduates of the school who attend university in America, and one girl who attended a neighboring private school. They formed articulate and intelligent responses to our questions and were obviously the cream of the crop. They all spoke of immense family and societal pressure to receive high marks and attend a university. They said college was not an option. They all agreed that India’s diversity was both its strength and its weakness in terms of education. They were proud of their varied cultural heritage and ability to tolerate so many different ways of life and languages; however, they all saw it as an obstacle in moving education forward. They spoke of stereotypes based on specific states that were hard to get rid of, and we have that too. I have a lot of them about Alabama. They saw the system as outdated but recognized that it would take time to evolve. One girl spoke of how she was able to focus on her pursuit of performance arts. She had support at home and she had the resources at school. This is a huge shift in options in just one generation. After the exchange we interacted with the kids who also treated us like rock stars, but with more intellectual curiosity. They asked me about our president, whether I was afraid for my safety, what stereotypes I had, and whether a “brown person” (their phrase not mine) would be treated as such an anomaly in the states. All good questions. We took pictures and reluctantly left the students who had to go back to class. A common thread in Indira’s presentation and both school visits is change. Teachers and students want it, but it is difficult to move forward as a whole when familial, societal and institutional forces are clinging to the old. Mr. Singh reminded us of a story of the Vedic goddess Shiva, who represents many things, but destruction is one of them. Clearly the old will be replaced by the new, but the question is, for India, in what forms? Now that I am in Udaipur, just spending one day at a progressive school, in a remote rural area I can see one way that positive change is taking place. I did not see rote instruction. I did not see large classrooms packed with students. I saw creativity and engagement. As my week unfolds here at the school, I will continue to learn and share.
2 Comments
Libbie Lowe
7/11/2017 07:56:42 am
So informative and beautifully written, my child👏👏👏👏♥️
Reply
Emily Collins
7/11/2017 03:47:21 pm
I have so enjoyed these updates. Wow - you're having the experience of a lifetime. I know you're learning lots and will have so much to share with your Pioneer family upon your return. I look forward to it! Be safe, have fun, learn lots more!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2017
Categories
|