In an age of information overload, reaching out is not nearly as important as reaching out effectively. Text heavy, verbose data on the environment can put even the most eco-conscious reader into a snooze. The need of the hour is to develop methods of communication that are attuned to serve our ever-shrinking spans of attention. It is in this context that books like Our Toxic World: A guide to hazardous substances in our everyday lives make sense.

Part graphic novel and part information manual, Our Toxic World, brought out by Toxics Link, a Delhi-based NGO is an insightful read about the different ways in which harmful substances circulate and affect us in our daily life. Rich with illustrations, the book breaks down facts and statistics into tangible examples that readers can relate to.

Scripted by Aniruddha Sen Gupta and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, the book comprises eleven narratives of members and friends of the Sachdevas, the archetypal Indian family. Using scenes from their professional and personal lives, the book attempts to highlight environmental concerns such as automobile pollution, industrial pollution, e-waste, harmful chemicals and toxins in the food chain, waste management and many more. The stories are often interspersed with information and guidelines to alter environmentally detrimental behaviour.

The book is quite information heavy with a full chapter devoted to the various legislations concerning the environment. At first it gives out some generic information on already evident issues like urban air pollution, and industrial effluents but then moves on to to some lesser known health and environment hazards. The sections that deal with toxins, heavy metals and harmful chemicals in the food chain are likely to have a greater impact on readers.

The links in the transfer of harmful substances from one medium to another are illustrated with detail. Also interesting is its take on household substances and the vast amount of chemicals used in them, which we are often not aware of. The book also deserves credit for not only concentrating on urban environment hazards but also on rural concerns. In fact it manages to connect effectively the two issues in quite a few cases.

A few snags do crop up. While the issues are well articulated, not much can be said about the thread of fiction, which it is couched in. The characters are unimaginative and are simply slotted to fit mainstream family roles. An attempt here and there is made to ground the characters in their context by the occasional use of colloquial Delhi talk, the scepticism with NGO work (they only pander to foreign donor agencies!) and Nano bashing, the mandatory anger with Tata’s one lakh contribution to traffic congestion. But overall, the stories merely serve as just an obligatory framework to support the concerns. While it is understandable that a book that is intended to create awareness, might not concern itself so much with this angle, an attempt to lend some depth could have carried the message better.

The artwork is well done but sticks to very staid visuals with few exceptions like the illustration of a man who loses his life to construction dust, which shows him literally turning into dust. The use of black and white further renders a dull effect where colours may have been more effective. In the rare instance, the language does tend to get alarmist. But almost all the arguments are well supported by facts and evidence rather than emotional appeal or opinion.

The book is not clear about the age group it addresses. While the stories are simple enough to be read and understood by young children, the information is a tad complicated and might be best absorbed by them if guided by an adult. Older children and teenagers however, may be put off with the simplistic narration.

Our Toxic World does not necessarily have the most compelling story lines but it does succeed in mirroring to an extent daily life hazards that we encounter knowingly and unknowingly. Whether used for individual reading or as a teaching aid in the classroom for creating awareness, it should definitely get children examining their daily activities.

The reviewer has a Masters in Communication from the SN School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at deeptibharthur@gmail.com.

The debate on school education in India is one with many ramifications, and there is a very distinct drawing of lines between mainstream education and alternative education.

“When… the mainstream resists the assimilation of new ideas, the system ossifies,” says Prof. Krishna Kumar’s in his Foreword to the book Alternative Schooling in India, edited by Sarojini Vittachi and Neeraja Raghavan, emphasising that the system needs to be made porous enough for new ideas to slip into the system and germinate there. Like he rightly points out, this book opens up such a possibility.

Sarojini Vittachi’s introduction clarifies straightaway that alternative education is explored here as “enhancement of education”, and discusses what education needs to be. She also sets down some ideas about what a “relevant and liberating education” should include – for instance, being child focussed, allowing learning in multiple ways, meeting a child’s life-enriching needs, etc. Such education, she points out, is actually an alternative to mainstream education, which focus on results and ranking.

Rather than define alternative education, the book identifies a set of features which alternative schools have one or more of (boxed on facing page). Each of these features bears much thinking about, and there are many different ways in which each finds expression – as one finds out when one goes through the directory of schools later in the book. The book progresses from a brief overview of the history of alternative education and establishes a continuity right to the present day: and in drawing attention to this, provides a heartening view in that we find more and more dissatisfaction with mainstream education today, a sure sign of better things to come.

Neeraja Raghavan’s enquiry into whether, and how, innovations from alternative schools can spread to mainstream schools is revealing in that it is a comment upon not only the ‘system’ but upon individuals as makers of the system. On the one hand, she highlights the gaps in the system that need to be addressed, such as the necessity of periodic refreshment of in-service teachers through training and sabbaticals, making teachers versatile by encouraging and even requiring them to learn a subject other than theirs, or the need to empower teachers with a sense of professionalism by addressing monetary concerns and to meaningfully involve parents as partners in the education of their children. On the other, Raghavan also suggests that learning materials be constantly reappraised and vibrant material offered to children. And in seeking that inspirational tales of true learning be given a platform, she points to the need to also constantly assess our teaching techniques and methodologies. And lest one take all this as a good lesson but impractical, she sums up her argument quoting Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

From this point on, Alternative Schooling itself becomes a platform for voices from the “alternative” set up. Essays and experiences from people who head some alternate schools are followed by interviews with various people: a parent whose child went to an alternative school, students who are in alternative schools or have moved between alternative and mainstream schools, successful people who went to alternative schools… offering not authoritative statements about alternative education, but windows into the world of alternative education.

The section “Come after school” showcases the efforts of some mainstream schools that try to meet the needs of the students despite the bind of the system – and in doing so, offer some possible solutions for other schools that want to do the same.

The last section of the book is a Directory of Alternative Schools – a veritable mine of information made available for the first time in a printed form, with some information about each school. The editors acknowledge that this is neither an exhaustive list, nor one that in any way judges the quality of the schools – those are tasks that still have to be taken up, and the hope is that schools themselves will come forward and ask to be added to the list!

One does feel, however, that some issues could perhaps have been discussed in greater detail – for instance, although there is no single idea of ‘alternative’ schooling, there are clear differences in the various philosophies that these schools follow. The Krishnamurthi schools, for example, discourage competition, but this is not necessarily true of the others. Some light could have been thrown on such philosophies in practice by other practitioners too, for the benefit of the interested parent or teacher. One also hopes that for further editions of this book, school visits be made and a closer look is taken at each school: this kind of engagement will add immensely to the value of the book.

That said, one must acknowledge that Alternative Schooling works not only towards increasing the awareness about the existence of alternative schools, but plainly shows that when one speaks of “alternative schools”, one is pointing to a variety of alternatives to the existing educational norms. And in doing so, it opens up the possibility for individual schools to take up new ideas and addressing the lacunae in the system at the micro level – where they really can make the difference.

Alternative Schooling in India

Edited by Sarojini Vittachi and Neeraja Raghavan
with Kiran Raj
With a Directory of Alternative Schools in India
Sage Publications, 2007
pp. 268, Price Rs. 360/-

Alternative schools generally have one or more of the following features

• The Approach is more individualised than that of a mainstream school. There is no ONE model school, and so, the approach of alternative schools defies pigeonholing.
• Respect is accorded to the student, parent and teacher irrespective of socio-economic status and (special) abilities. Integration of children of mixed abilities and/or different socio-economic groups, and sometimes even of mixed ages, is a key element.
• Learning that is more experiential and interest-based is encouraged rather than learning out of a textbook or from a class lecture.
• Disciplines are cross-linked so that the boundaries of knowledge are diffused and the child is able to see connections across various fields of learning.
• Class size is kept small. Typically, one teacher does not teach more than 25–30 children.
• Class structure is experimented with, by allowing flexibility in the spread of ages or even interflow between different ‘grades’ or ‘standards’ for different subjects. Physical classroom spaces are also broken free of by many so that the walls of the conventional classroom dissolve even as they allow learning to take place outdoors.
• Administration is conducted in a democratic and somewhat flexible manner. With hierarchical structures being less and less prevalent, these schools experiment win rotating responsibilities, arriving at major decisions through consensus and taking collective ownership for the institution and what it stands for.
• Evaluation methods are explored in various ways, not always relying on conventional tests and examinations.
• Affiliation to the most popular Board may not be sought. These schools attempt to explore new topics and syllabi that are not prescribed by conventional Boards. However, this does not mean that such schools do not prepare their students for government-approved examinations to complete and enter universities.
• Success rate is not measured only by the performance of the students in competitions, examinations and other such external benchmarks. Their learning outcomes are a blend of measurable and immeasurable parameters.

As a child growing up in a fairly well-off middle class family I had everything I asked for. A good education, wonderful books to read, access to all kinds of resources, in other words I didn’t experience a lack of anything. The fact that my parents earned a decent living allowed me a carefree childhood devoid of any responsibility. But is this how every child grows up? Does childhood bring back happy-go-lucky days to every adult? Unfortunately no. While the ideal childhood, often depicted in storybooks, maybe more or less true for children from the middle class, it is not so for those children removed from what we may consider the mainstream – for those less privileged or marginalized.

These children also go to school, although a majority of them never make it through school. They also read the same textbooks and some of the same storybooks. While the child from the mainstream can identify with the lessons or stories he is reading (as they largely depict his life), the child from the margins of society cannot. There are few stories about this child, no textbook details his life. It is this gap in children’s literature that Different Tales, a series of 13 children’s books telling the stories of children from the marginalized sections of the society seeks to fill. Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies has brought out the Telugu versions of these books, and the Malayalam and English versions have been published by DC Books.

Although of late, publishers of children’s books have been telling stories about children from villages and tribes, Different Tales explores a hitherto uncharted territory. While Tulika’s The Village Fair and Kali and the Rat Snake depict marginalization of different kinds—mostly social and economic, but Different Tales tells the stories of children who are culturally marginalized.

Most of us from privileged backgrounds might assume that stories about marginalized children would be sad and apologetic evoking sympathy. But the children depicted in the 13 stories are brave, energetic, determined and confident. The stories in Different Tales are not about victimhood but about how these children manage their lives. They work, play and study all at the same time. These stories are not about conforming to the standard but in a way challenging the existing naturalized literature. Khadeer Babu’s Head Curry (one of the books in the series), for instance, is a story about the pleasure of eating meat, in this case a ram’s head. How often have we heard even a mention, let alone an entire story, of non-vegetarianism in Indian children’s books?

These children are ‘little adults’. Working with their parents, even while studying is the only way of life they know. Even as children they are part of major decisions in the family, are witness to the constant struggle of their parents. Gopu Shyamala’s Tataki Wins Again and Braveheart Badeyya, two stories in Different Tales show you this picture. Work is very central in the lives of Tataki and Badeyya. Despite their experiences, self-respect and a love for their community is quite evident in these children’s lives.

While the stories in Different Tales are mainly meant to provide the marginalized children strong and powerful images of their lives, their readership is not restricted. These stories are also meant to educate the mainstream children about the lives of children from different backgrounds.

Different Tales is certainly a new leaf in the field of children’s literature, but whether it is attractive and enticing enough for the target readership is a question that still needs to be answered. The popularity of fairy tales, fantasy tales and super hero stories tell us that children read storybooks to escape their contexts as much as to understand it. Therefore, do the marginalized children need to be shown a mirror or would they much rather read something ‘different’?

While universally, art education for children has been hailed as an important and essential activity, and its integration with other learning subjects at the primary levels has been accepted, surprisingly, the child art curriculum for schools that has been formatted to the actual needs of the children by various educational organizations is neither implemented nor is it used in the teaching of the other subjects.

This has actually nothing to do with the purchase of material or the expenditure. It has to do with awareness or the lack of it. It has thus become necessary that material that substantiates the importance of art is introduced into the teaching-learning system from time to time, as art at the primary level is invariably an essential part of learning.

Jane and Roshan Sahi reinforce this idea through their recent publication Learning through Art with simple ideas, activities, illustrations and practical tips, basically creating a resource book to help primary teachers use art as a tool – a medium to involve and inspire children in learning not only aesthetics but also subjects like mathematics, the sciences, environmental sciences and other aspects of education like creativity and self-help that are generally ignored.

The mother-son duo has created a wider and larger platform to integrate art activities into the daily routine of a primary student. This goes beyond the traditional form of painting and drawing with color, pencil and chalk. There is an encouragement to explore, experiment, observe, choose, collect material from nature and the surroundings, listen and tell stories, experiences, etc. The book encourages teachers to deviate from the conventional methods of teaching limited to the blackboard, chalk, pencil and paper and rigid and repetitive exercises to creating a wider canvas of inclusion and constructivism. The importance given to the child’s senses in the book is very important. The book emphasizes that the senses are vital catalysts in gaining knowledge of the self-knowledge and the outside world.

The book systematically outlines requirements like purpose, materials and preparations, space and time, activities, need of questions, discussions, etc., for each class under different heads like senses, ways of seeing, movement and balance, awareness of time, smell, earth, water, air and space, fire, light and heat and many more. Comprehensive ideas and activities are elaborated under each topic using not only different kinds of natural and purchased material but aimed at stimulating the children to use their body and senses.

Inclusion and constructivism are primary ideas of the book, aiming at inculcating sensitivity towards nature, being receptive to minute and articulate happenings around them, prodding children to work within the limits of the material provided as well as giving scope to look to other probable resources that could be purposeful in the activity.

Several simple games that are involved to learn about color, texture, shapes, light, space, numbers, time, trees, birds, animals, etc., make interesting events ensuring enjoyment and creativity making the teaching-learning process interesting, more accommodative and looked forward to.

Drawing, painting, scribbling, tearing, pasting, clay modeling, puppet making books with flaps, origami and origami books movable puppets, popup puppets, masks, sharing experiences, group work, stitching stick puppets, butterfly patterns, rangoli designs, hat making, collages, obtaining natural colors from nature, work back rubbings, stitching, necklaces from seeds and pods, plus a number of games are only a part of the umpteen number of activities outlined in the book.

The idea of the book is holistic in helping children have an enjoyable children-centric interactive and creative learning experience through investigation, articulation, assimilation, exploration, experimentation, involvement, interaction, observation and application, which in turn would generate self-confidence and self-gratification in children instead of allowing them to be passive listeners in a closed classroom and bonded to the rote methods of teaching.

Jane and Roshan Sahi take the teaching-learning activity outside the classroom – into nature, involving children to think by themselves and make optimum use of the material freely available there. The book is all about creativity, innovation, working with hands, body and mind aiming towards excellence rather than learning without sense and interest. It is a well-researched methodically written book necessitating the teacher to understand the pre-requisites of primary children to become bold, expressive and confident individuals.

The reviewer is a practicing artist and printmaker. She teaches art at Kendriya Vidyalaya.No.1 Golconda and works with rural chidren at an NGO called Sanskriti. She can be reached at bommareddypadma@gmail.com.

Writing anything – even letters to the bank manger – can shake the faith of the most stout hearted and leave them staring in despair at a blank page. Most people believe that creative writing of any kind is strictly not for them and shy away from the idea of putting thoughts, emotions and ideas on paper. Anyone Can Write, by Cheryl Rao, Gita Iyengar and Meena Murdeshwar, is a book that can awaken hopes in the heart of even a dyed-in-the-wool non-writer.

Published by Foundation Books, this slim volume begins with this emphatically voiced opinion that anyone can write and then proceeds to show exactly how this is possible. The book is divided into three sections – with the one on writing features for magazines/newspapers coming first, followed by writing stories and ending with the section on writing poems.

The first section, written by Gita Iyengar, launches directly into teaching children how to write features. A short introduction to features and a note on where children (and teachers) are likely to come across this kind of writing would have helped enhance this section. This section has five different tasks – writing features, group features, book reviews, writing movie and television reviews and the finally writing middles. Each task comes equipped with detailed information on how to approach that particular form of writing. These tips are sure to be of great help to teachers and parents trying to introduce children to the mysteries of writing. However, the reasoning behind the organization of the tasks is a little hazy – four of the tasks are theme-based (writing features, book review, film review, writing middles) but the fifth one – on writing group features – does not fit into this list. This is based on the number of people writing it and seems to have been added only to increase the number of tasks.

This section also contains several examples of children’s writings and these make for interesting reading. However, including examples of features, book reviews, movie reviews and middles from newspapers would have helped illustrate the points made in the guidelines. As such, this section places the onus of preparing for a class on feature writing on the teacher.

The section on poetry, written by Meena Murdeshwar has an introduction to this genre of writing and includes, aptly enough, a long description, in verse, of the process of writing poetry. The introduction to each task is presented in verse, sure to enthuse the reader to try her own hand at poetry. This section begins by presenting children with an ‘heirloom’ poem and inviting them to alter it. This is sure to convince even the most confirmed non-writers that they can indeed write, besides providing some truly hilarious poems. The second task offers ‘Stems that bloom’, another innovative idea that teachers and parents can try, presenting the child with a stem of an idea and stepping back to see what he/she makes of it. Task three builds on ‘Some Childhood Anxieties’ and invites children to scribble their fears away! An amazingly cathartic exercise that will surprise children and adults alike with the results. ‘The Wannabes’ invites children to give free rein to their imagination and write about what they would like to be. ‘Personal Glimpses’ presents another opportunity to write about deep dark secrets, inviting children to write about their memories.

Other tasks, like ‘Be ‘Sense-sitive’, ‘Movement- Magical and Actual’, ‘Catch the Passion’ and ‘Tragedy touches Hearts!’ all guide children on the way to tap the depths of their hearts and memories to come up with poems. These writing tasks will not only help children write, but also help them see how writing poetry is inextricably linked to our emotions.

The section on ‘Writing Stories’ is the longest and therefore far more detailed than the other two. Cheryl Rao, the author of this section, presents a comprehensive introduction to the writing of stories, introducing children to the basic elements of story writing. These include the various parts of the story – the title, beginning, middle and end, and the planning necessary before writing a story – the ‘who, what, how, why where, when’ aspects of any story. This section includes the largest number of tasks and Rao manages to cover practically every type of story through the 31 tasks provided. Rather than create tasks that introduce children to the various story genres, Rao’s focus remains the actual writing of a story and hence the tasks are centered around the possible variations that can be offered to encourage children to write. These clues, or stems include perennial favourites of children and one is likely to meet various kinds of horrible but extra intelligent aliens, thieves, detectives, monsters and zombies.

The tasks in this book are all based on a series of writing workshops that the three authors conducted at various schools in Hyderabad and the examples chosen reflect the writing attempts of children who attended these workshops. This book can be used both as a means of awakening an interest in writing fiction, features and poetry in children and as a way to guide children who have exhibited some interest and skill in writing. Parents whose children exhibit a spark of creativity are sure to find this a welcome guide to helping their children discover the various facets of writing. This book can also be a boon to an innovative teacher, who can use it to enhance the writing skills of her students.

The reviewer is a freelance writer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at nandsnayar@yahoo.co.in.

Schooling the National Imagination by Shalini Advani adds to the list of good books on education that we have seen in the recent past. A non-ideological enquiry into the political agenda of education, it comprehensively maps a territory that has not been sufficiently explored.

Schooling the National Imagination traces the historical journey of the ideological debates that have informed policy, curriculum, texts, classroom transactions and attitudes since India’s independence. The book explores, through the various shifts over the past 60 years, the vexed relationship between language and modernity and a nationalist identity – which, within a postcolonial setting gets even more complex.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section, ‘The Policy Landscape’, concentrates on the ideological and policy shifts. This section is further divided into three chapters. In each of these, Shalini Advani concentrates on a particular component: the nationalist identity, language and what Indian society sees as the role of education. Thus, the first chapter examines what it means to be a “true Indian”, the second chapter explores the predicament of the relation with the language of the colonizer in a post-colonial nation and the third concentrates on the “overall framing vision of education in India”.

The second section entitled ‘The Culture of Text-books’, concentrates on changes in the textbooks. This section is again divided into three chapters The Construction of the Nation, Normalizing Boundaries, and Engendering the Nation. The first examines how the national policy enters into the classroom through the textbooks. In the second chapter, there is an attempt to describe an ideal citizen, as well as to reveal who is included or marginalized. It also looks at the construction of “the non-Western, modern” citizen. The last chapter in this section examines how gender roles are depicted in textbooks.

The third section, ‘Entering the School Gates’, takes us right into the classroom. It shows how ideology, policy and the textbook unfold in the classroom. The conclusion maps the connections and new tensions between “Nationalist Pedagogy, Sub-national Identities and Transnational Desires” in the present day.

Schooling the National Imagination would be of immense use to all interested in studying the inter-connections between ideology-policy, curricular reforms and classroom delivery. From the deliberations at the top to its transaction in the field, the book shows clearly how an ideology, through policy and curriculum informs textbooks and how these, in turn, play out within a classroom between the teacher-student. Shalini Advani’s book gives one both a wide angle shot of the historical perspective and a microscopic, vertical picture of the three issues – language, modernity and national identity – that continue to engage “the national imagination”. The book is worth reading for its enquiry into the politics of two very interesting issues of language and self-identity in a post-colonial situation. Students and researchers will find the book studying for its worth-emulating methodology.

The only amendment that I would suggest to this very competently written book is a change in the title. It is evocative but, I think, not accurate. Even if one could pin down what a “national imagination” might be, it would still be impossible to ‘school’ it, given the norm of rote-learning. Thus, an apt title, I think, would have been Attempting to School the National Identity or Schooling and the Nationalist Identity!

Schooling the National Imagination
Shalini Advani
Oxford Publications, 2009
pp. 205, Rs. 575/-

The author is founder Centre for Learning, which aims to offer alternative education to all children. She can be reached at kaur.gurveen@gmail.com.

When I was asked to review the book, I agreed to it with little expectation that I would be struck by a storm! That was truly my immediate feeling on reading the insightful preface. The primary mismatches as outlined by the author between a child’s capacities and what the school expects was sufficient pointer to the depth of research and questioning that was to follow.

Having worked with the Waldorf curriculum (as indicated by Rudolf Steiner), I know that child development is central to our understanding of the growing human being, the curriculum that will ideally suit children and the creative methodology that goes with it. Hence it was heartening to read about the development of the brain. It is indeed a key to understanding how to approach the child as well as his/her learning. At the same time ‘brain development’ has been placed within the context of the whole human being. At a time when all kinds of educational practices are being commodified under the fad ‘brain development in the young’, the author’s concern if something can be accomplished in a less painful way drives home the point that teaching is essentially a human activity.

As I read and reread the chapter on ‘learning’, it became more and more clear that the activity of teaching is about owning responsibility – owning responsibility for their learning. As I finished reading it I relived the question – if something is not clear to children, is it their limitation or mine?

One of the primary reasons for me to question the typical school of our times is the abuse of memory and an assumption that memory based learning which is marked and graded is an indicator of intelligence. While there are general questions and concerns about memory overload, the author has painted an excellently researched picture of ‘memory’ – a must read not only for teachers and planners but also parents. The need to use memory as ‘a convenience to allow for higher order thinking to occur more smoothly’ wonderfully places memory in the right perspective of learning.

The chapter on child development questions how much we truly understand the growing child. I was reminded of my own child asking me (she was 5 years old then) why the sea water was salty. I might have jumped around and laid my hands on to a handsome looking encyclopaedia – only better sense prevailed in the form of my mentor who told her a fairy tale where a dwarf churns a rock in the sea. Her eyes sparkled with wonder – something that no scientific explanation would have done in a child that young. She seemed perfectly happy with the answer. Many years later when she learnt ‘neutralization’ – the question that was sleeping in her consciousness woke up again – only she was ready to put her hands on to an encyclopedia – with no coercion from me or anyone else. I am particularly moved when I see children whose development has been respected in terms of what and how they learn. I’ve noticed that they approach arts and sciences with equal enthusiasm. For them, scientific knowledge and mythical consciousness do not seem contradictory. Often an early intellectualization and pushing of formal sciences makes them either lose interest in literature and fine arts – or they begin to treat the latter as lowest in the hierarchy of subjects – a phenomenon recognized in the book too. The worst form of abuse is, of course, enrolling in arts and humanities since ‘they were not good enough at sciences’.

The discussion in ‘Nature vs Nurture’ once again throws up fundamental questions on the abilities of children – these to me as a teacher have long been linked with existential questions and I have found my answers that are much less tentative than ideas thrown open in the chapter. Nevertheless the asking of these questions is much more important than finding the answers. It is in the asking of such questions that education flowers into a human activity.

I must confess that I did not read the book sequentially – I first attacked the chapter on Moral Development since that to me has been a key question and not separate from any academic work we do with the children. (This is one of the few books that can be read sequentially or at random). The clarity between ‘conventions’ and ‘moral empathic reasons’ was starkly depicted with examples and the reader left thinking about our own methods of working around morality. The chapter concludes by questioning ‘competition’ which still seems to govern our way of education. Competition immediately places individuals in a situation of conflict. I believe any discussion on morality sounds hollow if we have not questioned whether competition has any role at all in learning… other than making people feel small or big – building images on which they begin to be dependent life long. It is a psychological addiction – much more dangerous than addictions of other kinds since it is not even recognized as one.

Questions about ‘what is intelligence’ on the one hand highlighted the narrow scope of IQ tests, and on the other hand truly explored what intelligence is. The chapter seemed to be a reminder to all educators to understand the word in its broad scope – I’ve often viewed the word as an expression of integrated thought, feeling and action. The way different psychologists have viewed ‘intelligence’ certainly needs to wake us up from the slumber of a non-intelligent understanding of the word.

The chapter on motivation summed up the shallowness of external motivation. To me it had always seemed that motivation in students had a lot to do with the enthusiasm of the teacher. Brings up the larger question we need to ask ourselves ‘why have we chosen this path? (Profession?)’ Measuring learning had ideas to make evaluation and assessment lively. I’ve always believed that if we view assessment as a means to ‘measure teaching’, we might have the right attitude towards students.

I was happy to see a whole chapter committed to understanding the emotional states of the child. The ideas about self-esteem seemed to be different from what I hold. To me, both Baumeister and J. Krishnamurthy seem to be questioning ‘self – image’ (which I think is harmful whether or not it is a good or bad image of oneself that one entertains). I’ve noticed that self-esteem is never a ‘conscious’ feeling. It seems to be an unconscious and un-self conscious state of emotional well-being or lack thereof – the latter needing intervention of adults.

At school we are constantly challenged by adolescents and their swinging moods – a trainer who visited us recently recommended ‘compassion’ towards the growing adolescent. Many ideas in the chapter seem practical in nature and we at school would perhaps read these aspects in our teachers’ meetings. Yes this book ought to be read in every school that takes education seriously; and read by every teacher who takes education seriously.

A feeling of gratitude filled me when I finished reading the book. For the author, for the book, a life filled with the meaning of ‘teaching’ and the good fortune of having met many teachers for whom teaching is a living dynamic relationship with the taught.

What did you ask at school today?
Kamala V Mukunda
Collins Pulishers, 2009
pp. 287, Rs. 199/-

The author teaches at Abhaya, a Waldorf school in Kompally, Hyderabad. She can be reached at
vijuanu@yahoo.com.