It’s no news that a large fraction of secondary school students across the country end up attending after school tuition or coaching classes that promise to prepare them to ‘perform’ better in exams. The term ‘after-school learning’ was, until recently, associated solely with achieving a competitive advantage. ‘Tuitions’ were places students would go to finish their homework or revise what was taught at school while ‘coaching centres’ promised higher ranks and better results, and more often than not relied on repetition and cramming to meet that promise.

Given this setting, it is interesting to note the upward trend of after-school learning centres that focus more on imparting quality education than directly on exam scores and ranks. The city of Hyderabad itself has witnessed the inauguration of two such centres within the past few months. These centres use contemporary digital technology to make the teaching-learning less hierarchical and more student-centric. Further, given that these centres are not bound by boards of education like schools are, they are free to venture beyond the prescribed ‘syllabus’ and focus on learning rather than marks.

So what exactly happens at these after-school learning centres?
Take for example the concept of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. Instead of a simple verbal explanation from a teacher supported by a diagram in a textbook, here students can get to see a 3D animation of the process with colours and sounds. The interactive and graphical presentation keeps the students engaged and makes the content easier to grasp.

The environment that after-school centres aim to create is meant to foster inquiry, reasoning and keep students and teachers engaged in the process of learning. The digital learning software that is used has a variety of academically enriching themes, designed to help students become active learners rather than passive recipients of subject content. The higher level of individual attention that students get at these centres because of the low student-teacher ratio means that teachers can cater to students’ individual learning needs, concepts can be explained and questions can be addressed as they arise.

Though after school centres are a recent phenomenon in India, they are commonplace in western countries. Many such centres are in fact funded by schools themselves or by local organizations. The programs range from providing child care to educationally enriching alternatives and often include art and physical activities. They receive strong support from the department of education and the policy makers with Richard W Riley, the US Secretary of Education from 1993-2001 stating that such after school programs are important “because children’s minds don’t close down at 3 p.m., and neither should their schools.”

Experiential learning is a major aspect in this model of education. Datla V, a teacher at Creya Learning Zone in Hyderabad, explains, “The program at Creya is personalized to the needs of the student and is offered using constructivism as a philosophy of learning.” So not only are the children taught in a way that allows them to construct their understanding about a subject but these programs also provide them with the know-how of applying the theories they learn. As he says, “How we learn and what we do with it is becoming as important as what we learn.”

At the Next Learning Centre, teachers integrate unconventional pedagogical tools and modern technology into the curriculum such as rich digital content, virtual and real-time practice labs, hands-on activities, and simulations. Next Education has introduced an exclusive ‘soft skills module’, which empowers teachers to deliver the curriculum using interactive 2D and 3D content to improve the students’ interaction and engagement with the subject.

These centres have broadened opportunities for teachers, who can now look beyond the conventional classroom teaching job. However, working in an after-school learning centre is quite different from working in a regular school. The equation a teacher shares with the students at such centres is more collaborative in nature. The small student-teacher ratio allows for more communication and the teacher plays the role of a co-learner and a facilitator. Datla V notes, “The pay scales (at after-school learning centres) are often a lot better than what regular schools pay. However, the skills required are also very different for the after-school programs.”

Working at such centres requires teachers to be comfortable with the shift from a teacher-centric blackboard style of instruction to a more student-centred style of pedagogy. The tools of education here are no longer just textbooks and that means that they have to possess the skills needed to teach in an information and communication technology (ICT) rich environment. Vijay Rajan, Executive Vice President of Next Education affirms this saying, “Given the whole framework of modern teaching methodologies, professional development of the teacher is vital”.

The timings of after-school learning centres in some cases allow teachers to take this on in addition to working in a regular school. For others, the flexibility in timings provides the option of working part-time. “Given the disparity in the pay scales, teachers are opting to work in after-school centres. Why wouldn’t they?” says Nalini Rao, Principal of Unicent Child Centric School, Miyapur. “As a school we try to cater to the parents’ requirements and the students’ needs while working within the norms set by the Board. We’ve had parents telling us that we need to stick to the syllabus and focus on the board exams and not bring in any new methods as they fear that their children will lose out. So with these after-school centres parents have the option, if they are interested, to allow their children to learn with a different set of tools.”

While there are schools (see box) that are adopting computer aided techniques of learning and skill development, the advantage of after-school learning centres is that they cater to a smaller class size and can provide individual attention that might not be feasible in a regular school. Also, the time and space available to them allows them to complement, enhance, and enrich what happens during the regular school day.

Presenting another point of view is Jayashree Swaraj, a retired teacher, who believes that although learning with technology is a step above learning with textbooks, what is essentially happening is that students are ending up going from one classroom to another. “A lot of ‘learning’ for children happens outside the classroom. Experiences on a playground cannot be taught with a textbook or a computer. So we need to question what we mean by education and take into consideration the skills we want our children to equip themselves with.” With the advent of computer-aided after-school learning centres, we are being forced to re-examine our assumptions in relation to the methods of instruction and learning techniques that we’ve been using so far. While there have been changes in the education process in schools toward improvement, such as the introduction of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system by the CBSE, such steps to fill the gaps in the current education system take time and face practical hurdles.

With technology being integrated into instruction, what direction is the role of a teacher going to take? Carolyn Dowling, author of ‘The Role of the Human Teacher in Learning Environments of the Future’ writes, “the human teacher is in a strong position, in particular by virtue of overall life experience and sophistication as a communicator, to both models and facilitates co-operative learning behaviours. And who better than a ‘real’ teacher to recognise and develop ‘authentic’ contexts for learning?”

The demand for skills such as communication and real world problem solving – skills that the textbook oriented approaches to learning do not develop – reflects the arm-chair discussions of over a decade ago on how marks do not truly portray competence and capability. Whether it’s the effect of progressive cinema like Taare zameen par and 3 Idiots, the influence of teachings of educationists like Jiddu Krishnamurti, or perhaps increased exposure to alternative paradigms of education prevalent in countries across the world, the fact remains that the student’s all-round development and actual understanding of the subject has, for a section of society, come to trump academic performance. With the trend of after-school learning centres what’s come to the fore is the change in perspective, in what parents, teachers and students want as part of ‘education’. And that is definitely reassuring!

K12 Techno Companies providing learning solutions services
• Educomp smartclass (Delhi based, centres elsewhere – 1994)
• Smartschool
• Starfeatures
• Xseed

Companies providing online tutoring
• Tutorvista (2005 in Bangalore)
• Discoverplus (Kerala)

Schools using e-learning software/solutions
• DL DAV model school
• Tagore international school
• The British school
• Indraprastha international school
• Doon public school, Paschim Vihar
• Bal bharati public school (Pitampura)

Computer- aided learning centres
• Govt. Schools – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan
• MS Swaminathan Research Foundation
• Azim Premji Foundation

The author is a student of MA Communication (Print and New Media) at the University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at dchoudary@gmail.com.

Adding the experience element

Harini Kumar

Eliminating mediocrity in education is a motto of EZ Vidya, an education solutions provider for schools. What is it that mainstream schools are not doing that would need supplementary efforts from such organizations? Founded ten years ago in Chennai with the mission “Let the child blossom”, EZ Vidya provides products and services to schools with respect to academic curricula, training of teachers and helping schools enhance their approach to education. Chitra Ravi, founder and CEO of EZ Vidya says that technology has played an important role in their interventions, through their products. While they share schools’ basic objective of imparting knowledge, organizations like EZ Vidya propagate a different approach to learning that many schools are now lapping up and reaping the benefits of.

“We noticed that teachers are unable to get into the mind of the learner, and this is where we come in,” says Chitra Ravi. “Through an interactive and participatory approach that addresses the learning needs of today, our products motivate children to learn by providing multiple stimuli.”

EZ Vidya’s flagship product, Chrysalis – a complete information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum package that includes textbooks, workbooks and audio-visual material – offers what have come to be known as ‘21^st century skills’. Schools that enroll with them replace their conventional materials with those provided by EZ Vidya, which ensures that there is a fit with the syllabus that the school follows.

EZ Vidya also offers training for teachers in order to bridge the gap between education research and what is being imparted in schools. Curricula in mainstream Indian schools are often regarded as being heavy with content, weighing down students with concepts and definitions. Learning then becomes a weary, monotonous exercise that runs the risk of stunting a child’s personality growth. By using technology meaningfully, such products and services serve as a wake-up call to educators to improve their teaching methodology, question the basics, and offer a new curriculum while still adhering to the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) of 2005 and working within the guidelines laid out in national and state education policies. Through interactive workbooks, EZ Vidya seeks to trigger the thoughts of students by appealing to their different senses, giving them a chance to learn experientially rather than through a didactic method. For example, when a scientific phenomenon is explained through a poem to a student who likes poetry, it could create a more lasting impression than a simplistic definition that one usually sees in textbooks. Qualitative growth is emphasized over mere marks, which is perhaps why such products are being used widely in schools across the country.

These products obviously come at a price, but surprisingly, it is not just private schools who can afford such material that opt for the change. By tying up with the Corporate Social Responsibility wings of many private and multinational companies, EZ Vidya is able to take its products to government schools as well.“Educators in both public and private schools have been extremely receptive to our products and the acceptance rate is a hundred per cent,” says Chitra Ravi. Teacher training and manuals as well as technology support ensures that the packages are well-rounded and meet the needs of the learners and the teachers alike. Much of their resources are pumped into research and development although efforts towards a more aggressive branding strategy are underway.

iDiscoveri is another enterprise that works towards providing education solutions to schools, amongst their other offerings. The XSEED program is their mainstay, wherein the prerogative is to enhance and raise the performance of students as well as improve the quality of teaching. iDiscoveri was founded by an alumni of reputed institutions of higher education from around the world, such as Harvard, Cambridge, IIT and IIM. The XSEED experiential learning method is designed around five steps: aim, activity, analyze, apply and assess. The company notes that schools following the XSEED method have seen a marked improvement in teaching quality and student learning. The core of the XSEED program is the lesson plans or the curriculum manual which make use of the five-step teaching process. Teacher training and support is also offered to ensure that teachers are up to date with the program. The XSEED program also provides professional and comprehensive assessment and monitoring support for schools as well as parents to further their goal of holistic learning. iDiscoveri has spent hundreds of hours assessing teaching methods in classrooms to understand the changes required and to implement more experiential and real-life methods in teaching so that students understand concepts with clarity and in an interactive manner.

Everonn Education, Educomp Solutions and Nischal’s Smart Learning Solutions are some of the other enterprises that are offering educational products to enhance learning inside and outside the classroom. These interventions suggest that there is a change in the way parents, teachers and students alike are thinking about education and the future of the Indian school system. These products do not merely indicate the need to keep up with current trends globally and nationally but also point to the fact that the consumer – in this case, the parent – is demanding much more. Technology has made learning a continuous process that does not stop with the classroom, and there seems to be a demand for education that contributes to the intellectual as well as the emotional growth of a child. In such a scenario, the rapid proliferation of such education service providers who offer an array of different products comes as no surprise. Schools are also feeling the pressure of rising demands from parents and students for supplementary learning material or at many instances, a total revamping of existing teaching methods and tools.

That there is need for ‘21^st century skills’ is indicative of the changing times. However, with so many choices abounding, it can be confounding, especially for teachers of this generation, as they migrate to newer learning methods using technological tools that students are already familiar with in their everyday life. The pressure to perform in an increasingly competitive atmosphere does not affect only students. The onus is also on the teacher as she has to constantly keep up with current trends in education, use a variety of teaching strategies in the classroom and ensure that demands are met. And while the external inputs provided by such companies as iDiscoveri and EZ Vidya may complement those of the system, the mainstays of education will for a long time continue to be the school and the teacher.

The author is a freelance writer currently based in Chennai. She can be reached at harini747@gmail.com.

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring. – Winston Churchill

Lesson plans are an important teaching-planning aid used by everyone academically linked to schools. The teacher uses them to decide how classroom sessions will proceed and how best to guide student learning. The principal or the headmaster refers to them to see if the teachers are planning well and are on track to cover the curriculum. Classroom observers watch the teacher in action and compare her class against her lesson plan. Visiting inspectors from examination boards consider them as proof of sound classroom practices. It seems that we cannot imagine schools without lesson plans.

But where does this idea of lesson plans come from? Who proposed it? Are all lesson plan formats alike or do teachers follow different kinds of lesson plan formats? Are they all effective? What does the commonly used Objectives-Activities-Assessment lesson plan format say about how students learn? Does using scripted/readymade lesson plans help or hinder the teacher? Finally, how can the school and the teacher improve planning for classroom sessions?

In this article, I explore these questions based on the research studies¹ I have come across and my own experience as a teacher.

Lesson plans: a brief history
Ralph Tyler was the first to propose an “effective organization of educational experiences to achieve the educational purpose of the school”². He suggested that a good lesson plan should be able to:
a) specify objectives
b) select learning activities
c) organize the learning activities, and
d) identify evaluation procedures (Doyle & Holm, 1998)³.

Although proposed in 1949, teacher-educators teach this approach in teacher preparation institutions even today (see image 1 of a specimen lesson plan from the 2006-07 Diploma in Teacher Education Source book, Maharashtra). Lesson plan formats available on the web are similar too (see image 2). Even though researchers like Bloom (1956)⁴ have contributed to this model with extended taxonomies, or like Jones, et al (2009)⁵ have proposed different sequences, most lesson plans are likely to have the following sections:
1. Learning objectives
2. Teaching and learning materials required
3. Activities for the teacher and the student
4. Assessment
5. Plenary

We may call this the Objectives-Activities-Assessment (OAA) format. Let us examine what this format assumes about the nature of teaching and learning.

The OAA model and its assumptions about learning
This model is linear. In other words, it assumes that learning can be structured in a way such that the objectives will clearly lead to designing learning activities and these activities can be assessed to see whether the objectives are met. The lesson plan format does not provide room for a more realistic and complex approach to learning. Classroom learning emerges from the dialogue and reflection between the teacher and her students. A linear lesson plan goes against this interactive and emergent nature of learning. It does not highlight the possibility of, or provide space for back-tracking, checking student misperceptions and other possible pathways.

Koeller & Thompson (1980)⁶ argue that this format “creates a split between the means (activities) and the ends (objectives) of learning.” This separation of the objectives and activities makes them seem as successive steps to learning rather than as part of a whole (John, 2006)⁷. Since the objectives and activities are written in separate unrelated rows, the teacher finds it hard to imagine how sometimes learning is “situated” and embedded within the activity and the context as proposed by Brown, Collins & Duguid (1989)⁸.

Researchers like John (2006) and Smith (1996)⁹ claim that the format is behaviourist. It breaks down learning into a set of tasks/activities/competencies, which can be observed and assessed. There are lesson plans that force the teacher to write details, such as which student will do exactly what during the session – creating a blueprint, which presumably will turn into reality in the classroom. Some lesson plans also ask the teacher to label students as “gifted and talented” or as “slow-learners” based on their display of competencies in the classroom. Such categories often link intelligence with the speed of response rather than its depth (Duckworth, 1996)¹⁰ and can have a negative impact on the students and their belief in their own competence.

The model also assumes universal impact. Irrespective of the social and cultural background of the students, it supposes that all students will learn the same thing from a given learning activity. Fosnot (1966)¹¹ describes constructivist learning as learners physically, symbolically, socially, and theoretically constructing their knowledge. Knowledge is not something handed down to them, rather the students create their own conceptual understanding of a topic. The lesson plan format often ignores this active and individualized knowledge gathering by the learner and assumes that all learners will “build” knowledge in the same way. Hence, the role of the teacher becomes more like that of a technician who is efficient at delivering the content in the lesson plan.

The format also believes that setting objectives precedes learning activities and experiences. However, there is a wide diversity in the way teachers prepare lesson plans. In my experience, some teachers prefer to begin with learning activities and then tie in the objectives while some prefer to fill up the objectives and then think of activities and so on. Whatever approach a teacher takes, John, (2006 p. 490) states that the lesson plan is often “arrived at through a variety of processes, many of which are highly personal, idiosyncratic, and embedded in the subject and classroom context of the topic being planned.”

Hence, we need to examine lesson plan formats carefully by questioning their underlying assumptions about the teacher, the student and the learning process. If these assumptions go against how students learn and how teachers think and plan, then the lesson plan might actually hinder the learning process.

Designing and delivering the lesson plan
Is there a link between the quality of a lesson plan and its delivery? Does a well-articulated lesson plan always lead to an effective classroom session? Since teachers are usually pressed for time, there have been well-intentioned efforts to introduce scripted¹² lesson plans to reduce the time teachers take for making lesson plans. Another unstated assumption is that such a lesson plan will give confidence and a sense of direction to the teacher. Although studies like those of Dorovolomo et al (2010)¹³ highlight that the quality of lesson plans prepared by teachers is positively linked to its quality of delivery, they do not prove whether a quality lesson plan given to teachers will be beneficial for students and classroom interactions.

Further, the same lesson plan will be carried out differently by different teachers. Hence, it will never be implemented the way it was imagined by the “expert” lesson planner. The dynamic nature of the classroom usually frustrates a linear planned pathway. Besides, a teacher might not “own” a readymade lesson plan the same way she does a lesson plan made by her.

Hence, a well-crafted lesson plan may provide some sense of direction and confidence to a teacher, however, the complexity of the classroom will make such confidence short-lived. It also undermines their planning. The scripted lesson plan instead of being a scaffold may actually become an obstacle preventing the teacher from developing her planning skills besides challenging her competence.

Lesson planning – a forgotten phase that needs more support
Lesson plans are also used to inspect and assess teaching quality within the classroom. They are mandatory under certain examination boards and are subject to audit. Hence, teachers fill up lesson plans not just as an academic requirement but also as an administrative duty and most schools have policies mandating lesson plans to be filed well in time.

However, there are few policies that support or guide the teacher in the process of lesson planning. Although schools may provide time to the teachers to plan their lessons, they do not support them actively in developing a richer understanding of the planning process and reflection after classroom sessions. Most teachers, therefore, make lesson plans, conduct their sessions and get busy with preparing the next plan – spending little time on discussion and reflection.

Consequently, novice and experienced teachers might begin to view lesson plans as more of an administrative task than something that could help guide their teaching.

What can we therefore do? – Indicative guidelines
So far, we have learnt a bit of the thinking behind lesson plans and the need for quality lesson planning. There is no “best-way” to plan, but certain guidelines may be useful. Some of them are outlined below:

• Importance of planning: Provide time and support to teachers for lesson planning. Schools need to look at the time that teachers spend on planning as at least as critical as the time teachers spend inside the classroom. The school can bring in subject experts to talk to teachers and work with them during the planning process. They could also provide access to books on the nature of subjects, how to teach them or on how such subjects are actualized outside school.
• Critical review: Discuss the lesson planning format. Teachers need to critically examine the lesson plan format they use. As a tool, the lesson plan is not merely an output of a teacher’s thinking, it shapes the way the teacher thinks and plans. Teachers could work together to modify the format and review it periodically. For instance, a section on hypotheses about what students are likely to know and how the plan builds on that could be useful. Adding a short checklist on meta-questions about the lesson plan format itself could be tried out.
• Reflective practice: Use the lesson plan to discuss what happened in the classroom. Teachers could either take turns to describe how the classroom sessions progressed compared to their plans and become aware of the decisions they took and what other instructional strategies they could have used. Using video for self-reflection on the lesson plan could support those teachers who are more comfortable analyzing their sessions on their own. Further, teachers could use the lesson plan as a useful artifact to reflect on how students learn.
• Diversity in design and delivery: The school could reduce the importance of sticking to a standard lesson plan and accept that teachers will follow different strategies in designing and delivering lesson plans. Principals and inspectors should not use the lesson plan to judge the teacher, but rather as a tool that helps teachers visualize and imagine how the classroom session will take place.
• Work with others: Borrowing from and adapting the Japanese method of lesson study¹⁴, teachers could work together to draw up detailed lesson plans, deliver them and discuss them as a group to answer research questions (the group of teacher defines their own research questions and then does lesson study to answer them).

Summarizing the answers/findings
To conclude, lesson planning, like teaching-learning, is complex and requires interacting with factors like the knowledge of the teacher, the nature of the subject, the teacher’s beliefs about the subject and its pedagogy, the socio-cultural context of the classroom and the lesson plan format. However, when lesson planning is treated sincerely and done thoughtfully, it can lead to a richness of learning within the classroom and provide intense, fulfilling and powerful learning experiences to teachers and students.

I hope this article leads to discussions on the nature of lesson plans, the quality and time spent on lesson planning and on questions like:

• Do different subjects need different kinds of lesson plan formats?
• What are the ways teachers could reflect on their lesson plans after the classroom session?
• What is the role that students and parents could play in designing a lesson plan?
• What about processes like lesson study? How can they work in schools here?

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References

1. At times, I have summarized the findings of the research and not elaborated them. I do hope that this encourages teachers and other readers to go to the original research article and engage in the demanding, yet fulfilling task of developing a richer understanding of the reference.
2. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago. Also read Bobitt’s work which brought up the education objectives approach. Bobbitt, F. (1928). How to Make a Curriculum, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. As the reader might observe, these books are more than half a century old. It makes me wonder on how much they still influence current thinking and whether that is good.
3. Doyle, M. & Holm, D.T. (1998). Instructional Planning through Stories. Teacher Education Quarterly 25(3), 69-83.
4. Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational objectives by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: D. McKay.
5. Jones, K.A., Vermette, P.J. & Jones, J.L. (2009). An Integration of “Backwards Planning” Unit Design with the Two-Step Lesson Planning Framework. Education. 130(2). 357-360.
6. Koeller, S. & Thompson, E. (1980). Another look at Lesson Planning. Educational Leadership. 673-675.
7. John, P. D. (2006). Lesson planning and the student teacher: re-thinking the dominant model. Journal Of Curriculum Studies, 38(4), 483-498.
8. Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher. 18(1), 32-42. This remains one of the most influential and debated articles on how people learn. If there is one article that you have time to engage with, this is the one I would recommend.
9. Smith, M. K. (1996, 2000) ‘Curriculum theory and practice’ the encyclopedia of informal education, Retrieved November 12, 2011 from www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm.
10. Duckworth, E. (1996). The Having of Wonderful Ideas and other essays. NY: Teachers College Press.
11. Fosnot, Catherine. (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
12. By scripted, I mean those ready-made lesson plans which detail out the objectives and learning activities and leave little room for the teacher to decide about what will be taught and how.
13. Dorovolomo, J., Phan, P. H. & Maebuta, J. (2010). Quality Lesson Planning and Quality Delivery: Do they relate? International Journal of Learning. 17(3), 447-455.
14. “What is lesson study?” (N.A.) Retrieved November 11, 2011 from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html.

The author is an education consultant with Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He holds an MBA from IIM Lucknow and an M.Ed from the University of Massachusetts. He can be reached at gopalmidha@gmail.com.

Give us this day our daily… lesson plan!

Sayujya Sankar and Sangeeta Menon

Ms. Ruchi Arora, a mentor teacher for English at Sancta Maria International School, believes that lesson planning is essential for a class to go on smoothly. Using the information in the curriculum as her point of reference, she plans what she is going to be doing in class for the entire week. The lesson plan, while theoretical, is based heavily on the students she is working with. She notes that it is essential to understand the learner’s ability in order to prepare for his or her class. She introduces a general worksheet or questions the students orally, thereby finding out where each student stands in relation to the rest of the class with regard to a given topic. After this introductory activity, she groups the students according to their learning capability. While the introductory activity is the same for the whole class, the lessons planned based on these activities are different, so that they cater to different levels within the classroom. At the end of every week, she believes that it is necessary to evaluate what has been done in class. This gives her a clear understanding of whether and to what extent the student has managed to understand the concept. Thus, according to her, the lesson plan is fixed, while the way it is executed differs from student to student.

The lesson plan, however, is not only the information that is taken from the curriculum, but also involves research material used for the class. This material can come from anywhere. For instance, Ms. Arora uses resources as varied as the Internet, books, and ideas incorporated from prior experiences as well as her own innovative techniques.

Mrs. Ratnalekha Shetty, teacher and principal of Sancta Maria International School, believes that “Only if you plan, you deliver well.” She also says that it is necessary to break down a forty-minute class into slots of 10 or 20 minutes each, so that the student does not get bored during the session. This helps maintain the concentration level in the classroom. Finally, she also says that every lesson plan ought to have room for reflection. It is this, in fact, that will help the teacher even more than the actual planning, as knowing which ideas failed and which worked will help teachers evolve their teaching methodology. It gives a good idea about what one can take up in the lesson plans that they would create later as well.

Ms. Meghana Musunri, teacher and president of Fountainhead – The Global School, a school for kids aged six and below, notes that the lesson plan has to involve a lot of practical work because, especially for younger children, seeing indeed is believing. She states that if the child’s curiosity as to why he/she should learn is satisfied, one can go on to the next aspect – how one can learn. On a weekly basis, topics are introduced using projects and other fun methods, where not much information is provided (since children need more activities to learn a given concept). She speaks about the four different types of learners: those who learn “through speech, the audio-visual, through exploring, and other traditional methodologies (from books, etc.)”. Their schedule is divided so that all kids participate and eventually understand the given concepts.

Along with her colleague, Dr. Ranganayaki Srinivas (who helped plan the syllabus for the NCERT board), Meghana Musunri plans the lessons for the syllabus in their school. Both of them design their own material acquiring resources from various authors and using their own unique ideas and approaches. They take help from child psychiatrists who speak about how a child’s potential can be improved so that, as Meghana states, the child can “face the future without depending on others.”

Plotting a lesson plan can vary from teacher to teacher. Some teachers like to keep it fairly broad-based for flexibility while others like to plan down to the minutest detail. Kavita Safi, a senior High School teacher of English at Chaitanya Vidyalaya School in Hyderabad, maintains that lesson plans are extremely important. It is not just an “onerous and tedious pedagogic requisite” that a teacher is compelled to fulfill. On the other hand, she takes this task very seriously. Planning for each of her classes is rigorous work which she does with meticulous care. She begins by charting out the syllabus for the classes that she handles for the entire academic year, followed by a term-wise distribution of her work based on the number of periods that she is allotted with each class. Then, she breaks this down further into fortnightly capsules, finally ending up with a daily plan of the work that she intends to cover each day, fitting it into the overall scheme of her lesson plan.

According to Ms. Safi, lesson plans are absolutely vital in preparing a teacher for her class. They not only help in structuring and organizing her work at a macro level but also allow her to keep tabs on it at the micro level. It enables her to set a steady pace with her work ensuring sufficient time for all that she wishes to get done and invests her with the confidence of knowing exactly where she is with her work at any given point of time. She can keep track of whether she is falling behind or is ahead of schedule. More significantly, a lesson plan “adds to the effectiveness of each lesson.” Following a structure ensures that the teacher can make the best creative and productive use of the time at her/his disposal and can provide the satisfaction of progress well made in the class.

Ms. Safi states emphatically that nothing can be done without organizing oneself. “A lesson plan is like a having a remote in your hands,” she says. “ It gives you that degree of control. There are so many variables in each class. But the plan allows you to know when to pause, when to go on, when to rewind or fast-forward.” Although teaching for her is largely “instinctive and subjective”, a knowledge and formal study of lesson plans that a course in Education provides is desirable as there are tried and tested underlying concepts that a teacher ought to internalize. They delineate the basic rules and framework that the teacher can then customize to his/her specifications.

Drawing up a lesson plan need not be a repetitive exercise year after year even if the teacher takes the same class in successive academic years. As long as the syllabus remains the same, a good lesson plan can, therefore, be used repeatedly without much change. Even if Ms. Safi does not like to deviate too much from her lesson plan, she is not rigid about it and does “juggle it around” if there is need. She revamps an existing lesson plan in her lower classes (seven and eight) depending on what she gets to learn and ascertain of her students’ interests and abilities even midway during an academic year. In the case of higher classes (nine and ten) she avers there is little scope of experimenting with the plan each successive year. However, her class determines the order of the lessons in her plan which she reworks based on the general working style and capacity of the students in that class.

Ms. Santhi Sathiapalan, a secondary school teacher of Biotechnology at Vidya Mandir, Chennai, concurs that lesson plans are both necessary and important. However, if the syllabus remains constant year after year, it need not be prepared anew. No doubt her school requires an annual/yearly lesson plan to be submitted at the commencement of each new academic year. Ms. Sathiapalan then checks to see where her plan from the previous year can be improved. If a topic had not gone well in that particular year in her classes, she would then try to adjust it by approaching it differently and introduce it in the plan for the upcoming year. She says, “We must learn from our mistakes.” While she may not “jot down” a daily plan for her class, she does have a mental plan in place before she enters the class.

In schools where there is more than one section to a class and more than one teacher handling the same subject in different sections as in her school, Ms. Sathiapalan feels a common lesson plan would serve the purpose. The teachers could jointly refer to that plan and co-ordinate their efforts accordingly. Only their individual styles of teaching might differ. But the topics covered and the duration would remain the same. This would ensure uniformity amongst the different sections and not cause anxiety to the students or parents. Ms. Sathiapalan adds that if two teachers were splitting a text into two halves to be taken up by them for the same class, it would be a good idea to plan their lessons in such a way that each teacher take up that part of the text which is their strength. That way they would support and complement each other.

Lesson plans bring a certain clarity to a teacher’s work against which she can conduct a process of self-evaluation, gauging her own output and the response of the students vis a vis the objective initially outlined by her for each lesson. Also it serves as a record of what each teacher had proposed to do in class and what was actually achieved and therefore, is also a reference point for other teachers who might wish to consult the plans of their colleagues to formulate their own. While there are plenty of sources now available for a teacher to research from and prepare a creative and interesting lesson plan for a whole range of topics, a good lesson plan must ultimately reflect each teacher’s own individual style of teaching and her understanding of the capabilities of her class.

Sayujya Sankar teaches English at Sancta Maria International School, Serilingampally. She has completed her Masters in English from the University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at dewdrops.dreamz@gmail.com.

Sangeeta Menon has been a high school English teacher and is someone who is passionately involved in the process of education in the country. She can be reached at sangmenon@yahoo.com.

They marched to celebrate their world. They walked so that their lives and cultures would not slip away from their grasp. They sang with a message to us all. Nearly 5000 fisherfolk, salt pan workers, pastoralists, and farmers of the Mundra coast in Kutch district in Gujarat embarked on a padyatra (footmarch) in August 2011 with an affirmative vision to “Save the sea, Save the land, Save the environment” of their region. Their call is important for us to understand because ecologically fragile and culturally vibrant places like Mundra are juxtaposed at a very critical juncture of the environment and development debate in the country. As much as Mundra represents thriving livelihoods and a strong connect with India’s coastline, it also attracts the custodians of India’s industrial dream. Both, whether we like it or not might position themselves at ends that are unlikely to meet.

Our search for sustainability is poised bang in the middle of these scenarios, which seem to be testing human aspirations. Land, water, air, and many other elements of nature are not in a position to offer limitless visions of use. Yet, there are global lifestyle demands that continue to determine the world we have and continue to construct around us. It is as if no action of ours has an impact, and if it does, nature will fix it on its own. When communities living in harmony with their ecological homes, understanding the nuances of limits, stand up and ask uncomfortable questions, do we need to respond? Can we be dismissive about their pleas as if questions of disparity or resource crunches don’t matter to us? Or is there nothing one can do as the problem is too large for us to comprehend, leave alone trying to be part of the solution? Each one of us, is contributing to the world we have created, one that is full of jumbles and contradictions that we set to resolve.

One can say that our world and we, within its day-to-day functioning, work on three logical premises – the first relates to how and where we locate the problem, second, the nature of human denial and third, symbolism or as some would call it tokenism (with a negative connotation). There are figures and statistics to prove what I am going to say next, but I choose not to throw them in with the argument. This is because the issue of sustainability needs to move beyond number crunching. It is not just about how much forest is lost or the number of units of energy we consume each day, it is whether or not we can come on the same page, how we attempt to understand the environmental crisis that is visible in many corners of life, of course if we choose to relate to it.

Let’s begin with the first. Where is it that we see that the problem of environment degradation originates or draws its strength from? The land mass around us is fast diminishing, water wars are already agenda items of heated political debates and the world has warmed up to the idea of climate change. However, each one of us has our own perceptions of the reasons for the environmental problem, which is critical as our solutions will also lie in that very realm.

Power or electricity generation is one of the most difficult issues to deal with today. While cities and industrial centres are increasingly becoming energy guzzlers, rural areas and urban slums continue to live in relative darkness. Whenever a new thermal, hydro, or nuclear power project comes up for environmental approvals with the government, it carries with it an argument that it will resolve the power shortages that are being faced in cities, towns, and even villages. The environmental argument is then subsumed within this more important premise.

However, what one needs to comprehend is that the point of origin for defining the problem is that of shortage of electricity or power. It does not deal with the question of how much urban and semi-urban lifestyles are demanding or seeking to consume. It also fails to ask whether all the industries that require this power are creating products that are adding to the crisis or are making living sustainable. What will the construction of 17 hydro-electric projects on one river basin, or adding many more coal-based thermal power plants in an already critically polluted area do to the people living there?

Therefore, for each one of us, locating the problem of the environmental crisis is very crucial, be it in our homes or classrooms. One needs to also understand that it is one that cannot only be resolved by creating ecologically friendly air-conditioners, refrigerators, or light bulbs. It is about trying to strike a balance, and about realizing what is being lost in the bargain. The high altitude lakes and wetlands, alpine forests, riverine ecosystems, and rich tracts of multi-cropping agricultural lands are irreplaceable in our quest for power. Each project, whether based on coal or hydro, requires large tracts of land, which is currently what is ensuring that the Himalayas stand strong or the River Brahmaputra continues to flow. Each one of these ecosystems supports the myriad livelihoods that give us our grains, fruits, vegetables, or fish. Moreover, it is in their life, that the quality of ours remains.

If we do not attempt to relocate the problem to where it truly belongs, we are only going to be active witnesses to places like Singrauli. A region spread across the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh has been considered to be the energy capital of India since the 1970s. A three-times displaced community living around three thermal power plants lives in 30×50 feet houses, with 16 hour power shortages every day and consumes drinking water from an area where ash from the power plant is dumped. Is this sustainable and desirable?

Our next point is one that relates to denial of two levels of the human mind. Level one is to acknowledge that I am part of the problem and level two, that I can also be the solution.

Two years ago, one of the prime locations in the city of New Delhi saw a photo exhibition highlighting the lives and cultures of the Dongria Kondh tribal community living in the serene and fragile landscape of Niyamgiri in the state of Odisha. At that point of time, these hills were on the verge of being mined for bauxite, even as the community protested and courts continued to hear arguments for and against mining of bauxite in the region. The photographers explained to the residents of the capital city, living far away from this reality, how our lifestyles were the reasons why Niyamgiri needed to be mined. The mining of bauxite, a photographer said, will be used to produce thin wrappers used to package food (like Tetrapacks) and chocolates for urban consumers.

This is ironic, he said, as there is an abundance of fresh food available in the markets. But, we often find ourselves at the shelves of the supermarket with trolleys full of “fresh frozen foods” rather than at the local vendor each day. Can food really be both fresh and frozen or packaged at the same time? Is this not a misnomer that we all fall for in our everyday consumptions, and when we do, there isn’t place for Niyamgiri in our thinking.

While we all might have our reasons for choosing a certain lifestyle, are we ready to accept that it is our change of life scenarios that is having a ripple effect thousands of kilometres away. For urban dwellers, high electricity consuming shopping malls, which have increasingly become the hub of our interactions, entertainment, and shopping solutions, are at the cost of denudation not so far away. After all, raw material is required for the construction of these massive structures, right? Limestone gets mined from the pristine and fragile hilly regions in the country to be converted to cement. Marble used in most lavish buildings in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, comes from mining in the hilly tracts like the Aravalli ecoregion. This extremely sensitive ecosystem is an important buffer between the desert and plain areas of the country and is critical to maintain the water balance in the water scarce state of Rajasthan. The denudation of the Aravallis has meant disturbing this ecological cycle, but do we know that?

The other side of denial relates to whether any action of ours can contribute to reducing the crisis if not completely resolving it. But are we willing to engage with that question at all, even if it means making our own homes energy efficient, eating fresh food, or stop using plastic bags? At another level trying to find out a bit more about the practices of a company whose products you are buying or investing in? Is it one of those that is ready to build a massive private port in Mundra or is not really bothered about the future of the Dongria Kondhs? Each little action can make a difference, even if it seems just a drop in the ocean.

But ironically, in our times, individual and collective action has taken a limited form of symbolism. This seems to have permeated to many an environmental solution often detracting one and all from the core set of issues. For instance, how is an energy guzzling advertising banner asking us to save the planet on Earth Day, a sign of an environmentally conscious society? Is merely seeking payment for an activity, which causes huge tract of forests to be lost, the sign of an environmentally conscious government? Will the climate crisis be any better if we decide to go and do our bit by watching a film on climate change in a shopping mall or a theatre, which is otherwise one of the contributors to the climate crisis in the first place?

In fact, what is interesting is also how advertising is playing on this human psyche. Not so far back, the television saw mobile service providers find a solution to the deforestation problem of the country. Was it a great idea, Sirji? The advertising propagated that the more one uses one’s mobile phone for talking to people, sending them short and long messages, the less paper we will use to write letters to each other. But what this advertisement chose not to see was, where the real problem lay. Mobile phone technology works on batteries, charged by electricity. Secondary school textbooks tell us that electricity is generated through coal, hydro, or nuclear related technologies. Coal lying underneath India’s richest forest tracts has to be extracted through mining if thermal power is to be produced. Each year, several hectares of forests are gone officially to produce the power we need for our electronic gadgetry. Hydro-power is no innocent ally, with river basins in the Himalayas and other ecologically fragile regions under tremendous stress due to construction. So, the more cell phones, the more electricity to charge, the more batteries to discard, and the less forest for us to breathe.

The world we live in is the one we have created for ourselves. It is one where the problem is a big jumble, and contradictions consume our actions and there are no easy answers. In many ways it will require us to return to our history, which taught us to know where our food and comforts came from. And at another level, it will need us to acknowledge to ourselves that the lives that we are increasingly creating for ourselves are highly energy-intensive based on a world that can thrive only on dislocating another. Otherwise, how can you deny that Mundra’s port, Niyamgiri’s mine and Himachal Pradesh’s power generation cannot be environmentally benign and socially sustainable?

The author works and writes on social and environment issues and is based in New Delhi. She can be reached at kanchikohli@gmail.com.

When you have what is called a ‘9 to 5’ job you are away from home for a major part of the day. If the commute is not long and the traffic not too heavy, you are among the lucky ones who make it home in time to cook and eat a meal with the family, discuss what the day was like, grab some television or reading, and then hit the sack. Have you ever thought of what happens to those people who live where they work?

“The school is my home now,” says Shiv Kumar Sen, Director of Sports and Head of Boarding at Sreenidhi International, a residential school on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Shiv Kumar grew up in a boarding school and knew that he wanted to return to that way of life as an adult. While as a student he had learned independence and discipline, as a teacher, he says, he’s found fulfilment. “Parents leave their children in our care and trust us to guide them toward what is best for them. It stops being a job when you realize the responsibility you have in shaping not just their lives, but the individuals they become. I get to see them grow up right in front of my eyes,” he says.

Shiv Kumar and his wife Anjalika work and live in the residential school. Anjalika works as a coordinator and is involved with primary school students. What does she think about living on campus? “We used to stay off-campus earlier and I envied the teachers who stayed on campus,” she states. Anjalika believes that working in a school just for a few hours each day prevents a teacher from engaging with the students in aspects of their lives outside the classroom. In a residential school, she’s found that the interaction and association is more intense and the bonds that are made here, between teacher and student, often last for life. Contradicting the common assumption that teachers in residence feel tied down she says, “Living here is like getting the best of both worlds – an atmosphere filled with freshness and laughter and an occasional weekend in town with friends.”

Asha Chandran Perinchery, Senior Academic Supervisor at Our Own English High School (Girls Branch) in Sharjah, presents a different picture. Based on her experiences, she believes that the ambience of boarding schools is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially those who look for solitude and silence and like having time to themselves.

“What often happens is that you fit your schedule to suit what the school follows,” says Thejaswi, a teacher from Centre for Learning (CFL), a semi-residential school outside Bangalore. In a school like CFL where the number of students and teachers is small, interactions are fairly informal. “CFL,” he says, “is a school run by teachers. The teachers work very closely and conflicts, if any, are resolved through dialogue.” The intense interpersonal relationships with students and colleagues allows for a sense of family and community, where one finds themselves accepting responsibilities in someone else’s place and putting the school or student’s needs before one’s own.

Teachers in a residential school have the added responsibility of ensuring that children learn to be independent in a wholesome manner. Being away from parents, there is a tendency for students to become dependent on teachers. Asha notes that the proximity between teachers and students can result in the student considering the teacher a friend or a peer. The responsibility of clarifying boundaries to avoid issues of partiality and over-friendliness lies with the teacher.

According to her, working in a residential school at a young age makes adjusting to the system a lot easier. After marriage and the responsibilities of family, it becomes harder for teachers to meet the demands of a residential school and the schedule of a day school seems more attractive. However, Jayashree Swaraj, a retired science teacher, feels that given the demands on time and effort that a residential institution has on its employees, her decision of waiting until her own children were grown up and away from home before joining the residential program was justified.

Shiv Kumar and Anjalika, both being passionate about children, enjoy the absence of the clear division between their work and personal lives. As Anjalika points out, those living in a residential school live in a world of their own. “The interaction between the students, teachers, and staff is a beautiful thing, like the coming together of a community,” she says. While as a couple they have managed to find the balance between their personal and professional lives, things may be different for singles in a residential school.

“There is a large commitment needed by ‘single’ teachers who are willing to work in a residential school. Living away from home and one’s family could get taxing on the teacher if he or she does not enjoy what they do,” explains Thejaswi. He teaches the older students statistics, biology, and geography and often takes science classes for the younger ones. Thejaswi believes that teaching in a residential school is not just a job, but a way of life.

In the Krishnamurti Foundation of India’s Valley School, Bangalore, teachers often take part in the morning and after-school activities. Practising yoga along with the students or playing sports with them enables teachers to interact with students outside the classroom and at the same time, stay fit. Living in a residential school allows teachers access to facilities that might not have been possible in a day school. The reduced expenses in terms of rent and transport are an added bonus.

However, not all schools have the comforts and the luxuries that the more exclusive schools provide. Jayashree has worked in both government and private residential institutions and believes there is a large difference in the quality of living and education offered by both. “The facilities provided in most private institutions are understandably better than those provided in government institutions, whether it is the size of the rooms, the access to technology, or the variety in the food that is offered.”

“But, what is important,” she continues, “is what is common. Both boarding facilities provide stability for children whose families have erratic work schedules or are frequently transferred. And as teachers we strive to create for them a balance of belonging and independence.”

Boarding schools are sometimes seen as places that offer children with learning disabilities a chance to flourish in a safe environment. Special one-to-one sessions for students who have difficulties keeping up with the others can be easily organized. Asha adds, “Teachers are expected to not only provide academic support but also valuable mental and emotional support.” While abroad, the presence of therapists and psychiatrists in boarding schools is common, schools in India are yet to acknowledge the requirement. For guidance and counselling on issues that range from quarrels with friends to dealing with being ‘neglected’ by parents, teachers in India are expected to have the skill to handle children.

The qualities that John Matthew, Principal of Parkwood School International, looks for in his teachers are an open mind, an immense amount of commitment, patience and the willingness to make adjustments. Apart from these, he believes that the core values of the teacher must coincide with the practices of the school in order for the teacher to fit into the system. Painting a real picture, Asha also warns of the hardships that come with the job of taking care of others’ children. Dealing with the requirement of an elite school or with the budget constraints that come with working in a government school, are some of the other issues that prospective residential school teachers need to consider.

Other requirements expected of residential school teachers are listed in the box.

For those who love teaching and do not want to compartmentalize their lives, teaching at a residential school seems the likely choice. And a major plus – no commuting, no traffic, and thus no time wasted. The flipside to working in one is that your life ceases to be yours alone. Most residential schools have time-honoured traditions and teachers may face adjustment issues on shifting to a non-residential setup.

So like the qualities Minerva McGonagall, from Hogwarts displays, or for that matter, Miss Potts from Enid Blyton’s famous Malory towers, living in a residential school requires a strong sense of dedication, a real passion for teaching, and a need to nurture the students that come into your life. To be a teacher ‘in residence’ you really have to love what you do.

What’s expected of me? A residential school teacher answers

Asha Chandran Perinchery

1. In this day and age, I would need to keep abreast of all the new technologies, software and gadgets that students are handling. It can be a challenge.
2. The students look up to me. And as a role model, I have to do what I preach.
3. I need to be gentle, non-judgmental and yet, be firm. It is definitely easier said than done.
4. If I want students to come to me for guidance and counselling I have to be capable of giving them fair advice. I would also have to draw the line to keep the interactions comfortable yet professional.
5. I need to find the balance between time for the students and time for myself.
6. As a residential school teacher, I might have to supervise the activities of students even after school hours.
7. As a teacher, I would have to put the interests of the child first, even if it would mean fore-going personal matters.

The author is a student of MA Communication (Print and New Media) at the University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at dchoudary@gmail.com.

“Saheer liked school. He liked Govindan Teacher, Gangadharan Teacher, Shyla Teacher, Sulaiman Teacher and all. Yet, sometimes, at school, Saheer felt sad. He felt as if everyone, his father, mother, grandfather and all his dear ones, were somewhere far away! It was as if all those whom he loved and who loved him were lost. Even the worlds that were familiar to him felt distant in school,” writes Nuaiman, in a short story titled ‘Textbook’.

Most of his life revolved around the madrasa and the school. He loved both, but there was another world very dear to him – his grandmother’s world of stories, songs, and ballads. They meant a lot to Saheer, and he learnt a lot from them. Sadly, they found no place in the prescribed textbooks at school or in the children’s magazines he read.

Saheer felt bad that his friends and teachers were deprived of the riches his grandmother had to share. “Why don’t they have these songs and stories in school textbooks?” he once asked her. She had no answer to offer, and the boy never asked again.

However, on one particular occasion, he ventured to make his concerns felt. Gangadharan Teacher wanted all the students to write down in their notebooks the names of the characters in each of the lessons taught. Saheer did as instructed. After writing down names like Ramu, Madhavi, Kunjulakshmi, Sathyan, and such, he added a name called Rasheed.

The whole class fell silent. The teacher took the cane, and asked Saheer, “What was that? Where did you discover that name? Such a name is not there anywhere in the whole textbook!” The boy stammered. He said, “Sir, because…nowhere in this text is there a Muslim’s name…”.

Listening to this, Saheer’s classmates burst out laughing. The teacher was bubbling with rage. He tried to control himself, but his fury was evident from the way he rapped the cane on the table. He asked the young boy, “Saheer, are you talking communalism?”

On that note, the story ends. We are told that Saheer did not understand the question. He wanted to ask his teacher what that meant but just then the lunch bell rang. Nuaiman’s story is part of Untold School Stories, one of the books in a series that goes by the name of ‘Different Tales’.

The story got me thinking. How many students in school experience the pain that Saheer did, face the laughter and ridicule of classmates, and bear the ire of teachers? How many feel left out, unwanted, uncared for? I wondered. How many Saheers are able to speak their pain?

And I began reflecting on the role of teachers, if they felt they had a role other than just teaching their subject, the need for them to sit and listen, or get students to talk about differences and differentness. I started thinking more consciously about the possibility of using our classrooms as spaces to teach tolerance, to learn openness. I spoke to teachers, and urged them to tell me their stories.

Meena Joshi teaches at Vasant Valley School in Delhi. She said, “I teach in a very upper class school, but a school that encourages free dialogue on a number of social and political issues. Usually, the students do not show any overt biases or prejudices in terms of gender, religion, or physically challenged people. However, in conversations, one does get an insight into underlying prejudices which sometimes I have had to point to them and discuss or bring to their notice.”

She recalled classroom discussions on reservations and 25% quota for children from economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society. Some of the students felt that they could not possibly invite the new kids from a different socio-economic background to their birthday parties. A few even expressed fear, saying ‘What if they steal my books and notes in class?’ Meena found this rather ironic since stealing of notes and books was already happening in school.

On another occasion, students from the seventh grade were taken to watch the movie, I Am Kalam. They were waiting with Meena for the school bus to pick them up. She narrated, “We were waiting in the hot sun and one particular girl was more restless and unhappy compared to the others. When I asked her why she was more restless, she said she was going to become dark and ugly like a street child! I then chatted with her about colour in a lighter vein and how top models are often dark skinned. This was only to win over her interest. However, it did lead to a discussion about the film and how the young village boy aspired to study and his friendship with the young Thakur boy. Somewhere, sometime, this young girl may see the connections in our conversation.”

She also referred to the usual disenchantment among students in her school about not getting admissions to colleges of their choice. Year after year, she feels the need for a conversation to help them see the rationale behind reservations and the avenues available to them as privileged, upper caste youngsters.

Meena shared, “Sometimes certain comments are very revealing. Recently, we were discussing some questions on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati. One child said that the questions had been made easy to suit the lower caste people on the show. When I asked how he knew that they were of a lower caste, his reply was that the concerned contestant spoke not very good English and many of the others were from villages! This was once again a good starting point for me to discuss prejudices.”

Prejudices, stereotypes, images of the ‘other’ run deep. There is no easy escape. There is, however, a constant need to question, evaluate, and challenge the status quo.

I got talking about this with Anagha Parab, Shankar Chatla, Lata Chavan and Archana Arlekar, all teachers of seventh and eighth graders at Globe Mills Passage Municipal School, run by Mumbai-based NGO Muktangan. The classroom is neatly divided into three spaces, each facilitated by one teacher. One of these groups is called the special group, comprising children who work at a slower pace, who have special needs, who have difficulty reading and writing independently.

One of their students is a girl who refuses to sit with the special group. She faces the same difficulties that they do; however, she is uncomfortable being identified as one of them. While the word ‘special’ is intended as a positive term, it has come to mean just the opposite in this student’s eyes. Being thought of as special is a source of embarrassment to her. She appears to resist every well-meaning attempt by the teachers to help her learn at her own pace. She would rather forego that special status. “Regardless of the term you use to make children feel good about themselves, they continue to label each other,” remarked Shankar.

Chatting with Shankar, I discovered that many of the so-called special children who are poor at academics are brilliant at art, music, and sport. I wonder who would be called ‘special’, and how many students would populate this category, if art, music and sport formed the core of our school curricula. How would students relate to each other in a scenario like that? Would the artistically inclined begin to think of the academically inclined as less intelligent or even deficient? Perhaps. Calling people names is a convenient way to avoid actually interacting with them and getting to know them.

Deepesh Chandrasekharan, a research scholar at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, recalled his experiences as a teacher at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Sawan Public School in Delhi. He often found his students harbouring casteist prejudices. Since it is a residential school, Deepesh had ample opportunity to chat with the students. “I had to constantly remind my students that prejudices are not based on any logic. There is no experience involved. They are just based on preconceived notions. Whenever I found students outside class passing offensive comments about other students belonging to another caste, I would talk to them. There was a great need to sensitize them. There was an incident in which a colleague of mine was involved. In an attempt to spark off some humour, she mocked a particular community for the way they speak English. The jokes were made on the stage at a function where all students were present. I made much noise about it. Also, in a residential school, teachers have a greater responsibility to be role models than teachers in day schools. I protested at the lack of imagination and at the insensitivity shown by that teacher. She understood quickly and apologized, and promised to be more careful in future.”

Deepesh’s experience highlights a significant point. While we talk about sensitizing students, we must remain vigilant about our own conduct as teachers. This may sound terrifying but students watch their teachers all the time and often pick their prejudices from them. At the same time, students do not necessarily lap up all that they see around them. They come with their own upbringing, sense of values, and view of the world. Our efforts at engaging them in conversation about respecting people different from themselves are crucial; but our efforts would be in vain if we became over-zealous educators dispensing how-to lessons about life at the drop of a hat. The wisdom is in the discernment.

Swathi Rajan, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, noted, “The freshman writing class I taught last year was in some ways very much oriented toward conflicts and seeing how they took shape both in the form of class discussions and student writing. One of our readings meant to this end was a section of poems from Cornelius Eady’s Brutal Imagination whose primary theme, broadly speaking, had to do with racist stereotypes about black men in America, and one Susan Smith who drowned her children but alleged a non-existent black man to have committed the crime. This story tragically and blatantly oozes the history of lynching in America, and the potentially cruel racial-profiling and sexualizing of black men that continues today.”

She remembered students being very vocal about how much they loved and admired the poetry in the sections they read together, how ‘true’ the story was, how ‘horrific’ Susan Smith was, among other things. However, Swathi spotted a problem. “There was no contextualizing, no willingness to talk about the more political and abstract issues involved. Otherwise bright and intelligent students simply did not know or want to discuss ‘race’ as a complex, current issue, one that went beyond simply the examples of racism we had at hand,” she recounted. She sensed in them an unwillingness to contribute to a discussion about race beyond a certain point, although they approached the poems with seriousness. This led her to reflect on the dynamics of her classroom interaction.

“Maybe I didn’t handle it right – I think I was definitely aware of my nationality/gender quotient and their expectations of an English teacher as both potentially unconducive to open-hearted conversations about race. This was probably the case. I have even wondered if it was an act of resistance to me, or the fact that they felt it would be a symptom of reverse racism to hash out the country’s past in the way I framed it. I think the most immediate issue was, maybe, for me to be a bit less pushy about it.”

She learnt that “smaller doses” are more effective in getting.students to think and write productively. She never taught Eady’s poetry again, but has taught essays about race since. “While I don’t rake up in my students’ minds brutal images of race, I do make references to certain events in history when I feel the need to. Race and gender still have a major place in my classroom, but my pedagogy reflects this in a manner that believes any kind of race-and-gender-neutral thinking is unrealistic and quite dangerous.”

Conversations about conflict are difficult but they are indispensable. They often require us to keenly listen to people as they speak from the deepest, the most passionate, the most hurting, the most unsorted parts of themselves. We may not have the time or feel the inclination to take on this responsibility when we are swamped with lesson planning, teaching, assessment and a million other things. However, if we recall the original impulse that made many of us want to become teachers, we may feel more invested in the lives of young people in our care.

Meera Gautam, a science teacher at Shishuvan School in Mumbai, said, “Every class has at least one student with a behavioural problem. My class had tolerated one such student for many years. She often got involved in every problem in the class and even drove some teachers up the wall. There were also times when she was innocent and got blamed by her class as she was an easy target and a very believable story could be spun around her.”

Meera decided to talk to students about it. She wanted everyone to know that the student in question was being victimised for things even when she was not present in the situation. The class admitted it and also felt that the student deserved that kind of treatment.

“This was really disheartening to hear. Revenge was reeking through their action and words. We had a face-to-face conversation about things that irritated the class, specific incidents that triggered her abnormal behaviour. She also confessed to the class about her weakness – her inability to control her reaction when she is upset. I facilitated the class to resolve this by agreeing on certain areas. The class offered help by giving their notebooks to her so that she could complete her notes. She made notes in her diary every morning where she promised to take control of her reactions.”

According to Meera, such interventions happen in school on a daily basis, but one does not find much time each day to delve into matters deeply. She feels saddened by the fact that education today is all intellect, no heart. I wish more teachers found the courage to say this. Many of us rant in private conversations about what education today is doing to students and to teachers but few of us assert our disappointments or speak our longings in institutional spaces.

Recently, while reading The Courage to Teach, a book written by Parker Palmer, I came across something very powerful. “If identity and integrity are more fundamental to good teaching than technique – and if we want to grow as teachers – we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives – risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.” He once listened to a group of teachers argue about what is to be done when students share personal experiences in class, especially when those experiences are related to the theme of the course. Some of the teachers in that group felt that sharing of feelings is more suited to a therapy session than a college classroom. The group split up into two camps. One insisted that the teacher must focus on the subject and never compromise it for the sake of students’ lives. The other insisted that the lives of students are far more important than the subject at hand. Allowing or inviting students to talk about feelings can be difficult. However, it is inevitable if one wants to create a learning space that cares about the whole person, not just their subject knowledge or grades.

Pooja Sudhir, who currently teaches at an international school in Pune, reflected on her experience with high school students in a suburban Mumbai school. “I was taking a First Language English class and we were analyzing the use of language in different forms of media and communication. I had carried the lyrics of a song named ‘If God was One of Us’ by Alanis Moriseette for listening, reading, comprehending and analyzing. Besides the observation of the language and the form used, we discussed the content and began interpreting its various meanings. One of the students picked up a strand of interpretation from the text, which veered towards the questioning of the existence of God, which led him to say that the Bible, the Quran were nothing but fictitious tales and therefore, glorious lies.”

As soon as this student had expressed his opinion, two others got really angry. They asked him to shut up. One of them even closed his ears. The classroom atmosphere began to grow tense and hostile. At this point, Pooja intervened, and got them to have a healthy discussion over the matter. “While I did praise the student who had come up with that interpretation, considering the text clearly indulged in the thought, I had to ask him to tone down his aggression and possessiveness over his opinions,” she recalled.

I loved what Meera said. “I believe strongly that there is learning in everything we say, do, think and feel.” That is so true. For the interested teacher, every moment is a learning opportunity to be explored. This is something I learnt from bell hooks, the feminist African American writer-educator.

Her book Teaching to Transgress offers a radical feminist conceptualization of education as the practice of freedom. It accords a place of great significance to the languages her students speak in their homes and communities. She writes about encouraging them to use their first language in classroom settings, and to then translate it, “So they do not feel that seeking higher education will necessarily estrange them from that language and culture they know most intimately.”

Here is a warm invitation that could be perceived as a risky proposition by teachers who fear that their classroom would become all too chaotic if everyone started using their home languages. The perceived risk, of course, comes from a perceived loss of control. bell hooks discusses a similar response that came from students. She writes, “When students in my Black Women Writers class began to speak using diverse language and speech, white students often complained. This seemed to be particularly the case with black vernacular. It was particularly disturbing to the white students because they could hear the words that were said but could not comprehend their meaning.”

Here is what she did. “Pedagogically, I encouraged them to think of the moment of not understanding what someone says as a space to learn. Such a space provides not only the opportunity to listen without ‘mastery’, without owning or possessing speech through interpretation, but also the experience of hearing non-English words. These lessons seem particularly crucial in a multicultural society that remains white supremacist, that uses standard English as a weapon to silence and censor.”

This is something to learn from. Opening up may take time. Or it may just happen in a flash. It may happen with some students. It may not happen at all. Persist, we must. Challenge, we must. Unsettle, we must. Only then might we be able to teach in a truer sense, if teaching is to nurture well-being.

The author works with Shishuvan School in Mumbai, and Muktangan, an educational programme run in collaboration with municipal schools in the city. He can be reached at chintan.backups@gmail.com.

Related articles

On an experiential journey
Teaching children ‘to be’
“What can I do?”

I would like to present two scenarios that will hopefully lead the reader to the answer this question.

Scenario 1
Teacher A takes up a job at a school for which she is overqualified. Nevertheless, she chooses it as it enables her to better balance home and career. As a new inductee, she struggles to familiarize herself with the requirements of the high school syllabus and the pattern of correction of the Board for the board examination. She has been recruited to replace an older, established, and experienced teacher who had to leave suddenly. The students of classes 9 and 10 respond to her well enough, but perhaps sense her tentative approach when it comes to the board exams and its expectations.

Teacher A has been interacting with the former incumbent, seeking inputs and advice even after the other teacher has left the school. Before the board exams, she learns from her predecessor that some of the students of class 10 have sought her out to study with her and fine-tune the presentation of their answers.

Teacher A feels a twinge of sadness but responds without rancour. If the other teacher enables the students to appear for their board examination with greater confidence than they are experiencing with her at present, then so be it. Teacher A wins the respect and trust of her fellow professionals. She praises the students for their motivation and desire to succeed. She also critically and dispassionately examines her own skills, looking for areas where she could improve, to ensure that her students’ interests are never compromised and that they receive the best training and preparation for the board exam from her. To her, the students and their performance are of paramount importance and everything else is secondary or inconsequential.

Scenario 2
Teacher B is good at her subject and has several years of teaching experience. She is aware of Teacher C who teaches the same subject, but not in the same school. Teacher C has a formidable reputation of being an expert in coaching children for the board exam. Moreover, she is also extremely popular with the students.

Some of Teacher B’s students begin attending Teacher C’s after-school tutorials. They benefit from the coaching, gaining in clarity and understanding. Teacher C has an unfortunate tendency to indulge in criticism of Teacher B’s knowledge and ability. The students do not give too much importance to this, merely enjoying and appreciating the learning they are deriving from C. However, they are prudent enough not to let B know that they are being tutored by C.

But B gets to know through the grapevine and reduces the top marks initially awarded to one of the “defector” students in the school assessments. Later, B takes this one step further and reports to the management that Teacher C is slandering the school and B in the course of the tutorials. The management summons the class and defends B and B’s stature as a teacher of repute. The students are requested to discontinue the tutorials with C to avoid getting confused. The students are definitely confused, not about the subject, but by the intense rivalry they perceive between the two teachers.

Howard Gardner, the famous Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, in one of his talks said that teachers are no longer mere dispensers of information or knowledge, but in the digital age when information can be processed with remarkable speed and ease, their position has changed to that of becoming “coaches and role models.” While most teachers would agree with the letter of this statement, how many would carry forward its spirit? The inviolable principle must be that the interests of the student must at all times be foremost, the teachers’ conduct and attitude beyond reproach. The students learn not just sundry mathematical formulae, scientific laws or difficult poems from their teachers, but more importantly, they ought to learn the highest aspects of human nature and behaviour that go towards living in harmony with oneself and the environment.

For this, teachers must be aware of “ego” and its functioning. Essentially, the ego can exist in two states – one, wherein it is aligned with the higher consciousness and the other, where it is not in alignment with this consciousness.

When the ego is aligned with the higher consciousness, there is just a quiet assertion of the individual self in a particular direction, which it knows intuitively is right for the fulfilment of its life purpose. This assertion is based on love and faith and leads to a harmonious state of goodwill and cooperation for the greater common good. When it is not aligned with the higher consciousness, the ego can really wreak havoc. It can misguide and misinterpret. Propelled by emotions based on fear and insecurity, it can cause action motivated by the desire for applause, attention, getting ahead of competition, reaching the finishing line first, proving one’s superiority over others, etc. Here, the ego is intensely conscious of the other and derives its identity in comparison with the other. The individual self asserts itself purely from the need to create a position of unassailability from which it cannot be dislodged.

As teachers, the children we “teach” are children who are placed in our care in sacred trust. We are not just the facilitators of their learning, but we are also, in a sense, a subject/object of their study. They see/observe us, interpret our actions or behaviour and the understanding they derive from this is a large part of the material they use to construct their world view.

So what happens when we, the teachers, operate with egos that are misaligned with higher consciousness? What sort of impact will it have on the students and their beliefs?

I leave my fellow teachers with what I consider two very important questions that we need to ask ourselves as we continue to discharge our duties and responsibilities on a day-to-day basis.

The author has been a high school English teacher and is someone who is passionately involved in the process of education in the country. She can be reached at sangmenon@yahoo.com.

I was first exposed to corporal punishment when I joined a boys’ school as a substitute teacher. It happened on the first day, when the class of 62 lively seven-year-olds decided to enjoy a self-declared holiday in the absence of their “regular” teacher. A colleague who was attempting to teach in the adjoining classroom, handed me a short stick with the kindly advice that the only way to discipline the boys was by wielding the rod! I was dumbfounded and momentarily confused as to whether I had taken employment in a hallowed seat of learning or in a concentration camp. I am, of course, happy to report that the stick stayed behind the door during my entire tenure in that institution, while I struggled, (thankfully with some degree of success), to devise ways and means of coping with my class of hyper-energetic, and occasionally intransigent, children without using any punitive measures that would cause bodily pain.

More than two decades have passed since this incident occurred, and I am shocked by the fact that a plethora of debates and discussions (including recommendation of stern laws against this primitive method of enforcing order), notwithstanding, corporal punishment continues to raise its ugly head from time to time in many institutions across the country. However, as a teacher, I roundly condemn this heinous act as it is cruel, borders on child abuse, and is detrimental to both the teacher who carries out the act and the hapless pupil who is the target of such punishment. Students who have been subjected to harsh, disciplinary practices are known to have subsequent problems with depression, fear, and anger. These students frequently lose interest in studies and show little interest in co-curricular activities.

A report by the European Human Rights Committee, quoted in “Legal & Social Aspects of the Physical Punishment of Children,” published by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, 1995, mentions that the infliction of physical punishment on children by adults, “is a morally repugnant, illegitimate and unjust assault upon another human being and especially reprehensible in that it is perpetrated upon those who are least able to defend themselves. A second argument is that physical punishment of children does not, as may be claimed, constitute an efficient and effective way of disciplining children in the interests of socializing and educating them; that it contributes to the development of aggressive personalities, and that other methods of control are more effective and humane.”

Is it about power?
The use of the term “control” in the passage quoted above is significant, for though corporal punishment is defined as the infliction of punishment upon the body with the intent to chastise and discipline, and refers to a wide spectrum of painful measures ranging from forced labour to mutilation, it is essentially a means of exercising control over another through the use of force and physical violence. Teachers, despite the easy availability of advanced studies on child behaviour, many a time, regard themselves as the law-makers of the classroom, where their authority, if challenged, may lead to awful consequences. These authoritarian figures with their erroneous views on class discipline firmly believe that it is imperative to retain the balance of power in their favour – if necessary, through the use of force. Roald Dahl’s caricature of a sadistic head of school who will brook no opposition to her authority, has many counterparts living in the real world!

To quote writer and teacher Bubla Basu, of Mumbai, “There is no reason whatsoever that can justify the use of corporal punishment in a classroom or a school. The point is not whether corporal punishment leaves none the worse for it, but whether anyone is really left the better for it, except the teacher or Principal who wants a “quick fix” to the situation. Corporal punishment, like any other, is about power. Power defies all reason and runs counter to any successful relationship. Violence is the last resort of the weak.

“It is a weak teacher who cannot build a relationship with a class, a weak Principal who uses the stick and not the carrot. These are the adults whom children may fear and resent even as they brag otherwise and then, in later years of class and school reunions ridicule or dismiss as ‘control freaks.’”

This has led to tragic repercussions and it is important to analyze the effects of corporal punishment on students, so that more do not emerge from the portals of their alma mater broken in mind and spirit. Corporal punishment, which was introduced in schools either as a deterrent or reform, has succeeded in neither purpose. A UNICEF report cites that there is a large body of international research detailing the negative outcomes of corporal punishment. Some of the conclusions are presented below:

Escalation: Mild punishments in infancy are so ineffective that they tend to escalate as the child grows older. The little smack thus becomes a spanking and then a beating.

Encouraging violence: Even a little slap carries the message that violence is the appropriate response to conflict or unwanted behaviour. Aggression breeds aggression. Children subjected to physical punishment have been shown to be more likely than others to be aggressive to siblings; to bully other children at school; to take part in aggressively anti-social behaviour in adolescence; to be violent to their spouses and their own children and to commit violent crimes.

National commissions on violence in America, Australia, Germany, South Africa, and the UK have recommended ending corporal punishment of children as an essential step towards reducing all violence in society.

Psychological damage: Corporal punishment can be emotionally harmful to children. Research especially indicts messages confusing love with pain, and anger with submission as the most psychologically harmful. “I punish you for your own sake. You must show remorse no matter how angry or humiliated you are.”

Corporal Punishment in schools is prohibited in nearly half of the world’s countries. In the past 20 years, eighteen countries have enacted laws prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings, namely in the home, in schools, alternative care and in the judicial system.

It is of interest to note that since the turn of the century, ten countries have officially prohibited all forms of corporal punishment. The pace of reform is gathering momentum in light of the UN Study on Violence against Children, which recommended in its final report, prohibition in law of all corporal punishment of children by 2009.

Many adults continue to argue that they were caned as children and are none the worse for it today. But talk to students and they will tell you not only about the physical hurt of being hit, but also the psychological effect caused by such humiliation – harsh words spoken in anger or derision have much the same effect as sticks and stones.

Proponents of corporal punishment favour it as it is an easy and temporarily effective method of instilling discipline, and nothing, they claim, works better than fear. They believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, and the slightest misdemeanour is swiftly and firmly dealt with by hitting the child. Children with ADHD, autism, and other behavioural disorders have suffered untold harm and their condition has worsened because of “stick” – happy adults.

However, while denouncing corporal punishment, I do not mean to belittle the need for discipline in schools, without which no proper learning and development can take place. Ms Nain, Principal, Birla High School for Boys, Kolkata, finds colour-coded cards a viable alternative. White cards are sent to parents for minor transgressions committed by their wards. If there is no change in the errant conduct of the pupil, they are handed green cards, followed by red ones, if the misdemeanour is a grave one. Three such cards would lead to expulsion from school. This system, Ms Nain opines, has led to an improvement in school discipline and provides the student ample scope to rectify and reform his deviant behaviour.

Ms Aarti Srivastav, educationist and teacher-trainer, New Delhi, has never been in favour of corporal punishment, meted out either in school or at home. She feels that the long-term solution to behavioural problems lies in helping the children develop an insight into their maladaptive patterns of behavior through moral reasoning. However, she is also of the opinion that mild corporal punishment is acceptable in extreme cases when a child demonstrates little emotional sensitivity and understanding of morality, despite repeated counselling sessions, and continues to indulge in behaviour that encroaches on the space of others. She stresses on the fact that this kind of negative reinforcement, even if it is applied when all other methods of positive behavioural support have failed, will at best only establish a lower, mechanical understanding of right and wrong.

Teachers’ concerns
Stringent laws leading to the arrest of several offenders from among the teaching community, public debates and awareness initiatives are all welcome measures that have helped in controlling the use of corporal punishment in schools today. I must mention, though, that the media hype and public outcry against teachers have led to a sense of panic and nervousness among many of them. Ms Amita Prasad, Middle School Co-ordinator, Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata, voiced the concern of many when she said that some teachers are afraid to instil any kind of discipline in the class, as they are afraid of the consequences. This would lead to a laissez-faire system prevailing in schools and certainly would not lead to the healthy growth of the child. Teachers too need reassurance, and training them in the rudiments of counselling would help restore in them a sense of self-worth. Schools that do not have counsellors and special educators on their rolls should devise a referral system so that students with behavioural disorders are provided with expert remedial help. Teachers too should be able to approach the school counsellors for guidance on personal and professional problems. An activity-based and interactive approach to learning that incorporates technological tools would also help in improving class-discipline by reducing boredom and passivity among the pupils.

In home spaces
It is common practice to place teachers under scrutiny, but homes are no strangers to corporal punishment. Many parents, either out of ignorance, their own limitations, stress, or unrealistic expectations of their children, often beat their children, thereby causing them untold harm. I still shudder at the memory of a student who dissolved into tears when I asked for an explanation of her constant misbehaviour, and showed me her back and arms that were criss-crossed with deep, purple welts and bruises caused by the frequent “belting” that she received from her father! Seminars and workshops suggesting ways of tackling behavioural problems in the young should be organized for parents too, to enable them to be more sensitive and understanding about the needs of their children. All stake-holders and caregivers in school and at home, need to collectively ensure that their wards grow in an environment of love, security and acceptance, where no Oliver Twist need be afraid to ask for more! Truly, in the words of Dorothy Law Nolte, it may be said that, “if a child lives with hostility he learns to condemn”, whereas “if a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.”

The author is a teacher and has taught in several schools in Patna, Secunderabad and Kolkata. She also has some experience in school administration. She can be reached at dutt.kaveri@gmail.com.

Why punishment?

Divya Choudary

In early 2010, Rouvanjit Rawla, a 12-year-old student of the La Martiniere School for Boys in Kolkata, was humiliated and caned by the principal of his school. As a result of this, Rouvanjit committed suicide.

In 2009, Shanno Khan, a Class II student of MCD primary school, Delhi, was allegedly made to stand in the sun for two hours for not being able to recite the English alphabet. After slipping into a coma, Shanno eventually died.

In 2007, a teacher of the Central Railway English School in Jalgaon, Maharashtra was accused of giving electric shocks to students who were not paying attention in class.

Reasons often cited by teachers for resorting to punishment are stubbornness, telling lies, back-answering, questioning the teachers’ authority, not doing homework, being tardy, and not wearing clean uniforms or the appropriate ones. More serious reasons for punishment include hurting other students, bullying, stealing, and cheating.

So why is ‘corporal punishment’ favoured? Well, it brings quick results. Students, afraid of being humiliated or hurt, behave in the ‘required’ manner. The low teacher-student ratio, often witnessed in schools, makes it difficult for a teacher to give personal attention to each student and forces teachers to choose punishment as the method of disciplining them.

Principal of Unicent Child Centric School, Miyapur, Nalini Rao, says that it is important to locate the root cause of misbehaviour. Falling grades, disinterest in school work and tardiness may merely be symptoms. For instance, children’s acting out is usually a sign of unrest at home. While talking directly with the student usually helps, in more intractable situations, the school involves the parents, to ensure the child’s wellbeing.

In Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Public School, Hyderabad, older students who act out are asked to fill in a ‘reflection sheet’, says Coordinator, Suvarni Rao. The purpose of the sheet is for the student and the teacher to understand the actions of the student, and the reasons and feelings behind these actions. For the younger children, issues like tardiness and unkempt appearances are dealt with by bringing them to the notice of their parents.

Given that the effects of corporal punishment are not just physical but psychological as well, one needs to analyse whether such punishment is constructive or even, necessary. Further, one may also question whether the teacher’s role should end at getting conventional results or extend to the facilitation of the child’s personal development. Finally, what remains fundamentally important is to find alternative ways to motivate and guide the children.

Nightmares during school days

Aarti Sethi

I sometimes wonder if Michel Foucault had gone to school in India if he would not have written his opus on punishment on the school rather than the prison. Anyone who has gone to school in India will tell you there is no institution that combines discipline and punishment in quite the same way as school. Everyone has tales to tell.

I went to military and central government schools for most of my life. I was lucky. The most I suffered was rulers on knuckles and palms, mild lashings on the back of the thighs and calves. But I was a girl. The boys got much worse. And my friends who went to Jesuit all-boys schools tell truly horrific tales. Of being made to roll into fetal balls on the floor to be kicked across the class by the chemistry teacher. Of being slammed on the back of the hands till blood flowed, of being made to stand in the sun in games period with no water till they fainted. Another friend, who is left-handed, had pencils placed between each finger, which the teachers would then twist in a macabre pedagogic ritual to ‘teach’ her to write with her right hand.

Some nights ago, a friend was recounting school day-nightmares. We commiserated and shook our heads knowingly. A friend who went to school in the West was horrified. We weren’t. None of it sounded strange. Everyone has stories like this. In every generation. If my father got a rupee for each time he was caned he would be a millionaire many times over. They differ in degree, not really in kind.

I never told my parents. I don’t know anyone who did. You didn’t tell your parents these things. You just dealt with it. You shrugged it off, it was a rite of passage. Children don’t tell, and for the most part, no one really cares. But then I was lucky. Many children are not. And on the rare occasions when the media wakes up, it is when a child dies. Or when children commit suicide. And it happens with chilling regularity. But the spectacular incidents are only visible extremes of a system of terror that is school. It becomes unacceptable when a child dies, or is seriously injured. But that children need to be disciplined with physical violence is not really a problem. There are no annals of the routine humiliation and psychic abuse that is vested on children every day.

I don’t mean to tar all teachers with the same brush. I am sure there are millions of dedicated gentle wonderful teachers who soldier on in a country which neither recognizes nor prizes nor praises a job which is low paid and comes with few perks. I know because I had the immense good fortune and privilege of being taught by many of them. But for every one light that glimmers on the horizon of that vast dark sea that is school, there are legions of individuals who can only be described as psychotic sadists who preside over classrooms in the manner of the chief wardens of torture chambers.

How else do you describe the teacher who hit 11 year-old Shanno Khan over the head and then made her stand in the sun for two hours with bricks on her back for failing to recite the English alphabet? Shanno died. Or the teacher who brutally beat Divya Pandey for not wearing the correct uniform? She died too. Or Ojaswi Khanna who lost hearing in his left ear because a teacher slapped him for forgetting to bring a compass to class*. And like everything in this country, going to school is deeply class inflected. If your parents can afford elite schools, chances are you will escape the worst of it. If your parents are poor and scraping together everything they earn to give their children an education, that child is rendered utterly defenseless in the most terrifying way.

School is, paradoxically, the only institution I can think of which naturalizes a complete asymmetry between transgression and punishment. The vast majority of sins which invite retribution in school would seem ludicrous in any other context. Talking in class, passing notes, not doing homework, failing a test, smoking in the bathroom, not paying attention during morning prayer, not wearing correct uniform, kissing a boy/girl, ‘back chat’, ‘talking back’, ‘acting smart’ – an endless list of minor ‘misdeeds’. Teachers punish children for ‘infringements’ of school discipline, and teachers punish children for their failure as teachers. Going to school in India is an exercise in abjectness – of being subject to absolute, totalitarian, untrammeled power, where the teacher enjoys complete unquestioned authority over you.

There has recently been much introspection in the public domain and media about the pressures of the board exams that claim the lives of thousands of children every year. Every one from Aamir Khan to Kapil Sibal has contributed their two bits on the travails of the educational system. And in response, the 10th class board exam has been scrapped, help lines have been set up, schools and parents are encouraged to seek the services of counsellors, etc. Much of this is, not surprisingly, a conversation restricted to elite schools. But nonetheless, a conversation about the terrors of the education system has begun. But what of the routinized violence that millions of children are subjected to everyday?

There is one thing though that school paradoxically achieves, despite itself. No one who goes to school harbours any illusions about the benevolence of institutions. Every cliche about power is true you learn – school teaches you that authority is hateful, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that the way to survive the system is to not invest in it, to not defer, to be suspicious, to be wary, to ‘kindly adjust’. It teaches you cruelty is infectious and to be on guard lest it take hold in you. It teaches you that hierarchy is real. It hopefully teaches you that since you know what it feels like to be terrified and abject and powerless, perhaps you are a little more alive to terror and abjectness and powerlessness in the world. You can of course learn other lessons – authority is alluring, proximity to power pays, cruelty is seductive. To which I look and say, ‘There, but for the grace of god, am I.’

If we really wish to raise a generation of fearless, independent young people who are not afraid to think for themselves and find solutions to the many ills that beset us, then the first thing we need to do is ensure that under no circumstances whatsoever is the body of a child made the foil for the insecurities and aggression of ‘teachers’. Corporal punishment institutionalizes hierarchy in the most intimate and terrible way – it legitimizes the oppression of the vulnerable, and justifies the sadism and megalomania of the powerful. It should have no place in our schools.

This piece was first published on www.kafila.org.

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*Both these incidents were reported in the press. See: Times of India, 18 April 2009, and The Tribune, 30 April 2011.

Aarti Sethi is a PhD student in anthropology at Columbia University, New York. She writes for kafila.org. She can be reached at aarti.sethi@gmail.com.

I must confess that when I first heard of the Hon. Minister, Kapil Sibal’s, bold initiative to make the Class X Board examination optional and introduce a new system of evaluation to replace it, I broke out in applause. “Finally,” I thought, “We’re going to see some much-needed, refreshing change.” Having taught in an ICSE school, I couldn’t help ruing the status quo in the schools affiliated to the ICSE Board, while all the exciting action was happening in the CBSE schools.

What then is the CCE? “The CCE or Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation Scheme refers to a school-based evaluation of students that covers all aspects of a student’s development. Continuous means regular assessment, frequency of unit testing, analysis of learning gaps, applying corrective measures, retesting and giving feedback to teachers and students for their self-evaluation, etc. Comprehensive, on the other hand, attempts to cover both the scholastic and the co-scholastic aspects of a student’s growth and development – with both these aspects of the evaluation process being assessed through Formative and Summative Assessments.”

Mr Kapil Sibal had asserted that, “The CCE will cover all aspects of students’ development,” and his Ministry averred that it will, in effect, rid the system of the stressful annual examination tradition and ‘produce learners with greater skills.’ In his opening remarks at the conference of State Education Ministers held on 18 June 2010, at New Delhi, Mr Kapil Sibal spoke of how the new grading system had “reduced unhealthy comparisons with other students.” He further stated, “The initial results of the reform appear quite encouraging. The students and parents find CCE less stressful. [The] grading system has yielded better overall results, probably because students do better under less stressful situations.” Contrary to what Mr Sibal claimed, there seemed to be criticism that “the stress on students is increasing…” There were too many tests, assignments, projects, homework, and review tests being taken. Also, the microscopic examination of student behaviour as part of the assessment was making students behave artificially.

Looking at it from the teachers’ perspective, the CCE expected teachers to assess students on a continuous basis in a cyclic manner. They were supposed to “integrate assessment with teaching and learning, balancing the scholastic areas with the co-scholastic areas.” Their task now was to encourage and motivate students to be positive in their attitude. They would have to appraise the students objectively without bias and would also be required to interact continuously with parents regarding the students and the progress in their performance. To me this seemed quite the ideal role-prescription of a teacher.

Teachers were to “put in more work in the new paradigm by way of preparing their lesson plans, designing formative activities and evolving additional teacher-learning materials.” However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the CBSE had provided support and assistance with an extensive Teachers’ Manual on Formative Assessment, which contained the details of the CCE scheme and practical ways to “operationalize” the same by the teachers in their respective schools. Further, the Board has ostensibly trained 110 master trainers who, in turn, will train the principals and teachers of other schools. There was a toll-free helpline available for the teachers who could also reach out to the chairman on the implementation of CCE through CBSE’s website, www.cbse.nic.in. The CBSE’s explanation of what formative assessment involved underlined its child-friendly approach. Due emphasis has been given to multiple intelligences in children and making the teaching-learning process enjoyable. In principle, the CCE appeared to be perfectly aligned to and in harmony with a child-centred vision.

My meeting with the vice-principal of a reputed CBSE school in Chennai turned out to be a very insightful session. Being in charge of the CCE programme in her school, Ms Shobha Raman gave me a “bird’s-eye view” of how the school had adapted to the new dispensation. She began by first acknowledging the benefits of CCE as a process that had leveled opportunities for the children, giving every child a fair chance. While earlier a child’s performance was entirely assessed on the basis of pen and paper tests or the exams, now a child who was unable to perform well in these written tests was “also given a chance to excel.” The pressure brought on by examinations had, no doubt, been lifted from the children but a different kind of pressure had taken its place, especially for the teachers and school management due to confusion related to the formative assessments and how to fill in the various columns. She also contended that since the CBSE had made CCE a very transparent process on their website, parents had become increasingly aware and watchful of the grading procedure and had begun questioning the teachers and the school on the grades awarded to their children. This put additional and unnecessary pressure on the teachers.

What was really burdensome for the teachers was the compilation of data and the documentation involved. “The documentation is too exhaustive,” Ms Raman said. “The report card entries have become too much work and too time consuming.” There are always short-cuts that can be resorted to by computerizing these entries with standard comments that can be used repeatedly, but her school preferred to avoid this as the “personal touch would be missing” and the purpose of CCE defeated. Another area that she identified as a “problem area” was the VOE, which she laughingly exclaimed had become her “tale of ‘WOE’”. VOE or Verification of Evidence by the Board required collecting and keeping documents, test papers, models et al of all the work that the students have done in all the subjects. It was essential to maintain portfolios of all the students. The storage capacity that the school had to have was, thus, immense. Everything had to be preserved for a whole year and sometimes even for two years. Her school was definitely facing a space constraint, she said, pointing out with chagrin the cardboard cartons filled to the brim with assessment papers, lying on the floor and occupying every available space in her office.

Ms Raman excused herself to go to a class and I walked back to my vehicle reflecting on what I had learned about the CCE from her. Teachers were having to adjust to a whole new way of doing things. Co-ordination amongst teachers while they collectively assessed the progress and performance of each student was a “major task”. An important point that emerged from the discussion was how the CCE had challenged old concepts and initiated a change in the mindset of the educators. Ms Raman had talked of how teachers had been conditioned to conduct and appreciate performance evaluation only through pen and paper tests. They were now being asked to set aside their heavy dependency on this mode alone and open themselves out to a range of multiple parameters by which to arrive at an understanding of each student’s progress.

As I entered the campus of yet another old and prestigious CBSE school in Chennai, with Ms Raman’s inputs fresh in my mind, I wondered what the experience of the teachers here with the CCE had been. When I broached the subject of CCE, I was taken aback by their instantaneous indictment of the programme.

The biggest challenge the teachers were confronting was the attitudinal change in the children towards their studies. “There is little effort from the students, they declared. “Children are not learning as there are no examinations.” They have “stopped studying,” I was told definitively. Even the Summative Assessments are not taken seriously as “they are sure of being promoted.” The children are taking advantage as they know that the teachers have to award them minimum marks (5/10) regardless of how they fare in their assessment. The social sciences teacher expressed her regret that the students who prior to the introduction of CCE and its grading system had studied hard and secured excellent marks, were now thoroughly demotivated as the grades did not give them an edge.

The only redeeming feature of the CCE, they believed, was that there were no failures now. It is also “benefitting slow learners”. No sooner had I made a note of this, than the math teacher came over and showed me her register. Pages of data, marks and grades, had been painstakingly entered against the names of each student. She said it was gruelling work and they never had enough time to complete it in school. So work, perforce, had to be carried home. She recounted how she would wake up in the wee hours of the morning to finish the calculations of marks and entering them as there was always some deadline or the other to meet. “It’s really affecting [my] family life,” she ended despairingly.

I came away from this school realizing that all the teachers without exception had seemed very much in favour of the Board examination as the one way to get the students to work hard. Getting high marks and the competitive spirit were considered inviolable and sacrosanct in ensuring a relatively good “standard of education” and preparing the students for the tough task of taking the competitive exams later. In their minds, the CCE had indubitably disrupted this process.

I reached out to one of my teacher friends in Hyderabad who taught classes 9 and 10 in a much sought after CBSE school in the city. She concurred that the teachers are indeed “stressed out” as CCE adds to their usual work load. When I asked her about resistance to the new method from the teachers, she admitted candidly that, “nobody had really enjoyed” it; that they all had “reservations about the way things were being done”; that an enormous amount of thinking had to go in to designing activities for the class. They not only had to provide variety, but also cater to the different levels of competency in each class. But then, she also presented a balanced view of the evaluation process. “It is student friendly and reflects those scholastic assessments in which the student has performed to his optimum… Co-scholastic areas such as life skills, attitudes, values, co-curricular assessments, and health and physical education are considered and evaluated to provide feedback of the wholesome growth and development of the student.” This said, she felt it was necessary to reflect upon the “accuracy and objectivity with which these assessments are done as they have replaced the very objective, one time Class X Board Examination.” She also expressed her doubts as to the effectiveness of these evaluations, particularly in the co-scholastic areas. It was no mean task for a teacher in an Indian classroom to perform these evaluations when they had perhaps more than 30 students per class. Her final verdict on the CCE corroborated my own understanding of the core issue. “The success of CCE depends on the way it is implemented… as also on the availability of a vigilant and dedicated faculty who is committed to the cause of education and well-equipped to make the required assessments.”

As any policy, I suppose, it is one thing to formulate it on paper with all its benefits beautifully enumerated and quite another to actually implement it successfully, keeping to the spirit and letter of the original formulation. The CCE holds abundant promise in propagating a more child-centric approach to learning and assessing progress. However, its merit can justly be appreciated and made visible only in small classrooms or schools, where the sheer numbers of students to be evaluated do not overwhelm the teachers. Moreover, one wonders if the transition from the old to the new was too sweeping and immediate to allow teachers with a different sensibility to adjust to the legitimacy and validity of such an approach. It might have helped if the teachers in the various CBSE schools had been invited to attend a series of workshops focusing on the CCE over a period of time, wherein its positive aspects were highlighted. The workshops could also have addressed the concerns of the teachers. Rather than antagonizing the teachers and forcing them to adhere to the new evaluation system, they should have been inspired to adopt it by convincing them of its efficacy in nurturing students to become truly open-minded, explorative learners and not marks-obsessed, textbook-limited, “nerds”. At the end of the day, it is these very teachers who are needed to make the CCE genuinely work, these very teachers who can produce the desirable results or mar them, depending on their commitment to the process and their belief in it.

Given the new layer of complexity that CCE has introduced into a teacher’s work, a parallel industry appears to be emerging, just to “assist” with this process! Creating reports with the many parameters that the CCE has brought in has left many teachers floundering. Entering copious data on the computer for each student in a particular format involves a certain degree of proficiency that could be stressful and enormously time consuming. Some schools have chosen to engage external agencies which have developed software to enable the process of report generation as per the CBSE guidelines. One particular CCE mentor referred to these agencies as opportunists who must not be entertained. The purpose of preparing reports for each student is lost if certain standard comments are used without discrimination. The CBSE has provided certain “indicators” that can be used as comments if the student’s performance is in line with those comments. If not, the teacher must write one that is applicable to the concerned student. While the CBSE has come up with a software for the creation of reports, it is “complicated”, claims a teacher in a city school. Her school has developed its own in house software to facilitate its teachers. They now carry pen drives with them where they have saved the excel sheets into which they enter their data.

One year down the road, it seems that CBSE teachers have moved from the chaotic and laborious detailing that they were initially faced with, to a more organized and less confused structuring of work in the second year. While they haven’t totally accepted the change, they are learning to cope with it. It will be interesting to see how the CCE evolves in the future. Will it establish its undeniable value, not just externally, as a practice in the schools, but internally, in the minds of its practitioners and facilitators?

The author has been a high school English teacher and is someone who is passionately involved in the process of education in the country. She can be reached at sangmenon@yahoo.com.

While the idea of working on a special issue on this subject excited us, the scope and range of possible topics was daunting. We wrote to many people, teachers, writers and scholars of history, and received an encouraging and generous response. We were keen on exploring what we saw as three key questions: How do we understand and define history? Why is it important to our lives and the way we live? How can we create interesting opportunities for students to discover these answers within (and outside) the history classroom?

What we have managed to assemble here is certainly only a small slice of the countless things that could be done in a history class, but it is something for teachers to take forward in their own ways.

We decided to take a detour this time for our cover story and reach the classroom through a different route – and to help us along, we enlisted a friend who has made a modest success of an experimental kitchen garden. Listening to her description of the project, we realized there was a lot to learn from it, and much that could be implemented – in our schools, and, more importantly, in our homes. So let’s listen to her gardening story and take what we can from it, to learn, and to teach…

Food! We all love food, some of us live to eat, some of us eat to live. Either way, we all have a love/hate relationship with food.

I am not a huge foodie and I am not at all fussy, give me my roti/dal, a couple of veggie dishes (especially if spinach is one of them) and I’m happy. All I ask is that the veggies be organic and fresh! But where I live, getting my hands on organic vegetables is almost impossible, so I have been settling for the next best thing – fresh vegetables from the local vendor around the corner. I make sure I buy them when his truckload arrives around 9 a.m. in the morning, so at least if not organic, it’s fresh! So imagine my horror when I found out that the vegetables in the local market are grown with 700 times the allowed pesticides that can be used. Not 5 or 10, but 700!

Yes, so along with my cauliflower curry I have been eating Cypermethrin, the bhindi fry I love is laced with Monocrotophos, Palak Panir is accompanied by Malathion and Diazinon….. apples, oranges, and grapes are not exempt either and are known to have residues of Aldrin and Chlordane, two deadly pesticides! There is irrefutable evidence to show that these residual pesticides can lead to all kinds of health problems including cancer, kidney, and neurological diseases.

This is when my husband and I decided to take matters into our own hands and grow our own vegetables. We researched soil, we learned about pest-free gardening, we went into the backyard and peered at the ground to see what creepy crawlies were living there, we poked, we prodded, we bought fertilizer, we bought manure, we bought organic pesticides, we got rid of our gardener whose mantra was spray, spray, spray….. and while we were in the midst of all this we chanced upon the whole concept of HYDROPONICS! I won’t go into too much detail, you can read about it at “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics”, but basically it is growing vegetables without soil, but only in water, where the plants are anchored in vermiculite or rock wool. Pests live in soil, so by default no soil – no pests! Pretty simple.

Of course, reading about it was one thing, actually starting our own hydroponic garden was quite another. No one had heard of it in Hyderabad. So some more reading and Googling and we found a vendor in Tamil Nadu who was selling bags of coco peat. Coco peat is just pure and simple ground up coconut husks that have the appearance and texture of soil, but none of the mineral content. So it mimics all the characteristics of soil without the problems associated with soil.

Hydroponics can be as simple as growing a single plant in hand watered bucket or as high-tech as being fully automated, monitored, and controlled with your cell phone! The average home hydroponic setup is somewhere in between – it has a growing medium in trays, a reservoir/tank to hold the nutrients, a submersible pump and drip irrigation tubing for ease of watering, a simple timer and an air pump to oxygenate the nutrient solution. Of course light, natural or artificial, is also required.

Since we were almost out of space in our backyard, we decided to set up shop on our rooftop. So, this is basically our set-up. The 4” long x 8” wide bags of coco peat came in flat bales which swelled up once we wet them with water. Each bag went from being an inch high to 8” high. Then 3 or 4 “Xs” slit on top of each, into which the seedling were planted. If you are scattering seeds for veggies like spinach and lettuce, you can make a long rectangular cut out and scatter the seeds. Once the little veggie saplings are planted, they need nutrients. The nutrient/fertilizer is concocted according to a very specific formula. NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), magnesium and calcium and a host of trace elements, are mixed together in water. (A small note here: even so called “organic veggies” in many markets, have NPK in their soil). A huge plastic container holds this nutrient mixture, and the pump and timer feed it to the plants via the drip irrigation system at specific intervals.

Of course, as with any new venture, we had successes and we had mishaps! For the first month, there was no action at all from the tomato plants, then we finally noticed flowers, then all of a sudden BOOM – we were bombarded with them at the rate of almost 2 kilos a day! We planted too few lettuce plants, like any gardening project we should have staggered them! One of the coco peat bags got so heavy on one side it tilted, and most of the water and nutrients drained to one side…. so the cauliflower got waterlogged and rotted! We only planted one bhindi plant – I don’t know what we were thinking – so we get 2 or 3 bhindis a week!! By the time I cut them and make bhindi fry, we get a mouthful each! But these are all easily avoidable mistakes, so as long as you stagger the planting of seeds, and assess how much exactly is needed for your consumption, you can minimize the wastage and save yourself a lot of headaches! Some vegetables are more prone to insects than others…. the lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, cabbage, and tomatoes were insect free, the okra and bell peppers were immediately attacked by pests which we controlled by using an organic pesticide like neem oil.

Nothing can beat the thrill of picking your own freshly grown veggies, however tiny or measly the harvest is. It’s an indescribable feeling. We have a long, long way to go before we are completely self-sufficient, but it is good to know that at least part of what I am putting in my mouth is organic and pesticide free! The last time I made a salad it took less than 5 minutes for the lettuce to get from plant to table and the taste was amazingly fresh!

Basic setup
There are many ways to set up a hydroponic garden and the way we set up with coco peat is just one way. It’s messy but it works.

The most important items you need for hydroponic gardening and the sources are:

1. Coco peat grow bags: These cost approx. Rs 50 per bag from www.thiraviyamcocopeat.com. You will also have to pay the freight cost. The cost from Nagercoil to Hyderabad was about Rs 350; this will depend on the distance to the final destination. You may also be able to locate local suppliers in other regions.
2. Digital timer: Rs 1100 on www.ebay.in. It is programmed to run the drip for 2 to 4 mins depending on the stage of the plant at 8 am, 10, 11, 12 pm, 1, 2, 3, and 5pm. Instructions come with it and it is easy to set up and wire up.
3. The timer runs a submersible pump that is used in aquariums or can be bought from an air cooler store for Rs 250 – 450. It is typically used to pump water in these coolers.
4. The air pump is about Rs 300 or so and can be bought from an aquarium store.
5. The submersible pump is in the nutrient tank, which is a 200 liter black tank (has to be black to prevent algae growth due to sunlight) and is connected to 16 mm drip tubing which goes past each plant. A barb is fixed in this tubing and through it a 6 mm tubing is connected to the dripper for each plant. A good start is to use a 2 liter per hour dripper initially, and as the plant grows change to an 8 liter per hour dripper.
6. The nutrients can be bought from Atul Kalaskar on ebay.in. They will be delivered to your address with detailed instructions on mixing them up. It is also possible to make your own, which is about one tenth the cost of this, but it takes a bit of running around.

Dos and Dont’s

1. Germinate the seeds in coco peat and not in soil, where they pick up pests right away
2. If possible, it is better to grow one vegetable at a time since they grow at different rates and require different amounts of nutrients, and germinate and transplant them all together. Otherwise, it is a headache to keep track of their differing needs.
3. There must be a drain hole in the grow bag – punch it out at the bottom and collect the excess run-off there. This can be provided to other plants in the garden but not reused.
4. Make sure you provide support to the tomato plants as they grow bigger or they will keel over under the weight of the tomatoes.
5. When the fruits turn red watch out for rodents and birds trying to eat them. It’s best to pick them in the evening.

Hydroponic Projects

Schools
Here is a project for small groups of students to highlight some of the interesting facts regarding plant growth.

Material needed

1. One 2 liter bottle – A Sprite or Coke bottle will work well
2. A black plastic bag
3. A roll of scotch tape
4. 2” x 2” piece of thermocol from a hardware store
5. A small funnel
6. Tomato seedlings already grown in coco peat (to discourage pests) about 6” tall
7. An air pump with tube and air stone from an aquarium store
8. Plant nutrient from ebay.in for hydroponics

The project will demonstrate how to grow tomatoes without soil. You will use only air and nutrient dissolved in water. The thermocol piece will hold the plant and allow it to grow bigger while still holding it.

Cut the mouth of the 2 ltr. bottle so that the thermocol piece fits snugly in it. Insert the air tube with the air stone at the end of it into the plastic bottle.

Make a cut in the thermocol piece and insert the seedling into it.
Tape around the thermocol to keep the plant in position.
Place the thermocol into the plastic bottle.
Insert the funnel between the plastic and the thermocol.
Pour the nutrient into the bottle until 75% of the plant root dips in it.
Note the level of the nutrient within the funnel.
Place the bottle in the black plastic bag to prevent algae growth in the nutrient solution.
Start the air pump.
The installation should be placed in sunlight.

Check the level of nutrient every day.
Add enough to bring it up so that 75% of the plant root dips in it.
Note the quantity of nutrient added each day.
Plot this on a graph.
Measure the height of the plant each day and plot it on the same graph.
Plot the height of plant versus daily consumption of nutrients.
After a few weeks, the plant will produce yellow flowers.
Gently shake the stems to make the flowers pollinate. You are the bee.
As the plant starts to bear fruit provide it support or it will keel over.
Observe the nutrient consumption at different stages of plant development.

Kitchen gardens for families
Here is an easy way for a family wanting to start a kitchen garden, to use the rooftop terrace where possible.

List of materials
Bricks
Plastic sheet
One coco peat brick – available in any seed store, Rs
100/brick
Nutrients as mentioned above

Place a row of ordinary bricks in a 2’ x 4’ area, place a sheet of plastic over it, and then another row of bricks over that to prevent the plastic from slipping from place. Put the coco peat brick into a bucket, break it up, add some water to it until it is fully moistened and breaks apart. Its volume will expand enormously. Fill the area enclosed with bricks with the coco peat all the way up to the second level of bricks. Plant the seeds in this, keep it moist and it should germinate in a week. Keep the area constantly moist with nutrients mixed with water.

I hope I have inspired you all to go organic! If you are lucky enough to live in a big city, you can get organic produce at the market. But if you still want to experience the thrill of growing your own vegetables hydroponically, e-mail us and we will happily share information with you!

The author is an interior designer by profession and has interests in painting, music, yoga, and gardening. She can be reached at kaminiandraga@gmail.com.