This issue of Teacher Plus considers the proliferation of preschools and “upgraded” day care centres where children have their first taste of organized learning. What do parents expect from these centres? Are they simply caregiving facilities or mini-prep schools for the real thing? While Ardra and Deepti spoke to proprietors and parents, Seetha Anand Vaidyam and Sheel looked at what these spaces need to provide from the teacher’s point of view. The Classroom Update in this issue looks at the issue of marginalization and how it can be made real in a civics or social studies lesson. And then we have the pot-pourri of activities and perspectives, as well as an extended debate on an issue that all schools and educationists are looking at keenly, the Right to Education.

Here’s wishing you a great scholastic year!

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“In scientific work, those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.” – Thomas Huxley

Why do we need a special issue on biology? What can one find in a special issue that could be of interest or importance?

If the 20^th Century belonged to physics, the 21^st Century is the domain of biology. We live in an era where manipulation and duplication of life and its creation in a test tube is considered progress. Living organisms from the virus and bacteria to human beings and their parts have become materials for technology, to tinker, modify and mass produce. Is it ethical to create life in a test tube is a question that humanity is struggling with. How will young minds consumed with scientific curiosity address such dilemmas?

If a whole generation of students would choose biotechnology over biology as an elective in their high school years, one needs to examine why and what is happening in biology as a field of study before it is too late and we start to lament!

Is the biology education given to these impressionable minds equipping them to make an informed decision on ethical issues that confront them? Do students leaving school go with enough experience – to mature into sensitive doctors or epidemiologists; to evaluate the concerns of disappearing biological diversity, be they in the forests or oceans, whales or elephants; to know the significance underlying debates such as tiger vs tribals, or pesticides vs pulmonary deaths; to hear, recognize and enjoy the call of a cuckoo, or a kite that might still thrive amidst our chaotic urban environments?

The answers to such questions begin with the kind of experiences biology can offer in schools. Hence an issue such as this assumes significance. It hopes to awaken the minds of teachers to the urgent need for a paradigm shift in biology education.

There is an unshakeable notion that biology is a science full of facts and drawings that at best needs a good memory and drawing skills to score well. It is not a concept-based science such as physics. There is also this mistaken notion that the only activity possible is one of dissections which has over the years either fascinated students, or else driven them away in disgust, the latter being more frequent! But any knowledgeable teacher will tell you that there can be no science without concepts! There can be no learning in any subject without memorizing certain facts, be it biology, physics, maths, or English. In learning it is the process that matters, the concepts are learnt, facts are remembered because of fascinating concepts; facts+concepts+understanding makes knowledge. This holds good for biology as well. I believe that biology can actually be of assistance to those who find subjects such as physics difficult. The abstract concepts of physics are best learnt and understood in the context of biological concepts.

Why then this notion? It is because of a tradition that most educators have failed to shake off. In this issue of Teacher Plus we present a variety of activities and resources that we hope will inspire biology teachers to move from a fact based approach to an active learning process.

But what about the syllabus? True, the way the biology syllabus in different boards has been designed, executed and assessed may be justifiably irritating! But there are ways and means to skirt around the monotony of the syllabus. What do we do with a syllabus that we have to complete? Simple, look at the syllabus, not at the textbook. The problems in teaching biology lie more with following the diktats of a textbook than with completing a syllabus. No syllabus highlights facts! If you want to complete your syllabus in a meaningful manner then the first thing you should do is to ignore the textbook. As the character played by Robin Wlliams advocates in the film ‘Dead Poets Society’, burn the books! They are the biggest hurdles to learning biology (or for that matter any subject) meaningfully. Then start planning your lessons by highlighting the concepts. To do this you must draw upon different resources. Lessons are the creative compositions of a teacher, the more interesting and interactive they are, the greater the learning will be, facts included, for you would have lit the fire of curiosity in the child.

This is why this issue is important. The first section provides examples to teach so as to gain the active involvement of students. These and other resources will help you design lessons differently. Understand the syllabus and its objectives and you will find a new world opening out to both you and your students.

Along with deconstructing your syllabus and recasting it in a more systematic manner, you also need to look at different ways of teaching children. The basic biology course has remained unchanged over the years not offering opportunities for learning in a challenging, interactive manner in our schools. If a child has to learn the same topics – (for e.g.) a plant from class 5 to class 12 then the onus is on the teacher to give it life! The Teacher Plus team has provided you materials not merely on activities but also on pedagogy.

There is mystery, wonder and sacredness in biological sciences, in what it can offer to students in schools and colleges. From a pedagogical viewpoint, it is useful to choose one of the many perspectives available to teach this subject. Most people believe that the evolutionary perspective is the best one; justifiable too, as some of the authors here maintain. I believe in a perspective that is most suited to the context of my students and to the topic under consideration. So biology could be taught from an ecological perspective, sometimes from physiological, at times integrated and functional, behavioural, developmental or taxonomical too. But it is important to be aware of the perspective and hence not remain bound to the textbooks. The second section in this issue deals with integrations and perspectives that should prove useful in planning differently.

How do chemically organized structures (forming an organism), driven by the principles we learn in physics, breathe life into the otherwise inanimate molecules and direct developments and behaviours? In order to understand this question we fragment biology into plants, animals and humans, their parts and functions, classification, evolution, ecology so on, so forth. A perspective will help unify the fragments into an analysable picture.

This is the International Year of Biodiversity, there is a separate section on Natural History. Natural History is the backbone of biology. Ethology is a fascinating field. The path breaking discovery of various facets of insect life by Henri Fabre was a result of field studies in his garden! We do not need large campuses or jungles for studying natural history. We can make use of the outdoor spaces we have available to us, no matter how small or seemingly limited.

The propositions that Suprabha Seshan puts forth in, ”Learning from looking can be fun” is food for thought. A rich education in biology rides on the back of observation and field work. The section on natural history features animals that share our everyday existence such as frogs, spiders, lizards and sparrows who we never think of as ‘wild’ since they share our environment. Whether it is classification, adaptation, mimicry, predation, nutrition, reproduction or development, these animals would eminently serve the purpose of learning the concepts meaningfully.

Some of the activities given in the first section coupled with information in this section should assist teachers in setting up interesting activities; challenging work that will develop skills of observation, analysis and inquiry.

There is a lot that needs to and could be done in the field of natural history. Those who face difficulties with field work, I would suggest the following. Associate yourself/students with or introduce them to programmes by others like Migrant and Season’s Watch, Sparrow conservation or Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. Most cities and larger towns have such organizations; find them and partner with them in learning.

Biology learnt well can make a difference to the quality of life. It is the science of life, life on earth, so unique and enigmatic that we search for it in the Universe. It encompasses within it not merely other sciences but resources for everything a child learns in school. All learning starts with biology, that first ‘cry’ for oxygen.

Fortunately, educational institutions still give us that. The classroom, and to some extent the assembly, are important versions of the “public sphere” that must be nurtured and protected. Within these relatively safe spaces, children can learn to sharpen their ideas and their wits and express themselves thoughtfully while listening to others do the same. They can learn the value of open discussion and the need to explore the million different threads of a given issue. They can learn about how consensus is built and how to use words to sway opinion through logic as well as well honed emotion. True, all this happens in debate and elocution competitions, but when taken to the competitive stage it is merely performance and not real engagement. What we are talking about here is discussion and dialogue for their own sake, for the purpose of clarifying thought. Offering children such opportunities – in fact insisting that they take advantage of them – may over time develop the very abilities that are so badly needed in the adult world: articulation, assimilation of varied points of view and ideas, and tolerance of these.

As in every issue of Teacher Plus, we try to raise some of the concerns and issues current in the field of school education, in a manner of sparking debate among readers. This issue looks at the position of curriculum in a teacher’s job, and continues the discussion of the Right to Education Act that Maya Menon set out in the February 2010 issue. We are pleased that we have received responses to Maya’s initial note, and hope that teachers, school administrators and all those interested in child education will think about this and share their views through the forum provided by Teacher Plus as well as in other spaces.

On the other hand, teaching remains in a state of crisis. Fewer people are choosing to be teachers, most find themselves in the profession because of necessity or convenience, and in some areas of the country, there are simply not enough teachers of the right kind. Training of teachers remains inadequate and patchy. While new-age schools advertise snazzy classrooms and “holistic curricula”, very few sell themselves on the strength of their human resources – the teachers. The education development index shows that the teacher-pupil ratio varies widely, from close to one teacher for 50-odd students in Karnataka to one teacher for 17 students in Sikkim. Mr. Kapil Sibal has repeatedly noted that the key to progress in education is the availability and even deployment of good teachers. It is with a view to doing this that several new teacher education programs have been initiated. But schools are mushrooming at a far higher rate. And clearly it will be a while before there are enough teachers available to fill the needs of these schools – which are based on individualized attention, a high degree of teacher involvement and engagement with students…all of which depend on having a much better teacher-student ratio. But while we work on that, the promise of these new-age schools will have to be fulfilled by the teachers we have, the teachers we are. Are school managements doing enough to support the increased demands on these teachers? When lofty promises are made, lofty ideals must be lived up to, if these promises are to be kept!

Assessing situations, making judgments of different kinds, identifying, analyzing and solving problems, getting along with people, managing resources…these are the skills we need to be developing as human beings, skills that are applicable across all spheres of activity. This issue of Teacher Plus features three articles that deal with the teaching/learning of life skills. While the first looks at theatre as a modality through which life skills can be acquired, another argues for the centrality of life skills in all school curricula, and the third brings in a creative way to inculcate problem solving skills through chemistry lessons. Of course, the discussion on life skills cannot end here; it only begins. Every class potentially is a theatre of opportunity within which life skills can be learnt. It’s about sensitive and “opportunistic” teaching, making those lessons happen whenever the space permits, and about finding opportunities to create such learning spaces.

Closure of schools brings with it a variety of problems, not the least of which is a tightly planned schedule thrown completely out of gear. A one or two day bandh may be made up by working on a couple of weekends, but longer closures mean that examinations need to be postponed, the remaining days lengthened, and additional pressure put on teachers and students who are already under considerable pressure.

Disturbances in one part of the country are not necessarily taken into account by a national-level board, so teachers in central board schools need to still conform to a calendar that has been set elsewhere. Coming back from these forced breaks, they need to step up the pace and just make sure that they – and their students – complete the syllabus. How do schools and teachers manage this? How are lost days made up? How do we continue to ensure that children do not lose out on learning and on associated school experiences when they are forced to stay home for extended periods? We at Teacher Plus invite you to share your stories of coping with us, so that we can learn from each other and our network of understanding keeps growing.

Well, I have come a long way since then and so has the technology of printing and publishing – and of course, the technology of education. Within that same year, I was introduced first to a desktop monitor that was a window to a distant mainframe computer, and a few months later, to an amazing device that allowed one to type, re-type, erase and save – all without spending reams of paper and carbon sheets! The desktop computer had arrived!

Of course we cannot pretend that technology has changed everything about our environments and about education – clearly, there are many classrooms that lack even the most basic tools, where teachers must make do with their wits and little else. But in the places where technology has entered, it has changed ways of doing and ways of thinking. And in yet others, new forms of technology have led us to hope that a type of leapfrogging is indeed possible. While we may laugh at the idea that a mobile telephone can take formal learning into remote areas, we cannot deny the promise of such connectivity. And of course other technologies have held out such promises too. Radio in the 1950s and even today brings communities together and creates educational opportunities, while satellite and cable television has brought the world into our homes and our classrooms.

Computer and communications technologies have truly brought about changes that are “ecological” to use Neil Postman’s term. They have not just mediated our relationship with the material world but have generated new ways of relating with the world, and in fact created new worlds, making possible new representations of thought and action.

As we accept the “naturalness” of technology in our lives and our educational environment, and while we exploit its potential, we need to be aware of what it does to our old ways, and what we are setting aside in adopting the new.

Most of the articles in this special issue of Teacher Plus celebrate the immense potential of information technology to extend and enhance the traditional classroom. Indeed, it was a recognition of this potential that prompted the Indian government to initiate in the mid 1980s a project called “CLASS” – Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools. We were not sure how computers would change things, but we had an inkling that these machines could ease our way into the future and close the gap between us and the more information-driven societies.

At the time, computer education – teaching children how to use computers to write programs to do things – was an end in itself. But as computers became easier to use, and computer based tools became more and more easily available and wider in range, it was less important to learn how to make the computer do things (as with programming) and more important to learn to do things using computers. This shift has important implications for learning that we may not consciously acknowledge as we adopt technology into our practice.

Having said this, it is still important to see how we can use these tools to our best advantage, and how we can ensure that we retain a critical attitude toward them. None of us will deny the value of what we have been granted: the expansion of the realms (and reams) of information available to us, the opportunities for retaining existing and making new relationships that have been thrown open by social networking, the ease of aggregating and analyzing different kinds of data, the extension of human potential and overcome disability with the ability to turn text to visual to sound without expert intervention… the list can go on.

But if you read carefully, and not even between the lines, you will notice that every one of our writers in this issue has reiterated what might seem obvious but becomes marginalized by its very obviousness – the centrality of the teacher to the process and outcome of learning.

Cover Design: The design for this month’s cover met with an enthusiastic response from the editorial team for its interesting concept and rather unusual creation. In the words of Agat Sharma, who designed it, the artworks could not have existed in a non-technological environment for they were created automatically using contemporary design tools. Technology has opened otherwise inconceivable landscapes of imagination and even its use has therefore become a learning experience. This art work has been visualized and created using certain quintessential images representing education and technology like books and circuit boards.

The problem is that the information overload has rendered us resistant to persuasion, particularly when it involves inconvenient changes to the way we do things. It has also left us with a sense of helplessness in the face of changes – natural and economic – that as individuals we feel unable to do anything to stem. In September, several educationists, partners in the Wipro Applying Thought in Schools initiative, discussed how education could possibly respond to the crisis facing the planet. At one level, the problem seems too huge to be handled by teachers, not to mention students. But it is precisely because of this enormity that the problem requires all hands on deck – all people in their professional and personal capacities. If we believe that schools are the crucibles of social change, then they are, along with the home, key to achieving attitudinal and behavioural change in the long term. They are places where our sense of self and other, our sense of social engagement and responsibility, are reinforced, and in some cases even engendered. So clearly, education has a responsibility to respond to the environmental crisis.

The set of articles relating to this month’s cover theme speak to the issue in different ways; one lays out the problem and proposes a manner of arriving at a solution. Another describes how “ecological consciousness” can be built into children by the way things are done in school, while a third looks at how locally relevant materials can be created and applied to create a relationship between children and their environment. The idea, in the words of Alok Mathur from Rishi Valley School in Madanapalle, is to create an “ecological consciousness” among children, so that being environmentally sensitive becomes a part of our very being, so that we try – in some measure – to address the crisis that is no longer just a probability, but a reality.

My mind flicks back to the events of recent weeks. A staircase stampede in a Delhi school. Girls complaining of being “felt up” by boys in their cohort. Panic, and a tragic accident. Yes, the staircase was too narrow, and yes, there were no other means of reaching the next floor. Issues of safe construction are no doubt key here. But so is the issue of some boys – no more than children – treating their peers as objects to be used at will.

Some of us may feel that issues of objectification and exploitation are not topics for classroom conversation. That children need to discover social and sexual equations for themselves, or that it is their parents’ business to sensitise them to such things. But increasingly, all of us, and particularly children, are exposed to a multiplicity of messages that seem to validate the idea that it’s okay to use the image of a woman to sell anything, from motorcycles to deodorant to cement to engineering expertise. Not woman as consumer or expert, mind you, but woman as a reward and object of desire. Objectification is a process by which an entity (say, a person) becomes a “thing”, losing its identity as a person or a living being. It takes away the responsibility or the need to worry about the “thing’s” feelings and rights.

The classroom may not be the place to address all social ills, but certainly, it is a place to begin to get children to think about issues and their responses to them, to get them to recognise that how they think and behave has consequences and reasons. To get them to look at media products (ads, for instance) and challenge the assumptions they make and perpetuate. And to think about how these assumptions can have tragic consequences.