Subject teachers at the school level have a major responsibility in terms of inculcating learning attitudes and generating interest in a particular subject. We all know that our own interest in a field comes in large part from how we experienced the subject in school. The inspired and passionate teacher of language probably led many a student to go on to study language at the university level; the inventive physics teacher most likely kindled a passion for the science in more than a few students; the clarity and precision conveyed by the math teacher perhaps motivated many a student to go further in search of numerical truths. Even in cases where we may not be motivated enough to take the interest through to a university degree in that subject, the interest at least carries us through the examinations and makes study of that subject pleasurable – and not the chore it could otherwise become.

The inspiring teacher is one who cares. About the student, primarily, but also about the subject she or he deals with. It’s when you care deeply about a subject that you can share the excitement and energy while talking about it. When we care deeply about a subject, we are also motivated to share that with others, and we care that the others (in this case students) also come to share that excitement with us. It’s through this shared excitement that an environment of learning is created. Then you really don’t need to “teach”. The learning just happens, and the student experiences the true pleasures of discovery.

Awards such as the TCL award for chemistry teaching, or government awards for long service do their bit to encourage and motivate teachers. But the true motivation comes from engaging with the subject.

The second survey, a much smaller one conducted by CRY (Child Relief and You), looked at enrolment in government schools in a subdivision of Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, one year after the RTE Act, and found that there had been little or no impact. Children were still out of school, and government schools still lacked the most basic facilities in these areas.

Quality by any measure remains a major challenge in Indian education, if the results from these surveys – however limited in scope – are to be taken seriously. These, along with the ASER exercise by Pratham, done in village schools, continue to paint a dismal picture. This is not to deny the efforts by various groups and individuals, on multiple fronts, to make education both accessible and meaningful to children of all backgrounds and abilities. What it does emphasize is that in the largest sectors – elite private schools and the average government schools – quality is still prominent in its absence.

Where do we begin to address this? Is it by looking desperately for technologies that can change ways and means of learning? Is it by upgrading physical spaces? Or by developing new materials that stimulate, interest, and clarify? Maybe it’s none of these, but instead we begin by looking at ourselves and the tools we have at our disposal. Our own sense of inventiveness, our ability to breathe excitement into dull and lifeless lesson plans. Our understanding of the young minds that we have come to know over our months and years on the job. Maybe it begins with us.

Walking across the bund and looking at the expanse of the Cauvery on one side and the massive chains that work the sluice gates on the other, one is struck by the scientific-technological imagination that could lead to such a structure. But at the same time, given our understanding of how such projects have done little to alleviate the poverty of already marginalized populations who had to give up lands and livelihoods to literally energise more privileged groups, one has to decry the lack of social imagination of the times. It’s so easy to be carried away by the promise of the moment, particularly when the promise is underwritten by science and technology. It’s so easy to look at the immediate gains and solutions to long-standing problems. It takes both a radical imagination and courage to instead stop and look at the underbelly of the promise, and see what it means in the long term. Who are the winners and losers here? How much do the losers lose? And what are we left with after a decade, two decades, of applying this new solution? This calls for a new mindset, a new way of approaching problems and evaluating their solutions. Sustainability is no longer just a fashionable buzzword that a few ecologists and economists have to deal with. It is something that has to become a part of the fabric of daily life, embedded in the decisions we make everyday about using water, power, food and land. It has to become a part of our thinking and learning and doing.

This issue of Teacher Plus, in collaboration with Wipro’s Earthian initiative, brings you a wide range of articles that look at various aspects of sustainability. As you might imagine, this is a very wide theme and touches practically every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the water we drink and bathe in and wash with, to the buses we take and the animals we share this planet with. It’s about air, water, energy, and everything that makes use of these and other resources. So clearly, we haven’t been able to do it all. There are significant gaps in our collection – the crucially important issue of water for instance, has not been addressed at length, nor have many other important issues related to health and well-being and sustainable development. But what we have put together is an impressive set of views and information from experts and practitioners that should begin a dialogue on sustainability. These articles may serve as interesting reading, as prompts to classroom discussion, as the basis of activity planning, or just as something to mull over individually or in groups in the staff room. And we trust you will find many other ways to engage with the issue using this as a starting point – do let us know what you think about this very important area and how you deal with it…as a teacher and as an individual.

There really doesn’t seem to be enough time to stand and stare. To reflect. To let the mind wander and stumble on to things that surprise us and show us unexpected connections that bring an element of freshness to our lives and our work. It’s that serendipity that keeps things interesting, that makes each day a little less routine. But when you think about it, it’s not so much the lack of time that keeps us from encountering these everyday surprises. It’s our sense that there is no time. If you were to excavate all the minutes where our minds are actually free to observe and engage in the moment, where we are either suspended between duties (for instance, when we are on the bus to school, or standing over the stove at home, maybe stirring a pot, or even when sitting around waiting for the power to come back), we could fill our pockets with time. And if we were to stop feeling pressurized and wondering why the work wouldn’t get done faster, we could use that in-between time to look around us and expose ourselves to the unexpected.

So as I sit at my desk, watching the rays slide over to the next window, wondering what to write about this month, I find that I’ve just pulled out one pocket of time and used it to fill my mind with the sunlight, to recharge my day’s battery with a beautiful oblong piece of criss-crossed sun that falls on my (yet to be swept) floor tiles. That’s all the energy I need to go on with the day. Until another surprise greets me tomorrow, maybe travelling on the shaft of another sunbeam.

We at Teacher Plus decided to do our bit to provide teachers with a break, and organized a short evening programme involving books and art, in collaboration with a charming centre for children called Little People Tree. With the theme, “Rediscover yourself through books and art”, we invited local teachers to come share a cup of tea and some cookies with the TP team while listening to some good voices read from old and new favourites, and mess around a bit with watercolours.

The seasoned theatre voices of Aarti Phatarphekar and Ranjan Ranganathan from a local theatre group took us on a nostalgic journey through the tribulations and joys of Frank McCourt in Teacher Man, and E R Braithwaite in To Sir, With Love, interspersed with a dose of feel-good delivered through A Cup of Comfort for Teachers. Teachers told us they wanted to go right out and buy the books to re-read them, something they hadn’t done in years. Then an art teacher, Shanthi Swaroopini, drew us to the paint box and got everyone to mix colours to depict their “objects of desire” – an exercise in primary art to, literally, take us back to the basics. Simple things, perhaps, a book here and a bit of colour there, but things that take us out and beyond ourselves.

A few issues ago, we had featured a story from the Ladakh area describing the way in which teachers and the community come together to ensure uninterrupted classes for the children after widespread damage due to an earthquake. This was because all stakeholders in the system – teachers, parents, the larger community – took the initiative to keep things going for the children. Schools (in whatever form) can help to provide children with a sense of continuity and normalcy in situations where the rest of their world is in turmoil. And when the context of education itself is in turmoil – as was the case in Tamil Nadu – teachers would need to take responsibility for making micro-level judgments about what constitutes education for them while they wait for the government to make up its mind. They can use the classroom in ways that textbooks and curricula do not allow, and take advantage in the breathing space given by these pauses without a syllabus to race to completion. Think about it, disruptions could actually be rare opportunities for creative education!

Either way, it’s important for teachers to recognize that they can regain power within a system that often robs them of it. They can create – or co-opt – spaces for innovative education at the most unexpected moments. The thing is to keep one’s eyes and mind open.

This Teachers’ Day, we present you with a wide range of stories from practicing teachers and past students about the business and pleasure of being in the profession. They reinforce the idea that the classroom is often in our heads – and as such, it can be as big, and as exciting, as we want to make it!

Happy Teachers’ Day!

The cover story in this issue of Teacher Plus deals with one of the disturbing outcomes of poor classroom management – corporal punishment. Coping with classroom tensions, individual differences, unmet expectations and just plain bad behaviour can get taxing for teachers. The author suggests ways in which teachers can deal with classroom tensions without the breakdown that leads to such punishment. We welcome your own stories too, of such coping – perhaps together we can arrive at alternative ways of creating a classroom climate that helps deal with tensions before they become unmanageable. Often it is an anger management issue, which requires that the individual teacher recognize it as such and seek ways to handle it – with support from the school collective if necessary. Schools therefore need to become supportive structures, emphasizing cooperation and dialogue rather than surveillance and punishment.

And while the debates rage in the media and in drawing rooms, our children suffer in quiet desperation – will they make the cut or not? Will they get into the course they want or not? Will they get in anywhere? What will happen if they don’t? We all agree that marks are not the ultimate test of merit. We have no quarrel with the fact that today’s world offers many more opportunities for children of diverse abilities. Yet, we judge on the basis of marks. And on the basis of getting into this particular course or that. The judgment, coupled with the pressures and expectations placed upon young shoulders by peers and other adults, can be crippling.

We have little control over how board examinations are evaluated and the direction and nature of college admissions. But we could influence how children – and parents, perhaps – deal with the outcomes. All through the school years, if we work toward building a self concept that is to some extent independent of external evaluation, a sense of confidence in (coupled with a realistic estimation of) one’s abilities, we could help children deflect the effect of the disappointments they may face during later years. We think of the syllabus as a big responsibility, and do all we can to “cover” it. But maybe we should really be paying attention to something beyond this?

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.

This month at Teacher Plus we decided to go into acation mode… what that means is, we decided to bring you a cover story that might set you thinking about how to use this time (the time that doesn’t get used up by things you didn’t plan). When I heard about my friend Kamini’s rooftop garden project it struck me that it would be a great experiment to try, as individuals who might have an interest in such things, as well as teachers. The motivation to bring readers this story was not so much that it could provide inputs for the classroom but that it might just be an enjoyable – and productive – exercise for each of us. After being given a personal tour of the hydroponic vegetable patch, and tasting the tomatoes that it yielded, I certainly was inspired! The rest of the editorial team too felt it would be a different sort of story, a departure perhaps from the issues we usually focus on, but one that would give us not only something to put in practice, but to chew on – literally and figuratively!

This exercise also reminded us about the wealth of learning that we can draw from the events and actions we are witness to. Whether it is the tragic natural calamity in Japan or the nuclear disaster that is following in its aftermath, or the corruption in Indian politics, or the rooftop garden experiment that a friend succeeds with, each has something within it that can be instructive and illustrative. That’s the excitement of education – our materials and our methods are constantly expanding. All we have to do is look around us. And of course, bring what we see (and think) back into the classroom!