Revive Volume 7, 2010

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The Definitive vs. The Provisional: Realities from the Field
by Pawan Gupta

Pawan Gupta reflects on the journey at SIDH; of realising what education really implies in the modern day. He shares that understanding Gandhiji’s philosophy on education and development led them look into issues of modernity and emphasize the need for local context, educating with true observation and listening skills and the existence of different perspectives in any experience. He can be contacted at pawansidh@gmail.com

We have learned our lessons working in the area of education for the past 20 years. It has been a real learning experience to recognise, acknowledge and then respond to the various assumptions we were carrying, without being aware of them. Our initiative, Society of Integrated Development of the Himalayas (SIDH), took shape at the request of the village community of Jaunpur, a tribal block in the Himalayan region of Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand. The villages here were very small (about 10-15 families in a village) and remote with no proper access. Since walking time between two villages could be as much as a few hours young children found it difficult to go to a school located in a different village.

So SIDH schools were started to cater to children from villages which did not have any other school. Within a very short time we realised that the kind of education given in schools with emphasis on textbook-based learning with the main objective to get through the exams was doing more harm than good. Instead of acquiring knowledge, or gaining any useful skills and confidence in themselves, the students started harbouring a deep-seated inferiority about their culture and traditional lifestyle and camouflaged it through false attitude and arrogance. They started looking down upon their language, lifestyle, culture, traditional knowledge, or their parental/ancestral professions and became lazy and reluctant to do any work with their hands. On the other hand, since they did not acquire any useful skill, they were not even equipped to find any decent employment in the organised sector. This led to frustration and loss of self esteem. Today we can say that, by and large, this is true for our urban middle class school students as well. They may have a smattering knowledge of English gives them a (false) sense of confidence in a country which still suffers from a colonial hangover, but originality and creativity in Indian schools is a rarity. If at all we find it, the reason can perhaps be traced to the environment of the student’s home and not the school.

So it was revealing, and painfully so, when we realised that we were actually doing more harm by imparting this so-called education. Still, we did not have the courage to say ‘no’ to education. We also did not under-stand, at the time, why education should bring about this alienation, lead to an inferior and false attitude and turn us into mindless imitators of the west.

It was via Shri Dharampal that we got re-introduced to Mahatma Gandhi and his writings. And it was through Gandhiji that we understood the genesis of this problem. Most educated people in India think (actually assume) that they know Mahatma Gandhi without actually having read anything spoken or written by him. Their opinions (both positive and negative) about Mahatma Gandhi are more often than not formed on hearsay. We too fell in the same category. Therefore reading the Mahatma was an eye opener - in more ways than one. The equation of alienation between the home and school leading to inferiority propelling one to mindlessly imitate all that comes from the West became very clear. We also saw the connection between present day modernity and the singular definition of ‘development’ imposed all over the world and unquestioningly imbibed by the mainstream educated. ^[1] Mahatma Gandhi felt strongly that Indians needed to learn how to say ‘no’. He believed that education must make one fearless. Contrary to this, today's education system for the most part, turns us into helpless victims and exploiters at the same time. Instead of liberating people, education has become the most powerful instrument of control. In this system of modernity we are enslaved in an illusion of freedom and are privy only to the superficial aspects of reality. The essential levels of controls remain invisible and remote. Although there is a lot of emphasis on accountability, actually there is no accountability because the system is faceless.

Those who are trying to find meaningful alternatives to present day education know this only too well. The struggle is with the system as well as with the parents, the teachers, the students and internally within us. The pressures of a degree/ certificate compel us to adhere to one system or the other. This in itself is quite restrictive. The craze for English medium (and angreziat which is often camouflaged under the demand for leaning English) is another challenge. So within these limitations SIDH is trying to open the mind of the students by enhancing their understanding to differentiate between knowledge and information; use as much of the local (both physical and cultural) milieu, instead of only textbooks. At SIDH we have also introduced activities such as farming, other manual work and vocational skills as parts of school curriculum to teach various subjects in an integrated manner.

We at SIDH believe that education in its true sense is only a means available to humans for imparting understanding in order to live a happy, healthy and harmonious life with other fellow beings and nature. This has been our guiding belief and yardstick to measure if our efforts are on the right path or not.

We try to teach ‘how to think’ rather than ‘what to think’. We have developed handbooks for teachers to help them teach by making the local as the context. We have made a list of distinctions that we use for enhancing understanding of the students. The teachers, across all subjects look out for opportunities to discuss the distinctions. The distinctions we have consciously made are: literacy vs. education; words (specific to a language) vs. meaning (universal); assuming/believing vs. knowing; information vs. knowledge; knowing the technique vs. understanding the concept; skill (doing) vs. knowing (understanding); reacting vs. responding; hearing (without understanding the other) vs. listening; hearing vs. understanding; seeing vs. understanding; seeing vs. observing; agreeing/ disagreeing (with the other) vs. understanding (the other); imposed value vs. real value, etc. We take care to get it across that these distinctions are not opposites but different.

This could be understood as one essential aspect of dialogue where there is independence and also interdependence between the different elements. In some ways the person or organization that is seeking to change, improve existing structures could be compared to the storyteller looking for a sympathetic audience. The story, the story teller and the listener must be in a creative and receptive relationship in order to let something new grow.

We also stress on reaching understanding through observation rather than only through the process of (logical) explanation. We also emphasize the existence and importance of (different) perspectives. The idea ultimately is to make both the child and the teacher responsible to enhance their understanding in the process of learning/ teaching.

At SIDH we also believe and teach that there are only four states in nature – i) the material (earth, water, air, minerals etc.), ii) the pranic (all greenery/ vegetation), iii) the animals and birds and iv) human beings. While there is growth in the last three states, the material state can only be converted from one form into another. There is no growth in the material state and yet ironically the entire edifice of ‘development’ is based on material growth! Gandhiji understood this basic contradiction long back, dared to ask simple questions, and challenged the premises of modernity. Many of us are too scared of asking simple innocent questions for fear of being politically incorrect or being branded retrograde, regressive, backward looking or traditionalists.

But there is no option but to ask simple questions and continue doing experiments even if they are embarrassing because the crises are looming large. We can not hide behind the modern myths too long. For those of us working in the area of education it is important to examine the assumptions of our systems, in particular the kind of education we are attempting to impart. We need to examine the assumptions of ‘development’ and see the alignment between education and development. Even if we find a huge gap between what ought to be and the transient or the expedient, we must have the courage not to ignore the truth however difficult, uncomfortable and impractical it may seem.

1. It is worth noting that the Mahatma never used the word ‘development’ in the manner it is being used today and post independence. It seems to be an imposition to control and herd people in a particular direction. And modern education has played the most significant role in perpetuating the myth of ‘development’.

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