Beyond the Curricula

At Inspire, our commitment towards the cause of education is paramount. Over the past half year since we launched the blog, we have covered a broad spectrum of issues that touch upon education in its different manifestations. 

The child being the ‘inspiration’ behind Inspire, we have shared how varying levels of ability, diverse reading habits, different approaches towards textbooks and even examinations have had an impact on our education system and the children who are part of this. We reiterate that we view ourselves as facilitators creating relevant learning experiences that will help children to gather, examine, validate, modify and extend knowledge. 

In this drive towards education, there is yet another perspective that crops up. This takes us beyond the curricula and brings us face to face with some pertinent questions. Is the educated generation reaching where it ought to? What about the not-so-lucky ones who have not had the opportunity to complete their formal schooling? Can the onus of their development simply be left to fate? At Inspire we strive to make a difference there as well. Today, we share with you - Maya’s Story.

Coming from a small town in Nepal, with a responsibility to support herself and also send money back home, Maya was just another girl struggling to survive in the big city. Trained in a parlour, her meagre salary was barely enough to make both ends meet. At Inspire we realised that Maya could do much better for herself if she became functionally literate. 

She underwent a ‘Functional Literacy Makeover’, with Inspire under our ‘Empowered to Share’ initiative. We supplemented her education as per her needs. Maya, who had decided to be a ‘beautician at your door step’ needed support with language skills to begin with. She needed to look and talk like the businesswoman that she was becoming. Above all she needed to build her network with ladies who belong to the ‘sms’ and email-cult. So Inspire guided her through the stepwise process – where the concept of her beauty services business was formed; next we made her aware about work culture and ethics; in parallel we helped her design the collaterals and refine her communication skills; finally we taught her nuances of operations, budgeting and accounting. 

Today we see a new Maya sporting a business card-with the brand name ‘Arshia’, dressed in a crisp uniform, and making conversation confidently. Her ‘education’ also comprises of maintaining her ‘Customer Database’ which she is now beginning to do in MS Excel, and learning to write business emails and sms. 

Maya is now a confident young lady, who has a business partner, Krishna. She is inspiring many others like her to adopt functional literacy, to create a better position in life.

There are people from all strata of society, with distinct skill-sets and different aspirations. For education to become holistic, they all have to be guided within the circumference of modern and practical education. The amazing part is, it is people like Maya, who tell us, “We are eager to learn, provided you teach us what we really need to learn.” That is precisely how functional literacy can be successful. 

As educationists we need to identify what education needs to provide. Whether we ‘teach’ children, adults or skilled commoners, it is education that is ‘worthwhile’ that really matters in the end. 

Progression of Textbooks

Textbooks have an indelible influence in the lives of children, such that that it is almost impossible to imagine a school scene without simultaneously thinking of chalkboards, chalk, notebooks and textbooks. 

For a very long time textbooks were the only teaching- learning aid in the classroom. Typical to any demand-supply scenario, they changed character based on the needs of the education system. 
In olden days, the teacher was the head of the classroom. He was the mentor – who guided students with his words and wisdom accompanied by the writings in the textbooks. The textbooks were mostly ‘reference material’. 

However for the past many decades, the purpose of teaching became simply to ‘complete the syllabus,’ prescribed in the text book rather than focusing on knowledge gain for the students. This system relied less on the teacher’s competency and more on the textbooks. Teachers merely read out from the textbooks; students learnt to memorise the words and reproduce them exactly in their examinations. 

In this system it was easy for publishers to develop textbooks. New text was really regurgitated material from books written ages ago. Old content was sold under a new cover. This worked very well to save development costs. More students and schools meant higher volumes of sales. A combination of these two gave publishers enormous margins. The books had little to engage a child and cater to his interest. A by-product of this system was a generation of students who ‘learnt’ by rote - including the answers for a published list of questions, and promptly forgot what they had learnt once their exams were over. 

Fortunately the wheel has begun to take a turn. There have been significant changes made in the education system – NCERT being a pioneer in this. Teachers now enjoy a higher status, including more pay and benefits. This has led them to move beyond just reading the books out to their class. Emphasis has gradually begun shifting from rote learning to one that is based on experiencing, thinking and applying. As a consequence to this change in demand, the character of textbooks has begun undergoing changes. Books are being designed to be engaging and containing text that is relevant for modern-day students. They are interactive and provide many hands-on activities for students to apply their learning. 

Textbooks continue to form an integral part of this ‘collaborative’ learning process. The influence of technology has helped give them a fresh lease of life since the medium is now no longer only print, but digital and mobile as well. Research has shown the necessity of including support or supplementary learning material alongside the text books. This material like the textbook not only helps in classroom teaching, it also makes learning easier and more interesting for students. 

With rapid changes in technology, it is hard to imagine what form textbooks will take in future. One thing can be said however – just like a good teacher is irreplaceable in the life of a student, a good textbook is non-pareil. 

To ensure that all children benefit from the current ‘revolution’ in textbooks, it must reach schools and students across different strata of society. Moreover focused effort needs to be given to research; content needs to be reviewed and upgraded periodically and feedback from actual classrooms needs to be incorporated in order to make these books most effective. 

Just like a favourite storybook, a textbook should hold a special place in the heart of a student.

Bring on the Reading!

Eleven year old Sabina loves to read. Even at the breakfast table she has a book propped open in one hand. Sanjit’s mother makes it a point to buy books for him regularly, but he rarely gets beyond the first few pages of a book. 

As educationists, we have thought for a good reason to this phenomenon - why some children read and others don’t? We find that in an average class, perhaps 10 out of 30 children read habitually, while the rest seem to shy away from books. They are all taught in the same classroom, exposed to the same texts and teachers. So what could possibly cause some to befriend books while their classmates show no such inclination? 

The reason we found is quite simple. 

Children in classrooms have varying levels of ability and interest in Language. Just like their performance in school, their extracurricular reading is also influenced by this. Thus some children develop an interest in the literature prescribed at school, and also like reading similar books outside school. The majority, on the other hand just about complete their prescribed readings at school. 

To make all children read with interest, we need to answer - what are the books that most of them would find appealing? 

Everything in our children’s lives has gone through dynamic changes over time. Supplementary reading lists remain the same as they were thirty years ago. We cannot expect modern children to naturally relate to texts from a bygone era. The language of the books, the flavour of the characters, the settings and contexts are very different from what they are familiar with. Contemporary languages, particularly English have evolved so much over the years that it is hard to understand the language of a book written hundred years ago. Most of the books are presented with limited or no illustrations making them even less attractive. 

In earlier times, children loved to hear or read stories of fairies and dwarves and princesses. A few decades ago Enid Blyton was the reigning author for children. She created a world of boarding schools, full of adventure and pranks. Children from today’s age of technology find it difficult to relate to the adventures of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. It was for this reason that Harry Potter became a global hit. The series came at a time when writing for children was going through a lull, and reintroduced children to the world of magic and fairies; only this time the context was modern. A world of Playstations and computers. Harry Potter gave children the gift of imagination without taking them back in time.

Comic books also hold a special place in the hearts of children. They are attractive and do not contain too much text, thus engaging even struggling readers. The graphics help children better visualise the story. While this is not to say that all comics are good, they can certainly be used to gradually build children’s interest in books and help them enter the fascinating world of literature. 

So why aren’t these alternative reading materials referred to at school? Why do we leave it to the children to bump into these by accident, that too beyond the purview of scholastic activities? After all, the purpose of introducing children to literature at school is to ensure that they read. Why can we not tell them about Tintin and Potter at school? Why can we not get them to discover Nancy Drew and Wimpy Kid in school? These texts do classify as popular literature. They use decent language and manage to hook the children’s interest. They encourage children to use their minds and give wings to their imagination. 

Why then, can they not be part of school reading? That is a question to ponder upon.