THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE: FROM A THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW

It might be wrong to make theoretical assumptions without a proper research, but we can definitely argue about the level of seriousness of the teachers regarding the in-service teachers’ training.  And I think we can safely argue that at least half of the teachers are not serious about the training; and I think, we all can make certain valid assumptions on why the teachers are not serious.  A few arguments could be made that (a) the teachers had attended such training for so many times without any visible or observable benefits, (b) the frequency of the training made them took it for granted, (c) based on their previous experience, they have no or very less expectation from the current training, etc. 

There are two concepts from psychology that can help explain the above behaviours/perception of the teachers, and understanding those concepts will also help us in understanding what we can do. The two concepts are (i) self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 2004) and (ii) learned helplessness (Peterson & Seligman, 1993; Fogle,1978).

Psychologist Albert Bandura has defined self-efficacy as one's belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations. One's sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. So, how do our teachers see themselves, their performance and effectiveness, and the challenges they faced every day in the form of their students whose learning need to be facilitated in such a way that we can fulfil the aims of our education?  The aims of education is not only about moving from one grade to another, and then find a job.  Education has a much broader objectives such as those value laden qualitative concept like justice, liberty, equality, democracy, good citizenship, etc. which are practically impossible to be achieved.  Unless one understand that we are not going to achieve those goals overnight, and we can only work towards the achievement of such aims, one is bound to doubt our capabilities in the process.  Besides, the teachers’ effectiveness is measured through observable results inside the class-room, and if the students are not learning or progressing as expected, the teachers are going to doubt their own ability to help the students learn.   

The other concept, Martin Seligman's concept of Learned Helplessness says that people who had tried and failed many times before have an attitude of hopelessness and passivity towards everything, including their jobs, based on their past experience. Such people will fail to respond even when there are opportunities available to them to improve.  Such people have seen and experienced many things, and their attitude is based on their personal experience.  Many teachers started out their teaching careers with high hopes and many interesting teaching methods and/or passion.  They started with much enthusiasm and inspiration, trying to improve our education system.  But in the first few years of their careers, they have seen and experienced an inflexible and unresponsive system, an unappreciative colleague and seniors, etc. and as such, they gradually lost their enthusiasm and inspiration, and become a part of the system that they wanted to change so much.  They tired and made many attempts and efforts to change or help the system, but their efforts were not appreciated or not even acknowledge, and thus ultimately they are forced to give up. Their passivity is learned and thus real, and you have to ‘move a mountain’ to earn their trust and be able to inspire them again.

In both the situation mentioned above, the solutions psychologists gave are very simple, though it is difficult to achieve.  People who have self-efficacy issue must be made to realize that self-belief and self-confidence come from our understanding of our own capabilities and capacities.  Teachers need to be encouraged and motivated from time to time, not just financially, but also verbally; and ISTT is one good opportunity for us to encourage and motivate the teachers, and take full advantage of the opportunity. 

Regarding those teachers with an issue of ‘learned helplessness’ must be assured that they have our full support in their desire to provide quality education, and bring change.  The only thing we can do for them to put their belief back in what they have already given up is to build trust and let them see our seriousness and commitment towards our goals.

And one precautionary note is that, we should try to avoid directly criticizing and belittling the work being done by the teachers during the training, doing so will serve none of us any good.

Lamka: In Search of a Hero

(Please read through the article before you pass your judgement!)

When a slut and a street punk (pardon the language) were made a hero and a rallying point for different and warring tribes to come together, it said something, something big, isn’t it? It said something about the need of an inspiring leadership behind whom we can rally; it said something about our feeling of solidarity/brotherhood among the tribes despite our petty differences; but more than anything, it said something about the system (government), isn’t it?

Consider the following situation: 

Case 1: An ‘Eimi’ girl had an outdoor sex with a ‘meitei’ and you saw them.  What will you think of the girl? The patriot in you might call her a ‘slut’ or wonder if she’s a prostitute, and the civilized you will obviously say ‘it’s none of your business’!  So, what are the chances of the girl becoming a hero?

Case 2: A young man with a punk hair-cut went to the police-station for a case which he had no connection with, and dare to challenge the police, vandalized public properties and disturb the peace there.  What will you call him, a real punk? So, what are the chances of the boy becoming a hero?

Now consider a situation again:

Case 1: A ‘Sister’ (who would otherwise have been dismissed as a slut for hanging out with some ‘outsider’ if she had not been captured and the video circulated and earn everyone’s sympathies) took up the courage despite her humiliation and shame to challenge her torturer through a system which we know was not functional.  

Case 2: A ‘brother’ (who would otherwise have been scoffed at inside our churches for dressing like a street punk) took the opportunity to express his feelings in an impromptu protest for a ‘sister’ he never met, and got killed in the process.  

And put this two together, and we got Heroes!  

[No, this is not how heroes are usually made!  I don’t want our kids to have the wrong idea and run towards khuga dam to become heroes. To me, heroes are all those women sitting in New Bazaar selling vegetables to run their families; heroes are all those fathers who pulled their rick-shaw all day long to feed their family. And for Manipur, let’s just define heroes as those government employees who do the work they are paid to do!  That’s a good enough definition of a hero for Manipur.]

Now, let’s get back to our subject. 

Regarding our sister, she might be a slut or even a prostitute, who cares?  But the fact that she dared to use the system to challenge the system itself is of hero stuff.  It sounds crazy to use a government system that we all know very well doesn't work at all to get justice which she thinks she deserved.  The simple fact that she dared to challenge and stand up for a justice, no matter how crazy that sounds, is enough reason to be a hero in my eye!

Regarding our brother, I wonder what made him stand in the way of the straying bullet? Was he there by accident or just a curious observer of the situation unfolding at the police station? Was he a miscreant out looking for a cheap thrill or a passionate sympathizer of our sister? His intention, that, I don’t know. But one thing I know is that he dared to raise his voice and use his voice by being there to express himself, and that is enough to make him a hero.  (His death is unfortunate, but you don’t need to get yourself killed to be a hero, just saying!)

One thing that connects these two heroes is a system that doesn’t work. The girl used the system to get justice despite the fact that she know the system doesn’t work, and the boy know that the system doesn’t work so he was there to ensure that the system worked so that the girl will get the justice she deserved. 

If the system has worked, and people trusted the system, the IRB people would have been more civilized and not torture a sister, or if he had got his salary regularly, he might not need to make a side-income. If the system had worked and the girl have faith in the system, she would have immediately protested and demanded justice, and she might not need a social worker to demand justice. If the system had worked, everyone will trust the system and the boy will not need to ensure that it worked.

Also, if we had effective leadership, the common man might not have to ensure the working of the system.  If our tribes have not fought each other over petty issues, the system might show us some respect and function. But that’s not the case now.

We definitely don’t want a street punk who vandalized public property, or a slut who have sex in public to be our heroes.  But we need those two.  We need those two to invoke/provoke the sleeping masses who gave up on the system to come out of their comfort zone and demand the system to function. We need those two so that we can cry wolf, that the system is not functioning, and that justice is not rendered, and that someone might actually hear our cries.   We do need those two heroes….but a heroes with less public sexual history and less rebellious deeds would have been nice!

Random Musing: About Behaviourism and Constructivism

Behaviourist' view of learning (Pavlov, Watson, etc) believed that behaviour can be conditioned, reinforced, etc. which put the teacher in a demi-god position. Also, social learning theorist like Bandura believed that children modelled their behaviour from their social environment.  This put the teacher and any other people in the environment of the child to be a role-model for the child which put the role of the teacher more critical.

But, we now know better through Vygotsky, Chomsky, Piaget, that learning is not one-sided and the child is the centre of learning and that the teacher is not a demi-god or a role-model.

One thing we now know for certain is that the child constructs to learn and not just acquire, model or get reinforced as believed earlier.  However, it gets very complex when we look at the various factors involved in the process of construction of knowledge.

Construction of knowledge, as we know is a process, and that process begins with perception.  The child, in the process of constructing his/her learning, utilizes

his/her innate abilities as can be seen in language acquisition

• Reinforcement of cultural norms and values
• Conditioning of certain practice through social institutions
• Modelling of his or her behaviour through certain role model
• Construction through previous knowledge

Behaviourism, per se, is not a bad theory, nor is it irrelevant.  It is just that it is too limited to explain the learning behaviours.

Personally, my stand-point is that constructivism and behaviourism go hand in hand, especially in the context of India.  For example, cultural norms and values got shoved down our throat –if we want it or not, in various forms and at the end, we have to conform.  This is, in brief, reinforcement and condition at work!  On the other hand, the simple fact that children came to the same, unchanged class-room without getting bored and still find excitement and continue to discover new things to learn is proof that individual constructivism is very much at work!

   

Why Progressive School Works....

Our present education system, with all its drawbacks and imperfections, has survived the world wars, drought, famine, disaster, etc. and it will survive in the future as well.  It is resilient, it is easy to start a new one, and it is easy to organize and manage. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s the best.

Whatever progressive education system that are propounded, be it Gandhi’s Nai Talim, Totto Chan’s Tomoe Gakeun, or AS Neill’s Summer Hill schools, they all are context based, and exist within its context only.

For instance, the Summer Hill School has been around for almost a century now, but if it had been a good, practical, economical and sustainable education system, the schools all over the world must have followed its model by now. Instead the Summer Hill School is confined to its original state in rural England surviving because of its prominent supporter.

And Totto Chan’s Tomoe Gakeun was, pardon my language, only for the misfits who failed to fit into the ‘so-called conventional’ educational system.  Of course, I’m saying too much by saying that, but can you imagine having about 1000 Tomoe Gakuen in present day’s Tokyo which is over populated with shortage of space?

And Gandhi’s labour based Nai Talim is for the rural village only, and it failed to survive a simple test of young India’s industrial economy of those days which was a much lesser version of our present day capitalism.  The major problem with Gandhi’s New Education system is not it’s requirement of labour as a base of learning, but because it called for a new and revolutionized society which as we know, is unimaginable.

I'm not insinuating that our present education system is good and the progressive schools are bad or impractical. It is just that the kind of progressive schools we have seen so far are context based, confined to specific area, and were either usually led, not by the system, but by few good people who were fully dedicated to what they do. 

Every now and then, we saw some very excellent Government School, and if you have taken a deeper look at why the school work, most probably you're going to find some dedicated and passionate people responsible for it.  We need that kind of passion among the stake-holders of our education system.

The Progressive schools are progressive because of its founders or proponents' dedication and passion. Like everything else, we need passion, we need dedication, and we need commitment to put meaning to education, and to make something of our education, and to make our education works!