Let us assume that India is about to become a knowledge society. That will be fine indeed, but is India also going to become an understanding society?

The question occurred to me while watching Avinash Deshpande’s hour-long documentary, “The Great Indian School Show”. It is an unusual film, in that it uses the routine footage of a real school which has installed 185 close-circuit video cameras (CCVC) to observe every move that children and teachers make. From the central control room, the principal has access to every classroom desk, galleries and the playground. The film juxtaposes this Big Brother-style control system with the banality of what is taught. The ironical truth, Deshpande reveals, is that the vast system of surveillance turns up nothing new because the school was already intellectually dead.

The main rationale given by the principal and staff in favour of the camera system is that it will improve discipline. They say that while 95 per cent of discipline problems were already under control, the CCVC has resolved the remaining 5 per cent. As we watch the faces of children in different classes, we are filled with the horror of intellectual death at an early age. The dull daily lessons, vacuous discourses and children’s complaints deepen our depression even as we laugh at the banality of routine at a hi-tech school. This is not the story of just one school. In our system, a vast gap separates the life children lead at school and what they experience outside. The space where they are supposed to learn about life is so far removed from reality that we might as well ask parents to buy space suits for their little ones, instead of school uniforms. What they read, listen to and copy from the blackboard is so meticulously deodorised and sanctified that it carries no resonance of experienced reality and applicability in life.

The school day becomes a ritual of didactic songs and memorised information. Special occasions are marked by elaborate acts of sycophancy and preaching. School authorities seldom stop talking about values, but ignore the cynicism felt by the young over the high levels of chicanery and verbosity they find in adult talk. The one-way discourse of the teacher and text merely convinces the young that it is pointless to open up in front of adults, and knowledge has no meaning beyond examinations. Marks become the only value, and values which are supposed to arise in the heart die. Few people realise that values are nurtured when we allow a candid intellectual encounter with experience. The responsibility a school has in this respect is enormous – to provide a space where children can freely analyse and examine what they see in the world.

A meaningful curriculum takes shape when teachers assist children in this process, acting as accessible, gentle guides. This idea of a school is far removed from government as well as most private schools. In their search for status, the richer private schools install every conceivable facility; falling in the trap of what sociologist Dipankar Gupta has called mistaken modernity. With swimming pools, air-conditioned meditation rooms and conference halls fit for a five-star hotel, they reassure the hurried parent that their child will become globally competitive. They overlook the simple fact that creativity of the young does not blossom in excessively designed and controlling spaces.

Operating with the colonial mindset that knowledge is an object to be possessed; private schools fail as much as state schools do in promoting creative thought and understanding. The difference lies in the care that private schools take in hiding the daily intellectual genocide and showcasing recalcitrant exceptions. September 5 is observed as Teachers’ Day in memory of philosopher-president S Radhakrishnan. Let us use it to introspect and examine why the profession of teaching has ceased to attract the young. Poor emoluments are one reason, but a weightier reason is the widespread pessimism about the possibility of reform.

Every step taken is politicised and instantly invokes screaming headlines and polarised debates. Texts yet to be prepared and those on their way out are attacked. Good efforts are overlooked. The public is loudly told that there is no good news, only more politics. Raging debates ignore the humble teacher who marches on, enduring the ignorance and callousness of society towards children. The National Curriculum Framework recommends greater autonomy for teachers and plurality of pedagogic material as a long-term strategy to give greater choice and to improve the examination system, which at present is tied to prescribed textbooks.

A school-based system of evaluation could be a reality in a decade from now if reforms are encouraged. There is no reason why multiple alternatives cannot be provided for classroom material and teachers are trained for intellectual leadership in place of exam-oriented teaching.

<B>From India</B>

<B> Krishna Kumar © The Times Of India</B>