GovernED Chennai

Abhijit Biswas
Nov 6 · 9 min read

2.11.219 -3.11.2019

Exploring Democracy, Education, and Citizenship

Barefoot Academy of Governance —facilitated the two days experiential workshop on Education, Democracy and Citizenship which took place in Chennai on 2nd and 3rd November 2019 — Supported by Teach For India (TFI), Chennai.

Welcome Meet

The objective of the session was to understand the convergence within Education, Democracy and Citizenship. And Also to experience “Dialogical Pedagogy” as a tool to expand our critical understanding of multiple converging and diverging themes within a collective.

Around 30+ participants attend the workshop. A majority of the group was TFI Fellows, TFI Alumni Chennai, TFI Alumni Hyderabad, Professionals and Members from Voice of People. The diversity of the participants enabled multiple layers of perspective to the dialogue and made the process thought-provoking and interesting.

Introduction to Koodam

After the initial warm-up and the color-chit-name exercise, Dr. Suresh, Director Barefoot Academy of Governance started the session by saying “World is a complex place and as a fellow co-participants let us all be in a journey — towards building our critical understanding of this place” — He introduced us to the concept of KOODAM —

He said, “Koodam is a place which recognizes difference, diversity and respects conflicts”.

These types of spaces can be found in almost all the communities across our country & Asia. He informed us that we are all the co-owner of the space & we create the space with our own value.

Exploring different dimensions through small group discussions

During the process of exploration, I observed that It was difficult to express our feelings — possibly, over the years, we were all schooled to reject our feelings and slowly, we have mastered the art to suppress it and park it deep within.

But then the question was — is it even important to locate our feelings and express it? We live in a competitive & highly cognitive world, then why to understand feelings? How will that help me or someone else?

One of our co-participants voiced out and he said, “I feel liberated when I express my feelings, as it is — it is not for anyone else it is for me”.

Prof. Pradip Prabhu conducted an experiential exercise — The Card Exercise! During the exercise, the majority of us showed some patent behavior — where we showed how we are conditioned to behave in the context of a group task. To our surprise, many of us kept the self-interest at a higher priority than group interest. We understood that we are schooled to think winning means — “I win”.

This exercise gave me an understanding of how I see the world and how I behave in this world and why I behave the way I behave. The current schooling system across different spaces our family, our school and our workspace actually propagate — “Having is the mode of being, and our action and culture get transforms to accumulate more and more”.

Later, an alternative meaning was shared

“We win by receiving and giving we win by seeing others receiving and giving we win by making others win”.- by Pradip Prabhu

Attributes of Democracy, Education, and Citizenship

Late in the evening, we all started exploring different dimensions of Democracy, Education, and Citizenship. All of us expressed the current understanding of these three words and also expressed what we aspire for. The next day, we got a collective understanding of these words and how these words intersect with each other. We went through multiple layers of dialogue, the back and forth arguments, the agreement — the disagreement, the never-ending ideas, and words that poured out of us, showcased—the true essence of a democratic forum.

It was an amazing sight and an amazing space to be!

Later on the day, we did a role play where all the participants were sub-grouped into various social categories and were asked the following questions.

A. What does Education prepare your children for?
B. Looking at other groups what is the difference.

1. Allocation of resources
2. Resources allocation for each school vis-vi-other
3. Quality of teachers difference in the quality of teaching
4. What stand do you take in for reservation?

C. What would you want in your school system vis-vi other groups

This exercise summed up all our learnings — and established an understanding of Why do we need to express our feelings? Why it is important to take a stand as we speak? What is the meaning of diversity and how to engage in a diverse platform? How important is it to understand the social context and construct to express the need? What is equity in the context of education? What is democracy in the context of education ? Does everyone have a say in decision making? What kind of citizen are we building?

The critical engagement within such diverse social groups gave me the hope that there is a possibility that Koodam as Platform and Dialogic Pedagogy as a tool can enable diverse social groups to engage and solve each other problems in a democratic manner as a collective.

This powerful exercise left me with a lot of questions than before and gave me hope to begin a new journey of knowing and unknowing.

I thank each and every co-owner of the space for such a rich experience & exposure — I walked out of the space feeling delighted, hopeful, energized.

Cheers.

Abhijit

Reflections:

Dushyant, Entrepreneur

“You’ll know when you have a child” My father used to say. Never thought that he was referring to anything beyond exasperation of managing a particularly naughty kid- while, all the while, he was trying to instill in me what a sense of Duty tastes like. I grew up fairly privileged, hardly wanting for anything and never had to pledge allegiance to anything severe or shoulder unavoidable responsibilities. Whatever roles I discharged were done with a quaint amusement at having to exert and exhibit my skills and not because there was something intrinsically sacred about it or deeply personal to me.

I linger with words as above, dithering to express exactly the exaltation that I experienced this weekend to which the phrase “sense of duty” does but justice. As I reflect — and freely use the word “I “ freed of modesty — of the happenings of this weekend, I cannot help smiling at this newly learned emotion: a sense of duty — and it feels good. Simultaneously eliciting joy, sadness at the state of affairs, an ember of anger at the status quo, vexation with quiescence, yet, a glimmer of hope… relieving one from chains of righteousness and shatters an ego built on “giving”… it’s a mixed bag hard to describe yet tangibly experienced.

Hardly can one come to such an epoch in life with just reading. The elements of the workshop -the camaraderie of the fraternity engaged in a similar pursuit, incisive discussion on topics varied and vast, a collective synchronization of hope — all orchestrated masterfully by the duo, A guru-shishya (teacher-student) themselves, have dented a lasting effect on the psyche. I came out fully energized and in a daze-like mission-mode to take the further steps. Have undergone a lasting -I hope- switch in my priorities and the way I view certain things. I feel under immense debt to the two personas whose mere audience and proximity accorded new courage and motivation. Thank you would be simplifying the gratitude.

Abhijit Biswas

Written by

Follow your heart, heart doesn't lie.

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