Asking ‘What If’ …It isn’t hard to do.
This piece is posted on behalf of the author — Sumi Chandrasekharan
“Imagine there’s no heaven, It’s easy if you try…”
“..Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do…”
- John Lennon, Imagine. 1971.
John Lennon was urging us in the lyrics of his best-selling single, to open our minds to possibilities. I was invited by Key Education Foundation [KEF], an NGO silently revitalising the early education space in India, to join them on an internal exercise. Its effect on me reminded me of Lennon’s lyrics.
Universally, we have caught ourselves reflecting on deep questions that the pandemic has triggered. This global contemplation that is sparking a call for a new normal was an appropriate opportunity to capture the voice of educators too. So, as an early childhood educator and friend of KEF, I participated along with the many teachers whom they support and train in a global, hypothetical-questioning exercise aptly called the #WhatIf Campaign. Through August, KEF team of teachers, program heads, parents formulated and posted on a dedicated ‘Whatif’ WhatsApp group, a set of statements with the sentence starter ‘What if…’, which revolved around themes such as the child, parents, teachers, the planet.
The one-month virtual group mimicked a well-conducted class circle or circle time, based on the principles of equality (everyone had the same opportunity to speak and in multiple languages), respect (we could choose to speak or pass), safety (responses were never judged), and inclusion. The joint exercise also gave us an insight into each others’ wonderings enabling the recognition of our shared yet, different thoughts.
The campaign exercise was a momentary respite from the business of education mirroring the planetary disruption. We paused, stepped out of and, looked at what had become the education space swirling with very relevant but given words like curriculum, teacher training, accreditation, assessment, inquiry, pedagogy, on-line, technology. It felt honest. It felt right. Why? Because sometimes we lose sight of what is central to everything that we do, so taking a critical look at practice is worthwhile. It is what all reflective practitioners ought to be regularly doing.
The pillars of education are our teachers and those who deliver the job and have a real feel for the problems that need solving took the floor to express their wonderings.
“What if there were no exams?”; “What if parents were allowed inside early childhood classrooms?”; “What if I could shape my future in the way I wanted it to be?” are just some of the wonderings my colleagues offered. As one can see, there are possibilities, wishes, and ideas embedded in these questions. It doesn’t matter what the answers are but what these statements do are they make us question how we’ve thought about things so far or even what we have never considered. For instance, what if parents were indeed allowed to participate in early childhood classrooms when they are famously called children’s first teachers? Shouldn’t they then receive some teacher or parenting training? They are partners with teachers in their children’s education, aren’t they?
Asking questioning lies at the heart of all learning. If we don’t, then we don’t know what we are setting out to find out and don’t learn.
We expect teachers to nurture in their students a sense of wonder, imagination, a spirit of inquiry and, curiosity. Indeed to have inquiry-based classrooms is one of the principles enshrined in the NEP (New Education Policy). Children’s questions drive inquiry. To make this happen mustn’t teachers experience what it is like to ideate, imagine, and ask hypothetical questions?
We want classrooms to be inclusive spaces. Mustn’t teachers be included in making decisions on spaces they operate within?
We expect teachers to nurture a sense of agency in the child. Agency is the ability to act independently and exercise free choice. If we don’t allow teachers to express their ideas, trust them to try out their hypotheses then what will they know about empowering children? Instead, do we stifle their autonomy and creativity by spoon feeding them with perfectly written lesson plans? Perhaps some teachers in the low cost affordable private school space need support as they haven’t received a certain quality of education. But at which point and more importantly who will disrupt the vicious cycle. A lack of freedom and choice to design their learning environments and learning interaction would be considered nothing short of patronising in countries like Finland, Norway, Sweden, UK, US, Singapore — countries that we aspire to be like for their quality education systems.
It makes me wonder why we needed a pandemic to conduct the exercise and forces some more #Whatifs:
· What if teacher training is so robust that the next generation of teachers can think for themselves?
· What if a strong culture of collaboration and collegiality is kept alive?
· What if all stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, support staff, education leaders) come together every five years to review current practice to keep it relevant?
Some final Whatifs, that many of us have wondered about and even more so during this unprecedented pandemic:
· What if learning spaces, curriculum, and teaching embed sustainable design principles? What if indeed all aspects of education and living were socially, emotionally, environmentally regenerative?
· What if we bolster and professionalize the sector through well-structured career pathways, incentives, PDs, leadership training, retreats, Teacher-conducted Action Research, teacher exchange programs between countries?
· What if practitioner-leaders in the education field regularly participated in multidisciplinary collaborative efforts with other Industry heads?
· What if education policymakers were educators themselves?
· What if we all strike while the iron is hot to get it right this time?
Imagine if all the above became true? As Lennon would say “It’s easy if you try”.
A big shout out to KEF for the opportunity and hope that the Whatif campaign inspires some bold action towards creating a cadre of strong professionals and a more progressive, sustainable, contextually rooted, quality, accessible early childhood education for India.
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope one day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.
- John Lennon, Imagine. 1971.
About the Author:
Sumi Chandrasekharan is an educator and author. She loves travel, books, music, dance, yoga, art and is currently killing herself trying to pick up a new sport.
