Reading between the lines
An honest conversation with early educators
Remember the age old overused proverb — Every cloud has a silver lining?
Even though we may have all used this multiple times in our essays and English papers, it takes much more to actually be able to identify the proverbial clouds and silver linings when we take a good look at our own challenges. Difficult times can be overwhelming and an invitation to take a pause often gives us the clarity to look at our problems from the outside and understand them deeply. We gain new perspectives and possibly emerge with fresh solutions to a problem that we didn’t know existed till we looked a little deeper and most importantly — imagined a possibility without that problem by asking — WhatIf?
This pandemic has brought forth numerous challenges for every person in our country. Educators were dealt an even tougher deal as they scrambled to adopt new ways to reach their children and ensure they are happy, safe and learning. But what this pandemic also did was open the multiple cracks in the education system and leave them all wide open for the world to see and maybe have the audacity to imagine what change could look like.
The #WhatIf global initiative helped us, as a team, to find the words to express our thoughts, ideas and feelings as we held safe conversations around what it meant to re-imagine early childhood education during this pandemic and in the post-pandemic world. We realised that a key participant was missing from our conversation — The early childhood educator / pre-school teacher. So we set out to engage in some #WhatIf conversations with our teachers from partner schools in Bangalore, Mangalore and Mysore in India.
The experience of engaging in a safe and open space with the teachers whom we work so closely with left me thinking of the words of Paulo Freire. Friere was an educator, writer and philosopher who was an advocate of critical pedagogy as a means to address social issues.
The idea of social reconstructivism may be most relevant to our world now more than ever and I find that the context of re-imagining education fits well within the ideas of Paulo Freire. I have chosen pieces of his words from his book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” to place my interpretation of the thoughts and ideas shared by the teachers as a part of this campaign.
Teachers are human.
“Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle.”
In the first week of the campaign we realised that it isn’t as easy to create an open space where teachers feel free to express thoughts. We also found that for many teachers, participating in ‘thinking’ conversations was a rarity. Almost all professional engagements were designed to ‘give them / teach them’ something- a classroom activity, a new technology, a new process, a new craft.
In this milieu of education and innovation, the system has left an essential keystone out of the conversation and teachers have systematically lost their sense of agency. A large proportion of teachers do not see a clear path between how their ideas and opinions on what children need will influence change and hence do not see much point in engaging critically with this thought and sharing ideas for debate.
After some coaxing, demonstration, including more languages and setting some norms, we found the group to be more willing and open to the idea of ‘just sharing’.
The theme around personal challenges explored in Week 1 of the campaign further reiterates how little control the teachers in India feel they have over their own lives — personal and professional. The teaching population in the early years is entirely female and is hence subject to challenges ranging from gendered roles at home, lower pay scales and finally no professional growth path.
Teachers need agency.
“#WhatIf we could define our own destiny, our own faith and make our own choices?”
The one month experience of pushing ourselves to pause, evaluate our circumstances, question them and reimagine them reminds me of Freire’s idea of problem posing education.
“In problem posing education people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; They come to see the world, not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”
When we asked our teachers what this space had allowed them to experience, here is what we heard:
“It really made me think over the topics and ask the questions about what we feel, whatif helped a lot to see and seek others’ thoughts and made me curious to read what others are asking . I missed it once, but I was quick to return the next day and ask a question in the group . I really was missing out on something until now. Thank you each and everyone for the beautiful work and giving me the opportunity .”
As a part of the education landscape we must decode the words of our teachers, notice the clouds that plague their skies and acknowledge their need for:
- A safe space that values their social and emotional development
- An opportunity to engage with their peers in learning together and improving the circumstances for themselves and their students
- More control over their personal choices.
They need an ecosystem that boosts their self worth, takes their professional development and growth path seriously and makes this evident in action by providing them with resources and an enriching, respectable work environment.
In Freire’s words — “Teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation, both of selves and of history”
Teachers are givers.
Another interesting trend that emerged unmistakably in all the WhatIf statements shared by the teachers was an unending sense of altruism. Our system has somehow managed to teach the teachers that their work is centered around acts of selflessness and love. This, by itself, is a beautiful thing but if you shift your perspective, it also comes with a silent message that teachers cannot exercise their agency to demand for quality working environments that enable them in their own growth and in their larger mission of using education as a lever to shape a better society.
Teachers understand children deeply
“#WhatIf children could choose what to learn?”, “#WhatIf children could choose their parents?”, #WhatIf children could choose to play whenever they wanted?”
Contrary to popular belief, teachers are keen on their own professional development and care about children getting quality experiences. Knowingly or unknowingly, teachers understand the inherent need of the child to have a ‘choice’- this forms the basis of foundational development. Research across various domains [From Montessori to Play based education] in the early years has a single common thread — offering children choices in the early years is the cornerstone to developmentally appropriate practices. Offering children choice is known to give children a sense of control, promote self esteem, enhance cognitive and moral development as children accept responsibility and maximize learning while minimising conflicts.
The question to dwell on remains — Why then is it so difficult for teachers to make this possible?
The systems and regulations for early childhood education in India, ‘recommend’ play but do not make it central to all learning. We speak of activity based learning but the pressures of assessment and unrealistic expectations from higher grades are so great that most schools and teachers succumb to the pressure and treat themselves as helpless actors in this system alongside their children.
Teachers acknowledge the pressure that children feel and wish for a better environment in their WhatIf statements:
“#WhatIf there were no books in preschool?”, “#WhatIf children had no exams?”
The silver lining
#WhatIf we could restore the agency of a teacher?
What would it take for us to make this a reality beyond a handful of alternate education models in India that are already showing us that this is possible? I believe the answer lies again in restoring the agency and power to our educators to believe that their ideas hold value and that they themselves can choose to act in the best interests of their children.
A major takeaway from the #WhatIf campaign for us was the overwhelming response from teachers to want to be part of more such spaces that put them back at the centre of the narrative. About 72% of the teachers in the campaign wanted to participate in more such conversations that allow for free thought and imagining an alternate future. One teacher noted:
“It was very nice. I felt very happy to be part of this campaign, please don’t close this group. it’s encouraging us to be a teacher let this campaign go on and on”
“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world and with each other.”
The ownership of restoring this agency lies on every single one of us who is part of the education space and vowing to transform it. Engaging in conversations and including the voice of the teacher in re-imagining education in the new normal instead of handing them a manual of re-imagined education is central to ensuring sustainable change at the level of each community.
“Washing one’s hands off of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not be neutral.”
This piece has been made possible through the voices of 40+ early educators that were kind enough to participate, share and be present in a one month long campaign with Key Education Foundation. I am forever grateful for sharing space with them.
At Key Education Foundation, we are promising to make a conscious effort to bring teachers and their voices to the front in every solution that we build for schools. We welcome you to join the conversation and help enact change. Write to us at connect@keyeducationfoundation.org if you are interested in helping us further this campaign or have interesting ideas to encourage, motivate and empower early educators.
