Culture in schools
““culture" refers to a group or community with
which we share common experiences that shape the way we understand the world”.
We are a part of collective, born and
brought up, and there is a collective consciousness that we carry. This is what
distinguishes us from other collective consciousness. Hence we can say that
culture is a collective programming of our minds. This is what distinguishes
one group from the other.
It comes up for battles very often in
India, as we have as much diversity in a single country as there is in the
world. There are places in India where I am asked if I am a foreigner! In the
school I worked in, in southern part of India, it came up often for I am from
the north of India. It came up in food, in accent, in dressing sense and most
of all, in the way of relating to each other. This is The Valley school,
Bangalore.
Even though I am from north, the
culture I comes from, respect is the core value for us to practice. In the school
I was, relationship was the core value in the culture to be practiced. Hence
there was some resonance between us for relationship without respect is not
possible.
“If it were possible to define
generally the mission of education, one could say that its fundamental purpose
is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allows them
to participate fully in public, community and economic life”, (Huddart,
2014). For The Valley school, learning to relate was the mission of
education. Relationship was the base from which all work was
done. For teachers, students, leaders and support staff. For the school
creators believed that relationship is life or learning to relate is learning
to live.
Its implication was felt
in all dimensions.
·
In order to relate to the colleagues, a
diverse group from different states and some from other countries, we needed to
learn to listen to each other.
·
Our staff meetings were held in a round
space to convey equality to all.
·
The school is in a forest, ensuring a
sensitive relationship to the nature. The forest guards were respected and
their rules followed.
·
The students were respected as people with
their own identity. Each student teacher conflict was encouraged to be resolved
through relationship building.
·
The support staff was treated
respectfully. We washed our own dishes after meals and the support staff had
full right to send us back to rewash them if they were not satisfied.
·
Students were not pushed for best grades
but to identify the best capacities and helped to chalk out a career for
themselves. For example, some students who were very poor in maths were
encouraged to drop it and move to environmental sciences. Some of them found
their vocation in it and are doing deep work in it today.
·
We used English as the basic language to
be used as India is has not found one language that the whole country agrees
upon as yet. I learnt some basic sentences of the south to communicate with
support staff members that did not speak in English, but refrained from using
north Indian languages in public spaces.
·
We had a special educator whose chief role
was to educate us for the needs to the SEN students.
·
The morning assembly had the whole school
sit together and sing songs of various languages from India, including Sanskrit
chants and gospel music.
In conclusion I would say
that the school was not perfect. There were times we felt that it took the
scope of relationships too far, however having that as a base culture helped us
relate to each other better and work and live together as a community.
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