“We start our concern with the relation and not the individual”

 

“We start our concern with the relation and not the individual”.  (Randomactsofkindness, 2013)

There is a small school in Bangalore, south of India that is based on human relationships and trust. Bangalore has many other type of schools too, but this one is an oasis. It is built in a forest in such a way that not a tree was disturbed during its construction. You cannot work here for long if you are not good at building the warm bonds of a good human contact. (Krishnamurti Foundation India, n.d.)

Then in Bangalore, in another school, a small girl was molested by her physical education teacher. Then another girl was molested in another school by a bus driver. The entire city was wary. Parents put pressure on the schools and schools had to change, lest they lose their clients aka parents.

Each school and bus had to have a CC TV. All students had to carry a mobile phone. Everything changed. Even at the aforesaid school, where they had to even hang CC TVs on the trees. The students were more upset than teachers. A student asked a teacher, “But we trust you. Why do we have to have CC TVs and phones?” The teacher did not know what to say. The social structure of Bangalore had changed and it affected the school.

Relationships had to be toned down. Teachers were asked not to meet students alone in a room, but in the open or where there were other adults or children. The entire fabric of the school had changed. Relationships is the heart of curriculum for this school set up. And that is what was disturbed. The school is not the same as before.

We need to understand that times and tide are changing. Not just the social fabric, but an important part of them, the learners have also changed. “Kids are bombarded with thinks to buy… Profit is the essence of everything.” (Axisaudio, 2014)

On a macro level, the entire fabric of schooling needs to change. As (Jacobs, 2010, p.2) says, “form should always follow function”. We could have a breakdown of walls between schools and industry. Imagine entrepreneurs coming in and doing projects with the kids, teaching them areas of the passion. We need a degree less environment. The companies can have their own test to have their chosen employees and students can work towards that, based on their passion.

However, “… it seems likely that the disciplines will continue to serve as the organizing rubric for the curriculum, I have suggested that they be stretched from within, that we push back the boundaries between disciplines and ask how each of the expanded subjects can be designed to promote new aims for the 21st century.” (Noddings, 2007, p.7)

Hence we need to look at the micro level and see what we can do for the learners within the classrooms. Learners today need more than anything mentors or guides. They need to feel secure yet free to explore. The times of traditional leadership is gone. They need dialogue as the basis of relationship instead of authority. They have so much exposure with all knowledge at fingertips on their smart phones. Yet, they need a leader.

For teaching strategies, I would say they need more and more of Projects based learning, that ensures that within its heart is a focus on team building and inclusivity of cultures. For example, to bring the Islamic world closer, they can work on Islamic art and geometry as a focus.

They need an integration of technology in education. This is the technology generation and the more they learn about the benefits of integration of technology in life to make it better, it will help them to grow up with a healthy view of technology. As a student of mine said once, “The best thing you have done for me is you have made Google my friend. Now if I need information I do not reach for a person but google”.

Within classrooms we need multiple settings, focus on skill building and use subjects only as a tool to build skills required to live life. We need to integrate skills, values and subjects.

“We are into the age of synthesis, with a real empirical bite to it”. (Noddings, 2007, p.2)

Todays’ learners are restless. They can sense that they are a part of a very archaic system and need to break free. The aim of education continues “to produce students who will

be economically successful as individuals and to maintain the economic supremacy of the nation.”(Noddings, 2007, p.1).  But the learners can see how many non-traditional ways of economic success are possible and look something more than that.

Learners are more and more aware of their strengths and we need a learner centric education where “form should always follow function” (Jacons, 2010, p.2)

But learners are not in charge. Incharge are the curriculum developers. And they are concerned with frameworks, maintaining and building more abstract standards! For the curriculum developers, “…the disciplines remain sacred”. (Noddings, 2007, p.1)

Student narrative has fallen behind.

“The point is not to begin with abstract frameworks ... but to have students tell their stories of daily life, what happens to them. ... A student who is in a class like that wants to be in school. Because he or she is taken seriously”. (Van Der Valk, 2014, p.2)

 References

1.     Axisaudio. (2014, March 27). Neoliberalism, Youth and Social Justice [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW5FRuMkQ6g (10:03)

2.     Jacobs, H.H. (2010). New School Versions: Reinventing and Reuniting School Program Structures. Curriculum 21: Essential Education For A Changing World.  Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109008/chapters/New-School-Versions@-Reinventing-and-Reuniting-School-Program-Structures.aspx

3.     Krishnamurti Foundation India. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://thevalleyschool.info/.

4.     Noddings, N.  (2007).  Curriculum for the 21st Century.  Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook No.2, pp.75-81. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ842882.pdf

5.     Randomactsofkindness. (2013, September 11). Dr. Nel Noddings, Kindness in the Classroom Lecture Intro [Video File]. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVDDot3W7k&feature=youtu.be (2:22)

6.     Van der Valk, A. (2014). Peggy McIntosh: Beyond the Knapsack. Teaching Tolerance. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2014/peggy-mcintosh-beyond-the-knapsack