Learning to Work, Working to Learn
- How is work/labor important for our
learning (self-learning, co-learning, unlearning), growing and ‘real
development’ as human beings?
- What is the connection between
undermining/degrading labor and the larger global political economy?
- How are current ecological, social,
political and economic crises related to the devaluing of labor?
- What do we lose when we lose the ability to
work with our hands, backs and feet?
- What does ‘childhood’ and
‘child rights’ mean in our communities?
http://hdrc.undp.org.in/childrenandpoverty/CHILDPOV/NONNEG.HTM
:
2. ANY CHILD OUT OF SCHOOL IS CHILD LABOUR
- The definition of child labour encompasses every non-school going child irrespective
of whether engaged in wage work or non-wage work, self employed, working for their family,
or working for others, employed in hazardous or non-hazardous occupations, employed on
daily wage or on contract basis as bonded labour.
3. ALL WORK /
LABOUR IS HAZARDOUS AND HARMS THE OVERALL GROWTH OF THE CHILD
4. THERE MUST BE TOTAL ABOLITION OF CHILD
LABOUR - Any law regulating child work is unacceptable
5. ANY JUSTIFICATION PERPETUATING THE
EXISTENCE OF CHILD LABOUR MUST BE CONDEMNED – The following arguments are all
anti-child and go against their real development: (a) ‘Harsh
reality’ of the family (b) Poverty (c) Child earnings and income is necessary for the
family (d) Unwillingness of parents (e) Teachers and schools are bad (f) Education is
useless and does not provide employment (g) Children lose skills and become irrelevant to
their surroundings once educated.
Some Responses In the Dialogue
"Child Labour - A Symptom or Problem?" - Arif Tabassum
"Recovering a Natural Learning Process" - Jinan KB
"Working for Meaningful Participation" - Camy Matthay
"Freeing Labor from Commodification" - Sanat Mohanty
"Shram and Shiksha" - Bharat Mansata
"The Greatest Threat to Education" - Suddhir Pattnaik
"Child Labor vs. Permanent Slavery" - Shilpa Jain
"Work Is Not Always Slavery: Virtues of Self-Education" - Anil Pradhan
"Giving Work Its Due" - Gurveen Kaur
"The Balance of Life" - Coumba Toure
"Need for De-Professionalizing" - Vivek Bhandari
Child
Labour – A Symptom or Problem?
Child
labour has been a burning issue for the last several years. A lot of organizations,
institutions and donor agencies in the world are ‘devotedly’ working to combat
child labour and protect children from the menace of labour work. A lot of organizations
and agencies (especially from North) are committed to solving this “grave
problem” and giving the right of education and schooling to this marginalized and
deprived group. But the hidden effects of
their narrow solution need to be exposed.
First,
child labour slogans are used to destroy local and indigenous industries of developing
countries, in order to make spaces available for consumption of so-called developed
world’s products and avoid competition. Sialkot in Pakistan is an example of it,
where all prominent child labour organizations played their active role to eradicate the
local economy. Sialkot was world famous in the sports industry; there was a high demand
for footballs stitched in Sialkot. The same was true for the surgical and leather products
of Sialkot. Footballs, surgical instruments and leather products were made in every home
of the surrounding villages with a very fine quality and standard. But the “champions
of child rights” launched a campaign against the productions of Sialkot by
highlighting the issue of child labour and their right to education — in other words
the right of schooling. Therefore not a
single football from Sialkot used in the Football World Cups of 1998 and 2002. Major
products for these World Cups were provided by Germany. Some similar things have been done
in the football making industry of India and sport clothes and shoes of China, Indonesia
and Vietnam. So in the name of ‘eradicating child labour’, the entire local
economy of indigenous goods and services was bulldozed, thus conveniently making more
space for MNCs and promoting global consumer culture.
Child
labour campaigners emphasize its elimination on a one-point agenda: that these poor
children are being deprived from education. In effect, they are saying that children must
be schooled to be ‘civilized’ and ‘developed’; otherwise, they cannot
play any ‘productive’ role in the society.
Don’t people who do not attend school play important roles in society? And, perhaps more significantly, shouldn’t we
question what kind of ‘society’ or ‘development’ these child labour
campaigners are envisioning? Here we can
also smell the agenda of Education For All that aims to put every child in the world
in school. From this perspective, it is no surprise that there is a law under
consideration in India to fine the parents if they do not send their children to school. We can expect Pakistani families to be subjected
to similar pressures in the near future.
Actually
all these tinkering approaches to combat child labour are based on the false reasons and
symptomatic aspects. This view of
pseudo-experts on child labour is actually negating all the learning needs, creative
potentials and the importance of work in children’s lives. Because it is already propagated through every
possible channel that only school provides the knowledge and skills, there is no space for
those who have no degrees. A piece of paper is considered more important than the
practical knowledge, skills and experiences. Even though in reality those who have
high-class degrees are more corrupt and dangerous for society. Once a child is schooled,
then he also becomes disrespectful of his ancestral skills and culture. This is the basic
cause of obsolescence of indigenous wisdom, skills, expertise and occupations.
I
myself am an example of it. I belong to an agricultural family, but I don’t know a
single practice of farming. I studied chemistry, physics, geography and maths for several
years, but I am still unable to relate these subjects with my practical life. School
affected me on two levels: it distracted me from obtaining practical knowledge of farming;
and it also gave me information, which is now useless for me. It basically detached me
from my land, the land which provides learning-full experiences to live a meaningful life.
Yet, sadly, if a child today will choose to work on his/her farm, it will be branded a
violation of his rights and will be considered as child labour. This is the new definition
of child right; a definition emerged from the West as usual.
All
this game basically diverts our concentration from the causes of a big problem. Child labour is only a symptom and effect of that
big problem, which is rooted in colonization, a brutal neo-liberal economy and unjust
globalization. This problem can never be eradicated by getting children out of work and
putting them into another “forced work” of schooling. Our efforts instead need
to challenge those global systems that destroy honest work in local communities. To launch
such challenges, we need to engage people with the history of colonization and present
globalization. The problems of social injustice, inequality and exploitation affect all
walks of life in the whole world. We should focus on critical awareness of this global
problem, so that each of us can assert our own self-defined rights and reject the present
unjust world system.
We
have to redefine the questions of child labour, human rights, democracy, freedom, civil
society, education access, social capital, environment, population welfare, sustainable
development and social mobilization. All these words are repeated at every forum to
justify (and keep us trapped in) the false goal of development. All these words are
misleading, and used for the depoliticization of our communities. We have to revitalize
our own definitions of collective learning, mutual cooperation, participatory growth and
indigenous living. This revitalization process requires much unlearning, which is more
difficult and uneasy but not impossible. We
can do it with our sincere efforts; it is possible.
New Indian law
will fine parents not sending children to school
(Oct 31, Updated at 1600 PST)
NEW DELHI: The Indian government plans to fine parents who do not send their children to
school in a bid to boost the literacy rate, an official said Friday.
Draft legislation seeks to put into effect a law passed by the India’s federal
government last year, which makes primary education a fundamental right for every child,
the official said.
Parents who flout the law will be fined up to 500 rupees (10 dollars) and continuing
violations will attract a fine of 50 rupees a day. The bill backs supports other
legislation which prohibits child labour and makes school attendance compulsory.
According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, of India's 190 million children
aged between six and 14, some 23 million are not receiving education.
From Jinan KB <jinankb@eth.net>
Intuition
is another major ability that gets killed completely in schooling. Intuition is directly
connected with 'doing' or experiential knowledge. Intuition
is possible only in experiential processes, where the whole being is involved. And only in
a Natural learning process does experience itself becomes the context for learning. In
essence, authentic living is learning.
Modern
education, on the other hand, has shifted the center of knowledge from Nature to the
human, from the collective to the ego, from the heart to intellect, from intuition to
reason, from experience to information, from holism to compartmentalization. The effects
of modern education on the individual include: alienation, intellectualization,
conceptualization, fragmentation, etc. The
larger and more dangerous effects of modern education on the planet are the destruction of
ecosystems, the total disappearance of non-renewable wealth, the extinction of many
animals and plants, and much more. In
contrast, indigenous and traditional communities have created knowledge that sustains life
on the planet, not only for human beings, but for all forms of life.
What
schools do is to turn everyone into second-hand people, since there is neither originality
nor authenticity in that system. Creating or
making knowledge does not happen in the school system; it happens outside, in real life. Indeed, by sending everyone to school, the ability
to create knowledge is permanently damaged. One
might say that the agenda of globalisation, compulsory Education for All, and child labor
campaigners is to destroy peoples’ knowledge.
The
worst pollution is the pollution of words and concepts and books. Knowledge evolved out of experience is meaningful
and is within the context of living. But
concepts created from abstraction are endless and most often meaningless. While deeper and more authentic experience can
evolve deeper knowledge, human-centered knowledge can never become holistic, because it
separates itself from nature’s knowledge. The
way to access nature’s knowledge is to de-intellectualize and then listen deeply and
honestly to experience. It is not a matter of
accumulating more information. What is
required is a qualitative change.
What
we must understand is that the categories of ‘work’, ‘play’,
‘education’, etc. are a division of the westernized mindset and hence irrelevant
in the indigenous learning process. Those who
separate work from play, and both from education, do not understand the experiential
process of learning. Learning is a
natural act, which happens in the natural and immediate environment of human activities,
animals, birds, other living beings, plants, trees and other aspects of nature.
Learning takes place by interacting with this environment, which must include, of course,
physical manual work.
The
other day, I saw three children making a pond. They had bunked school to do this activity.
They were digging, catching fish and looking out for plants that grow in water. I have
witnessed and been part of several such activities where true learning takes place.
From
my experiences, I believe that knowledge in a Natural learning process is like a sprouting
seed. It is seen in the way people build their settlements; their dwellings, their
artifacts, all seem sprouted from the earth. They
are inspiringly concordant, just like the bird, the branch, and her nest, made with twigs. Or see the various games children play in
villages. Their games sensitize all the senses, balance the body, and enable them to know
the life and environment around them. This
natural learning is visible even in their sense of beauty.
In
fact, by delving a little further into the biological aspect of knowledge, I soon realized
that all the games children play in the villages is a kind of a response to their
individual biological needs. Children in natural learning cultures are similar to any
newborn living being, and nature has its own precious pace to make them grow. In traditional societies, every situation is a
learning situation; a rhythm followed from birth to death.
Rather
than banning children from entering these natural rhythms of living, which include
physical work, playing, making crafts, communing with nature, etc., we should be searching
for ways to recover such balance in their lives, and our lives as adults. Those interested in child welfare should take up
this important work, which begins with understanding natural learning themselves.
From
Jyotibhai Desai (Vedchhi, Gujarat)
The Quest
That
the director was reflecting on her work of over 15 years is a welcome sign. Indeed, it is a question to be asked by all who
are keen to help people gain a respectful life.
The
question is not gainful employment only. Any
activity, be it labor, education, or even entertainment, carried out of compulsion or
helplessness results in stagnation. To
consider, intelligent engagement with work as an excuse to perpetuate exploitation is
devaluing the understanding of human attempts to create knowledge. “The translation of the need for learning
into the demand for schooling, and the conversion of the quality of growing up into the
price tag of a professional treatment, changes the meaning of KNOWLEDGE – from a term
that designates intimacy, intercourse and life experience into one that designates
professionally packaged products, marketable entitlements, and abstract values. Schools have helped to foster this
translation.” (Ivan Illich, After Deschooling, What?, 1973)
Life
experience is attained by one who lives responsibly.
Reflecting on and evaluating individuals’ responsible decisions/efforts
has helped humankind to enrich itself with better understanding of its place on the
planet. True development consists of
development of the spirit. The individual
needs to be self-reliant and self-confident. These
qualities an d characteristics are achieved by engaging in real work, which is the essence
of living responsibly. It is indeed an insult
to the growing individual to consider them as those who should be made to become cogs of
the mega machine.
‘The
belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all
experiences are genuinely or equally educative. Experience
and education cannot be directly equated to each other.
For some experiences are mis-educative.
Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or
distorting the growth of further experience. An
experience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce lack of sensitivity and
of responsiveness. Then the possibility of
having richer experiences in the future is restricted.
Again, a given experience may increase a person’s automatic skill in a
particular direction and yet tend to land him in a groove or rut; the effect again is to
narrow the field of further experience. An
experience may be immediately enjoyable and yet promote the formation of slack and
careless attitude; this attitude then operates to modify the quality of the subsequent
experience so as to prevent a person from getting out of them what they have to give. Again, experiences may be so disconnected from one
another that while each is agreeable or even exciting in itself, they are not linked
cumulatively to one another. Energy is then
dissipated and a person becomes scatterbrained. Each
experience may be lively, vivid and “interesting”, and yet their
disconnectedness may artificially generate dispersive, disintegrated centrifugal habits. The consequence of such habits is inability to
control future experiences. They are taken
either by way of enjoyment or discontent and revolt, just as they come. Under such circumstances, it is idle to talk of
self-control.’
‘Traditional
education offers a plethora of examples of experiences of the kinds just mentioned. How many students, for example, were reduced,
callous to ideas, and how many lost impetus to learn because the way in which learning was
experienced by them? How many acquired
special skills by automatic drill, so that their power of judgment and to act
intelligently in new situations was limited? How
many came to associate learning processes with ennui and boredom? How many found what they did learn so foreign to
the situations of life outside the school as to give them no power of control over the
latter? How many came to associate books with
dull drudgery, so that they were “conditioned” to all but flashy reading
matter?’ (John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1958)
Gandhiji
said, “The utterly false idea that intelligence can be developed only through
book-reading should give place to the truth that the quickest development of the mind can
be achieved by the artisan’s work being learnt in a scientific manner. True development of the mind commences
immediately. The apprentice is taught at
every step why a particular manipulation of the hand or a tool is required.” (M.K.
Gandhi, Basic Education, 1956)
‘Work
is man’s basic activity, the means by which all material needs are satisfied. It is also the means by which his spiritual needs
are satisfied. It exercises and develops all
his powers and enables him to experience the joy of self and social fulfillment. The moment a personal handles any raw materials,
with the object of giving them a serviceable function in the life around him, he becomes a
creator, and develops an inward strength and self-reliance which spurs him on to greater
fulfillment.” (Zakir Hussain)
Our
discussions that followed with the teachers of non-formal education centers created a
situation in which all of them, it seemed, wanted to seek better education. In fact, they got their ‘quest’! ringing in their minds. Shall we process our fruits and vegetables for the
city market? Shall we use the available
natural resources for improving the lives of our people?
Or send them out for commercial exploitation?
That was the beginning, I hope. If
they really pick up the basic concern of enriching the lives of the people, the solution
will surely emerge.
In
regards to your note, “Learning to Work, Working to Learn,” a number of things
came to mind: First, I recalled that John Holt said something like “let us
outlaw exploitative labor, not child labor since laws that prohibit all child labor deny
so many forms of meaningful participation to youth.” I am in complete sympathy
with that point of view, and this relates inversely to something Kalle Lasn called to my
attention in his book ‘Culture Jam.’ In that book, Lasn expressed both his
rage and impatience with the generation of North Americans born between 1965 and 1980 who
he felt had “voluntarily removed themselves from the collective effort” required
to transform the world. After witnessing the tremendous involvement of some
North American youth in the protest in Seattle and Quebec, I would hope that Lasn might
feel slightly more optimistic than he did when he wrote the book in 1999.
Nevertheless, I rather admired his passion for trying to motivate the youth that he
felt were “slackers” -those who, as he wrote, “spend days on end sharpening
their sardonic edge on the whetstone of apathy.” But I also felt strongly that
Lasn’s assessment that their indifference was voluntary overlooked the tremendous
forces that exist in American society to render this strata –the generation which he
felt would have ordinarily accomplished the “bulk of the tribe’s work”-
impotent.
Needless
to say, compulsory government schooling is the central arena where these obedient (and
lame) subjects are produced, and if there is any clear accountability it must also rest in
the hands of parents who unthinkingly reproduce their own relationships within the
existing order.
I’ve written elsewhere about how “in the last decade that I’ve been
unschooling my children, people –especially parents of schoolchildren- have always
been interested in knowing why my husband and I have not sent our children to school.
I can usually tailor a response to pique their interest and sometimes garner more
than a modicum of respect. But, I rarely say what I really want to say, i.e., that
the whole educational system is flawed to the core because it necessarily cripples the
social consciousness of children. Indeed, the sort of persons that are socialized
within the current educational establishment are often so inculcated with exaggerated
competitive attitudes and with the idea that individual material gain is the best measure
of “success”, that they are unable to imagine a world organized much
differently. I no longer ask these parents the comparable question: “Why are
you sending your child to school?” because to our mutual embarrassment they so often
have no idea.”
Finally, I have seen the remarkable work that teens are able to do to enhance, even
repair, community life when they are free from authoritarian constraints... and it
alternatively saddens and maddens me that the vast majority of them are confined to the
agenda of the most entrenched, capitalistic and rigidly conservative elements in society.
The attempt to
produce a universally understanding of child labor asks that a number of assumptions be
addressed. One is about the nature of labor. Another is about what it means to be a child.
In
today’s understanding of the world, labor is largely employment – it is human
exertion that can be exchanged for money. Commodification of labor is in fact understood
to be labor itself – there is no labor that lies outside commodified labor. In fact,
there is a significant part of labor – human exertion – that is not or cannot be
commodified. It lies in work I do for my family and friends. It lies in work I do for
myself. Of course, economic experts can argue that even such labor can be valued –
but frankly, I do not care for their value of my exertions. Neither do many others. All I
am saying is that there are many things we do to which we personally do not care to attach
a price – that which we do not care to commodify.
Most –
perhaps all – cultures acknowledge that a child is a human that is learning about the
world – about life; that s/he is in the process of growing stronger physically,
emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. However, this does not demand that the child
not be exposed to the world, that s/he not face real problems as s/he learns about his/her
society and its worldview, as the current western model of society has assumed. The
western worldview has assumed that the only place for the child to learn is within
institutions named schools, studying through structured curricula and playing
well-organized games. It does not understand societies that believe that the place for
children to learn is to be with adults, to live in the real world and to join in as they
can in adult activities. The western world does not understand how children can learn in
working and playing with adults, (but also by themselves) and being exposed to discussions
they have and decisions they make. It does not understand that often in non-western
cultures, it becomes necessary for ‘children’ to take on responsibilities for
their own sake and for the sake of their families and communities.
It is the
confluence of these two westernized realities that leads to our understanding of child
labor. It believes that child labor is wrong because all labor is commodified labor and
children should not be commodified. (I cede that western thought is human enough to be
repulsed by commodification of children’s efforts even though commodification of
labor itself seems natural.) And it believes that the only appropriate place for children
to learn is at school. So children should be studying in schools. It sees children in
rural communities working with their families on farms or taking their cattle to graze as
child labor that is wrong. It forgets that it is in working on farms or in grazing cattle
that a child learns about animals, about agriculture, about the dynamics of the community
– aspects that the child needs to learn to responsibly live in that community.
These
activities may be exploitative in certain conditions – but they cannot be generalized
to be oppressive all the time and in every circumstance. Child labor is oppressive where
it is used to exploit children – where children in various industries are paid
minimal amounts to work in sub-human conditions. Child labor is oppressive when conditions
are thrust on children that prevent them from discovering themselves and knowing the world
around them. It is the role of the state – to the extent that individuals and
communities have become unable and unwilling to fulfill what is really their
responsibility – to ensure that children are not exploited. For that matter, that no
one is exploited. However, one needs to be able to acknowledge the human in applying these
laws. They cannot be universal for in being universal they ignore the uniqueness of every
community, the humanness of every individual. The right to education cannot become an
incarceration to be schooled. Western understanding of labor cannot be applied to
societies that see labor beyond commodification, even though they might be paid for their
products. Protection from child labor cannot become a constraint to an individual from
helping his/her family.
From Bharat Mansata <bharatmansata@yahoo.com>
Shram
and Shiksha
The youngsters
(or their parents) wonder/hope that if they study further, their ‘prospects’
might improve. Not that they look forward at all to another 2 years of schooling, leave
aside 3 further years of college, or some diploma. Those who finish Class 12, are perhaps
in a worse predicament. A decently paying job, or almost any job, still does not come
their way. Meanwhile, many of them have lost any inclination to get into farming or other
rural manual work. They feel guilty that they did not contribute to their family while
they were studying, and are still unable to put their 12 years of shiksha to some “practical economic use”. Quite
tragically, they are forced to realise that their educational ‘superiority’ is
worth almost nothing.
Of course, the
ability to read, write and do basic calculations is helpful, but did they need to go
through 10 or 12 years of unexciting institutional routine for this? And if they gained
something valuable, they also lost something valuable – their self-reliance, and
consequent self-confidence.
Another
problem with schooling is mis-education. For example, text books often extol the virtues
of modern technological progress, like chemical-intensive farming with hybrids, and
cash-crops for sale, rather than a balanced traditional variety of foods for
self-consumption, grown in a healthy organic way. The tendency to go to a doctor for the
slightest ailment, also gets more pronounced, as ‘educated’ villagers are
expected to behave in a more ‘responsible’ manner. The entire family gets
affected by this. And almost every visit to the doctor (at least in our area) is
‘treated’ with an injection for quick relief.
Consequently, schooling is also contributing, directly or indirectly, in subtle or
not-so-subtle ways, to the ruination of the soil, water resources, and the health of
people.
I have noticed
too that natural curiosity and a desire to learn among village youngsters is commonly in
inverse proportion to the amount of schooling they have gone through, even though the more
schooled ones might have earlier been brighter than their (now) less schooled
counterparts. Through an almost Pavlovian process of conditioning, children are
progressively taught to associate ‘study’ with boredom. (more conditioning =
pronounced response) Of course, boring teachers share some responsibility for this, but
the fact remains that the rigid institutional set-up itself, with all its routine and
rules, is intrinsically boring. Moreover, any learning that is divorced from felt needs
and ‘real life’ reference points, tends to be futile. It is easily forgotten,
and why not?
For most
villagers, the satisfaction of basic needs, like food, cannot be taken for granted. The food either has to be grown, or bought. If one
cannot earn the money to buy food, one must grow it. This requires shram. And if some
think this is a dirty word, how do they imagine people will get to eat? Land provides all that is basic for survival, and
indeed for well-being. And considering all the damage we have been inflicting on the
earth, more of us, rather than less, will need to ‘soil’ our hands with works
like tree planting, and other locally suitable measures for soil and water conservation.
While shram
can be laborious, it can also be satisfying, educative, healthy, and intrinsically useful.
(In any case, who says that anybody has to labour all the time.) Daily schooling is
perhaps a more laborious chore, but without most of the above accompanying benefits! (Not
to forget the several kilometer trudge under the sun, twice a day - to and from school,
lugging a heavy bag of books.)
ps. Shall try
to send you a few thoughts on initiating some non-formal learning opportunities, which
will also include organic farming, and learning about the forest, apart from reading,
writing, story-telling, singing, music, art, etc. This is particularly for local adivasi
youngsters in the context of our ‘Vision Van Vadi’ land venture. Working with
one’s hands will be a natural part of the learning process. For older kids, who may
put in a few hours of work regularly, an ‘apprenticeship stipend’ (perhaps in
food, kind, and/or cash) may be provided. The regular ‘teachers’ will be from
within the local adivasi village, and will include at least one or two who are
knowledgeable about the forest and its numerous useful species, as well as traditional
organic farming. Other guest teachers may also be invited for short (or longer) visits. Or
perhaps, to even stay and help an integral ‘learning & living’ community to
grow here.
From Sudhir Pattnaik
The Greatest Threat to Education
I don’t know if it would be worth responding to the rubbish that the MVF talks about in its so-called declaration on child labor. I don’t think if people in MVF have got any wisdom original to them. The appetite for fund and fame makes many NGOs accept and advocate any concept promoted by western support agencies, which can conveniently bring them the two. There are hundreds of NGOs in India today like the MVF who receive millions of dollars just because they are willing to work on the concepts promoted by funding agencies. There may also be a design at work to engage our creative time on debating with them so that the time we spend on building up learning societies gets killed or affected.
The greatest threat to education comes from the
education establishment itself, and if any one in the name of liberating child labour wants to strengthen such an establishment, they can never be
acceptable to us.
If these sponsored campaigners had some
seriousness left in them, they would have taken some care to understand why so many
children in our society are deprived of love and care? Why they are deprived of food and
fun? Why they can’t pursue a learning path, which would give them the happiness of
learning? Can the education establishment give any learner the freedom to learn? Any
school they talk about is part of such an establishment. The purpose of the education
establishment is to create a class of educated people who can take by heart whatever is
given to them. Those who can articulate well whatever they receive would also acquire the
additional status of scholars. Those who resent this process in a language that the
educators are not able to understand, are ultimately condemned
as drop outs/failures. It may be a criminal blunder to call such genuine protesters-
“child labour” and drag them into the same process,
which they have been resenting just because we don’t understand their expression.
The love for children should come from our
heart; it should not come from fund (all the awards such as the one Ms Santa Sinha has received are part of the fund regime). Any one who loves
children should work for creating an atmosphere for them where the children can be found
as happy and creative learners.
This is my instant reaction to the content of
MVF declaration.
‘Child Labor’ vs. Permanent Slavery
From Anil Pradhan <anil1969@rediffmail.com>
Work
Is Not Always Slavery: Virtues of Self Education
I
find MV Foundation slogans/philosophy deeply disturbing. I have been working in tribal
areas of Orissa for the last eleven years and I
have formed a fairly good idea about the pros and cons of the education system in tribal
society. My reactions to MV foundation’s philosophy on child labour are as follows:
Regarding
the MV foundation’s stand that all children must attend full time formal day schools,
I think it is not necessary for all children to do so.
If children’s academic achievement is higher in informal learning
centres or at home than it is in a formal
school, why should he or she waste his/her time in a full time day school?
It
is common knowledge that the system of full-time formal schooling has failed
spectacularly. Learning can take place in the society where a pupil lives. We can not call people who have not received formal education ‘uneducated‘.
Education is not the same as acquisition of literacy.
We
are running 30 alternative education centres in tribal areas of Orissa for the benefit of
tribal children. The facilitators/teachers of these centres belong to the same communities
and are conversant with local languages and culture. They teach the children while taking
their convenience into account, as most of them are working children. These children do
not work in hazardous conditions nor do they work for others. They help with household and
agricultural work and sometimes collect fire-wood or leaves from the jungle.
Children
in the Alternative Education Centres devote 3-4 hours to their studies per day. Besides,
holidays are adjusted as per their local festivals and weekly market days. Teachers have
undergone training to improve their relationship with students and to learn from them, so
that children will not look upon teachers as
their saviours. Children feel comfortable
with teachers and ask questions and share their sorrows and joys with them. Vegetable
cultivation, gardening etc have been encouraged to keep the community spirit intact and
instill in them respect for work, which is already a part of the culture of their
community. Tribal culture and history have been included in the course curriculum to raise
their self- confidence and get rid of inferiority complex. Co-curricular activities have
been introduced to nurture the talent of children.
Our
assessment reveals that our children’s academic performance is better than that of
children in so-called full time formal schools. Our
children join formal schools to receive higher education as we do not have alternative
arrangements for them. Some children from our alternative education centres are dropping out from formal schools in the higher
classes due to the intolerable teacher-student relationships there, which is based on fear and artificialness.
I
do not understand why MV Foundation advocates full time day schools instead of non-formalization of formal schools. This was recommended by Kothari Commission in
1964-66, and revised National Education Policy, 1992. Rather advocacy should be undertaken
to non-formalise all formal schools and informal learning should be encouraged.
Let’s
take the case of Late Binod Kanungo in Orissa. Binod Kanungo was a 9th class
drop-out. Through his own efforts, he succeeded in writing 75 volumes of an encyclopedia
single handed, which is unique in the India. Till date, nobody has been able to do
anything on such a massive scale. Late Satya Narayan Rajguru was another school drop-out.
He has made a valuable contribution to the study of the history of Orissa and won Sahitya
Akademi Award for his literary achievements.
One
may also mention Kutartha Acharaya in this context. He was born on the 20th of
March 1900 in the undivided Sambalpur district of Orissa. He received his early education
at the village school and then at Sambalpur Zilla High School. He lost his parents while
he was still in school. He could not sit for his matriculation examination. In 1922, he
gave up his studies and joined the struggle for freedom led by Mahatma Gandhi. In a bold
move, he organized spinning through charkha by untouchables in Bargarh in Sambalpur. He
founded Sambalpuri Bastralayawhich became a cooperative society in 1955. Now, Sambalpuri
textiles produced by weaving community in the western part of Orissa have been recognized
not only as highly saleable commodities the world over but also as beautiful objects of
art, famous for their colour, texture and design. These
textiles have become almost as well known as the Konark wheel as a symbol of the glorious
tradition of Orissan art and crafts.
Late
Manmohma Choudhury was a self -made and self-taught person.
He had received no formal education. But he has written highly regarded
books on physics, economics, and development issues. He has written a book on Gandhi
titled Exploring Gandhi in English and translated his mother’s autobiography
into English titled Into the Son, which has brought him much acclaim. He is one of
the central cultural figures of the state.
Let’s
also take the case of Annapurna Moharana, who has received no formal education. Being a
self-educated person, she is a prominent intellectual and social activist in Orissa and
has written scholarly books in Oriya and has translated several texts into Oriya . Her command of Oriya language
is remarkable.
If
we lay too much stress on so-called academic qualifications, the space in which this kind
of creativity flourishes will contract. Advocating full time day schools for all, M.V.
Foundation will end up undermining informal learning, which will again de-motivate
millions of semi-literates of the country.
M.V.
Foundation says that any child out of a formal school is child labour. If this is true can we describe all the self-
learners as child laborers?
Again,
M.V. Foundation looks upon all work/labour as hazardous, which harm the overall growth of
the child. This is a dangerous proposition. I do not know how MV Foundation has come to
such a conclusion. All progressive educationists of the world (John Dewey, Mahatma Gandhi,
Tolstoy, Vinoba Bhave, Rabinranath Tagore, Gopabandhu Das and others) have advocated
inclusion of manual work in the school curriculum. I do not think they have advocated this
blindly without going deep into the matter. Many psychologists and physiologists recommend
physical labour for children as necessary for their all-round mental, intellectual, and
moral development. It is therefore, surprising that M.V. Foundation presents all
work/labour as hazardous. This has to be examined.
Many
international agencies, so-called educationists/consultants of the country are also
thinking along this line. I object to this on
two counts: to promote the M.V. foundation stand seems like international conspiracy to
make people idle and dependent on the establishment, so that protest against an unjust
social order becomes impossible. Being educated in the formal schools and taught with
utter contempt for work, people will lose confidence in themselves. Secondly, nowadays,
those who are in the international agencies do not seem to understand the impact of formal
education and the ground realities. Gandhi
once observed: “Without the use of our hands and feet our brain would atrophy, and
even if it worked it would be the home of Satan” (Mahatma Gandhi’s inaugural
address at the Wardha Conference). This
has been our experience with formal schools.
Some
voluntary agencies of this country, it seems, will do anything for money. They can adopt any viewpoints for the sake
of funding. Let’s take the case of an organisation working in Kalahandi in Orissa.
Five years back, they criticized the functioning of government schools and developed a
proposal for alternative educational system to get sanction for running night schools
under the scheme of ‘Innovative and Experimental Education’ of Government of
India. They then ran some schools for some
time with the support of Government of India. For the sake of funding, they have now
changed their stand and replicated the MV Foundation model in Nuapada district with the
financial support of UNDP.
Under
the influence of MV foundation and the pressure of fundamental right to education group, all international agencies have restricted funding
to alternative initiatives, saying that education is the responsibility of the state.
Government of India is also diluting the scheme of experimental and innovative education.
However,
I do not advocate setting up alternative schools with the support of international
agencies or with government support. Rabindranath Tagore set up Viswa Bharati mobilizing
resources himself. In Orissa, the Satyabadi
Grove School was set up in 1909 by Gopabandhu Das inspiring likeminded associates to
contribute to this initiative. Such initiatives are possible in the present context too
but dedication is needed. With less dedication and sacrifice, some voluntary organizations
are running alternative schools and highlighting the ills of the present system of
education. But even this kind of initiative is dying due to M.V. Foundation’s move in
this direction. I do not understand why M.V. Foundation lays so much stress on
government’s role in education?
Vinoba
Bhave wrote: “Throughout the world education is under the control of the governments.
This is extremely dangerous. Government ought to have no authority over education. The work of education should be in the hands of
wisdom, but government have got it in their grasp; every student in the country has to
study whatever book is prescribed by the education department. If the government is
fascist, students will be taught fascism; if it is communist, it will preach communism; if
it is capitalist, it will proclaim the greatness of capitalism.; if its believes in
planning, the students will be taught all
about planning. We in India used to hold to the principle that education should be
completely free from state control. Kings exercised no authority over the gurus. The king
had absolutely no power to control education. The consequences was that Sanskrit
literature achieved a degree of freedom of thought such as can be seen nowhere else, so
much so that no less than six mutually incompatible philosophies have arisen within the
Hindu philosophy. This vigor is due to the freedom of education from the state
control.” (Deschooling Our Lives. Stony Creek, CT: New Society Publishers.)
Henry
David Thoreau in his article on the duty of Civil Disobedience wrote: “ I heartily accept the motto , -“That
the government is the best which governs the
least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically .
Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe , -“ That government is
best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it , that will be the
kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most
governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
I feel I do not have any thing more to say about the role of government in education after going through these two viewpoints voiced by Vinoba Bhave and Henry David Thoreau.
From Gurveen Kaur gurveenkaur@rediffmail.com
Giving Work Its Due
WHY
is it that most of us think of all work as drudgery? Why is it that we--and our
children--no longer voluntarily choose to do work and if we have to do it, why do we turn
in sloppy work? Why is there is no sense of pride in our work? Why do we need to be
supervised if we are to turn in reasonably well-done work? Why do children resent it if
even the smallest task or household chore is assigned to them? Why is it that most people
who have a job do it badly, grudgingly and out of compulsion?
Why
is it that we never think of work as fun or worthwhile? Why is it that we no longer value
work as anything more than a means of earning money? Is work to be valued only for
extrinsic reasons? Does work have no intrinsic value? These are the questions that I
sought to answer as I began this exercise.
Examining
our attitudes
Feudalism
bears some responsibility for converting work into labour and with the advent of
industrialization the process was completed. For most people, work gradually came to mean
only employment or labour. This is a fact that, I think, most Marxian theory is based
upon. Which is the reason it sees ‘work’ as alienating and quite rightly
stresses sufficient payment as the only recompense/rationale for the effort and time
invested. This is the background of our present day thinking about work as labour. It is
the reason that we see work only as drudgery and a means of earning money.
In
equating all work with labour, we look at work as something that cannot be
enjoyable/enjoyed, therefore voluntarily undertaken, independent of the remuneration. It
is this attitude that has led us to devalue the real role and innate importance of work
--- in our lives, homes, the workplace and the country. This is why most people today
approach work as if it were of little intrinsic value. Nowadays we value all
employment/effort mainly for it’s extrinsic value, which has led us to over-valuing
labour at the cost of work. We seem unaware of and/or neglect the intrinsic worth of work:
as a means of self-realization, fulfilment, and a natural outlet for our energies and
talents.
Hannah
Arendt in her book The
Human Condition
makes a distinction between work and labour, to draw our attention to the intrinsic value
of work. According to Hannah Arendt, work is something we engage in, usually voluntarily,
for its intrinsic worth, that is because we see value in the doing of it, as well as in
the product. This is why a worker feels more closely related to the work and the quality
of its end product. Labour, on the other
hand, is toil or hardship, something we undertake, usually on someone else’s behest,
because of its extrinsic value for us. It is the price we pay for whatever advantages the
rewards of the labour will buy. We do not necessarily value the process or the product,
but value what the reward/ payment it can get us. In a sense, we undertake the
labour/drudgery because we value the payment.
Unlike
the case of work we are not really engaging in the exercise for its own sake, nor are we
really involved in it beyond the limited role assigned to us, we don’t necessarily
care for the quality of the end product.
However,
Hannah Arendt, while she admits to the intrinsic value of work fails to recognize the
intrinsic worth of labour, thus failing to accord any other role to labour in our lives,
beyond being a means of earning a living. A deeper understanding of the role of labour in
our lives gave our ancestors a better attitude to labour. It is the acknowledgement of the
intrinsic value of labour, which we often do not recognize, that trains us to undertake
non-glamorous bits of work with gladness. Our ancestors clearly recognized the value of
toil and hardship that served to toughen us up and take a less whimsical and more
responsible approach to work. It helps us appreciate that while even hard work can be
enjoyable, work is not mere play - to be indulged in when and if one feels like it. Work
requires we submit to it and be obedient to the dictates of time and context within which
it must be done. The very nature of the work we do has other inbuilt constraints,
compulsions and necessities which are unavoidable if we are to do that work and do it
well. It is recognition of this feature/
characteristic of work that makes us better disciplined and more responsible.
While
it is important to recognize and acknowledge that some types of jobs are nothing but
monotonous toil and drudgery, we must also note that some aspect of all types of jobs and
professions involve some amount of toil and drudgery, even the most glamorous. (One might
look at this as God’s way of building in the means of our spiritual growth into
everyday routine!).
If
work derives its value from being personally meaningful, labour derives its meaning from
its social relevance --- although the two are not mutually exclusive.* (My thanks to Usha
Raman for pointing this out to me.) (No doubt some people in the past have over-emphasized
the non-monetary the value of labour to exploit and to keep people within their caste or
class, but that cannot be the reason for ignoring/ neglecting the intrinsic value of
labour.) This is the reason that society must accord a special place to the labourers.
They undertake jobs that are often unpleasant to keep society functioning smoothly.
What
further complicates the issue is the fact that those who labour usually don’t have a
choice of doing otherwise. It is because some people labour that others have the luxury
and privilege of working. These considerations have led to the suggestion, which might
seem bizarre to us in the present context and therefore has never been seriously taken up,
that work should be paid less than labour.
A
distinction that was intended to help us better understand the difference between work and
labour has instead left us unable to appreciate the intrinsic value of both: work and
labour. Instead of serving to focus attention upon the exploitative and alienating aspects
of labour, it has served to convert work into labour. In equating work with labour we have
ended up becoming people who forgot the joy of working, turning most of us into labourers,
never mind how large the pay check, the position or status.
On
the other hand, overemphasis on the recompense as remuneration blind us to non-monetary
types of exploitation. It failed to lead us to discover the exploitation in not just
labour, but work too. One tends to overlook the fact that even people in chosen fields of
work, which they enjoy and find fulfilling, are also exploited; by the hours they are
required to work with high stress – as the only constant in their work sphere, which
their dazzling, high pay cheques do not compensate for. Overemphasis on the remuneration
factor focuses exclusively on the alienation for under-paid labour but obscures the
resultant work-engendered alienation that highly paid workers suffer from their families
or any kind of social life.
While
we are not equating the two kinds of exploitation, a failure to recognize its non-monetary
aspect is to again look at exploitation only in one dimension. This of course/however does
not mean that one is endorsing the division between workers and labourers or the disparity
between the wages of both.
Such
an unwholesome and lop-sided attitude to work cripples our capacity and appreciation for
the importance and role of work and labour in our lives. We have unfortunately passed on
this attitude to work to our children and so should not be surprised if they shun work.
Let us examine how this has spilled over into the way we raise and educate our children.
Deriving
Meaning from Work
The
Anti-Child Labour Campaign has left many of us confused. Should we ask children to work?
Isn’t that equivalent to using cheap/unpaid child labour? We wonder if we are
infringing on child rights, especially considering that children are not in a position to
refuse to work if asked. Parents and teachers are no longer sure whether they should ask
children to do any work and hesitate to assign any work responsibilities to children
today. They are afraid of being accused of using ‘cheap child labour’ and
drawing the wrath of ‘Anti-Child Labour Campaign’ activists.
This
confusion can only be the result of our modern understanding of all work as labour. The
Anti-Child Labour Campaign is clearly, and very rightly so, against child labour. No child
should have to labour, that is to earn a living. Children often have to work for a living
but that is a compulsion due to circumstances, not a desired state of affairs. No one
would advocate labour for children but that is not the same thing as saying that children
should not work. Here one is obviously not talking of hours of tiring, backbreaking work
but interest, age and capacity appropriate responsibilities. For some reason we forget or
ignore the fact that this campaign is against exploitative labour and a pointer to those
people who think nothing of sending a child for hours of backbreaking, monotonous, mind
numbing and/or body crippling labour. We conveniently forget that it is not work as such
that is bad or wrong but the exploitation of the capacity to work.
We
no longer think it right to assign work to our children even within our homes. A child of
seven plus years decides to keep a puppy, but do we explain that s/he has to share, then
gradually take on the responsibility of, the task of taking the dog for walks, training,
cleaning the messes, feeding or bathing it? We feel guilty doing so or we allow it to be
done if and when the child feels like it or has the time. Even small jobs--polish your own
shoes, tidy your room, make the bed--are no longer assigned to children in more privileged
homes.
The
attitude we have conveyed to our children is that menial work is below our station in
life. Let the child treat the mother as a
servant but the dear child must not be told to lift his finger! (Yet, on the other hand,
we have no hesitation committing physically healthy, energetic children to hours of
sitting still on hard benches, in cramped spaces, submitting to mind numbing, mentally
taxing unending studies; which we do not recognize to be work!)
Children
must be initiated gradually to work and prepared for adult life just as in other spheres.
Beginning with picking up or replacing toys after playing with them, to taking care of
one’s belongings, to helping with small chores around the house to graduating to
taking on independent responsibility for some job that needs to be done around the house.
If we confuse work with labour and neglect to introduce our children to the meaning and
role of work in our lives we fail to teach them an important truth.
We
thereby rob/cheat them of opportunities of learning to shoulder responsibility and
discover the joy of contributing towards the home and family. This same training would
become the basis of teaching social responsibility. Without
this, social responsibility would be too much to expect from our children, who are never
taught and therefore never ever learn to be responsible for themselves.
Equating
work with labour and the emphasis on the remuneration factor colours the factors
influencing our choice of work and the careers of our children. Nowadays we choose our
profession based upon what we want to earn and we are afraid that the child might not take
up more remunerative career. This was obvious at the recent parent-teacher meeting that I
attended where the point under consideration was what optional subject each child should
take. For most parents the determining factor was not the ability, interest or aptitude of
the child but the subject’s potential as a mark fetcher or ‘future job
prospects’. S/he may find that that work can be enjoyable, fun, challenging,
worthwhile and/or interesting for it’s own sake. However, because we see work only as
a means of earning money that we no longer care to choose or advise our children to choose
a profession appropriate to one’s capability or aptitude, interest, inclination or
talent. We no longer say to our children, “ Find something that you like to do, and
you will never work a day in your life”.
We
miss out on showing our children the important distinction between the worth of work based
not upon extrinsic rewards (salary, money, payments) but on the intrinsic value of work.
Be it teaching, farming, medicine, research, mechanics, gardening, music, painting,
sculpting, cooking, cleaning, tailoring…the reason for choosing it, is that it gives
creative and/or useful vent to what we can do best naturally. Work that is interest,
aptitude, and challenge appropriate is fulfilling and satisfying. It is a means of
self-realization and self-actualisation/development; the truly educational experience.
In
the process we have lost an invaluable educational medium. Work is the best form of
education and a medium that is an excellent correction to the academic bias of the
education system. If we could appreciate the role of work in our education, we would not
only have a better, natural method of education but also stop mistaking academics for
education. Needless to say that it would be a blessing for those children who are less
academically inclined but not only for them.
How
many times better than the specially designed, self-correcting Montessori equipment is the
natural workshop of work in teaching self-discipline, responsibility and time-management
through self-correction built into the very nature of work. It makes all cajoling,
coaxing, bribing, scolding totally redundant. Work has in-built discipline in it; in its
time frames, material/medium constraints. But our attitude to work robs our children of
this opportunity of learning discipline the natural way.
We
mislead our children when we pass on to them our criterion of evaluating people on the
basis of their pay packets. Instead of teaching children that it is not the profession or
trade that one engages in, but the quality of one’s work that is indicative of the
true worth of the person, we teach them otherwise. Evaluating people on the quality of
their work and/or skill level gives one a slightly more level and fair playing ground;
where the role of privileged background and/or handicap is no longer the only determining
factor of success. Instead today children see that we measure our self worth by our pay
packets and the market value of the work and bother less about its quality.
All
around children see people who think of work as drudgery and turn in sloppy work. Everyone
wants to cut whatever corners they can. How far we have gone from the attitude “Work
is worship”. Given this how can we communicate to our children the joy of work, the
thrill of work well-done, of the pleasure of not cutting corners, or the deep satisfaction
of something that turns out well because we did not stint in doing our very best? The
sense of worth, of achievement, of satisfaction, of fulfilment, that accompanies the
much-awaited and hard-earned success, that follows repeated delays, frustrations and only
because of one’s dogged perseverance and unstinting effort is incomparable.
And,
because we can never teach or pass on what we don’t know, feel, experience or
practice ourselves, how can we communicate the joy of the labour of love? Some routine
chores done for the family be it cooking, sweeping, dusting, cleaning. Or, some service
voluntarily undertaken for someone old or anyone you love, like baking a cake, making a
favourite dish or frying jalebis….The reward is in the pleasure it gives to
the doer/worker/giver on seeing the happiness on the receiver’s face. We, however,
have cut ourselves off from all these simple pleasures that we can receive from choosing
to do some work voluntarily as a pure labour of love.
How
many opportunities of meaningful, pleasurable togetherness we miss when we don’t
experience the joy of engaging in some work together with our children as our
partners/fellow workers. The happy companionship of women working together in the kitchen,
or mothers and daughters about the house, or sons and fathers in the garden or
garage…(and to be politically, gender correct, let’s exchange the jobs between
the sexes). The bond between parents and children is not just strengthened but deepened/
enriched when they stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to await the results of something
they worked hard to achieve together. The shared anxiety, the sadness, grief, joy, elation
and the sweet satisfaction of success take on a very different meaning when experienced
with our loved ones.
We
seem to have forgotten the joy that is experienced on the purchase of something for which
we’ve worked hard, and saved patiently over several months or years. No matter how
expensive a purchase, its value is immeasurably diminished if it is not the fruit of our
own hard-earned effort.
Maybe it’s high time we looked into the value of things for themselves that is the intrinsic value of activities and not for what they help us acquire or the extrinsic worth. Let us stop becoming labourers, which is what most of us have become, even if we have the most impressive pay cheques and