Unfolding
Learning Societies
18 – 22 December 2002
Udaipur, RAJASTHAN, INDIA
CO-HOSTED BY:
Shikshantar
Pioneers of Change
Abhivyakti
Institute for Development Studies and
Practices
Unesco
Tribute to Ivan Illich
What Do We Mean by
Unfolding Learning Societies?
Reflections on Learning
Reflections on
Schooling
Redefining Guru
Rethinking Labels
Our Local Languages
Multiple Modes of
Expression
Reuniting Action and
Reflection
Copyleft* December
2002
For more information,
contact:
Shikshantar
21 Fatehpura
Udaipur, Rajasthan
313004
Telephone:
91-294-245-1303
Fax: 91-294-245-1802
shikshantar@yahoo.com
www.swaraj.org/shikshantar
* This material may be
freely reproduced, with source and authors acknowledged.
Welcome Co-Creators!
Your fellow
co-creators at...
Abhivyakti, IDSP,
Pioneers of Change, Shikshantar & UNESCO
Tribute to Ivan
Illich (1926-2002)
-
Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (1973: 9)
From
Bill Ellis
Too many people take Deschooling Society as being primarily about
schools. It is, like most of Illich’s books, more about society. In his view, society
is like school and should be deschooled. Schools program students and instill in them a
need to programmed for the rest of their lives.
Society needed deschooling because it was a mime of the school system that it engendered,
and that engendered it. In our current society individuals are expected to work in dull
and stultifying jobs for future rewards. This they are trained to do in schools. They go
to school so that they can get a job to work for future rewards. By deschooling, Illich
did not mean taking schooling into the home, nor did he mean “free schools” in
which a curricula was set by the students. Schooling of any kind that limited a
person’s capacity and desire to self-learn was detrimental to the living a full life
by that person.
All life, according to Illich, should be “convivial.” That is it should be lived
in joyous collaboration with friends and colleagues. Learning and work alike should be fun
and fulfilling. They should be entered into as, and not differentiated from, play and
recreation. A society that does not create that kind of convivial learning and living is
not living up to, nor fulfilling the potential of, humanity.
In later works, like Tools for Conviviality, and
Shadow Work, Illich developed further the theme
of what he meant by living the good life. He took “good” in both of its
connotations — good as moral, and good as a pleasing. “Vernacular” was the
word Illich used to express the good life. The vernacular is the simple, the local, the
communal. Every human and every community has its own natural concept of the vernacular.
It is wrapped up in being a human. It is what a person can do themselves in the place they
are at the time. It is without dependence of external assistance.
The bicycle was the hardware example Illich often used to exemplify the vernacular. The
bicycle extends one’s own capability and efforts for transportation. It needs no
massive outside system beyond that its operator’s control. The automobile, on the
other hand, is not only a complex apparatus requiring a complex outside system, but it
also requires more work and effort than it produces in transportation. If you take into
account all the hours you spend to buy a car, to purchase gas and tires, to pay taxes for
the road, to insure and license it, to clean up its pollution, and pay for all of the
other costs, your rate of travel is less than that of a bicycle. That doesn’t count
the hours, the costs, or the frustration spent in traffic jams and accidents.
In
Medical Nemesis, Illich took the same concept
to the medical system, showing that not only did the medical system not cure ills, but in
fact created them. In every aspects of our
lives, conviviality and the vernacular have been overwhelmed and diminished by what Illich
called the “disabling professions.” The law professions have increased crime,
the professional economists have created scarcity and poverty, the teaching profession has
dumbed us down, the farming profession has made hunger. With this loss of the vernacular
has come the loss of the family and the community. The single goal of humans has become to
“make it” in a materialistic global economy.
In his most recent essays, Illich has brought his concepts to a fitting climax. An essay
“The Cultivation of Conspiracy” (in The
Challenge of Ivan Illich, a 2002 book edited by Lee Honacki and Carl Mitcham)
discusses friendship. The friendship Illich writes of is not just that of being kind and
cooperative to your neighbors. It is a deeper ‘conspiriatio’. “Con -
spiriatio” is breathing together. But breathing is not merely expelling air. It is
about the breath of life — the soul. ‘Conspiriatio’ is the melding of
one’s inner being with others.... This conspiratio, or welding of souls, (although
Illich, a former priest, doesn’t us the word soul) is the root of the vernacular and
of the convivial.
Remembering
Ivan Illich...
From
Maria Rortiz
Many of my
teachers made me, not laugh, but smile when I asked something about Illich, because they
always went on talking trying to scare us with the “terrible” and
“mean” ideas of Illich. It’s incredible how superficial they were.
From
Kishore Saint
Ivan Illich, with whom I
had the opportunity to work briefly in 1971 at CIDOC, Cuernavaca... Both Illich and
Freire, as also Gandhi, have suffered through distorted instrumental interpretations which
can be traced to the meta-narratives of the state and capital. This article goes to the
source of the critique of schooling, and the system that maintains and extends it into
society, but is unable to overwhelm or ‘school’ the human
society/communities/spirit. Indeed, this conversation on the internet and upcoming
conference in Udaipur have the potential to make history through co-inspiration, an inner
turning of the spirit or ‘inquilab’, ‘navchetana’, a new
enlightenment, towards a resolve by the participants to move beyond ‘schooling’
into vernacular/community/nature spaces and cultures and create the possibility of a
different future for humankind and the earth...
From
Zaid Hassan
Illich entered my
life recently, through his ideas and through stories of his life told by his friends. I
heard a story told about him, where a friend of his was diagnosed with a serious illness.
Illich was lecturing somewhere at the time. He dropped all his work, got on a plane and
nursed his friend for many months, until she passed away. I’ve heard many such
stories about Illich and they conclude with ‘that’s Illich for you.’ These
stories give his ideas a depth and an honesty that I’ve rarely experienced with
people who think for a living. All too often there is a serious dichotomy between words
and actions. Illich bought the two together in a unity rarely seen. Since the news of his
death I find myself looking at the sky, the sun and the grass in a slightly different way.
In life, his ideas travelled throughout the world, and now his physical essence, through
nature’s cycles, will travel through the world.
A new pilgrimage has begun.
From
Pat Farenga
Experiencing
Ivan dying as this learning society group is coming together is interesting, and
inspiring. Ivan spread many seeds in many places throughout his life, and I¹m grateful
that some, such as yours, are sprouting!
Share
your own tribute to Illich....
Illich
influenced the thinking of John Holt, John Taylor Gatto and many others, and had some
thought provoking ideas about health care and other social issues. You can read more about
Illich at these websites:
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-illic.htm
http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/illich/profile.html
Most
of Illich’s books are on line and can be read or downloaded. “Deschooling
Society” is on: http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/illich/deschool/intro.html
His
contribution to the unfolding of learning societies is immeasurable, and he will be
greatly missed by all of us.
All living is
learning and all living societies are learning societies. They cannot be otherwise. We are
all born and grow up in learning societies. In this sense learning is a natural, ongoing
process co-terminus with living. It happens unconsciously and intentionally, with purpose
and without purpose and in a variety of ways and settings. It is personal as well as
social. So what do we mean by ‘unfolding learning societies’? Are we talking
about the unfolding of something that is wrapped up, suppressed or potent like a bud or
seed, something waiting to happen? What does this mean in today’s context?
I completely agree
that living societies are learning societies. I also think there’s a value in further
nurturing curiosity outside of immediate living. Creating spaces, opportunities, moments
for enhancing and nurturing curiosity (and through that, bringing out critical questions,
seeing new possible futures through art, etc.) is part of what I see as the point of
‘learning societies’.
From: Shah Jahan Baloch
I consider myself
a very fortunate learner, because I am engaged with different communities not only as
co-learner in critical discourse on prevailing development paradigms at IDSP, but in
creating alternative community based actions of community self-empowerment. So I have tremendous opportunities to share with
learners the concepts, new ideas to create learning societies through enriching the
dialogue and participatory actions. Unfolding learning societies requires conceptual
clarity and trust in communities the challenge is 1) to produce more local content in
local languages on education learning and development 2) using innovative approaches of
communication with different sections of society 3) preservation of local wisdom.
Challenging Development
The
logic embedded in universal thinking naturally leads to the belief that one person/
people/ nation/ country/ religion/ culture can be absolutely better than another
(according to some supposedly universal measure!) and, thus, can impose their ideas and
ways on the world at large. The belief that one’s ideas and ways are universal or the
best is not new. What is new (and exclusively characteristic of western civilization) is
the successful diffusion/ dissemination, through “universal” tools (softly or
coercively), certain beliefs and practices as universal. The most effective tool has been
education as it has been conceived and practiced at least during the past 300 years -
through a curriculum taught to all students, and through standards, measures, concepts and
meanings that are assumed to be universal.
I have worked as
an environmentalist for 25 years but have now decided to work in education as well. The
problem begins at the school, where we disconnect children from nature and keep them in
that state for fifteen to twenty years. We take them out of nature, imprison them in
concrete boxes, teach them false associations between printed texts and the real world,
and do much worse besides... After that, it becomes difficult to restore a loving
relationship with nature. For people like us from a rich civilisation like India, we are
also disconnected from our traditions, languages and civilisational ideals.
Development has
nothing to do for the prosperity of humans. When we look back in the history of last five
hundred years, we can easily find the roots of today’s development there. We know
that our continents (Asia, Latin America, Africa) were brutally exploited in the name of
“civilizing them”. After World War II, strategies of exploitation sharpened the
process of alienating people from their indigenous cultures, resources and creativities to
convert them in consumers. They used term ‘Development’ this time, through
which they are maintaining their objectives of exploitation on cultural, social and
economic level till the day. The exploitation process is continued through the so-called
development workers. The vested interests of these development workers are connected with
the promotion of this ‘development’. Their survival is conditioned with
conventional development paradigm, their luxurious life is maintained with it. How can
they deny it? It is so painful for them, when someone criticises their direction.
From
KB Jinan
Development is the
mantra of the interventionist agencies, and the only issue that they seem to comprehend is
economics. Issues related to the culture, lifestyle and ethos of artisan communities are
not relevant to most of these agencies, whether they be governmental or nongovernmental.
From Jason Fernandes
Something
that has been troubling me for some time in my interaction with this world of development.
the problem as I see it, and as was so rightly put forward (pardon me for not remembering
who!) is the obsession we have with solutions. As I see it the problem emerges with the
solution, for then we start the grand process of boxing realities and imposing it on
“victims” and those “crying out for help”.
I am really happy
that we are having this discussion. This is
healing. I am often discouraged, frustrated,
distressed, angered by the political, social, economic, cultural arrogance of the World
Bank, IMF, WTO, Washington Consensus. And I
am frustrated because alone I feel so powerless vis-à-vis these hegemons. My writing and teaching are therapy, but this is
not enough. I want to do more. I need to do more. And honestly, I am fed up with
polite bourgeois (pseudo)intellectual discussions with neo-liberals who criminalize the
victims of their blood-sucking ideologies and policies.
They are but vampires whose motive is to ensure underdevelopment at any cost
to Global South and Southern people (who are ontologically least like them). Yet we are
their “Historical Development Project” and we are so unappreciative. HA!
There
is no real way that someone who is deeply entrenched in the Western paradigm, who does not
question its foundations, with its core elements of State, Science (& Tech), Market
and so on, will ever recognise the legitimacy of solutions that other paradigms propose
for any problem - unless they are legitimised through a ‘translation’ into the
language of the Western paradigm. What does it mean to ‘translate’ a practice
into the Western paradigm so that it gains legitimacy? If, for example, a particular herb,
can be subjected to the tests of Science, if a particular proposal can be written in terms
of a Cost Benefit Analysis; if ‘Evidence’ in the empirical, rational sense can
be provided around a practice to demonstrate it is ‘useful’ then it will be
accepted.
In
this instance, it struck me, that there’s no point arguing or trying to prove that
development is harmful. Rather the case must be made that the practitioner of the Western
paradigm cannot legitimately tell the practitioner of another paradigm how to live (to put
it mildly). The case must be made that the issue is one of simple imperialism and of
‘the right to self-determination’. Gandhi did this, he appealed to the highest
moral values of the British paradigm, using their language, while on the other hand
living, experimenting and creating a uniquely Indian paradigm, that of swaraj. If we are
to ‘unfold learning societies’ then we must figure out how to create the freedom
to do so without the very damaging interference of the Western paradigm.
From
Vachel Miller
First,
it’s interesting to watch how little the planning for such projects attends to issues
of learning. There’s no time to talk about how learning is happening in rural
Afghanistan and how learning is not happening. There’s no time to talk about what
people know, want to know, don’t know, and what they’ve learned or not learned
in the absence of schools. There’s no time to talk about other ways of supporting
learning, besides simply getting the system back in gear. Now, perhaps the lack of
discussion about learning is unique to this project, because it’s being put together
so quickly. I don’t know; I haven’t actually had much experience in the big
world of international educational development projects. But I know there’s a general
problem here — in our rush to do projects, international education people often seem
to forget to talk and think about learning.
How to develop
effective learning spaces with communities to impact issues related to violence? Here I am taking of violence in the wider sense,
even the fact that in times of plenty, where warehouses of this country are overflowing,
there are still reports of starvation deaths in Baran. There are so many completely
idiotic things happening all around us...
From
Achyut Das
We cannot but
admit that existence for some people is full of confrontations and struggles. The number
of these people are rising everyday after the forces of globalisations are unleashed. The
digital divide has become sharper and the inequalities have become much more glaring.
There is a process of dehumanisation everywhere.
...
modern help is ‘deeply calculating’ and if you think of all the analysis and
data gathering that goes into the delivery of development solutions then there is
something perverse about a notion of help that rests of analysis - hardly unconditional!
... More recently other authors such as Negri and Hardt (in “Empire”) have also
argued that help has been co-opted and is used as a mechanism for the delivery of power,
which they refer to as part of the ‘arsenal of legitimate force for imperial
intervention’ which precedes armed intervention.
The
question we are left with is who defines help? Is it the helper or the person who needs
help? The question is deeply relevant not just to development in the third world but also
to interventions by the State in tackling issues such as poverty alleviation or
educational disengagement. Who decides when help is needed?
_________
“We started out focused on being a
learning space structured around programmes, and we have recently completed a three month
residential experimental programme with 15 young people from rural areas and high density
urban townships. We lived our way into many wonderful answers, and though three months is
a short time, we did create a community in that time – though a temporal one. And most importantly I think all of us learned the
value of community and collaboration. There was a real sense of joyful surprise as the
‘students’ began to realize that they had things to learn from each other, and a
wonderful creativity that was unleashed when they also realized that we – the
facilitators – did not have all the answers and needed their help and participation
for many elements of bringing the village to life.”
Marianne Knuth
“What really struck me was the question
– ‘What is a human being?’ Are we animal, vegetable or mineral? These
concepts become the basis for creating a foundation for the development of attitudes
supportive to the realisation of human dignity. After reading this book, I realised how
profound is this subject of a simple thing as ‘human dignity’. Attending to
symptoms, addressing salient causes of poverty, prejudice, abuse and every other form of
inequality and violence we can bring about change, but attending to root causes is also
important, may be we can create meaningful social and economic transformation.
Sugandhi Baliga
“One day somebody asked me a question,
“ Can you share an experience from which you learnt something?” This was a
difficult yet exciting question for me. When I reflected on it I realised that learning
was very natural and spontaneous process for me. All the experiences were learning
experiences for me. But that question made me very conscious and my learning process also
became very conscious. This criticality and reflection helped me discover myself, my
relationships with my world and became part of my work while dealing with MEDIA in
Abhivyakti.”
Sujata Babar
“The South African education
transformation process is bold and visionary, though fraught with all manner of issue,
challenges and philosophical debate, regarding appropriacy of (schooling) model, timing,
government/community capacity and programme sustainability, “more of the
same” syndrome, etc. Having just emerged from an exceptionally perverse social order
though resisting the slash and burn alternative, the new authorities are somewhat mired in
the treacherous policy/practice quicksands of social change. I look forward to
Udaipur and to sharing with you some of perspectives and quandaries in this regard in the
near future.”
Gordon Naidoo
“i
am at a turning point in my life and need to decide which way to go. working in an
extremely hierarchical and bureaucratic organisation, i realise it is not the place for a
person like me who wishes to live life on her own terms. but in the past few years, i have
made so many compromises for marriage, for family, for being “successful” that i
no longer know what life on my own terms means. is it defying a boss who is deliberately
obstructing work, or is the challenge in learning to play her game - but then how does one
win while keeping one’s spirit and the spirit of one’s work intact.”
Tasqeen Machhiwala
“My energy comes from organic farming, engaging in
creative expression with children of all ages, exploring new partnerships with people from
all over the world, and from having my 80-year-old grandmother, my 85-year-old
grandfather, my 29-year-old sister-in-law, my 33-year-old brother, and my 8-month old
niece together with me in the same house. The
dynamic combination of all of these experiences has my heart, body, mind and soul all
working overtime!”
Shilpa Jain
_________
REFLECTIONS
ON LEARNING
The
Essence of Study
Late one night, Reb Dov Ber (the “Mitler
Rebbe” of Chabad) was up studying Torah in his parents’ house in Liadi.
Suddenly, there was a knock on his chamber door, and his father, Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the
first Rebbe of Chabad, walked in. Reb Dov Ber stood in respect.
“My son, what were you studying just
now?”
“I was studying the kabbalistic writings
of the Arizal, father,” Reb Dov Ber replied.
“Do you find them profound?” Reb
Shneur Zalman asked.
“Father, they contain the secrets of the
universe.”
“And do they uplift you?”
“When I study them, I feel as if I were
standing before the Supernal Assembly.”
His father paused. “My son, several
minutes ago, on the floor just below you, a baby fell out of its crib and was crying. I
was upstairs, also studying. But when I heard it cry, I ran downstairs to help, for I was
sure that you were asleep . . . . No matter how profound and uplifting is the study of
Torah, one must never become so engaged that he fails to hear the cries of another human
being.”
(C) Eliezer Shore, Bas Ayin,
www.shemayisrael.com/shavous/chassidic_stories.htm
(shared
by Jan Visser)
What is learning? How do we learn?
From Manish Jain
- Meaningful
learning takes place in the context of authentic practice
- Meaningful
learning involves linking the hands, heart and mind (working with one’s hands is
critical)
- Meaningful
learning involves dialogue, particularly the ability to listen in different ways
- Being in close
and continuous interaction with nature and its processes/cycles is essential for
understanding oneself and the world
From
a culture of teaching and passive information acquisition, we should actively promote a
culture of life-long learning which nurtures flexible learning processes of questioning,
analysing, feeling, reflecting, owning knowledge, negotiating, doing, self-motivation,
patience, communication, collaboration, creativity, self-discipline, tackling stress,
dealing with conflict and self-confidence...
From Ashraf Patel
To me, learning is
about breaking boundaries and creating personal and social spaces for exchange. Learning
to me is an adventure - which everyone must have a right to go on. Learning is about
change - it cannot be passive. Learning to me is value loaded - it must bring about peace.
From
Jason Fernandes
Learning
as a process of looking beyond what is presented to ... us by the System. Looking beyond
to what exists, to the possibilities of what could. To broadening my experience base, and
moving out of ruts that I may have been. Ruts of class, of cultures I have grown up with,
of urban settings etc.
Working
with rural tribal people has shown me altogether a different process of learning. Here
learning is part and parcel of your life. There
is no alienation nor compartmentalization. Learning, playing, growing up, is all well
integrated... They are always experimenting, observing and learning from the experience.
But of course this open-ended-ness is possible only in a process-oriented or intuitive
culture. Children in all cultures learn using this process. It is only when they enter
formal schools they become product-oriented. This happens even to children in so-called
alternative schools because the alternatives are searched for within the
‘reasoning’ framework.
From
Rustam Vania
Life
is an emotional response. So is learning. Primarily. For that, I guess I need to follow my
heart. So why does school concentrate on my head? The easy task is to learn, the more
difficult task is to unlearn! It’s the latter that I find intriguing and challenging.
My most important
learning/unlearning is the ongoing lesson of giving up control & acting from the inner
guidance of spirit.
One and a half
decades of working with various groups, including children, parents, teachers, farmers and
women in the villages, on initiatives to understand and facilitate human communication, I
have been enriched by their wisdom and ways of learning. Growing with my ten-year young
daughter Sakhi has taught me in abundance about nuances of life and living and a constant
reminder that learning is indeed a continuous and joyful process, more so in an
environment of trust and mutual respect.
* THE HUMAN BODY is the most important organ for
human learning. This contradicts a number of popular assumptions such as the claim that
learning takes place inside the brain. Obviously, the brain plays an important role, but
it can only do so by being integrated in the body as a whole. It is thanks to our entire
bodies that we are able to explore other such bodies and in general the world around us.
It’s what allows us to engage in dialogic behavior. The disposition to do so is what
I call learning.
i
am in process of understanding life and living with understanding... through singing,
playing flute/ harmonium/dafli, playing with children, growing with qudrat and sumi (my
son and life partner), acting, being with nature, sitting in silence, making new
relations, writing/reading/ painting...
From
Bliss Browne
So
learning has always been to me like breathing...a generative dialogue in which what we
already understand is reordered and expanded by the encounter with new ideas, perspectives
and experiences that open us to life and reveal and develop our own capacities. By
keeping an open mind and heart, I bump into the fullness of life in ways that are
disturbing and joyful, that reveal my personal and cultural limitations. Learning involves
risk taking, so I prefer to do it in community with others who are open to the unknown,
and deepen courage to encounter the mystery of life without fear.
From Ravi Gulati
I think one of the most meaningful unlearning
and learning (and aren’t the two always together! To use a Hindu analogy,
Siva, the destroyer, is worshipped in the form of the linga, a symbol of creation) of mine has been the
realization that there’s no escaping ‘doing’ in order to move on the path
of ‘understanding’. At the risk of making mistakes, even terrible ones
sometimes, we can never wait for a total understanding to dawn first, before we begin to
play our role in this mysterious world in which we find ourselves.
Where Is Learning? When Do We Learn?
Perhaps the most serious problem with
schooling as we know it is the monopolistic hold that the idea of schooling has acquired,
over time, on people’s thinking about learning, resulting in the generic perception
that ‘learning is what you do in school,’ thus implying that learning is the
result of instruction and nothing else.
From Nitin Paranjape
This
state wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t spotted it moving near my feet. No
sooner that I saw the tiny rat moving about my apartment than I took a broom and hit it
savagely. My ten year old daughter Sakhi shrieked at the sight and asked me whether I had
killed the poor creature. I don’t know whether the rat was killed but I managed
to have the situation under my control. It was only after it was over that I started
feeling miserable... Many awkward questions passed through my mind. Did I do the right
thing? Why did the rat’s presence disturb me? Couldn’t I accommodate its
presence in my house? ...suddenly, I find
myself in a different mood. Sad, miserable and wretched. Also, reflective. We pass through
so many different emotional states, yet what we present to the outside world is masked,
and is some type of a constant. Our each moment is rich, different and is an opportunity
to experience, discover and learn. Am I in touch with it all the time?
Let me share one
of my experiences when I played a game: Each of us were given certain tasks to perform in
the whole group. I received the task of grabbing notes from others. As soon as the time
began, I was so unconsciously following the instructions that I did not know why was I
following the instruction without even questioning what is the purpose of this game….
While grabbing, I also realised I was getting violent if there was resistance from the
other side. Violence is so deep rooted in me, that it does not seem to be coming across
very consciously but while engaging with the community with a specific goal, my values
were emerging so clearly. I was stunned at myself for that kind of behaviour in the group.
We
are trying to share our learning/un-learning experiences, but I realized that my most
important ones are very intimate and personal, almost sacred... They unfolded in my
relations with people I love and care about, with situations and challenges that I never
expected to be confronted with. They involved situations where logic does not take you
very far, where you need to trust that things will move on and eventually for the better.
Stories about human learning are stories about hope, love and creativity. They are part of
our process of losing our innocence and discovering new dimensions of life and our
relations to the people and the world around us.
Unlearning...
I am still trying to figure out how I learned all that stuff that needs to be unlearned!
That has to be part of our work, too, I think, identifying those pervasive sorts of daily
life lessons that are reinforced in myriad ways by family, friends, society, media. But my
earliest unlearning experiences were visceral and emotional, not intellectual. I was
alienated from school and church at a very early age, they just didn’t feel like
places I wanted to be. Various incidents of personal violence targeting my perceived
identity, real or imagined, sensitized me to racial hatred. Misguided teaching reforms in
grade school turned me away from reading, and so I spent a lot of time in non-literary
endeavors, like art and music.
To cope in this
rat race with so many concurrent “isms” that are literally killing us —
globalism, neo-liberalism, “free” market capitalism, Bush’s terrorism,
imperialism, even some ngo-ism — so many of us take refuge in our professional selves
(our “external identity” — thanks Zainab) and somehow “flip the
script.” I use the classroom to work out
my frustrations against these “isms”... I am a cog in a university system-yes,
and I also use the classroom to call for resistance to that very system of
schooling/learning. I am constantly
unlearning what I learned in much of graduate school, and I am trying to offer the
students alternative perspectives to an otherwise “liberal” education. One might say that I am trying to use the
master’s tool to destroy the master’s house (I am borrowing from Audre Lourde
here. She’s would say that I can’t
destroy the master’s house in this way).
From
Coumba Toure
There
is a saying in Bamanan, “everyday our ears go to the learning house”. It means
whether or not we want, we learn everyday new things... I learn being part of the student
and youth movements in Senegal, working with international women organizations, working
with the Institute for Popular Education in Kati Mali, writing novels, poetry, supporting
my family and my friends to fight injustices, traveling in different part of the world,
Africa Asia Latin America North America Europe — these are my learning places.
Loralai is
culturally a very rich area, its folk literature; local cultural values etc. are full of
energy that generates collectivism, mutual accountability, learning and interdependency.
The learning processes in these communities were rooted in their culture and agriculture.
These two factors of their life were providing opportunities of mutual learning and
interdependency to them. We can say these communities were learning communities, the
spaces of agricultural farms, mosque, baitak, nasta, mailmastia, indigenous sports and day
to day interactions among them were learning spaces. In these spaces each and every
community member participates and learns from other’s experiences. These spaces were
rich sources of knowledge sharing and skills learning...
Might
it be possible to envision all of England, from its abandoned coal mines to its inner
cities as being the raw architecture of a learning space or of a web of learning spaces?
Where every form of organisation is an invitation to young and enquiring minds to grow
like free crystals instead of being forced to grow in one particular direction or the
other? It’s a possibility.
_________
“The
unlearning process I am involved in is intended to scrub off the western influence that I
had gathered through the years of “learning “in the alienating environs of some
of the elitist institutions in the country. From early on, I had instinctively realized
that working with the culturally rooted rural and tribal artisans would be the best way to
reclaim the self. Working with and being part of the rural and tribal folks was the only
way to de-colonize oneself. Thus I began working very closely with different artisan
communities beginning with the Ao-tribe of Mokukchung district of Nagaland. Since then, I
have interacted with many artisan communities in Bengal, Orrisa, Bihar and Tamilnadu,
practicing various crafts like Pottery, Brass, Kantha Embroidery, Bamboo, Stone, and Horn
etc.”
KB Jinan
“Some of the things I have unlearnt during this
time: that the only way to be prepared for the future is to plan out exactly what
you’re going to do well in advance; that my education would be completed in
university and professional training courses in the years immediately after; that there is
one objective truth in all cases, which, with enough research and enquiry, would become
apparent to any person who thought logically.”
Alok Singh
“I have tried to find meaning of my name. In my
mother tongue, Mandar can be divided into Man-Dar. Man in Marathi means “Mind”
and dar means “door”. Mandar: door to the mind. I am engaged in networking in
our north Maharashtra region, working with grassroots groups on local issues of
agriculture, land and women’s empowerment. I am participating with three network
partners, namely, Sarang Pandey of Lok Panchyat, Vilas Shinde of Lok Bharti and Sunil Pote
from Yuva Mitra.“
Mandar Vaidya
“What a learning society is... For me, the key is
motivation. To start with individuals, it is certainly true to say that any being that is
alive is a learner, because it is impossible to exist without constantly learning
something – negative, positive, neutral.”
Sylvia Lee
“My
own questions have to do with the possibilities for deep transformation in educational
processes—I still hold out some hope that it’s possible and look for examples.
I want to know how education can help build more peaceful societies, and how we can
find new ways of understanding how societies are supporting constructive learning
ecologies. Paradoxically, I’m doing research about putting life in boxes.
I’m trying to figure out — in the teeth of Shilpa’s critique about
indicators — how to develop alternative indicators for learning and peacebuilding,
starting from a framework of fundamental human needs and inspired by the notions of
learning societies and learning ecologies.”
Vachel
Miller
“It
is better to walk 1 km than reading 100 books — to learn.”
Smriti
Sinha
“Today
whatever I am good at, I don’t feel like to give its credit to my schools. Theatre,
trekking, mountaineering, badminton, writing, photography, folk dance etc etc, my schools
were never interested in these things or they could not show me the way I needed.”
Subhash Rawat
“My life and learning span nearly seven
decades, four continents, two broad academic disciplines, geography and education, and
immeasurable amount of experience, reading, listening, viewing and reflection. I am
also a teacher with faith in and some flair for dialogue. This has contributed
infinitely to my learning before, during and after each engagement.”
Kishore Saint
“When I was a political activist my
perception was that the culture and religion are the core obstacle of progress and we have
to overcome this by throwing out it, for the development the society should adopt modern
principals then it will be developed. But when I learned that how the culture could be a
source of collective reflection, learning and reconnecting the society to nature. How the
world religions can contribute to bring back the humanity to its origin and soul. Now my
efforts are to interact with communities in a learning discourse on the concepts of
development, change and culture.”
Shah Jahan Baloch
_________
Once upon a time
there was a bird. It was ignorant. It sang all right, but never recited scriptures. It
hopped pretty frequently, but lacked manners. Said the Raja to himself: ‘Ignorance is
costly in the long run. For fools consume as much food as their betters, and yet give
nothing in return.’
He called his
nephews to his presence and told them that the bird must have a sound schooling. The
pundits were summoned, and at once went to the root of the matter. They decided that the
ignorance of birds was due to their natural habit of living in poor nests. Therefore,
according to the pundits, the first thing necessary for this bird’s education was a
suitable cage. The pundits had their rewards
and went home happy.
A golden cage was
built with gorgeous decorations. Crowds came to see it from all parts of the world.
‘Culture, captured and caged!’ exclaimed some, in a rapture of ecstasy, and
burst into tears. Others remarked: ‘Even if culture be missed, the cage will remain,
to the end, a substantial fact. How fortunate for the bird!’ The goldsmith filled his
bag with money and lost no tune in sailing homewards.
The pundit sat
down to educate the bird. With proper deliberation he took his pinch of snug: as he said:
‘Textbooks can never be too many for our purpose!’ The nephews brought together
an enormous crowd of scribes. They copied from books, and copied from copies, till the
manuscripts were piled up to an unreachable height. Men murmured in amazement. ‘Oh,
the tower of culture, egregiously high! The end of it lost in the clouds!’ The scribes, with light hearts, hurried home,
their pockets heavily laden.
The nephews were
furiously busy keeping the cage in proper trim. As their constant scrubbing and polishing
went on, the people said with satisfaction: ‘This is progress indeed!’ Men were employed in large numbers and supervisors
were still more numerous. These, with their cousins of all different degrees of distance,
built a palace for themselves and lived there happily ever after.
Whatever may be
its other deficiencies, the world is never in want of fault-finders; and they went about
saying that every creature remotely connected with the cage flourished beyond words,
excepting only the bird. When this remark reached the Raja’s ears, he summoned his
nephews before him and said: ‘My dear nephews, what is this that we hear?’ The
nephews said in answer: ‘Sire, let the testimony of the goldsmiths and the pundits,
the scribes and the supervisors be taken, if the truth is to be known. Food is scarce with
the fault-finders, and that is why their tongues have gained in sharpness.’ The explanation was so luminously satisfactory
that the Raja decorated each one of his nephews with his own rare jewels.
The Raja at
length, being desirous of seeing with his own eyes how his Education Department busied
itself with the little bird, made his appearance one day at the great Hall of Learning.
From the gate rose the sounds of conch-shells and gongs, horns, bugles and trumpets,
cymbals, drums and kettledrums, tomtoms, tambourines, flutes, fifes, barrel-organs and
bagpipes. The pundits began chanting mantras with their topmost voices, while the
goldsmiths, scribes, supervisors, and their numberless cousins of all different degrees of
distance, loudly raised a round of cheers.
The nephews smiled
and said: ‘Sire, what do you think of it all?’
The Raja said: ‘It does seem so fearfully like a sound principle of
Education!’ Mightily pleased, the Raja was about to remount his elephant, when the
fault-finder, from behind some bush, cried out: ‘Maharaja, have you seen the
bird?’
‘Indeed, I
have not!’ exclaimed the Raja. ‘I completely forgot about the bird.’
Turning back, he asked the pundits about the method they followed in instructing the bird.
It was shown to him. He was immensely impressed. The method was so stupendous that the
bird looked ridiculously unimportant in comparison. The Raja was satisfied that there was
no flaw in the arrangements. As for any complaint from the bird itself, that simply could
not be expected. Its throat was so completely choked with the leaves from the books that
it could neither whistle nor whisper. It sent a thrill through one’s body to watch
the process.
This time, while
remounting his elephant, the Raja ordered his State ear-puller to give a thorough good
pull at both the ears of the fault-finder. The bird thus crawled on, duly and properly, to
the safest verge of inanity. In fact, its progress was satisfactory in the extreme.
Nevertheless, Nature occasionally triumphed over training, and when the morning light
peeped into the bird’s cage it sometimes fluttered its wings in a reprehensible
manner. And, though it is hard to believe, it pitifully pecked at its bars with its feeble
beak.
‘What
impertinence!’ growled the kotwal. The blacksmith, with his forge and hammer, took
his place in the Raja’s Department of Education. Oh, what resounding blows! The iron
chain was soon completed, and the bird’s wings were clipped. The Raja’s
brothers-in-law looked black, and shook their heads, saying: ‘These birds not only
lack good sense, but also gratitude!’ With text-book in one hand and baton in the
other, the pundits gave the poor bird what may fitly be called lessons! The kotwal was
honoured with a title for his watchfulness, and the blacksmith for his skill in forging
chains.
The bird died.
Nobody had the
least notion how long ago this had happened. The fault-finder was the first man to spread
the rumour. The Raja called his nephews and asked them, ‘My dear nephews, what is
this that we hear?’ The nephews said: ‘Sire, the bird’s education has been
completed.’
‘Does
it hop?’ the Raja enquired.
‘Never!’
said the nephews.
‘Does it
fly?’
‘No.’
‘Bring me the
bird,’ said the Raja.
The bird was
brought to him, guarded by the kotwal and the sepoys and the sowars. The Raja poked its
body with his finger. Only its inner stuffing of book-leaves rustled.
Outside the
window, the murmur of the spring breeze amongst the newly budded asoka leaves made the
April morning wistful.
- Rabindranath Tagore
(shared by Shilpa Jain)
REFLECTIONS
ON SCHOOLING
Where, I ask
myself, did the pure joy I experience when listening to and understanding great music come
from? In my culture that would be Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and countless other composers
whose contribution to human happiness is beyond price. Where, equally, does the facility
to understand and enjoy a Shakespeare play, or appreciate the beauty of language used by
Wordsworth, Byron and a thousand other poets come from? Where does my great love of
history, geography, art, travel, science and literature originate?
I think that it
comes from great teachers who did not impose their thoughts upon me but who opened the
doors of perception and allowed me to walk inside and experience the treasure within.
Those teachers were in the schools I went to… ‘teaching’ for me is not the
imposition of another’s ideas or knowledge, but the expert opening up of the mind and
the intellect to allow it to take in the understanding, beauty and wisdom of our passage
on this earth. Perhaps the problem is not the
school, but the stifling system which puts teachers into the position of information
brokers within artificially fragmented subject areas.
In our communities
we have thousands of examples of personalities and as well as of communities which are
never even entered in the school but they know history, geography, literature, astronomy
and many other natural and social sciences very well than many schooled and
‘educated’ people. Do you think
that the sense of competition, fear of grading, burden of homework, tension of exams,
keeping children in fear of punishment and greed of rewards that take place in schools,
can produce great thinkers, practitioners and challenging personalities in our societies?
Perhaps the most
serious problem with schooling as we know it is the monopolistic hold that the idea of
schooling has acquired, over time, on people’s thinking about learning, resulting in
the generic perception that ‘learning is what you do in school,’ thus implying
that learning is the result of instruction and nothing else. Deschooling, in my view, is not doing away with
the school. It’s doing away with a suffocating mindset about the school and then
reconsidering how human learning can best be facilitated in whatever settings (including
some that we may continue to call school), by whatever means, for multiple purposes, and
driven by the concern to explore learning in its fullest richness.
Went through
Norman’s views and then the counter-views of Arif, Zaid and Jan. It has raised
questions for myself as I also have all sweet memories of my school days. Could those days
be sweeter? If there are people who know that the sweetest thing in the world is roti
(bread), is it possible to make them understand the sweetness of deschooling? I am bound
to think why I am satisfied with my school-days? Did I, rather my parents, have smaller
dreams? Are the dreams smaller and bigger? If my mother’s dream is limited to the
happiness of her family what’s wrong with it? If my chacha (father’s brother),
who lives in small hill village, feels that he is happy without knowing much about the
world and satisfied with being only literate, so what?
Since most of us
have come out of the same or similar systems of education of which we have become critical
now and therefore, are seeking alternatives, there is a need to learn form the originals
who have never taken part in any so called systems of education. We need to reflect also
on how these people are defining ‘learning’, ‘schooling’ and
‘education’. For the last 12-13 years I have been frequently visiting areas
where these originals live in and I have felt how wisdom lives there eternally… the
real teachers in my life have been the ‘unschooled’ ones who have never come
anywhere nearer to the so called systems of education.
From KB Jinan
In
the present technological culture, the notion of knowledge has shifted the center of
knowledge from Nature to human, from collective to ego, from heart to intellect/mind, from
intuition to reason, from experience to information, from holistic to compartmental. The
effects of the modern education on the individual are compartmentalization, alienation,
boredom, intellectualization, conceptualization, etc. The larger and more dangerous
effects of modern education on the planet are that we have destroyed its ecosystems,
finished non-renewable wealth, made extinct many animals, plants, etc.…
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 the concepts created
from abstraction are endless and most often meaningless. Deeper and authentic experience
can evolve deeper knowledge. Anthropo-centered
or euro-centered knowledge cannot become holistic. Only by accessing the nature’s
knowledge, which is accessed by all life forms, can there be holistic knowing. The only
way to access this knowledge is to de-intellectualize and listen deeply and honestly to
our inner being. Holistic knowledge is not a
matter of more information, sensitive or otherwise. What is required is a qualitative
change from within.
From Coumba Toure
When there was no
school, did people learn? What did they
learn? How did they learn it? If we close down all the schools and universities
today will people continue to learn? ... Today if there are many places in the world where
there is no school - I know particularly in many villages in West Africa. I know there is a strong movement of educators
working to fix that problem. But I am working
and trying to find out what are the alternatives we could create and start implementing
before schools get to those places, because I see the lack of schools as a big opportunity
for alternatives in education.
My own experience
as someone who grew up studying in Indian schools, and is now teaching in a university in
the US is that the problem is, in fact, schooling. The reason for this is that
historically, the only we can talk about modern schooling is by juxtaposing it—in the
most intimate fashion—with other institutions that, over the modern period, have
emerged to discipline and “order” the lives of people around the world while
simultaneously undermining significant areas of learning that shaped the lives of people.
Schooling, to me,
is one part of the larger network of institutions that play a role in shaping us as
“modern subjects”—as people who have internalized the attributes and
attitudes one expects in “rational,” “democratic,”
“individuals.” It seems, to me at least, that each one these three concepts is
defined in a particularly narrow way, in a way that is largely oblivious to the complexity
that dynamism that shapes our social world. In other words, I suspect that the issues that
most of us are articulating in our critique of education require a deeper engagement with
the “school’s” location within the larger matrix of institutions (the
state, corporations, educational establishments...) that structure it.
To fall into the
dichotomy of “formal school or not” or “school or de-school” is to buy
into the simplistic paradigmatic mode of thought of global mainstream governing
ideologies—developed vs underdeveloped, Global North vs Global South, democracy vs
dictatorship, civilized vs uncivilized, etc. This dichotomy is simply too rigid, and at a
rudimentary level, artificial. The “schooling” problems and alternatives are
more multi-dimensioned, layered, complex, circuituitous than this simple dichotomy
suggests. For me, it is only because I have
both a textured, loving, knowledgeable (in many ways traditional) bayou Creole culture AND
formal schooling that I am who I am. I could not have gotten one from the other. I
critique my being book-long, but I would not change it.
From Barkat
Shah
It is also a point
of consideration to reflect the diverse experimentation of institutionalised learning in
past. Whether it is a problem with the institutional manifestation of learning or
institutionalisation of learning? I think learning being a spontaneous process should be
free from all institutional bonds. But
liberating the learning form the institutional framework is not an easy job. At this point
I am not agreed with apparently subversive connotation of “De-schooling”.
Because it is an utmost statement not giving room for the dialogue or finding the
alternative operational possibilities of transforming the schools into social learning
spaces.
_________
“Had
I the opportunity to be with you, I would have loved to share the experience of my son who
is schooling in France in a bilingual and quite an elitist school. He left school to
travel with us to India at the age of 8. For a year he home schooled and travelled
extensively with his father while I was busy trying to get Liberate School going. On our
return from India, he had to get back to school which is compulsory in France and besides
he was very eagerly looking forward to it.
The
dilemma the kid (and parents!!!) went through the following year is a long and interesting
story. He is not sure he likes school but does not admit he dislikes it. He questions what
the teachers had to say. He wants to be there but not really! He does prefer having a
teacher explaining things to him and did not really like his father changing roles to
become his teacher at the same time, but finally he prefers his father explaining a few
things to him and so on. When time permits, I will try to write it one day. However, one
issue seems interesting to explore would be the children’s experiences about
schooling and life with real life stories of children.”
Sheela
Pimpare
“I
have been associated with peoples movement and also worked to promote constructive asset
building for the communities. My interest is in participatory training, I am also
interested in writing. I feel I have been creative in life, many persons have contributed
in my growth. Many times I am an introvert person, I have selective friends. I relate
comfortably with a person who are reflective and genuine in their approach. I have
not thought concretely about my future but there is an urge to associate with nature,
agriculture.”
Mohan
Surve
“I work at a very special primary school which
gives “arts education”. It is one of the schools that give more freedom to teach
and learn in my country. But there are many things, practices, ideas that just
don’t fit in the formal education. Formal education stops me from breathing. Where
can I work if I want to accompany learning processes and do not want to convince anyone to
believe anything?”
Maria Rortiz
“I am with those who reflect that the issue of
schools or not schools, deschooling or reformed schooling quite misses the point. As
everyone in this dialogue is aware, the term schooling is used as metaphore for much that
is dehumanizing, despiritualizing in our contemporary societies. But the discussion about
learning and unlearning is the more central issue - and that itself reflects our beliefs
about ourselves, our relationships and the universe.”
Ash Hartwell
“My greatest passion is around the idea
of ‘learning democracy,’ the topic of a piece we did in Manish’s most
recent publication. In all of this work, the pattern has been:
1. Working in a loving and learningful,
co-creative partnership with my husband, David.
2. Taking theory to practice and making it
accessible for use where people live.
3. Developing an ever-wider conception
of the place I call home.
4. Deepening my understanding of what it is
that is calling for the gifts the universe has bestowed on me.”
Carole
Schwinn
_________
REDEFINING
GURU
In one of the
Upanishads comes the story of a boy going to his guru and asking him: “Will you
please teach me what is the nature of Reality? Will you teach me please what is the
essence of Life, the meaning of Life, all the knowledge in your books?” The guru
says: “I would love to help you, but look I am very old and I have these 200 cows. I
need your help. They used to live in the forest. Would you take them away from the place
that I am living, enter the deep forest, find a place where you will feel comfortable and
live there till the 200 cows become 1000. While they are becoming 1000, you have to
observe, interact with, and listen to everything that happens around you. Come back with
the 1000 cows, then we shall see about your learning.”
And the Upanishads
proceeds to disclose how the young boy with 200 weak and lean cows goes far off into the
forest having trusted the words of the sage. He lived there, nurturing the cows and being
nurtured by them. For the process to be successful, he had to explore, dialogue and be
with Nature. Over time, he started to understand the movement of the sun, the moon, the
stars, the rivers, the trees, the birds, the living and growing patterns of the cows, the
intelligence that they express. For him learning, working, playing and being/becoming
became one.
And the Upanishad
proceeds to tell us that when the young man went back to the guru’s place with 1000
cows, his entire being radiated with the light of deep understanding. He was joyful, his
face glowing, his eyes full of an inner peace and bliss. And the guru said:
“Congratulations, you have learnt by yourself.”
(shared by Manish Jain)
Typical
teacher-student relationships are characterised by a power imbalance, that is, one has the
knowledge, the other doesn’t and requires the help of the teacher to acquire it. It
isn’t as if these relationships must necessarily involve a power imbalance, but
rather we have accepted this imbalance for too long... how to build learning relationships
that are not characterised by the power imbalance that almost always characterises
learning from an ‘expert’ and that makes me wonder why we are so quick to give
away this label of ‘expert’ to so many.
My father is a
very good “learning company” to me. From time to time we meet and we talk about
the last things I learned, we discuss and reflect about them, we try to see in what point
of my process I am, sometimes he tells me where can I find out more about something, who I
could talk to. Then we say good bye and it is like after that I know what I want to read,
what I want to explore more… if we see what one of the best “contributors”
of my learning process does, is listen.
Bob Marley helped
me to understand, to begin to (un)learn. I
remember hearing Buffalo Soldier in Serowe, Botswana—I mean really hearing it, and of
course Redemption Song. And I (un)learned
more when I worked as volunteer with Crossroads Africa (an NGO) in Lesotho, hearing that
Peter Tosh refused to play in Sun (Sin) City in South Africa in protest against apartheid. He blasted the apartheid regime. Something inside
of me clicked, connected.
I had the good
fortune of several nurturing teachers, including master musicians, Muslim scholars and
Native American elders. They taught me to name the experiences I had, and to turn my
disaffections into something constructive, lessons which I am trying to develop in my own
teaching and writing, passing them on in whatever ways I can.
The big teacher in
my life weighs about 10 kg and speaks his own indigenous language. His name is Galen, and he’s our 8-month old
son. My wife Sarah and I are sharing the
adventure of parenthood. It’s an amazing
learning adventure, one that is challenging and changing my identity. We make up songs and look into each other’s
eyes. He likes to grab my glasses, pull them
off my face, and chew on them. A message,
perhaps, that it’s less important to be reading books than being in direct contact
with him, with the spontaneous and playful energy of life.
I have come to
realize that experience is the best teacher and that we can internalize some of
life’s most critical lessons when we have direct experiences. Also, if we have to
effect changes in the system, sometimes, it is important to be in the system and see how
your contemporaries and colleagues are receiving it. I have also come to realize that even
within the system, there are teachers who are understanding the importance of questioning
and critical examination which they try to promote through their teaching methods.
As a student of
theoretical physics I was, for several years, half of a community of two: a friend of mine
and I. We used to get together (we lived in different cities, a short distance apart) once
or twice a week, for lengthy periods of time, at times going on well into the night, doing
physics. Though the community was small, it’s one of my most vivid recollections of
how valuable community (and thus dialogue) is. Making
music together with others, particularly at the level of a small ensemble like a quartet
or a trio, I found to be an equally fascinating experience of learning together.