System Design

Understanding the process of learning in school education.

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Understanding of learning

After being immersed in the subject for some time, our derived definition of learning looks something like this -   Learning is a process of construction of knowledge through an action-reaction mechanism with the environment, based on prior experiences and reflections on these experiences.

Knowledge includes the ability to modify, transform and operate on an object or an idea. The learning process involves a construction of things which can be shared with others. (Assessment). A learner should be able to explain, extend and evaluate what he/she has learned.

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Parent’s View

Shreyas Foundation We met one parent whose daughter is in 9th and they are thinking of providing homeschool for her from next year so that she can learn what she is interested in, at her own speed and time. Her father said she is interested in writing, she writes blogs and wants to be a writer, then what's the use of learning chemistry, maths, and biology. she reads, writes and does whatever she likes to do and go out to play badminton. Why should she waste much of her time in school while she is interested to learn the subject of her interest only, which she can easily do at home also and it is not that she will lack in socializing, she goes out and meet all kind of people by her own. He said I don’t think the amount of money these schools charge is worth spending, because they don’t give any practical education or exposure to the real world, my daughter has interest in law, so I took her to the high court, and let her explore and decide on her own if she wants to take law as subject for further studies or not, we went to dam to let her see how electricity gets generated and come to our houses. My responsibility is to give her real-life exposure of everything which she is interested in and then let her decide. Her parents are doing a lot of research on education and have tried many schools but are not satisfied with it, now they are planning her studies and learning with her at home only. Government Primary School

We will send her where the teacher will say.

How is she performing in school? padhai ache se to karta hai na ?

Jyada padh likh ke karega kya,akhir karna to yahi hai na.

mai to gadi chalata hun, apni khud ki hai. Bache padh likh jaye to kuch ban jayenge.

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Visit 6 - Shreyas Foundation, Ahemedabad

Shreyas foundation is considered to be one of the best school in Ahmedabad, founded by Sarabhai family based on the educational ideology and methods of Montessori, Gandhi, and Tagore. Special experimental school as they call it provides all the necessary facilities including swimming, horse riding, museums, science center, playground, theater etc. on campus.

7th grade class under an old tree.

Students playing pen fight after an art class. 

School curriculum and activities try to provide every kind of exposure possible which can be of interest to children, but time limitation and tight schedule which of many subjects and periods don’t let students pursue their own interest further. For ex. - one 7th grade boy Om, he likes to play tabla and wants to spend more time on it instead of going for any other subject classes but there is only one period of music in school so he has to join extra tabla classes after school. 

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Visit 5 -  Government Primary School, Sector 3, Gandhinagar

This school works on the same pedagogical principle as other government schools and comes under free and compulsory education for all.

Children of this school come from lower-middle-class families whose parents work on daily basis, parents are not much educated but they want their kids to get a proper education for which they depend on teachers support, generally for any education-related activity and career choices they seek for teachers and other peoples opinions.  

Some of the kids work at home or outside to support the family.  I asked an eight-year girl what do you make at home, I was expecting some things related to craft or toys but to my surprise she replied - I make roti-sabji. She cooks food for the family as her mother don’t get time from work in the morning so she has to make food and then come to school. The number of teachers in the school is very less as compared to the number of students, some of the classes don’t even have a full-time teacher because of which one teacher need to take care of two-three classes at once, which becomes very hectic for the present teachers.

The computer is been installed in the computer class, but no one even knows very basic working of the machine, in fact, most of the computers are dead or outdated. only one is working which is used by the principle to update teachers attendance.

Educational Toys for primary classes.

A small library inside the classroom.

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Visit 4  - Podar International School, Gandhinagar

Podar is a well-known international school which follows CBSE guidelines but they make their own books and syllabus. First time when I went they did not allow me to interact with anyone and asked me to bring a permission latter, I could only talk to the principal or anyone on the school campus. The architecture of the school seems very structured with a bog building and classes on different floors.  Fees structure of the school is relatively high compared to other private schools in the nearby area. 

The teaching method which is based on storytelling, where the chapters and subjects are weaved in a story. Learnings from each chapter are categorized into three skills as language skills, creative skills, and moral values. As being an international school, they follow very strict rules and regulations and try to maintain the image and be in the competition with other international schools for which they have created a structured curriculum and tight schedule for every standard which includes many extracurricular activities like dancing, singing, sports, cultural activities etc.

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Visit 3 -  School of  Archives , Kudasan, Gandhinagar

To get an understanding of differences in the environment, teachers, students, and pedagogy we visited another school. This is a private English medium school which caters to the different segment of society than the government schools.

The school playground is well equipped and facilitates different kind of play and sports activities, only in the free/sports period students come to play. Sports is one of the subjects in the curriculum and each student can choose one sport which they learn from a sports teacher.

Classrooms are structured and are built inside a 4-floor building, all the classes contain fix furniture and fix timing of 45 minutes for every subject period. A tight schedule which includes many extracurricular activities doesn’t let kids be free during school time and after that at home as well because at home they have to repeat what has been taught in school along with many extra coaching classes. Strict discipline is followed by the school for both teachers and students and disobeying it causes punishment.

Students are divided into different groups, red, yellow, green etc.,  a monitor or group leader is assigned for each group and also of each class who is responsible and takes charge of all the students in absence of a teacher. Students are not allowed to move and roam anywhere outside the classroom without teachers permission. Students are habitual of asking for permission before doing anything, doing things without permission is disobedient.

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Teachers View - 1

Few teachers of primary classes said they it gets difficult to manage and concentrate on particular student learning, Every student is in different stage and group in a combined two classes. Rarely they take any new initiative because of the already existing pressure of finishing the syllabus on time. although some of the teachers do conduct extra workshops and find new ways of teaching by incorporating local context in the methods which make student connect and learn faster. Personal, social and economic conditions of a teacher also affect how they perceive their job as a teacher. Some of them do it as a mechanical job which only requires them to translate what is written in the books to the students.

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Visit 2 - Government Primary School - Kudasan, Gandhinagar

The intent behind the visit was to see the environment, classrooms, teacher and student relationship, and the methods of teaching and learning being used.

The school is from 1st to 8th and different educational programmes are used for 1st to 4th and from 5th to 8th.

1st to 4th Pragna – an activity based learning approach is being used, in this approach children are examined throughout the semester instead of one written examination at the end, a ladder system which keeps the progress record of a child, every chapter and activities are defined as milestones, students form a group and sit together based on the number of milestones they have crossed; these groups are  categorized based on their stage of learning and overall understanding as: (1) Teacher Supported Group   (2) Partially Teacher Supported Group (3) Peer Support Group (4) Partial Peer Support Group (5) Self-learning Group and (6) Evaluation Group  - ready for the final milestone.  

Children and teacher sit on the floor, the furniture is flexible which can be kept aside when not in use by the students themselves, they dance, sing, perform and play whenever they are free from study or teacher is not present. An LCD monitor is used to screen educational content for the students whenever required.

All the three subjects mathematics, language and environment are assigned a color and the material related to the subject is kept on a rack of that color. The classes are divided according to the subjects so that a child can have easy access to any particular subject material. Standard 1st-2nd and 3rd-4th are combined in a classroom so that peer-based learning can happen. 

Teaching and learning methods

A milestone chart represents a different milestone in the journey from 1st to 4th standard. Teachers keep a record of every student progress, what milestone they are in and when to take their test.

They use different methods and tools to teach concepts of maths, science, and language. most of the material is centralized and provided by the state, though some teachers also make teaching tools by themselves.

The Pragna approach uses many different activity cards and colored books with images to make the books more child-friendly.

The Makers

Kids are natural makers, they are always in the process of making something either with tangible material or imaginary stories in their mind. These little makers are curious and excited to know and understand what it is and how does it work by touching, exploring, breaking and making things which they personally find meaningful and enjoyable. 

A girl is making a cover for her notebook out of old calendar pages 

 They make their own toys/games and play with the things available in the surrounding. Classes are decorated by the kids with the waste material. They were playing with the balloons, they rub it on oily hair and stick it onto the walls, this was one of the ways of playing, along with many different ways they make play with the balloon.

Eager to learn a new hands-on method of learning multiplication and are trying their hands on it, on the contrary, they don’t get much excited about the same subject when they are not actively involved in the process and are just told to remember what has been taught.

In one of the exercise, I asked students, what do you see on the wall, firstly they could not connect but when I told I can see a dinosaur, they also jumped from their places and started to look at the wall closely and made different interpretations of their own of the same abstract shape and started to make a story out of all the characters they could see. The intention behind this was to give them a perspective of looking things differently in their own surrounding and create subjective meaning out of it instead of giving one correct answer to all like we do in our drawing classes.

Mid Day Meal

To have a creative mind, healthy food is important. Government’s scheme of mid-day meal provides free lunch on working days for children in primary & upper primary classes in government aided local body school.

To improve the nutritional status of children.

To encourage poor children belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school more regularly & help them concentrate on classroom activities, thereby increasing the enrollment, retention & attendance rates.

To Decrease the drop out ratio of the students in school.

The subsidiary aim is to provide the employment in Rural Sector.

All the students of the school have lunch in the school, high school students are assigned periodically to serve and take care of the services. Every student has their own plates, which they themselves wash and keeps in the classroom.

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Visit 1 - Kudasan Village, Gandhinagar

We decided to start our journey with a visit nearby urban village Kudasan. As we did not have any questionnaire to ask or do any activity with the students, so we took some games(Jenga and Othello) along with us for kids to play, as games create a friendly and casual environment which help in breaking the barrier of formalities and invite to participate.

They are of different age and goes to different schools, one of the elder guy runs a food cart and sell local snacks, he has done graduation and now selling snacks here in the village which he believes is not a good job and he asked me if I can provide him a job somewhere, I was speechless. As I opened my bag, they started taking the games out and started stacking the blocks of Jenga, upon telling few basic rules they were all set to play, they learnt the game very sincerely by playing out together and asking each other, showed and helped each other in learning how to play understanding the rules and the working of the game.

Every kid had a different way of interacting with each other and with the game, some kids were touching the blocks, again and again, to check which block would come out, while others first understand, observe and then take the move. Most of them speak in Gujarati and have little understanding of English or Hindi. Elder kids influence younger one and sometimes bully and misguide them just to have fun.

One kid asked me if this game(Othello) is available on mobile and he searched it on his smartphone and found it. but they said playing it on the board is much more fun than on mobile but we get to play it on mobile for free and we can not afford to buy the board. They call the structure of the Jenga blocks a flat, as what they see in their surroundings. One guy refuses to join as he did not know how to play, this thought of not knowing hence not doing resisted him to play and learn.

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What’s Happening In Reality ?

Seeing it from the policy level and psychological point of view of the learner, It was time to dive into the current educational context and understand how the system is working in reality in our surrounding. We started going out to different schools and other places to meet people who directly or indirectly are part of the system and can affect its working.

We started mapping out the stakeholders(people, places, objects) who are or can be a part of the system.

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Teacher Training

What will be taught and how it will be taught in a school is planned by the central authorities, different educational committees make institute frameworks and guidelines, on the basis of which all the teacher training institutes and hence schools work.

The twin strategy of the education board to improving the learning achievements of school children is to :

prepare teachers for the school system (pre-service training).

improve the capacity of existing school teachers (in-service training).

For pre-service training, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), has been formed which lays down norms and standards for various teacher education courses in the country.  

For in-service training, a large network of government-owned teacher training institutions (TTI) has been formed. The spread of these TTIs is both vertical and horizontal.

At the National Level, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and National University on Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) provides institutional support.

At the regional and state level, Five Regional Institutes of Education (REIs) and the State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs) prepares a host of modules for various teacher training courses and also undertakes specific programmes for training of teachers and teacher educators.

The Colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) and Institutes for Advanced Learning in Education (IASEs) provide in-service training to secondary and senior secondary school teachers and teacher educators.

At the district level, in-service training is provided by the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs). and at block establishment of 196 Block Institute of Teacher Education (BITEs) has been done.

The Block Resource Centers (BRCs) and Cluster Resource Centers (CRCs) form the lowest rung of institutions in the vertical hierarchy for providing in-service training to school teachers. But unfortunately rarely any of the sanctioned centers is functional.

Apart from this, Indian Institute of Teacher Education (IITE), an independent institute by Gujarat government was established in 2010 in Gandhinagar to produce world-class teachers and export them.

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National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005)

NCF made by a team of experts from NCERT which provides a framework for making syllabi textbooks and teaching practices, approach, and recommendations for the centralized educational system in India. Some of the points and recommendation of NCF which are important to look through -   Learning should be an enjoyable act where children should feel that they are valued and their voices are heard. Learning should relate to real life experiences. Constructive learning has to be part of the curriculum. Situations and opportunities have to be created for students to provide students with challenges, encourage creativity and active participation for students. Enable students to access sources of knowledge, interpret them, and create knowledge rather than be passive users. Some new courses are also been added to the curriculum such as Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW) which require students to choose any hands-on work-related activity like knitting, gardening, cooking, painting, carpentry and other crafts and hobbies. NCF also aimed at many systemetic reforms like a curriculum that is learner-centric, has a flexible process, provide learner autonomy, teacher plays a role of a facilitator, involves the active participation of learners, develops multidisciplinary curriculum, brings about multiple and divergent exposures, multifarious, continuous appraisal in the educational system.

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Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act

Duties of Teachers

1. Be regular and punctual in attendance. 2.Ensure completion of curriculum within the specified time. 3.Assess the ability of each child and recommend special training, if required. 4. Conduct parent-teacher meetings to apprise parents on attendance, learning ability and actual progress of each child.

It provides for the development of curriculum in consonance with the values enshrined in the Constitution, and which would ensure the all-round development of the child, building on the child’s knowledge, potentiality and talent and making the child free of fear, trauma and anxiety through a system of child-friendly and child-centered learning.

It provides for the appointment of appropriately trained teachers, i.e. teachers with the requisite entry and academic qualifications .

The education act does not talk about any consideration of the moral, cultural, social and ethical background of the teachers and students.

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Literacy and Education Policies

To understand the system it is important to understand its rules, who make it and on what basis the system works. In order to know the details of policies and guidelines on which the system of education works, we looked through different documents prepared by different government bodies. "every person above the age of 7 years who can read and write with understanding in any language is said to be literate," says the government survey which holds the National Literacy Rate to be 74.07%   The youth literacy rate, measured within the age group of 15 to 24, is 81.1% (84.4% among males and 74.4% among females), while 86% of boys and 72% of girls are literate in the 10-19 age group. As of 2011, enrolment rates are 58% for pre-primary, 93% for primary, 69% for secondary, and 25% for tertiary education. Despite the high overall enrolment rate for primary education, among rural children of age 10, half could not read at a basic level, over 60% were unable to do division, and half dropped out by the age 14. 29% of Indian children are privately educated, With more than 50% children enrolling in private schools in urban areas. Officially, the pupil to teacher ratio within the public school system for primary education is 35:1, teacher absenteeism in India is exorbitant, with 25% never showing up for work. -  census 2011

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Literature

How Children Learn - John Holt In this book, holt talks about young children, their exploratory behavior and their capacity to make things. Children love games and can make them out of anything, if you put the fan on, they will turn it off, and from now on if you start moving your hand towards the switch they will catch and say don't turn it on, and this becomes a game.They are not first hearing a tune in their minds and then trying to sing it. They are simply singing and letting whatever comes out, come out.“Very young children seem to have what could be called an ‘Instinct of Workmanship’. We tend not to see it because they are unskillful and their materials crude. But watch the loving care with which a little child smoothes off a sand cake, or pats and shapes a mud pie. They want to make it as well as they can, not to please someone else but to satisfy themselves”.

Instead of Education - John Holt The myth of learning - Almost everyone who goes through S-chools (mainstream system of education) comes out believing (1) if I want to learn anything important, I have to go to a place called a school and get someone called a teacher to teach it to me; (2) the process will be boring and painful; and (3) I probably won’t learn it. Most of the enjoyment comes not from the things but from sharing them with someone. She has the rest of her life to read and write. She only has now to play. We may not be able to understand what a toddler sees in mud or banging pots or pulling everything off the table, but we need to trust that what they're finding so fascinating is what they need to explore. It is valuable to them, rather than trying to get them to change, try to be more with them where they are right now. What's wrong with being interested in what friends are interested in? That is following an interest. Regardless of why a child is interested, following that interest is never wasted. He may move on. It might lead in a different direction. But he will get something of value to him if he's following something that interests him for whatever reason. ~ Joyce Fetteroll [https://www.joyfullyrejoycing.com/] Some other books which I referred during the research- To Understand is to Invent - Jean Piaget Deschooling Society -  Ivan Illich The psychology of intelligence - Jean Piaget Thought and language -  Lev Vygotsky

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Learning Theories

Behaviorism {Pavlov, Skinner, Watson} Learning is a process of reacting to external stimuli. Cognitivism {Piaget, Gestalt. Atkinson} Learning is a process of acquiring and storing information. Constructivism{Piaget. Vygotsky, Dewey...} Learning is a process of constructing subjective knowledge-based reality, based on prior experiences. Constructionism { Seymour Papert } -  Learning is when learners construct mental models to understand the world around them.  Mostly focused on project-based learning using technology. Connectivism {George Siemens} Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. Behaviorism believes learning is the change in the behavior of the learner achieved by conditioning of different kinds, while the theory of constructivism says, learning is an active, contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it. Everyone has a different process of construction of knowledge based on their personal experiences. The learner is not a blank slate but brings past experiences and cultural factors to a situation. learning happens by doing and making things out of curiosity and playfulness in a social context.

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Different Models of Learning

Kolb Learning Cycle