Building an ethical society….Anurag Behar
Shaping school culture is difficult. It can happen only if a concerted and sustained attempt is made
Shaping school culture is difficult. It can happen only if a concerted and sustained attempt is made
Raag Darbari is the definitive novel about politics and bureaucracy in India. Somewhere in its opening pages, Shrilal Shukla wrote: our education system is that bitch on the street which any passerby can kick around. The novel is full of such asides, each insightful.
When we have carped a bit about the ethical wasteland our society seems to have become, we say schools must teach values, that is the long-term solution. Its just another one of the kicks, which Shukla laconically observed.
How can schools teach values, when values are absent from most behaviour that a child will see around her in her overall environment. School education (and the child) is integrally a part of the very society that it is supposed to make ethical.
We lightly pass on the burden of building an ethical society to schools. Ironically, many of the (same) people who expect education to bear this burden also, in general, tend to think of employability as the primary purpose of education. Values is only an aside, an add-on purpose when they are ruminating over the lack of values. This, when the learning of values is far more complex than the learning of all that is generally supposed to constitute employability.
Many people (including me) involved in education will gladly take the impossible burden of trying to build an ethical society through education. No one, though, would contend that this can be done by schools on their own. I use the word ethical with its broadest normative meaningequitable, just, humane, etc.
They would embrace this burden because they think of the primary purpose of education as being the development of the individual and society in the broadest possible manner.
So lets grapple with the issue of how to do this. Lets assume that we have an agreement on normative (desirable) values for our society. These are based on a liberal interpretation of the values enshrined in our Constitution. Given the state of our nation, we know that this is a big and fragile assumption.
Let me take you to a classroom. A group of kids are sitting at the back and another group in the front. This is not the usual front and back-bencher divide. These groups have a fair distance between them and not much within. At mid-day meal time, the group in the front is given food first, the group at the back waits for its turn patiently. Centuries of waiting for their turn has taught their community to be patient. In this village, treating this community (considered lower caste) in this discriminatory manner is normal even today.
The social science textbooks that the same kids read in the classroom will have homilies about equality of man and our constitutional commitment to equity. There are no prizes for guessing what will really shape their beliefs (and behaviour) about equality and equity, the textbook or what they live through in their school.
The gap between the word and the deed is not a malady peculiar to village schools, its as much there in the metros. Is anyone surprised to see the principal treating teachers like minions and parents like dirt in Delhi? And the same principal will easily give a heartwarming speech about building a sensitive environment in the school.
Its obvious that no child will learn values by having a subject called values education. Values are shaped through slow, complex social processes that an individual lives through, not by being taught in a classroom. The social processes and relationships in the school are the key determinants of fostering and shaping values. Thoughtful curriculum, including books, which deeply integrates these values and their implied sensibility in a non-didactic manner have a supportive role.
It is fundamentally about having no gap between the word and deed. About how the students, teachers and principal behave with each other, how their relationships evolve. Do they treat each other with respect, what is considered good form and behaviour, how are differences with community norms resolved? In short, its the school and classroom culture and its relationship with the outside community that has the greatest influence (in the sphere of school education) on the evolution of the students values.
Shaping school culture is difficult. It can happen only if a concerted and sustained attempt is made. Our national policies and education frameworks have the right direction on this, thus creating a broadly enabling environment.
The crunch really is in how this is translated into practice at every level: the policies of state education management, its implementation and finally the school where it all comes together for the student. The other crunch is in our teacher education system integrating the expectation of the teacher playing a critical role in the overall development of the child. Suffice to say that we are doing a shoddy job on all this and still continue to expect education to solve our problems. Shuklaji must be smiling knowingly.
A good job on all this could give some hope for school education to shape an ethical society. We have to keep at it, since there arent too many other methods. We have to continue to try to get the islands of schools to turn the tides of the ocean.
Anurag Behar is chief executive officer of Azim Premji Foundation and also leads sustainability issues for Wipro Ltd. He writes every fortnight on issues of ecology and education. Comments are welcome at othersphere@livemint.com
To read Anurag Behars previous columns, go towww.livemint.com/othersphere