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Untitled Document
Krishnamurti has often spoken about
all our schools being one. It seems
to me that it is to keep a sense of this alive
that the Teachers' Conference of
Krishnamurti Foundation Schools is
organized yearly, in one or the other of the
schools in India. The guiding theme for the
conference this year - hosted at The
School, Chennai, from 26th to 29th
October - was Learning to be a Teacher.
The conference began with Ahalya
Chari, Kabir Jaitirtha and Professor P
Krishna speaking on the topic 'Ten years
From Now'. They emphasized that at the
heart of the creation of all these schools
was the revolutionary spirit that
endeavoured to discover a way of living
which would be unfragmented,
unconditioned, which had a sense of great
energy and passion. The world is changing
so rapidly that it is impossible to predict
what it will be like ten years from now. But
it is certain that what the schools are like
ten years from now will be determined by
the kind of intensity of watchfulness and
commitment to central intentions, which
we bring now, as educators and as people
working together. The dangers ofbecoming
merely progressive schools concerned
primarily with the imparting of knowledge
and skills required for successful careers
was pointed out. We were reminded of the
need for schools to learn to function in
society, not as isolated communities, and
yet not becoming part of it, not
succumbing to the enormous pressures that
it can subtly bring to bear.
What K has to say on education
represents an important movement in the
history of schooling, and the conference
also creates a context to meet people who
are attempting to explore and understand
this philosophy and its relevance in our daily
transactional life as teachers and colleagues.
In one particular session we were all
divided into four groups and each group
had a teacher who would actually conduct
a class and try at the same time to keep
observation and attention at the centre of
the teaching-learning process. It was
interesting to see what a struggle it was to
maintain this dual brief. Some perceptions
and questions emerge,d from the large
group discussion that followed: 'Pay
attention now!' is usually a demand to
concentrate and to fragment. How can one
actually create an atmosphere where one
remains open and yet aware of the task at
hand? Is it necessary for every child to
attend all the time, in the same way, to a given topic? Given shorter and shorter
attention spans, must teachers become
entertainers to hold the interest of their
students?
Another session examined modes,
methodologies and strategies in the
classroom. Small groups discussed these in
the light of various concerns that we hold
as teachers. How does one account for
differing learning styles? What does
facilitatinglearning at the child's own pace
entail? How can the growth of student
initiative become central to the actual
functioning of the classroom? What does it
mean to start from where the student
actually is? What, other than test
performance, are the indicators of the
quality of the teaching-learning process?
How does a teacher create an atmosphere
that is sensitive to the movements of the
mind? With briefs that were in themselves
wide but clearly defined, there was space
to grapple with issues of curriculum
design, structuring of the classroom, the
teacher's role, assumptions we hold about
quality teaching, assumptions about
hierarchies of the mind and capacities of
children and so on.
In what ways do teachers change and
grow in the years they spend in the schools?
In what ways do their concerns and
preoccupations, and the challenges they
face, change? An interesting feature of the
conference was the session 'Teacher in the
School', where teachers met in three
groups which were demarcated by the
duration of stay in the school. There were
separate discussion groups for new
teachers, for teachers who have been in the
schools for between three to eight years and
for those who have spent more than eight
years in the schools. The first two groups
were moderated by people who had spent
several years working in the schools.
The new teachers felt that the absence
of clear 'rules', and do's and don'ts can be
perplexing, though there is a lot of space
for exploration and initiative. While
understanding the necessity for an
atmosphere that is free of fear, many spoke
of the difficulties in holding boundaries for
students. By and large new teachers
experienced a lack of clarity about what
was expected of them. They also felt the
need to locate themselves vis-a-vis the
intentions of the school.
The second group felt, by and large,
that working together and communicating
with each other was the greatest challenge.
Teachers spoke poignantly of the struggle
involved directly in relating honestly with
one another, of the need to hold opinions
lightly and to engage with personality
issues. One speaker stated poignantly that
in many situations one runs up against the
fact that the commitment to look and
enquire has to be unilateral. One can invite
others to a dialogue but to expect a
commonality only alienates and makes one
judge others. Many felt that it is in this
period that one comes upon the chasm
between the intention and practice in
oneself: 'What I teach is what I know but
what I educate is what I am'. The pressure of parents working at cross purposes was
also felt.
The discussion in the last group
touched upon how we need to perceive,
orient and account for the population of
teachers who come and go, which is a
reality in all the schools. How does one help
the school meet rapid changes in society?
What are the schools for and for whom?
Many seemed to feel that there is a
tendency for the energy of individuals as
well as the institution to get absorbed in
the world of activities.
Another format was a large group
meeting, where chosen speakers, forming
an inner circle, took up the topic of
'Situations Encountered in Schools and
Responses', followed by an open session.
This session was designed to address how
problems emerge, the paradigms of
functioning that they reveal, and the
learning opportunities that they create.
However, in this session the speakers
seemed to focus on their individual styles
and philosophies of addressing problems
and a clear thread was difficult to find.
An exciting aspect of K's vision of a
school is that it is a place where adults work
together not only, in the day-to-day
functioning, but also in forging a common
direction that is not born of reaction or
collusion. An interesting exercise was set
up in the session titled 'WorkingTogether' .
Small groups of teachers were required to
find the most important thing that was
absolutely essential for a student of the
Krishnamurti school to learn. Each group
had to simultaneously observe how it was
actually working together in accomplishing
its task. All the classic stances and
confusions that prevent movement
emerged. The tugs and prescription,
polarization, hierarchy, diffidence, self-absorption,
etc. could all be vividly felt.
The groups thus made a conscious struggle
to carry people along, but it was not
surprising to find that only one group
actually completed its task.
The schools do not exist in a vacuum.
Though human consciousness continues to
suffer from the same ills born of
fragmentation, we need to take into
account the exact flavour and the
complexities of the time and age we live
in. Three sessions grappled with issues in
this area.
'Understanding How Children Grow
Up' was a panel discussion that attempted
to address children's relationship with
sexuality in an increasingly permissive and
sexually exploitative world. The strategy
adopted by the anchor-person was to
delineate a difficult situation and to ask each
panelist how he or she would respond to
it. After this the discussion was opened to
the larger group. We found ourselves
grappling with issues of morality, gender
roles, the inability of adults to dignify their
own sexuality, the dilemmas that
institutions and individuals encounter in
dealing with the issues of exploitation and
adolescent sexuality. The role of the media and the need to understand its influence
was discussed. It seemed imperative that
parents and teachers acquire clarity in this
area, if the children under our care are to
grow up in a safe and wholesome manner.
The place of the arts in our curriculum
was examined by a panel of art teachers in
the session: 'Revitalizing the aesthetic and
intuitive aspects of a human being'. This
was a felt-need in the context of a society
which often defines school 'success' in
terms of scholastic achievement in the
disciplines that are geared to the job
market. The panel also expressed the
concern that curricula tend to focus on
skills and information that can be evaluated
easily. The audience were invited to reflect
upon the following questions: How does
one address the flowering of the aesthetic
sensibility of a child? How can the
integration of body, mind and emotion be
facilitated? What are the other kinds of
experiences we caQcreate which could help
the emergence of an inner poise and a mind
that is whole and responsive?
Given that we live in India, a country
of diverse and rich vernacular languages
and given the fact that English is, among
other things, also the language of the
upwardly mobile, the place of the
vernacular language in our schools is a very
vexed issue. The problems and possibilities
of teaching the Indian .languages were
discussed by a panel of teachers. Beyond
the issue of how to enthuse children to learn
the second language lies the fact that each
language contains in itself a unique
experience of the world. How to draw
upon this rich storehouse of cultural
experiences within our 'English-medium'
schools was a central question we were left
with..
'Pot Pourri' was a session where
schools made short presentations on a wide
range of possibilities, policies and
programmes that have evolved in their
schools, from admission procedures to the
do's and don'ts of school trips.
To conclude, one might add that
meeting, interacting and exchanging notes
with teachers from other schools, especially
those engaged with the same age group or
the same subjects, is always an exciting
prospect. The four days we spent together
allowed many opportunities for such
informal meetings and this was not one of
the least benefits of the teachers'
conference.
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