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A school, like any other institution,
is a complex amalgam of
intentions, processes, practices and of
course, people. How does a school forge a
vision that stays relevant in the face of
societal changes? Can the steps taken in a
chosen direction be taken together? Are
apprehensions and differences just obstacles
or are they valuable pointers to important
concerns that need to be addressed? Can
both attention to detail and long term vision
go hand in hand? Can we learn from the
experiences of other institutions and
individuals or must we reinvent the wheel
every time? These have been real and vital
questions in taking decisions, both big and
small, in our journey into restructuring the
junior school at The School, Chennai.
This essay attempts to delineate our
journey into a learning structure involving
Mixed Age Grouping (MAG) in the junior
school.
Structures in a School
Krishnamurti has pointed out that the
mind often seeks escape and change
through modifying outer realities. We try
to solve problems by changing external
systems, structures or beliefs. However,
inner realities and conflicts remain
unaddressed. Hence the question arises,
¡°What is the place of structures in a K
school?¡± Is there any necessity to examine
the ways in which time, space, processes
and classrooms are structured? Can any one
structure be substituted by any other?
Several years ago, a thought-provoking
article by John Gatto, an American teacher
was circulated among our teachers. He had
in the course of his career unravelled several
of the unintended messages that school
structures convey. For example, "Learn not
to invest too much in what you like because
you have to be ready to drop it at the end
of 40 minutes!"
This sparked off a shared questioning
of the structures we take for granted. We
began to look more closely and soon
discovered that our school, in the way it
was structured, seemed to convey and
reinforce many attitudes that were contrary
to our intentions as we saw them.
In staff meetings over the last several
years, we often spoke about the day to day
processes and dilemmas we encounter in
the classroom. Here are some of the issues
discussed.
- The Teacher as the Centre: In the
teaching-learning process, the
teacher, most often, is at the centre of
the classroom. All eyes and ears are
expected to be directed towards the
teacher and the blackboard. It
becomes the teacher's job not only to
initiate the activity in every class but
also to keep the class going on a
moment-to-moment basis. The
student's role can easily become
passive. There seems little space for the
student to take charge of his or her
own learning. The teacher often feels,
as one of my colleagues put it, like a
steam engine, huffing and puffing to
pull the carriages along! At our school,
we had been attempting several
methodologies in the classroom:
project-based work, working in small
groups, emphasizing speaking and
listening among the students
themselves etc. However, some
questions remained. Was it possible to
create a design that would put the
student's learning at the centre of the
classroom process, where the
emphasis would shift from what the
teacher was teaching to that of what
the student was learning? Was it
possible to create a context where
children could also do work based on
their own initiative? Could there be a
design that freed the teacher from
being the centre of attention, so that
he or she could focus more on
observing the student and his or her
learning process? Was it possible to see
students as resource people, learning
from one another?
- The Myth of the Average
Student Student: Students differ in ability,
grasping power, speed and learning
style. Teachers often address
themselves to a mythical 'average'
student. Several students who are
below this average may struggle with
work which they are not ready to do.
Those who are above this average may
finish their work in a very short time,
feel bored and inadequately
challenged. 'Slow learners' often
accumulate huge backlogs which they
somehow try to cope with, but often
do not. The usual remedy for this in
progressive schools is pulling the child
out of the regular class into a remedial
situation. This to us seemed an
unsatisfactory solution which held
connotations of failure and inadequacy.
Further it is clear that people do not
learn in steadily progressive
installments. There are times when
there is a quantum leap in understanding
or ability. We also hit plateaus
of difficulty or disinterest. All this is
not taken into account in the way we
teach or in what we expect of our
students.
In response to these perceptions, we
did two things. We began exploring the
creation of work materials that would
pose a challenge that various children
could meet at their own individual
levels and in their own particular style.
We also began to ask whether we
could create a classroom where there
was legitimate space for each child to
work at his or her own individual pace.
- The Burden of Incomprehension: The Yashpal Committee
Report spoke of the 'burden of
incomprehension' in students' minds
being greater than the weight of the
books they carried on their backs. It
emphasized that 'a few things learnt
well is better than many things learnt
badly'. It was clear that a child could
proceed to learn only from the place
where she was, and not from where
she ought to be. Was it possible to
allow the child to learn at her own
pace, learning few things well rather
than many things badly?
- Conformity and Competition:
One of the constant struggles in a
school situation, especially in the
junior section, is that of maintaining
order without threatening, punishing,
cajoling or rewarding children.
Whatever is going on inside young
children is constantly being played out
vocally and physically in the class
situation. There is tremendous
pressure in the class to subscribe to
the dominant fashions and norms of
behaviour. Deviation from the norm
is often met with merciless teasing or
exclusion. We noticed that even by
class 3, boys and girls get polarized
into distinct sets.
Same age group classes also breed
intense competition. All children do not
learn to crawl or walk at the same age, they
don't begin talking at the same age. Yet
children at school are all expected to be at
the same academic level, and that too on a
daily basis. Parents are anxious about their
children keeping up with their peers.
Children who learn fast become confident,
while slow learners often get disheartened,
compare themselves with others and feel
small. While these issues have been
addressed in K schools through
conversation and class discussions, the very
act of placing children of the same age into
one learning context seems to sustain and
reinforce this expectation of identical
ability.
Schools are virtually the only places
where people are segregated on the basis
of age. Groups of children playing together
in a neighbourhood, or learning music or
dance, are often of different ages. So why
is it that we feel that Maths or English must
only be learnt in the same age group?
Younger children often learn from
watching older ones. Older children can
actively teach the younger ones, often with
greater patience than adults do. There
develops tolerance for varied ability as one
gets to expect this in a mixed age group.
There is no norm to conform to.
With these questions and insights in
mind, we began to experiment with
contexts where 'non-directed multidimensional
learning could take place
under the watchful eye of an adult'. In 1995
we set up a Junior Resource Centre where
children came in mixed age groups and
picked up whatever interested them. By
1997 activities like clay work, art, craft,
music and games were already organized
in mixed age groups.
The Pilot Programme 1997-98
During the academic year 1997-98 we
were ready to attempt a pilot project in
subject learning for a Mixed Age Group
(MAG). Kamala Anilkumar, who had
experience in a Montessori School, took
the lead in anchoring this programme. A
four year age range seemed appropriate,
i.e. from class 1 to 4. We did not want more
than 5-6 children from any one age group
since similar peer group dynamics would
again take over. It was decided that the pilot
class students would join their peers in a
Same Age Group (SAG) setting for the
second language sessions. And of course
other activities would continue for the
whole junior school in the MAG modality.
A crucial piece of preparatory work
was done over the summer. The teachers
who had worked in junior school met along
with others to evolve clearly graded,
detailed learning objectives in English and
Mathematics. Some wider learning
objectives were also articulated, and some
general criteria evolved for the creation of
learning material.
Key insights that emerged that
summer were:
- Children at all levels must be allowed
to face unfamiliar challenging
situations that call for resourcefulness.
- The work material and tasks must be
designed so that there is a part
accessible to all, a part meant to be
graded and some of it so challenging
that none of the children find it easy
to attempt.
- The learning context must always
cover a wide and complex area,
allowing for a variety of unplanned
learning. The specific skill/concept to
be evaluated should be just a small
part of the entire learning context.
The pilot project was confined to those
children whose parents had volunteered to
try it out after a meeting with the head and
the junior school teachers. The response
was very encouraging. The year 1998–1999
began with 19 children as part of the MAG
pilot programme.
In her regular briefing to the rest of
the staff, Kamala reported that there was a
tremendous degree of learning from each
other in the MAG class. Boys and girls
seemed much easier with each other. There
were several friendships between children
of different ages. Older children often took
active charge of younger ones. There
seemed to exist a friendly, cooperative and
learning atmosphere by and large.
Feedback from parents was also very
encouraging. Many remarked on the
absence of competition and peer pressure,
and the creation of an active learning
atmosphere. One question that emerged in
the pilot programme was that while the
younger children were benefitting
enormously, was there in it adequate
challenge for the older ones?
By January 1999, it became clear to
us that the psychological health fostered by
these mixed age groups was immense and
that there was nothing we could not do in a
MAG that we could in a SAG structure. We
began to seriously consider a MAG
structure for the whole of the junior school
in the academic year 1999–2000. It was
very clear that we needed a planned
approach to the transition.
Planning for the Transition 1998–99
The plan addressed six areas.
- Building the basic material (workcards
and worksheets) for use by individual
students: To this end we first began by
compiling all the material we already
had in English, Mathematics and
Environmental Studies. The compiled
material was sorted out into areas,
graded and checked for
comprehensiveness.
- Gaining an understanding of the areas
that could not be addressed through
worksheets and workcards, areas for
which we might need a SAG
configuration.
- Attending to the physical design of the
classroom space. What academic and
non-academic materials (such as
dotted paper, board games etc.) would
the classroom need to stock? How and
where would things be stored?
- We needed to explore other wider
questions, without which any
structural change was bound to be
superficial:
What kinds of learning (in the
physical, psychological and
interactional realm) did we feel was
required by children of this age group? What kinds of demands would we
need to make, what kinds of contexts
did we need to design in order to
facilitate the necessary learning? What
kinds of discussions, both contextual
i.e. arising from an immediate
situation, and acontextual, dealing
with ageless questions about human
life, did we need to initiate with
children of this age group?
- We needed to address the individual
apprehensions of teachers who were
to anchor the unfamiliar setting of
MAG classes. There were fears about
being able to deal with older children
for those who were used to working
with class 1 or class 2 children.
Brainstorming sessions and group
planning sessions were ways in which
these anxieties were addressed.
Teachers were asked to observe the
pilot MAG class and become familiar
with the evolved material.
- Timetabling was a final area :
Allocation of time under each head
(MAG, SAG, 2nd language, activities,
games etc.) was a large group exercise
involving the entire teaching staff of
the school. Teachers wanted a long
morning session in the MAG. Second
language would continue in SAG.
Some SAG time for other things was
also allocated. Activities and games
needed to be fitted into the timetable.
One concern was that a child should
not need to move back and forth
between MAG and SAG several times
a day as this would be confusing. The
positioning of assemblies has always
been an important thing. Assembly
time was moved to before lunch rather
than at the start of the day.
The responsibility for facilitating
dialogue and teacher learning in the above
areas was shared by various teachers. As
part of the preparation, visits were arranged
to two schools, Vikasana School in
Bangalore and to the Rishi Valley Rural
Education programme, both of which have
evolved a MAG structure.
Observing these alternative models of
education was a source of immense
strength.
In January 1999, we announced to the
parents our intention to restructure the
junior school. It was felt that an early
announcement would give parents essential
time to consider if they wanted their
children to continue here in the face of the
proposed changes. The risk of massive
withdrawals was preferable to large
numbers of discontented parents who felt
stuck with the changes.
Shortly afterwards there was an
orientation meeting for the parents of the
junior school outlining the intentions and
details of the restructuring. The parents
who had participated in the pilot
programme shared their experiences and
perceptions. There was an air of optimism
and enthusiasm for the venture. They 86
integration of the MAG classes into same
age groups in class five. While there was
no clear answer, the intention and the
determination of the school to seriously
address the question was communicated.
Parents extended their full support to the
proposed change.
The Junior School MAG
Programme 1999–2000
School began in 1999–2000 with 4
mixed age groups in the junior quadrangle;
Pipal, Jamun, Banyan and Mango. Each
group had about 25–26 children, with
roughly equal numbers of boys and girls and
a distribution across the ages of 5 to 8. The
configuration of the groups was, in all other
ways, completely random. There were six
possible teachers for the programme.
However, it was decided that the teachers
teaching classes 1 to 4 would anchor the
MAG classes. Each one of them had shifted
from initial uncertainty to a position of
confidence and readiness. A fifth teacher
was inducted, for the purposes of
substitution and support. All five of them
meet for an hour every day to jointly plan
for classes and to discuss difficulties.
Now, something in the chemistry of
the junior school has distinctly changed. The
quadrangle has become an extremely quiet
and orderly place. Where earlier the
children could be heard all the way upto
the office building, now the atmosphere of
quiet makes it difficult to believe that a
hundred children are working together.
are seen playing together. This is in marked
contrast to the earlier scenario where class
4 boys would play separately, class 2 girls
separately and so on. Something new has
happened!
This year’s Junior School Parent’s Day
was another context which revealed the
health of the MAG configuration. Teachers
reported that rehearsals were largely
disciplined and self-regulated with older
children often taking charge of the group.
Even on the final day of the programme,
very little teacher energy went into
maintaining order. There was a beauty and
charm in children of various ages taking
part in the same dance or play.
At The School parents of each class
are invited for meetings around themes. We
have decided to hold these meetings
according to the MAG classes and not the
age-wise grouped classes. The meetings this
year were marked by near complete
attendance. A large number of parents
shared their perceptions with the large
group. They seemed to speak as parents of
a particular child rather than parents of a
specific class. This revealed to us that
parents also experience the pressures of
keeping up with other parents of the same
age group. The MAG programme seems to
have strengthened the process of
individuation for parents, as well.
Implications for the school and
beyond
In summation, we would like to note
that the transition to the MAG structure in
the junior school has three far-reaching
dimensions that seem valuable. First, the
transition to MAG classes is an expansion
of styles and therefore possibilities of
learning. Second, it has brought the whole
school together in giving support to four
teachers in making such a transition in style
and content. And finally, this step within a
single school though it may be small in
itself, could have wider implications. For it
opens up the possibility of people starting
small, effective local schools in urban
settings, thereby challenging the dominant
model of monolithic institutions.
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