26. Issues to Ponder on After Trainee Reflection

According to Ghaye (1996): “Reflection is looking back and making sense of your practice. Learning from this and using this learning to affect your future action. It is making sense of your professional life”.
Ghaye, T. etal (1996). An Introduction To Learning Through Critical Reflective Practices. New Castle-upon-Tyne: Pentaxion Press

Now, let us see how far this is true:

Last month (July 2010) I had attended and offered my comments for three consecutive Reflection sessions. (17th, 24th & 31st July). Yesterday (02 August 2010), I had to observe a class by one of my trainees in a local school, and had a glance at the daily reflection entered by the trainee in the Diary. It reads “ The Common Reflection sessions are boring!”. Here one should admit that perceptions of individuals do tend to vary. Now what exactly must have prompted the trainee to write that the sessions are boring? Given below are observations made by a few trainees after their Practice Teaching in the last week of July:

* I am sorry to say that most of my friends perceive the arrival of Supervising teachers/ Teacher Educators to observe classes as ones similar to raids by Income Tax sleuths!

* Engaging classes during Practice Teaching while the Supervising teacher is present in the class is like learning to drive a car with the instructor beside you with half the control in his/her hand!...for their presence acts as a bridle that checks the mischief mongers in the class. But on comparison of pupils in schools we have realized that children are alike everywhere…studious ones, interested ones, mischievous ones and the problem makers.

* When I asked some pupils to read from the Malayalam Course Book there was hesitation, pauses, and umpteen mistakes in pronunciation! Later while introducing a particular lesson related to the Ramayana, I had asked the same pupils to read a couple of lines from the Malayalam version of the epic. To my utter disbelief, the pupils read with a fair degree of accuracy with perfect pronunciation and articulation! … I really do not know whether the pupils are deliberately pretending to be dullards or does it have anything to do with their habit of reading the Ramayana regularly as a religious exercise in their homes.[Incidentally, the second half of the month of July, in Kerala State, South India is treated as the month of the Ramayana, when in devout Hindu families the sacred epic is read/recited everyday as a ritual]


* The trainees have to conduct Diagnostic Tests during Practice Teaching. In one school, there happened to be two trainees from the same optional subject. After the test was rendered in one division by a trainee, the pupils scored high, but when another trainee gave the same Diagnostic Test in another division, the pupils scored low. A couple of days after the test was given, on several occasions, the pupils who scored low used to tell the trainee who conducted the test : “You should learn from your friend who teaches in the other division… see, how liberally he awards marks! What are you going to gain by being stingy?”


Did these appear boring to you? Do you think advice of any kind is necessary here? BUT …don’t they raise a number of questions on the way Practice Teaching is conducted and the nature of the educational environment in schools in Kerala ? Any comments dear reader?

25. Are our priorities right?

The other day I had been to attend a talk-cum-discussion on ways of bringing about changes in English Language Teaching(ELT) in God’s Own Country, Kerala by several experts in ELT. The college in which the event was organized had nearly four thousand girls on the rolls. While most of the talk centred around peripheral aspects of language instruction, none of the participants made any significant reference to the very venue and the need for giving instruction to girls in particular.

Later that day during lunch-break, I had a very casual chat with a participant. The question he asked me was a real eye opener. He asked : “Don’t you think that if we gave all these four thousand girls in the college a through grounding in the English Language, we would be giving them the language of empowerment? Won’t we be helping four thousand families… for after all these girls will be getting married soon and will be raising children!” Those words kept ringing in my ears for days.

During the following days I was particularly reminded of the high brow sessions on Higher Education organized by the Kerala State Higher Education Council which I had the opportunity to attend. Most of the speeches for that seminar, centered around the Professional Courses in the country and not on courses on Arts and Science where the dregs, the hopelessly incompetent segment of the student community come to study.

Don’t you think that it is high time we did something significant to raise the standard of instruction in the Arts and Science colleges? How conveniently we forget the fact that these unfortunate students who form a significant size of the student population, will be the future citizens of the country who is likely to take the country into the 2020 dream, which the former President of India once spoke about!

Any comments dear reader?

24. First rates treat third rates

“ In terms of quality, the Universities of our country, doesn’t come within the first 125…The curse of the education sector is that first rate students are being taught by third rate teachers”.
- Dr. Rajan Gurukkal, Hon. Vice Chancellor of MG University Kottayam, Kerala State ( addressing the meeting of a teacher’s organization- Reported in the Malayalam daily Kerala Kaumudi dated 20 June 2010)


Most of us must have had to endure such intellectually enervating experiences in life! I will list down two… During my training for the Bachelors degree in Education, in the mid 1990’s in a college which draws the cream of talent from the State, I was taught Educational Technology, by a teacher who never used a single teaching aid. Shamefully enough, a couple of years later, that teacher retired as a Professor on UGC scale! No wonder that college received an abysmally low rating from the college accreditation agency of India, NAAC. But do things change …? The system as the Vice Chancellor said… is indeed ‘cursed’… Quite recently in my campaign to ensure quality in institutions of higher learning, I had to clash swords with an ‘enlightened’ Post Doctoral Fellow, from the same college, who claimed that at the Post Graduate level any one (even a teacher with a background in Educational Psychology) can teach Language Education!

How will ‘first rate’ students treat such ‘third rate’ teachers?. The college in question, is now celebrating its centenary, but despite a whopping two thousand letters being mailed to the alumni of the last ten years, and the hundred odd telephonic messages, just ‘eight’ alumni responded to the call, and attended its Centenary Celebrations. What else could one expect from students who were taken for a ride in the name of teacher training?... Well any comments dear reader?

23. When Learner becomes Consumer

Last Sunday, I had to spend quite some time queuing to buy broiler chicken for my family at the Kerala State Government’s KEPCO outlet. Though I am a staunch vegetarian, I am obliged to respect my family’s dish preferences. I had been strictly instructed by my spouse to shop for chicken only at the KEPCO stall, for it is always clean and they supply only quality products.

While in the queue, I heard a few middle class gentlemen ahead in the queue grumble over the burgeoning queue which was inching forward at a snail’s pace. One gentleman muttered: “Who will stand in a queue these days?... If it was a Private Shopping Mall and if I turn back on seeing a queue, an employee of the Mall, is sure to stop me and fulfil my need immediately, with a smile… This KEPCO outlet won’t last long for its failure to be consumer friendly!”

As a teacher, it was only natural for me to transpose the incident to an educational setting. In such a setting, I would be the ‘guru’ expected to serve the ‘consumer’, the student. Traditionally, many teachers in India consider themselves a ‘guru’ and sometimes quite mistakenly crown themselves ‘God’ quoting Sankaracharya Gurustotram which begins with the sloka:
“Guru Brahma,
Guru Vishnu,
Guru Devo Maheswara.
Guru Sakshath Parambrahma,
Tasmai Shri Guruve Namaha
( tr: Guru is the creator Brahma, Guru is the preserver Vishnu, Guru is the destroyer Siva.
Guru is directly the supreme spirit- I offer my salutations to this Guru.)

Now… can one expect a teacher who equates oneself to the sacrosanct status of a God step down from the sublime pedestal to address the needs of the ‘student consumer’? So, it is not surprising to find many middle class families in India preferring private institutions to government institutions though many teachers in the latter have the ability to deliver quality instruction!

The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi once taught us that the “Consumer is God”! …But when will the day dawn when teachers in government educational institutions in India begin to treat the student consumer as God? ... Any guesses dear reader?

22. Can students learn on their own?

Well…, if what Malcolm Knowles propounded in Self-Directed Learning : A Guide for Learners and Teachers (1975) is true, it should be possible!

The process of self-directed learning I am told, should include diagnosing one’s own learning needs, setting of personal goals and making decisions on resources and learning strategies and finally assessing the value of the outcome.

This would mean that the learner should select, manage and assess ones own learning activity! Now…, how many learners in our government run schools in God’s Own Country, Kerala are capable of it?

Won’t you dear reader give me an answer?

21. Teacher Moderation in the time of competition ?

Recently I came across a reference to an useful idea called ‘Teacher Moderation’. J. W . Little’s study found that teachers who engaged consistently in the moderation process were able to:

* Identify strengths and areas for growth based on evidence of student learning.
* Build common knowledge about curriculum expectations and levels of achievement.
* Share effective practices to meet the needs of all students, monitor progress, and
celebrate growth.
[Little, J. W. et al. (2003). Looking at student work for teacher learning, teacher community and school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 85(3), 185–192.]


Ever since the introduction of UGC scales, the monitoring of teacher performance at the end of each academic year has led to the birth of competition among teachers. Today, teachers strive to outshine his or her colleague in terms of the number of articles published and the number of seminars and workshops attended. As student performance is also a criteria for teacher assessment, getting own students score higher marks than that of his or her colleague is deemed by some, a matter of honour!

To add to all this, there is the common clash between the bright and the mediocre, the intellectually rich and the materially rich, along with crass politics which boils down to affiliations in terms of caste, region and religion.

It is common knowledge that, where there is competition, there can only be pretensions of cooperation! Will the concept of ‘Teacher Moderation’ ever make its presence felt in colleges in Hindustan? What do you think dear reader?

20. More Power cuts and Power Hikes Please

Ariel and Will Durant two brilliant minds, once observed “ The family is the nucleus of civilization”. But in a fast moving world, where ears are hooked on to ipods and mobile phones, a hip swaying generation is on the rise and gregariousness which the family and the kin nurtures is becoming alien.

Thanks to Power cuts and the hike in electricity charges... It has rendered a favour by flushing this virtual highway trotting generation out of their high-tech cloistered existence. Power cuts necessitate cutting off power to air conditioners and the modern culture guru, the cable TV . Power cut also impedes charging of mobile phones, ipods and laptops. So the cuts finally bring the jaded kids into the living room- the fire hearth of yesteryears and the cradle of conversations ! Though in snatches, in here, family ties begin to nurture..

So let the parents of today holler in joy …HIP HIP HOORAY TO POWER CUTS

Its said that, real education should begin at home, then the school or college… Well, the following words of a Family Life Specialist with the University of Wyoming’s Cooperative Extension Service, is worth pondering on :

“…families have always shown remarkable resiliency, or flexible adjustment to natural, economic, and social challenges. Their strengths resemble the elasticity of a spider web, a gull's skillful flow with the wind, the regenerating power of perennial grasses, the cooperation of an ant colony, and the persistence of a stream carving canyon rocks. These are not the strengths of fixed monuments but living organisms. This resilience is not measured by wealth, muscle or efficiency but by creativity, unity, and hope. Cultivating these family strengths is critical to a thriving human community.”
-BEN SILLIMAN

Where else can/ should these begin... but the family? Don’t you agree dear reader?

19. Are Senses the only Gateways of Knowledge?

“There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses…”

- Daine Ackerman (1948-?) American Poet,writer and naturalist


Teacher trainees in the college where I teach, are usually sensitized to the different sources of knowledge at the commencement of their course. During my own training, I was given to understand that knowledge is gained primarily through the senses. Hence activity-based learning was given top priority.

During introductory talks a series of examples are provided and the trainees have to identify the correct sense through which a given knowledge is acquired. The examples usually refer to the five senses-touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.

Now let us think of the following incident . A middle-aged man after collecting his salary from the district Treasury, kept the cash safely in his trouser pocket and boarded a crowded bus to go home. When he alighted from the bus, he thought of buying some candies for his little daughter. But, when he ran his hands through the trouser pocket he was shocked to find his cash missing”. This incident taught the man the following lesson:

* Pickpocket are in the loose in the city.

* Never board a crowded bus when your trouser pocket is stuffed with cash.

* Carry little cash when you travel.

Now dear reader, can you guess through which ‘sense’ did the man acquire this knowledge?

Well… don’t tell me it is ‘common sense’ !

Don’t you think, experience coupled with reflection can also become a source of knowledge?

18. Does The Internet Kill Reading?

Some years ago, during my teaching stint in a Higher Secondary school in Muscat, I had given my techno-savvy students an assignment. Within a week, all the students submitted their assignment of about 15 to 25 pages along with images in colour.

Out of the thirty students, only one student referred to the books in the local library. Almost fifty percent of the assignments were more or less similar and they all had the same visuals. It is not that they copied from their friends, but they visited the same web sites to collect the material. The pathetic part was that, entire texts were simply copied from the sites and pasted as a series of paragraphs. Apparently there was no effort at assimilating or simplifying the material which they had downloaded.

Back in India, some of my friends who are teacher educators tell me that their BEd trainees do the same thing which my Higher Secondary level learners were doing a couple of years ago!

Well dear reader, have you experienced the same?