Even as we celebrate our democratic elections, openness and freedom of expression; the much-celebrated power politics and populist pandering by the bigoted jingoistic attitudes of soft fascism could establish and consolidate its hold through the structures and systems of democracy. Built on religiosity and right-wing national chauvinism, this is a tried-and-true tactic of fascism throughout history - ‘divide and rule’ opportunism, and suppression / exasperation that go together like hand and glove to keep the hegemony intact !  © RISHIKESH KB

Anything that's worth, and singular about India is its plurality. The customs, caste’s, costumes, cuisines, culture, consonants …. the very DNA of Indian philosophy lies in its diversity and acculturation - heterogeneity woven with strands and shades of varying textures and colours. In a fabric of cultural pluralism, we've owned a composite character with an accommodating ethos; wherein we agree to disagree, live and let live; eat and let eat. But how can (in such) a sovereign, secular democracy (and a) ban go together?   © RISHIKESH KB

The hope I find in the Dadri lynching (accident or incident) is the spirit of an Indian  and  Indian Air Force‬. Allegedly, over rumors that the family had consumed beef, in the broad daylight 200 neo-hinduvadis barged into the house of Mohammad Sartaj (a corporal-rank technician in the IAF); killing this serving air warrior's father. Sartaj’s family was immediately moved into the Air Force’s accommodation at the Subroto Park in Delhi. “We are with him and our people are there to assist the family” assured Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha.

Later Sartaj without any trace of cynicism delivered a powerful and poignant message "I can't blame everyone... Most people are good... only a handful is bad." "Saare Jahaan Se Accha, Hindustan Hamara, Mazhab Nahin Sikhaata, Aapas Mein Bair Rakhna". “I appeal to them for peace and communal harmony. It is not a time for politics, but for empathy” added Sartaj. The Indian Air Force has definitely been grooming the most secular nationalists with a true spirit of Indianness – live and let live!
© RISHIKESH KB

Can Learning Happen in 'Research Mode'?

How many teachers have thought “why do our students ask what they ask”?

A student having the potential trait to be a researcher once raised a question: “Why is it called re-search? Will ‘search’ not suffice?” Well, we all raises questions at different stages of progress. Every such question of intellectual curiosity is a serious mental adventure and a potential catalyst for search and re-search. And when every learner starts working on such an ethos to treat learning, as not yet wholly solved problems; we are in a ‘research mode’. We start inquiring – researching and learning!

Typically, it is argued that traditional teaching is dominated by cerebral, abstract, overly-analytical models that characteristically rely on teacher-talk and learners’ writing. Such a chalk-walk-talk teaching is often based on a teacher-dominated ‘information transmission’ with emphasis on understanding research findings rather than research process. And if a teacher continue to teach how they themselves were taught as learners - “with the assumption that what worked for them will work every time, for everyone”, learning becomes obsolete.  But if we aim at improving the quality of teaching-learning, and accept that current practice is probably based on questionable or unknown bases; a clear alternative solution lies in learning becoming research embedded.

When the element of a participatory approach between the teacher and the taught is set with a common pursuit of linking research and learning, we are set for Research Informed Teaching (RIT). In fact a research-led, research-oriented, research-based, or a research-informed teaching is far superior to teachers parroting textbook material.  As Hudson Maxim (1853-1927) said, “All progress is born of inquiry. Doubt is often better than over confidence, for it leads to inquiry, and inquiry leads to invention”.

Research educates the intellect to doubt, educate, inquire and reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it. While it is reasonably self-evident, that being research-informed warrants greater learner attention than justifications based on hearsay, tradition, reputation, intuition, or bookish knowledge; there are strong arguments to justify RIT. Academic researchers like Spencer, Detrich and Slocum argue that RIT should be based on the best available evidence, “irrespective of its paradigm and chosen according to what is (a) most relevant to the decision and (b) has the highest degree of certainty.” Only such a learning provide learners with an understanding of knowledge creation (the research process and research methods) and its application (in economic, social, political, local and global contexts) stimulating key skills of critical analysis, respect for evidence and informed decision-making. Also for social processes be alive for radical change, one must continue to ask that vital question: ‘Why do I believe what I believe?’ One would thus go about finding the roots of beliefs and challenge conventional assumptions. Research therefore is inevitable for better learning outcomes and outputs.  

In a ‘knowledge society’, all learners – certainly all – have to be researchers. Not only should they be engaged in the production of knowledge, but also be educated to cope with the risks and uncertainties generated by the advancements of it. So I believe the understanding of the research process – asking the right questions in the right way; conducting experiments; and collating and evaluating information – must be a key part of any learning.  To doubt, to inquire, to invent, we need to make conscious efforts to move research from a marginal, privileged role to make it a significant structured curriculum experience for all learners. To quote Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) “Research is a formalized enquiry. It is poking and prying with a purpose”. Through such a purposive research and RIT, learning must flourish in academic centers of excellence, by becoming centers of experience; and enhance transferable and lifelong independent learning skills. Our students must therefore stay in ‘research mode’ and keep asking the question: ‘Why do I believe what I believe?’!

© RISHIKESH KB

Sight and Insight !

Helen T Keller, a blind and deaf, was a terror, wily and mean.  Helen was also animal like. Nevertheless, her teacher Anne Sullivan who transformed her lived the philosophy: "learning is all about instilling confidence of the student in his or her own abilities" !

Sullivan pioneered the teaching of individuals without sight and without hearing. Today we speak of deaf culture, but this term was not used in the era of Anne Sullivan.  "Teacher" as Helen always called her, is credited with making it possible to reach students who were thought to have mental retardation.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, Sullivan was born in Feeding Hills, Massachusetts, on April 14, 1866 and entered the almshouse at eight when her mother died and her father abandoned her and her brother.  Half-blind herself, she went to the Perkins School for the blind in Boston at age fourteen without a toothbrush, hat or coat.  Her only possessions were a shirt and stockings tied in a bundle.

At age twenty one, Sullivan took a job offered by the Keller family in Tuscumbia, Alabama to teach the Keller's daughter, Helen.  Helen Keller was an angry and frustrated child, but she was not stupid.  Sullivan quickly realised this fact and began her assault on Helen's locked mind.  Within a month she made contact with Helen in the the now-famous pump story, immortalised in the drama The Miracle Worker.  Sullivan finger spelled words into Helen's hand with each word suiting an action.  Finally, Helen, feeling water over hand, realised the connection between word and object.  She had broken the code and realised that everything had a name.

Sullivan's methods were practical.  She taught Helen to play through games and exercises stimulating her to ask the names of the motions.  She kept a menagerie of animals for Helen to help her understand movement.  She progressed to abstractions like peace and God as soon as Helen was prepared to grasp it.  Sullivan wanted to make Helen as normal as possible, giving her every experience she could.  She worked at reaching her to sit, stand and walk properly.  As soon as Helen could distinguish between right and wrong, Teacher sent her to bed for misdeeds.  Laziness, carelessness, untidiness and procrastination were dealt with by ingenuity, humour and light sarcasm, and not judged by the marks and remarks.

Helen used the manual alphabet for three years before she began to speak.  When Helen was nine, Sullivan was rewarded with the words "I am not dumb now".  It was one of the most dramatic achievements in the history of teaching. Sullivan's great discovery was that a child should not be taught each word separately by a separate definition but instead should be given endless repetition of language he or she does not understand all day long.  Sullivan continually spelled words into Helen's hand to mimic the way a hearing child in the cradle absorbs words.  The method had never before been put into practice in the education of a deaf child, especially a deaf-blind one.

When Helen attended a school for deaf in New York, Anne Sullivan went along.  At Cambridge School and Radcliffe College, Sullivan attended classes, interpreting instruction and looking up words for Helen.  She made herself into Helen's eyes and ears and supplied knowledge to a starving mind as she fired her drive to study hard and answer her questions.  Because awakening happens not in the length of our answers but in the depth of our questions through reflective thinking.  After college, Sullivan also accompanied Helen on worldwide lecture tours as Helen became a famous author and personality.

Extraordinarily close, here the teacher and student spent much of their lives together to realise that sight is a function of the retina of the eye while insight is a function of a refined mind.   And that the role of a teacher is not to teach, but to make students realise their ignorance and instil confidence in his or her own abilities. The name "Teacher" has thus been enriched by Anne Sullivan's dedicated life, persistent high standards and creative instruction.

© RISHIKESH KB

Redrafted and posted by the author on 04-09-2015 celebrated as Teachers Day. 

"खाना कहां मिलेगा?"

ഹോട്ടലുകളും കടകളും അടച്ച് സമരം / പണിമുടക്ക് എന്നിവ ഏതു കക്ഷിക്കും പ്രഖ്യപിക്കാം. കക്ഷികൾക്ക് സംയുക്തമായും പ്രഖ്യപിക്കാം. പക്ഷെ നഗരത്തിൽ വച്ച് കണ്ട അന്നന്നത്തെ അന്നത്തിനധ്വാനിക്കുന്ന വടക്കേ ഇന്ത്യൻ തൊഴിലാളിയുടെ ചോദ്യത്തിന് മുന്നിൽ ഞാനിന്നലെ ഉത്തരംമുട്ടി. "खाना कहां मिलेगा?" ഏതൊരു കക്ഷിയും മുട്ടും. കാരണം എല്ലാ ജീവിത സമരങ്ങളും ഈ ഒരുത്തരത്തിനുള്ളതല്ലേ?????
© RISHIKESH KB

CHALANAM - Leadership In Motion

Read!! In the name of thy Lord who createth; 

Createth man from a clot 

Read!! And thy Lord is the most bounteous, 

Who teacheth by pen; 

Teacheth man that which he knew not 

Hundreds of loudspeakers carried the voice to nooks and corners of the sprawling Mananchira ground in Kozhikode. There was jubilation in the air as the state celebrated a unique feat - achieving cent percent literacy, as it announced the tour de force to the entire world 20 years ago (April 18, 1991). 

In no other state has any literacy mission met with such overwhelming success as the one in Kerala, initiated by the National Literacy Mission (NLM). The drive elicited much passion and mass participation. Many youths, especially educated Muslim women, came forward to carry out the historic mission. Forty-year-old Rabia who won the UNESCO award for- social work is a typical example. This purdah-clad handicapped Muslim woman in Tirurangadi in Malappuram district had taught the basic alphabet to over 130 people including her mother and grandmother. "It was a great pleasure to see many people in their 60s and 70s coming to the class with slates and pencils. I was really thrilled when my grandma called me teacher," says Rabia.

Confined to the wheelchair, Kariveppil Rabia, through sheer determination, has single-handedly brought literacy and change to her village. Paralysed below waist, she moves around in a wheelchair. A deadly cancer attack made her life more miserable. Again, slipping on the floor broke her vertebral column and brought movements to a virtual halt. Despite all these odds, with an indefatigable spirit, she remains the moving force behind a voluntary organisation called ‘Chalanam’ (motion). Committed to the cause of women and differently-abled children, it runs five special schools for mentally disabled children and a publishing house with more than 30 books to its credit, of which she herself has penned a many. It also runs a number of projects for the empowerment of poor women. This is Rabia, a woman of outstanding grit and boundless energy with no parallels in her community or anywhere else.

The remarkable performance of her literacy centre caught the attention of the State authorities as the officials visited her classroom in June 1992. To their surprise, from an eight-year-old child to an 80-year-old, neo-literates were able to read and write within a few weeks of training at her classroom. They learnt not just the letters but basic science, mathematics, history and general knowledge through her unique style of participatory teaching.  Seizing the opportunity, she convinced the authorities about the pathetic conditions in her village. The village, with two hundred families, had no basic facilities like road, electricity and telephone and water connection. The then district collector immediately sanctioned a road and it was constructed within three days with the participation of the villagers. The one-and-a-half km road was aptly named Akshara (word) Road. Electricity, telephone, and water connection came to the village on a war footing. Her small literacy classroom had turned into a pivotal centre of social and economic development of the village, Vellilakkadu in Malappuram district in Kerala. 

The heartfelt support of the poor villagers inspired her to launch the ‘Chalanam’. It has initiated a number of women empowerment programmes for neo-literates. A small-scale manufacturing unit, a neo-literate mahila samajam, and a reading room were the first one to start off. Apart from literacy activity, she took up various awareness programmes for villagers on alcoholism, dowry, superstition, and communalism. Counselling centres for women and children, school health clubs, employment training centres were set up. She could also achieve an emotional integration with the village folks as she gave Counselling in family life and relations. 

News about her efforts crossed the boundaries of her small village when she won the National Youth Award in 1993. It was just the beginning. Awards and honours flowed one after another. She was the first recipient of Kannaki Sthree Sakthi award in 2000 instituted by the child welfare department of the government of India. She also won the Youth Volunteer against Poverty, jointly instituted by the Central Youth Affairs Ministry and UNDP in 2000. The Junior Chamber International selected her for the Ten Outstanding Young Indians award in 1999. A documentary film on her life ‘Rabia’ has been translated into 14 languages was named the best educational, motivational, and instructional film in India.

A devoted Muslim, she ascribes the credit for her success to the Almighty. “He is the sole source of my energy, and I am bound to work for the awards in the life hereafter”, she asserts. Afflicted with polio at the age of 12, Rabia continued her studies with sheer willpower, but was forced to give up after matriculation. However, she loved letters and became a voracious reader, which became the firm foundation for her later activities. Her deteriorating health did not come in the way of her struggles to lighten the life of poor villagers, predominantly Muslims, women and the lower caste potters… and continues to be the drive behind a mission with a cause. 

© RISHIKESH KB

The author prepared this caselet for an MDP (Management Development Programme) on LEADING SCHOOLS (Academic Leadership) held at IIM Kozhikode on April 21-23 2011