Day 5: People Make People (Family Edition)
Families have played a vital and pivotal role in nurturing and educating the young. Lev Vygotsky (among others) identified and proposed an idea attempting to explain the influence of family and community on learning. He proposed the sociocultural theory of cognitive development because he recognized the key role that a more experienced ‘other’ plays in setting the foundation for all learning to happen.
Our visit with Dr. Rukmini Banerji of Pratham unveiled efforts/strategies implemented in India to employ the more experienced ‘others’ in the proximate lives of young children. Pratham is a Non Governmental Organization with the determined goal of effecting change in education through data and interventions. Pratham is one of the largest NGOs in Delhi and they work with government schools and students from underserved areas. Their research highlighted the low levels of literacy among students in elementary school. This limited literacy compounds further learning as subsequent, more complex skills and concepts are unattainable to students who do not have foundational literacy skills. With a deep knowledge of the language, policy, teacher and poverty constraints in the community, they identified early learning as a significant challenge to education. The strategy to alleviate this was to activate the family as a systematic learning resource.
Opportunity is a privilege. I remember a discussion with a fellow mother who desired to have her child participate in an elite soccer playing team. She noted that the information about registration, selection and try outs was closely guarded by and circulated solely among parents/mothers who ‘hung out together’ and appeared to be gatekeeping this opportunity. Membership within this group provided access to valuable information. This measured access to information that creates opportunity is as old as time; elite classes inVictorian England engaged tutors to educate their young in classical arts and other studies aimed at projecting them to a continued upper class existence. Ivy league schools provide an opportunity to learn and interact with select demographics and subsequently attain a favorable socio-economic status. In the case of Lau vs. Nichols, Asian and Hispanic heritage students fought for the right to be provided with English learning opportunities for educational success. Ruby Bridges took that harrowing but brave long walk to school to obtain opportunities for learning. The Pratham group seeks to provide opportunities for literacy and education for Indian children and families. In communities and villages (within designated states), mothers were invited and encouraged to engage in neighborhood mothers groups called ‘Learning mothers’. These Learning mothers are provided with short videos and informational experiences providing tips and strategies on what they could do to engage their children in learning, thereby activating innate learning connections that are not always directly manifested through skill based academics. School readiness fairs are also conducted in these communities. Fairs include booths that focus on informal assessments of gross and fine motor skills, games, activities and resource provision for parents and children.
Families make people, and mothers (can) make learners. Engaging in capacity building and empowering parents to participate in their child’s education can take many forms. My next thought then becomes, how can teachers and school systems effectively utilize this avenue for learning in a way that is reciprocal? How do teachers take over/contribute to the role of capacity builder for families? Should teachers take over the role and to what degree? All of these questions are societal contracts that have to be created at the confluence of teacher and parent understanding of the roles, affordances and contributions played by both parties (within a larger context of governance, policy and systemic issues) in ensuring learning and education for children.
Our next stop was a school called Katha lab school, located in Delhi and intentional in its goal of serving and educating children from the slums of Govindpuri. The school is distinct in the use of stories to learn, problem solve and engage in critical thinking. The story pedagogy is evident in the learning we saw, for instance, the entrance of the school showed a wall mural that shared the school’s vidunniya or world theme for the year; this year is ‘Our seas, Our world. Students will explore critical thinking, storytelling, problem solving through the medium of stories that are designed to be accessible to all students. In the 6th grade class, students were writing and drawing about sea animals. Their writing was in Hindi, which gave insight into the cultural influences on educational policy. Children in India are required to learn the dominant language spoken in their state (Tamil in Tamil Nadu, and Kannada in Karnakata for instance) because states are created along linguistic lines. English is primarily viewed as a 2nd language in most government schools, however, private schools have the option of deciding what emphasis is given to English language acquisition. Proficiency in English is seen as a medium of social mobility, so a considerable percentage of parents choose and advocate for the teaching of English at schools, consequently, schools will have a dual language focus in classrooms with the state language and English as primary focus.
The Katha lab school also provides vocational training to adolescents wanting to learn in-demand occupation skills. They provided sewing, baking, woodworking, coding and computer skills and cell phone repair training for interested students. A number of teachers purchased items from the woodworking and sewing classes. Additionally, the school implements an inquiry based, problem solving focused curriculum that invites students to identify community-based problems and engineer a solution for it.
At the end of the day, we got on the bus for a trip to Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal.
