Dear Educator,
Here is my full keynote
given at the ECE conference of Education World In Mumbai - 2020
Incorporating
the work of India’s pioneer early childhood educators into contemporary
preschools.
Its time to be
‘Glocal’, especially in early childhood education. Its time to know what the
latest global research advices about early care and education but it is equally
important to understand that at the sensitive age of zero to six years it is
the child’s mother tongue and culture that will have a lasting impact on
learning (cognitive, socio-emotional) for life.
So while we are
aware of Froebel, Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner as the leaders in early
years education, what we should also be aware about is the history or evolution
of early years care and education in our own country.
There were
pioneers who took the best of research from around the world and adapted it for
Indian culture and children. As early childhood educators it is time we know
about their work, incorporate it, benefit from it and celebrate it.
The four pioneer
early childhood educators who I feel we should read about and learn from for
our contemporary preschool work are: Gijubhai
Badeka, Rabindranath Tagore, Tarabai Modak- Anutai Wagh and Mahatma Gandhi.
Of course there are many others too but lets begin with understanding their
work.
Around the 1920’s the first foundations of early
childhood education were being created in our country. Rabindranath Tagore
backed the Montessori philosphy and started the Tagore Montessori schools
across the country. Meanwhile Gijubhai a lawyer did not want his child to go
through the same traditional education in school that he had suffered through.
He read up on everything to do with early childhood education and parenting and
was greatly impressed with the work of Maria Montessori. He was fondly called ‘Moochali
Maa’ (mother with a moustache!) by the children.
Montessori influenced and inspired Gijubhai,
but he adopted only those ideas that were possible to be implemented in India.
One of the first things we can learn from Gijubhai perhaps is that it is good
to be influenced by global practices but Adapt, don’t adopt global practices
blindly. In 1920 Gijubhai Badheka set up the first Bal Mandir or early
childhood education center.
In most schools the teacher waits for the
children to greet them and say, ‘Good morning’, etc. but Gijubhai would greet
every child at the door with their name, both at the beginning and end of the
school day. It is after all relationships between students and teacher that
brings true passion and interest in learning. Be the first to greet children
in school, its not always about them saying, “good morning teacher”.
Gijubhai believed that any concert that the
children put up to showcase their talents to parents, should be work done
completely by the children in school. The kids put up their own annual day
show, related to what they have learnt. An annual show should showcase what the
children have enjoyed and learned throughout the year, they should be the
directors, actors, designers of props etc. Sadly today annual days in schools
have become song and dance extravaganza, choreographed by professionals! Maybe
its time we rethink about making our end of the year annual concerts more about
children.
Gijubhai was against corporal punishment and
even created a ‘vanar sena’ a group of children that would look out for
children who were beaten at home or by teachers and then report to Gijubhai who
would intervene and educate the adults about the negative impacts of corporal
punishment. Child Abuse starts at home and we should safeguard children from
this because ‘touch should never become trouble’ for a child. The Early
Childhood Association recently conducted a survey and found that parents still
spank children, its time for a community conscience, its time to say #I will not, to spanking and corporal
punishment
In schools.
Most educators and schools have lost track of educational goals in their
quest to fill their school with children and their cupboards with student
achievement trophies! Its time to revisit this poem written by Gijubhai Badheka
and make it our vision and mission statement.
This
Will Not Do…In Our School
(Excerpts
from Prathmikshalama Shikshak,first
published in 1932, written by Gijubhai Badeka)
1. It
will do if the walls in our school are not covered with paint. It will not do
if there is dust and cobwebs in corners.
2. It
will do if the floors are not covered by
carpets.It will not do if there is litter and dirt strewn on them.
3. It
will do if there is not a laboratory full of fancy equipment .It will not do if
the little equipment that is available
is not ever used.
4. It
will do if there is not a great big library.It will not do if there are not at
least a few books that children would enjoy reading.
5. It
will do if we are not great scholars.It will not do if we cannot give our
children due respect, and an environment that encourages their development.
6. It
will do if we are not constantly engaged in ‘teaching’ children. It will not do
if we interfere in their activities or threaten or force them to sit down to
study.
Tarabai Modak was
a social worker from Maharashtra; she also served as a Principal of a Women’s
college in Rajkot. Inspired by Gijubhai’s experiments she joined him in his
work in his balwadi. Together they started a training college for pre primary
teachers in 1925, which proved to be first training college for pre primary
teachers in India. And sadly till today
India does not have a common Early Childhood Teacher Training Course, like it
has the B.Ed. course. The new National Education Policy has included early
years but has not defined a common early years teacher training program,
whereas we had one as early as 1925!
On hearing a
criticism that preschool education was meant only for the rich children,
Tarabai took this up as a challenge and conducted a Balwadi in a Harijanwada at
Amravati in Maharashtra. In 1936, she started Shishu Vihar Kendra at Bombay,
which was a centre of Pre School Educational training. In 1945, she moved to
Bordi & founded Gram Bal Shiksha Kendra. Later she moved in 1957 to Kosabad, tribal
area. Tarabai Modak and Sarla Devi
Sarabhai (PSE worker) were called one of the two “ Montessori Mothers” as they
have Indianized the Montessori education and popularized it.
Tarabai
pioneered the concept of balwadi - a centre for preschool children. She started
two types of balwadis at Bordi - Central Balwadis and Angan Balwadis. The
central balwadis were run for five hours, had all essential educational
materials and children were brought from their homes to the balwadis. The angan
balwadis on the other hands were conducted in front of the parents in their courtyards;
teachers would carry simple material and conduct songs and games on hygiene,
cleanliness, oral language etc. Anutai Wagh was a professional colleague of Tarabai
Modak and she along with Modak pioneered a programme whose curriculum was
indigenous, used low cost teaching aids and was aimed at holistic development.
The concept of anganwadi in the
ICDS scheme has been drawn from her work. And the inspiration that we can take
from her work is that all children deserve a good education start to their
lives. Its time for a public- private partnership to achieve this.
Rabindranath
Tagore backed the Montessori pedagogy and established 'Tagore Montessori' schools across the country in the
1940s. Tagore wrote extensively on
education and his story, ‘Tota Kahini’ (Parrot’s Training) is a satire on the
education system and is sadly still relevant today. In 1929 the first International
Montessori Congress was organised in Denmark. Tagore travelled to Denmark to
attend this Congress and did you know that Jean Piaget was also part of this
Congress! In 1940 when Montessori came to India, Tagore welcomed her with a
letter. Tagore believed that education should begin with the training of
instincts, emotions, self-reliance and co-operation. Then art, music and play
should be introduced.
Today we take so many inspirations
from global curriculum methods, but he advocated the following methods of
teaching almost a century ago, which I think are so relevant even today for
curriculum developers and educational boards designing their curriculum, both
nationally and internationally.
–
Peripatetic method: He
was concerned with the association between body and mind in order to establish
a total rhythm and harmony in life. The children should be taught drama and
arts as compulsory subjects from the beginning. This is because the children
need the opportunity to give expression to their feelings through their bodily
movements.
–
Activity method: He
gave emphasis for activity method. He wanted children to understand the
concepts through performing activities. For example to understand a verb
“tear”, he used to make the children to tear some papers to master the concept
of tearing.
–
Environmental approach: He
emphasized teaching through environment. He included more number of nature
walks to teach the concepts for younger children. He believed in providing
first hand experiences to children in their learning process through nature. The
modern approach of learning by organizing “nature trails, in the subject of
environmental studies are similar to the ideas of Tagore.
Its
time to learn from Tagore and recognise that children are not unfinished adults
and that the difference between children and adults requires different methods
of learning.
In
1937 the scheme for new education or Nai Talim was introduced, but it was in
1944 that Mahatma Gandhi realized the importance of early childhood
education. "The real education
begins from conception, as the mother begins to take up the responsibility of
the child. It is very clear that if this new education is to be effective, its
foundation must go deeper, it must begin not with the children but the parents
and the community."
He gave the term 'Pre-Basic Education' for the education of children under seven
years of age. Pre-basic education, he said, must aim at
"the development of all their faculties, conducted by
the school teachers in cooperation with
the parents and the community in schools, in the home and in the village." "We labour
under a sort of superstition that the child has nothing to learn during the first five years of
its life. On the contrary, the fact is the child never learns in after life what it does in
its first five years.”
The
Pre-basic school is geared to the needs of the following four groups of children:
•
Stage 1: Conception to birth
•
Stage 2: Birth to 2 and a half
years
•
Stage 3: 2 and a half years to 4
years
•
Stage 4: 4 years to 7 years
•
The first two stages involve both
the mother and the child.
•
Children from 2 and a half to 4
years of age are provided stimulating play activities. They are free to act, to
move about and to choose their own activities.
•
After four years of age, the child
participates in activities like cleaning the classroom, measuring and weighing
things, and other similar activities. '
It is so heartening that the above
is incorporated in the new NCERT preschool curriculum and the National
Education Policy.
As we struggle to force handwriting skills on
preschoolers, we must remember what Mahatma Gandhi had to say about the teaching
of handwriting to young children, maybe this would cure us from our obsession
to ensure that children write before they can read or understand!
“ I consider writing as a fine art. We
kill it by imposing the alphabet on little children and making it the beginning
of learning. Good handwriting is a necessary part of education, but I am now of
the opinion that children should first be taught the art of drawing before
learning how to write. Let the child learn letters by observation, as he/she
does different objects such as flowers, birds etc. and let him learn handwriting
only after he has learnt to ‘draw’ objects. First teach the child to draw
straight lines, curves, triangles, birds, flowers, leaves, as that would help
the child to draw and not to scrawl
alphabets! Children should be taught to read before they learn to write.”
I hope
curriculum designers are reading this, it is also mentioned in our new NCERT
preschool curriculum, so download a copy and match your preschool curriculum to
it to ensure that what these ECE pioneers worked so hard to prove is being practiced
in our schools so that our children grow up learning what is developmentally
appropriate.
All the ideas like experiential learning, hands on learning, play way, that
we are bringing in our schools and thinking that they are new, were already practiced
by our ECE pioneers even before independence. Its time to revisit, relearn about them and stop reinventing the wheel! Or at least stop giving credit for the wheel to others! Its time to celebrate our Indian ECE pioneers. Here are some books written
by them that you can read for more inspiration and learning:
•
Rabindranath Tagore-
A Parrot’s Training
•
Anutai Wagh- Kosbadcha tekadivarun
•
Mahatma Gandhi- Basic education
Early
Childhood Association and Association for Primary Education and Research in
partnership with Education World are proud to announce an Educators Pilgrimage
to visit the inspirational places and works of these 4 ECE pioneers: Gijubhai
Badheka, Tarabai Modak, Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. Join us on this
immersive education pilgrimage. More details are given in this issue.
This article is written by Dr. Swati Popat
Vats, a passionate crusader for the upliftment of early childhood education in
our country, for ALL children. She is the President of the Early Childhood
Association and Association for Primary Education and Research and is also the
President of Podar Education Network where she heads 500 early childhood centres
and 110 Early Childhood Teacher Training Programs. She can be contacted on ecapresidentindia@gmail.com and urges all educators to visit www.eca-india.org and become a member and join this crusade to
make early childhood education for all children in India a reality.
