Itihasa made itihasya...

Understanding urbanization, social change in medieval India

2012-02-11T16:29:00.002+05:30

The class VII NCERT history textbook Our Pasts has a very interesting conceptualization of chapters. While the first few chapters i.e. 2,3 and 4 deal with the political history of medieval India in a more conventional fashion the remainder of the chapters dwell on the social, economic, religious and cultural changes that unfolded in the same period of time. The latter chapters are in effect further elaborations of the first few where it seeks to unravel the processes that shaped medieval India.

In that sense the chapters dovetails rather seamlessly into one another. But at another level, not just the continuities in the chapters but such an arrangement of chapters in a textbook, which is largely thematic, in itself may be puzzling.

I have tried to look at chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 i.e. Towns, Traders and Craftspersons; Tribes, Nomads and Settled Communities; Devotional Paths to the Divine and The making of Regional Cultures as one unit.

A synopsis of these chapters - To summarize the socio-economic process that characterized India for nearly 1000 years - Following the decline of the Guptas numerous groups of settlers beyond the Indian frontier began to move into the sub-continent and within the subcontinent numerous 'tribes' also emerged as caste groups and established political power. (like some of the Gonds, Ahoms mentioned in chapter 7) This apart many dominant peasant groups also assumed political power (the Pallavas, Cholas, Chalukyas etc). With many of the kings building huge temple complexes to secure legitimacy and authority, the temples with its demand for different products starting from grains, textiles, masonary work, metal works etc became the pivot on which a commercial economy developed. Kancipuram, Thanjavur, Aihole can be examples of such towns. Centres which became political and administrative capital of empires and kingdoms like Bidar, Agra, Dacca, Murshidabad also matured as towns of commerce as it catered to the affluent royal and administrative elite. Then there were coastal towns like Surat and Masulipatinam that emerged as bustling trading centres by virtue of being on the coast from where traders from elsewhere also transacted for Indian spices and textiles. With the emergence of the Mughals, it were towns like Surat, Masulipatinam which eclipsed other towns because of their vibrant trade and commerce. These towns later were overshadowed by Calcutta, Madras and Bombay with the advent of Europeans and the success of the British in establishing trading supremacy. In effect three major contexts can be identified in understanding towns in medieval India.

Increasing trade, emergence of towns (centred around temples in the early medieval period explained well in chapter 6 ) where different caste and social groups interfaced also lead to a rethink on the social arrangements that was obtained in early medieval and medieval society.

This resulted in the emergence of socio-religious movement which on the one hand sought to emphasize the need for devotion and surrender to a diety (The Alvars and Nayanmars) without rejecting idol worship or many of the rituals. (Philosophy of Adwaita and Vishistadwaita) But on the other hand many rejected the rituals and idol worship so associated with Hinduism and established sects like Veerashaivism, Sikhism and Kabirpanthis. The latter two established by Guru Nanak and Kabir were also influenced by the Islamic tenets. Both these socio-religious movements formed the dialectic that informed the rather nebulous feature of Hinduism. Language played an important aspect in these movements for Sanskrit was jettisoned for regional tongues (Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Hindi) in which many of their ideas and thoughts were communicated. In that sense the Bhakthi movement also resulted in promotion of many a regional languages.While some of the heterodox anti-ritualistic and anti-brahmin sects did get political patronage i.e. Sikhism, Veerashaivism and hence prospered but many of them continued to serve a sizeable percentage of masses which sought to undermine Brahmanical hegemony, even without overt political patronage.
This broadly was the socio-economic process that characterized much of India roughly from 600 AD to 1700 AD.

Process to be carried out - A teacher can factor the above coordinates in her discussion with the students so that the larger picture is not lost sight of. The following two worksheets 1 and 2 (viewing them in Google docs results in formatting errors but once downloaded it should be fine) can be used to help better understanding. The first WS gives them extracts of verses from different Bhakthi poets. The teacher can divide the class into small groups and students can collectively discuss the poems and unravel its devotional or change/egalitarian character, as the case may be. The other worksheet is to help children identify the three broad processes that facilitated in the emergence and sustenance of town in medieval India. The teacher also needs to remember that these three process of urbanization are not mutually exclusive and needs to highlight this to the students. As such I have sought to base these worksheets on the information, analysis, posers, questions found in the textbook itself. So as such there is no need for any further reference but if it is possible then a teacher can ask students find out more on the traditional arts and crafts of India like Warli Paintings, the metal works of Gonds, Bankura asses, Jaipur blue pottery etc. It should also be put across as a question whether these craft works which gave so much of an identity to a culture would be something which the students would like to learn today and whether they would be willing to depend on such crafts for their livelihoods. Or are these crafts meant only for people who are 'less capable' or 'endowed' who cannot go to schools and colleges?

Barefoot College...its cognitive and sociological relevance

2011-10-17T22:17:00.000+05:30

A presentation by Bunker Roy the founder of Barefoot College, Tilonia in Rajasthan at a TED conference whose arguments and contentions and the way his vision and convictions have so actually panned out, materialized and converged at his college, only augments and further bolsters the perspective I had tried to put across in my previous post. Three cheers for Barefoot college!!! I would imagine colleges such as these appear to be far more relevant in terms of its cognitive appropriateness and sociological relevance than an IIT, an IIM or even a JNU for that matter. Hope one day I get to visit this place and glean more about its pedagogic processes and the cognitive and social implications of its curriculum. Here is the video: Its inspiring.

Globalization, caste and its cognitive-social impact

2011-07-26T10:44:00.006+05:30

Globalization as a conceptual category to explain various facets of change that this contemporary world defined by fractions, attritions, divisions (and much of it violent) is witnessing, emerges as a useful shorthand. Indeed the very bloody attritions and convulsions, widening social, economic, gender and cultural schisms and disparities themselves are undoubtedly aggravated, if not precipitated, by it.

But then being a shorthand, many of the actual and finer workings of globalization's negative impact is often missed and inadequately understood. I for one particularly feel that the educational consequences in general and globalization's cognitive impact has not been adequately and sufficiently recognized and understood.

That globalization with its determining attribute of single division of labour, not just in the context of the developed world like North America or Western Europe but even for a country like India, results in "white collarization" of our economy and society, even as it keeps many a societies in Africa or indeed many sizeable pockets in India itself in the domains of "primary" economy is a fact that is becoming evident. Nevertheless I wonder to what extent it is being seen as such. Another aspect which is muted in much of the discourse on globalization is the impact which it has on people even in developed economies of North America and Western Europe, seen as the main force propelling and unleashing this juggernaut. The widening social schisms and disparities in the west, now so glaringly visible, are essentially triggered by the closure of many big and small industries. Jobs, more so the "blue collar" variety, consequently leave the temperate shores of North America to the tropical regions of India, China and South East Asia. Within India itself certain regions and across certain caste/class/linguistic demographies we see similar shifts. Some 20, 30 years back most of the domestic help in Delhi were from Tamil Nadu but now most of them happen to be from Bengal, Orissa and even Bangladesh. On some cursory observation and enquiry I learn that Tamils now have "graduated" to service, clerical chores and are hence seen to be more developed, benefiting from the developmental programmes of which schooling itself was seen to be an important component. Now in the service domain of clerks, call centres employees, sales representatives in malls and departmental stores, they earn more ( so we are made to believe) and importantly it is more dignified than labour intensive chores.

Apart from such perceptible changes in the political economy of both America and India, what is missed are the changes that has been wrought in the educational scenario in both these regions with more and more people seeking entry into college for employment as avenues in "blue collar" domains disappear. Hence couple of decades back when in the US you could more than secure your existence as a truck driver with fair degree of comforts, presently to have the same level of material living you need to move up the value chain of education to secure jobs that will pay you more or rather to pay the same to maintain the existing levels of comfort enjoyed years back. The so called low end jobs of plumbers, carpenters, taxi drivers, etc now is the domain of the immigrants mostly Hispanics and Asians, if not the traditionally marginalized and deprived African Americans, who work on subsistence wages.

The result of all these is to promote a cultural economy which privileges and rewards a purely cerebral world where ability, success and in fact one's survival itself depends upon all your ability to abstract and figure out the world entirely in your head. It more concretely means skills of accounting, coding, report writing (much of it workings occurring only in one's head) all so non-reflective and mechanistic, alone dominates, determines and defines learning.

Literacy itself has been so reduced as a means of mere abstraction, a move towards making it purely instrumental, an adjunct, an enabler to sustain the techno-rationalist world that so dominates us. The enlightenment era defined notion of science and knowledge continues to shape our trajectory of development and growth, which schools, colleges and universities thoughtlessly and mechanistically facilitate and shape.

This is of course not to suggest that literacy and schooling in itself have no significance. Literacy does suggest better abstract, de-contextualized thinking, 'liberating' one from mere memorization and rote as means to understand and learn (Jack Goody). But to make one's future, a future of hope, dignity and well-being entirely subject to ability to 'perform well' in 'studies', in school and college in my view unjust and unfair. Often our worthy educationists, scholars and economists find fault with incompetency of teachers (more so government schools and government school teachers) in their failure to enable children/students to abstract thinking and their shoddy, poor skills in mathematics, science and language.

In my view the 'reality' is far more complex. I would respond at two levels to this argument. Cognitive processes take their time to mature and the cognitive ability to abstract, interpolate, extrapolate and think beyond the concrete does not and need not emerge in the context of academia alone. (Howard Gardener) These qualities of cognitive abstraction, de-concretized thinking can also be seen in domains of cognition spurred by body-kinesthetics that inform our ability to manipulate objects, tools, instruments that have historically helped us in building and making things that add value to our existence and indeed sustain it. Included here would be the work of the farmers, weavers, potters, masons, carpenters etc.

Secondly related to the above if learning (the way popularly defined, something the process of literacy and schooling is seen to provide) therefore manifests itself in other domains as well, but by making an exclusive virtue of schooling and 'great' academic performance, prevents an individual from developing a mode of learning appropriate to her sense of well-being and personality. Modernity and globalization has further rendered all such professions and the intrinsic learning embedded in these practices redundant, injuring a person's confidence, self-respect and dignity. All forms of work, indeed learning, which evokes from investments in physical labour has been demoted as "inferior" , "inadequate" and indeed when someone hardly gets much returns after staking her blood and sweat into a profession as vital as farming, (or say weaving or pottery) it results in engendering a society fraught with tensions, frustrations, angst, alienation which ultimately manifests in violence. For the process of "white collarization", in itself an unrealistic and impractical proposition, becomes the only means of satisfying one's aspiration to lead a life of some creature comfort and happiness. And inability to achieve and succeed in "white collarizing" herself is stigmatized as a failure, shutting the possibility of a right to life with dignity without "doing well in studies". (This aspect has been very well put across in the rivetting documentary on schooling titled 'Schooling the world')

In the Indian context, the above process paradoxically is not new. For our caste system in many ways implied a similar mind-set privileging those with skills of reading, writing and marginalizing those who toiled with their hands and brawns. Only those who had all the scriptural, doctrinaire knowledge were deemed worthy of being richly rewarded and not those who sought to lead their existence in doing things of temporal and earthly significance. The insert of an advertisement (on the top) by the Indian Newspaper Society against the new wage board recommendation for people in the press which questions the wisdom of paying peons and drivers in several thousands, betrays this 'caste/abstraction alone matters' thinking that dominates the discursively constituted debates of democracy, equality, freedom and development. *

Gandhi, the visionary that he was, rightly suggested the need for a curriculum in schools which does not undermine the value of labour and the intelligence as evidenced in handicrafts and farming. Alas...our so called democratic agenda, our struggle for equality and indeed our modernity, has been entirely hijacked and colonized by such positivist epistemologies. Informed by discourses that contend schools and colleges as the only true liberators placing us on course of rapid growth and development, any argument to the contrary would be seen as perverted, shallow, antediluvian "nonsense", to their own sacrosanctual "commonsense"!

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*Of course I also recognize that social movements in India steering many Dalit groups would on the contrary suggest such an argument as being Brahmanical and a thinly veiled attempt to ensure status-quo. Endowed with cultural capital it is perhaps all right of folks of my sorts to pontificate in such vein. And again would I accept my own children if they were "academic failures" and saw in them no "further ability" to be anything but a gardner? Well at some levels being a school teacher myself and not being in a position to do anything better empathetically and enjoy, I have myself been a victim of this cognitive-social shift. Though teaching strictly speaking is indeed a very cerebral act but given the trivialization of schooling and "learning" itself , teaching as Michael Apple and Henry Giroux repeatedly argue has been "blue collarized" and hence hardly of much value and significance.

A version on Indian history...

2011-06-06T18:07:00.005+05:30

This I got as a forward. Please read it for more than a good laugh. I for one, felt it is in many ways a 'smart' and 'creative' reading and re-reading of India - past and present. It is very similar to the world history post I had published few years back in the humour section. Now could a IX standard kid really do this or someone of the likes of Gautam Bhatia behind it...??

A Brief History of India

As written by a Std IX schoolboy, with all the original spellings.

The original inhabitants of ancient India were called Adidases, who lived in two cities called Hariappa and Mujhe-na-Darao. These cities had the best drain system in the world and so there was no brain drain from them.

Ancient India was full of myths which have been handed down from son to father. A myth is a female moth. A collection of myths is called mythology, which means stories with female caricatures. One myth says that people in olden times worshipped monkeys because they were our incestors.

In olden times there were two big families in India . One was called the Pandava and the other was called the Karova. They fought amongst themselves in a battle called Mahabharat, after which India came to be known as Mera Bharat Mahan.

In midevil times India was ruled by the Slave Dienasty. So named because they all died a nasty death.

Then came the Tughlaqs who shifted their capital from Delhi because of its pollution.

They were followed by the Mowglis. The greatest Mowgli was Akbar because he extinguished himself on the battlefield of Panipat which is in Hurryana. But his son Jehangir was peace loving; he married one Hindu wife and kept 300 porcupines.

Then came Shahajahan who had 14 sons. Family planning had not been invented at that time. He also built the Taj Mahal hotel for his wife who now sleeps there.

The king sent all his sons away to distant parts of India because they started quarrelling. Dara Seiko was sent to UP, Shaikh Bhakhtiyar was sent to J & K, while Orangezip came to Bombay to fight Shivaji.

However, after that they changed its name to Mumbai because Shivaji's sena did not like it. They also do not like New Delhi, so they are calling it Door Darshan.

After the Mowglis came Vasco the Gama. He was an exploder who was circumcising India with a 100 foot clipper. Then came the British. They brought with them many inventions such as cricket, tramtarts and steamed railways.

They were followed by the French who brought in French fries, pizzazz and laundry. But Robert Clive drove them out when he deafened Duplex who was out membered since the British had the queen on their side.

Eventually, the British came to overrule India because there was too much diversity in our unity. The British overruled India for a long period. They were great expotents and impotents. They started expoting salt from India and impoting cloth. This was not liked by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted to produce his own salt. This was called the swedish moment. During this moment, many people burnt their lion cloths in the street and refused to wear anything else.

The British became very angry at this and stopped the production of Indian testiles.

In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi was married to one wife. Soon after he became the father of the nation in 1942, he started the Quiet India moment, so named because the British were quietly lootaoing our country. In 1947, India became free and its people became freely loving. This increased our population.

Its government became a limited mockery, which means people are allowed to take the law in their own hands with the help of the police.

Our constipation is the best in the world because it says that no man can be hanged twice for the same crime. It also says you cannot be put in prison if you have not paid your taxis. Another important thing about our constipation is that it can be changed easily for cast people who are very powerool. This is not possible with the British constipation because it is not written on paper.

The Indian Parlemint consists of two houses which are called lower and higher. This is because one Mr Honest Abe said that two houses divided against itself cannot withstand. So Pandit Nehru asked the British for freedom at midnight since the British were afraid of the dark. At midnight, on August 15, there was a tryst in Parlemint in which many participated by wearing khaki and hosting the flag.

Recently in India , there have been a large number of scams and a plaque. it can be dangerous because many people died of plaque in Surat . Scams are all over India .

One of these was in Bihar where holy cows were not given anything to eat by their elected leader. The other scam was in Bofor which is a small town in Switzerland. In this, a lot of Indian money was given to buy a gun which can shoot a coot.

Presently India has a coalishun government made up of many parties, left, right and centre and Raja's like olden days who have vast income and wealth.
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It has started to libertise the economy using liberty garments.. This means that there is now no need for a licence as the economy will be driven by itself. India is also trying to become an Asian tiger because its own tigers are being poached.

Another important event year was the Shark meeting at Malas Dive. At this place, shark leaders agreed to share their poverty, pollution and population.

We also have Amma in South, Didi in East, Behenji in North, Jawaani Aunty in Dilli, and Forin Madam in Center. Many people in india have wife for home entertinmint.

We are still following our great tredishun to welcome guests, respect ladies and feel them when they are at home. That is why also treat our terrist friend nicely when they bomb parliment and Tajmahal hotel built by mowglis.That is why Mera Bhaarat Jai Ho also got oskar in fillum. Even those who play criket get beeg money because of poorness in Indi

Facilitating understanding of architecture for children in its social and political context – Rulers and Buildings

2011-04-03T19:16:00.002+05:30

There is this fascinating chapter in Our Pasts, the NCERT history textbook for class VII titled ‘Rulers and Buildings’. It tries to contextualize art and architecture in terms of its political and social import. Number of important features are highlighted to underscore the fact that monuments and buildings were built by monarchs across

India

, across religious denominations to make political statements. Some of the aspects that this chapter highlights are the following (the last one is my own reading which can also be added since coins can themselves be seen in terms of its artistic attributes) :

a. Access, controlling and facilitating water supply….

b. Building places of worship, palaces and monuments in all grandeur which invokes the monarch’s claimed proximity to the divine …

c. Incorporating symbols and methods of architecture from different cultures to indicate accommodation and tolerance…i.e. use of brackets in pillars by Mughals which was influenced by the brackets seen in Hindu temples or the use of Chattris which was basically a Rajput architectural feature…

d. Facilitating trade and monetizing trade through minting of coins with the king’s image and insignia

The above features can in simple terms describe the ways in which powerful kings and dynasties across time in

India

sought to legitimize their regimes. These symbolic means were used by the rulers across the world and not just

India

to sustain their authority invoking means other than use of overt force and terror. This in fact is one point I have been making repeatedly to underscore the fact that many aspects of what we term as culture – religion, art, architecture is not unconnected from the discourse of power and therefore in history we cannot look at the domain of culture as being autonomous from economic, social and political context. Despite the effort made in the NCERT textbooks towards this end, the understanding that culture is independent and separate from the domain of politics and power, from what I gather from interactions with both teachers and students, continues to hold its sway. This is of course not to suggest that everything about art and architecture are reducible to the discourse of power. The execution of many of the monuments with its unique architectural features truly reflect the refined artistic capabilities and sensibilities of both the ruling classes as well as the labouring classes who toiled to create such magnificent monuments. But the larger picture should not be lost sight of in our eulogizing of their aesthetics.

After highlighting the above features and aspects of monarchy, the teacher can use two activity sheets which I have included to reinforce these basic ideas. The first one is to ensure that students have read the text carefully describing some of the architectural principles that the Mughals followed in constructing their forts and palaces and designing their towns. For example the fact that Diwan i am is West facing is anomalous for as the chapter says Shahjahan built Diwan-i-am facing East so that as in prayers when Muslims pray towards West he positioned himself in that direction to make his connection with the divine telling to the people. And likewise the nobility were denied access to the river save Dara Sikoh.

The second worksheet comprises of numerous photographs which are making statements about the linkages between the political rule and engineering and architectural feats accomplished and facilitated by these rulers. One can make copies of these and ask students, individually or in groups to determine which of these pictures are connected to the features and aspects (summarized above and to be discussed and debated with kids before hand) given in the chapter. Many features also overlap. It would, rather a teacher should, in the process of adding more meat to this fascinating chapter also, possibly through power point presentation, highlight some of the important monuments, temples and forts of India and its architectural merits. – i.e. parts of a temple, structure of a fort, features of Sarcenic architecture, the Hindu and Buddhist influence on Sarcenic architecture etc. If such a presentation precedes this activity, this worksheet which also involves highlighting the names of these monuments and places as well, would help the students to make their task easier.

My idea here is also to help kids to enable abstract thinking and arriving at more complex reading of history going beyond using mnemonic approach of highlighting and writing features in neatly stated ‘points’ and going beyond memorization.

Activity sheet 1 Activity sheet 2

(Some formating error may occur on google doc but once you download in MS Word, matters should be fine...)

Understanding Cholas - thru contextualization...

2010-11-22T11:36:00.006+05:30

This was yet another effort to contextualize certain epochs and specific events that transpired in such epochs - let it be accomplishments of a monarch in a battle, construction of monuments, development of arts etc. In this instance it was to bring about the wider social, environmental and economic processes to relief to the advantage of students of class VIII in the school I was teaching some months back. We had taken them to what was during the reign of medieval Cholas i.e. Chozhas, an important urban centre i.e. Thanjavur, which is located in the Kavery delta region of Tamil Nadu. Today as well Thanjavur is an important town and headquarters of its eponymous district but continues to derive much of its fame and glory from its medeival past where its famous Brihadesvara temple built by Rajaraja Chozha occupies centre stage. Incidentally this year also marked the 1000th anniversary of the temple celebrated by government with a 1000 member dance performance within its precinct. (which in my view failed to awe or inspire.)

The Kavery Delta region was and is the food bowl of Tamil Nadu famed for its ponni rice and sugarcane. Not just Thanjavur but the near town of Kumbakonam and the still bigger town of Tiruchy formed the most urbanized region in entire south India. But most of urbanization (though not all perhaps) in ancient and medeival times basically centred around temples. Hence the Kavery delta regions comprising of Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, Tiruchy and Gangaikondachozhapuram may have the highest per capita temples in the whole of south India.

During my interactions with the kids lot of things were discussed as part of our effort to contextualize. Going around in the bus the lush paddy fields were making its own statements which I urged the kids to take cognizance of. That the Kaveri delta region was high on production of surplus became evident. Also brought to their notice was the network of canals criss-crossing the countryside. This as such added further to productivity of the region. The rather dominant concentration of the Brahmins and the agrahara in this part of the region, certainly during the Chozhaa period (850 - 1250 CE approx) was the third aspect that was highlighted and figured earlier in the classroom discussions on Chozhaas. Finally we also looked at what such high productivity could also mean in terms of possibilities of taxes for the state and while discussing the temples, I also debated the social changes that emerged in much of the Deccan around this time. The new dominant peasant classes sought to assert political power and in this endeavour I highlighted the temporal significance of the temples, the patronage of priestly classes and how all these legitimized power of these kings, who were basically from the dominant peasant communities. (recall that this aspect i had also intervened in the form of a play. Click here for the post) Hence, the combination of environmental factors, political and societal intervention through the construction of canals and check dams, the presence of agraharas , the battles waged by the kings and the loot and plunder that accrued thus and the construction of temples all were linked in some kind of a dynamism which helped in the creation of a very powerful state in south India. (Two chapters from the Eklavya social studies textbook of class VII gives the best write up on these social and political processes - Click here and here)

One bunch of kids presented this understanding rather well...

So here it was...the classroom interactions, the trip to the various temples, our appreciation of the temple art, architecture - the vaastushastra of temple construction viz. the vimanam, gopuram, mandapa, antarala, garbagriham and the sui generis artistic style of the Chozhaa iconography - the Natraja for example. These helped me as well to get a deeper perspective on south Indian history and it was fun. As is probably evident, not much of names, dates and chronology of the Chozhas was discussed. We did not ignore them but my effort was to understand and help children understand factors, the macro picture that impinges on the micro. But this often impacted many kids in terms of their inability to understand such not so visible factors shaping the course of events. Many would comfortably give the names of kings, dates, temples, reel out data like features of administration etc. Whereas when trying to understand the context and the larger picture and connect the dots between these and the 'cold' and 'simplistic' descriptions of an empire, they often floundered. But I could sense that notwithstanding these difficulties all of them seriously shared my enthusiasm to look at history in a more processesual fashion Really miss the wonderful time I had learning myself and help the kids learn.

CBSE's Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation : comprehensively flawed

2010-05-11T11:39:00.016+05:30

In the euphoria among the progressive circles over the passage of the Right to education Bill (RTE), many do not appear to have taken cognizance of or are perhaps oblivious to a more regressive directive of CBSE. This directive of CBSE called CCE expects teachers to be constantly evaluating (you can even call it policing) their students under so many parameters. This I argue is antithetical to any genuine learning and understanding. It once again puts tremendous pressure on school teachers who are more likely to be spending much of their school hours (and post school hours as well) filling in details and churning out data in vast quantities. Teachers will be left with little time to dwell on any subject or topic, to be creative, to experiment and engage in any meaningful dialogue with children. Rather than helping students to be deeper learners, thoughtful and reflective individuals, measures such as CCE with its emphasis on mere generation of data and numbers, reduces learning to a superficiality.

CCE (Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation) meant to be implemented in classes IX and X, is actually another pathetic attempt by the so called advocates of the ‘managerial approach’ to education/learning to quantify learning and indeed quantify everything. Now before I’m accused of being a romantic anarchist where I think evaluation in any form is a pointless exercise and is a stigmatic endeavor, I have already written in one of my earlier post (click here) on exam reforms that examinations/tests are not in themselves an issue. Only when we have some form of evaluation the learning process becomes comprehensive and complete. But the question is what kind of assessment do we bring in and towards what end and who decides the form of evaluation. And importantly assessment itself should be predicated on certain quality of teaching/instructions in the class room which makes assessment acceptable for the community of students. The idea of CCE is merely to come up with numbers that is meant more to bandy about the 'greatness', 'uniqueness', 'successes' and 'pass percentages' of schools and to be used by policy makers, government and politicians to suggest that India is fast becoming a 'learned' 'knowledge' society. In lieu of making Class X exams optional, by our suave, glib honorable Minister of Education Kapil Sibal (the toast of the corporate, liberal, global chatterati) we have yet another ill thought of, shallow piece of bureaucratic/managerial directive that far from making or helping a teacher (and students) to be creative, exploratory and experimental reduces them to a mere cog in the school educational wheel. And the latter has increasingly and exclusively come to be seen, assessed and measured through the discursive prism of management/managerial approach.

Under the new directive, in the name of systematizing evaluation process, CBSE has brought in place a whole gamut of evaluation criteria which goes beyond the 'mere' testing of academic proficiency alone and also seeks to evaluate a child's attitude, values and temperament! A whole lot of rubrics/parameters like tests, reports, oral tests, visual tests, interviews, projects etc to be carried out through what is called formative and summative assessments have been put in place for each and every subject and the 101 topics/lessons that constitutes or defines a subject. The logic behind this being that it is far more prudent and justifiable to judge and evaluate a student over a period of time with a series of tests and other means rather than one final exam. The idea is to de-stress students and take away the fear of exams. Never mind if in the process we can make a travesty of learning and reduce the subjects into divisible but 'comprehensible' units, where the subtleties, complexities and the hard work involved in figuring them out are brushed aside. But in any case these internally evaluated grades are not going to be given much credibility by any schools for admissions to + 1 because any internally evaluated grades sheet will always be suspect for the objective abilities of teacher are always suspect. Only marks secured from writing a public examination will carry greater credibility. So much for making class X exams optional.

In effect all these formative and summative assessment translates into notebook thickness of data collection work for teachers. Now what are the implications and repercussions of such a requirement to be fulfilled by teachers in all schools affiliated to CBSE? Evidently such a system of evaluation, will leave the teachers very little time for anything else. For in this directive the anxiety to evaluate seems to have colonized all other classroom transactions. Even the weightage and marks to be allotted for these parameters are determined by CBSE. Their mantra is standardization and uniformity. Secondly teachers, who as such are removed from any decision making process and are made to feel utterly powerless in every sense of the term, are further going to feel alienated with such schemes of evaluation which gives no scope for individuality or autonomy. In all this the message that is been given to a teacher is: “You are not trustworthy”. Thirdly is the politics and philosophy of this directive. What to me is more pertinent here is where is CBSE (like everyone else these days) getting such ideas from and what are the ramifications of such ideas and thinking. Processes like CCE's are also in place in many a western countries. It is the belief of many that the west (and now perhaps the far east as well) with its markets, industrial and technological might, achieved all these and more not simply because of education but more due to the managerial approach to education. In India, where we are yet to get over our post-colonial inferiority and where the gloss, glare and glitz of a Tokyo, a Shanghai or a New York spur our imagination and fantasies, with whom we have to 'catch up', such 'reforms' therefore in domains of school education along with entry of foreign universities are seen to be critical and vital. After all we need a labour force which intrinsically and unquestioningly accepts the logic of the market. As such this perspective carries with it so much of legitimacy, it is so 'commonsensical' that any attempt to critique it would invite the criticism of being perverse and perverted.

I nevertheless seek to critique the above and to further bolster my view, I would bring to one's attention this brief but brilliantly argued article in a recent issue of EPW (VOL 45 No. 18 May 01 - May 07, 2010) where the authors critique the gyanshala model - a model which seeks to univerzalise education in india through the much bandied PPP model- (click here to learn more on gyanshala). This has been applauded and welcomed by a large section of scholars and media. Coming to the implications and premise of the CCE, as the authors argue in context of the Gyanshala approach - “measurable student achievement became a key marker to define education and educational outcomes to plan, predict, measure and compare the role of education in enhancing the economic growth of different national economies. Deeper engagement in education for creating new types of citizens, for justice and equality, and education as a human right are deemed economically irrelevant, and thus unimportant to policymakers". Similar to what the authors - Sadhna Saxena and Manish Jain argue - I contend that this CCE diktat from CBSE has similar ramification that affronts the teaching community and reduces them to mere receptacles of guidelines, directions, framework etc. Basing their arguments on educational thinker Michael Apple, the authors argue - "...the doctrine of efficiency view teachers as merely rent-seeking agents. With a large unemployed labour, teachers are seen as an easily available human resource, a replaceable cog, as one input among many whose purpose is defined with reference “to quantifiable outputs, namely, the learning achievement of students” leading to greater workplace productivity. The management model of education adopted by Gyanshala treats teachers as workers in the education assembly line, who perform the teaching/learning tasks decided by the management. In it, the teacher lacks any training and agency to deliberate on the curriculum, to conceive, plan and design teaching and learning strategies for specific groups and individuals. The curriculum supervisors break the “complex jobs into specified actions with specified results”. The “management controls both pace of work and skill” of teachers to attain specified learning goals set for students."

So in effect such CCE measures, among the many more regulations in place and also apart from the whims and fancies that private school teachers are subject to by school managements, are an insult to the dignity and self-respect of teachers where they are sought to be emptied of their agency and subjectivities. That many a school teachers are inept, take their work lackadaisically, etc maybe true but one has to seek the reasons for it, reasons which are complex, rooted largely in historical and sociological factors.

As I have been repeatedly arguing here on my site, learning is a fuzzy and slow process. And teaching essentially is an art where each teacher evolves and devises unique pedagogical methods which can and does serve larger social requirements and functions but it is essentially an uniquely individualistic enterprise. The CBSE needs to be looking at means for broad basing learning by ensuring that schools cater to the individualistic nature of learning of each child. Towards that, allow teachers to explore, experiment and importantly trust the community of teachers as people who are capable of self-reflection, restraint, innovativeness and who can evolve a suitable form of assessment and give incentives for teachers to be so. But instead CBSE puts in place CCE. All these are carried in the name of greater accountability, fairness, professionalism and efficiency. My take is this will actually be counter-productive and only wean more and more well meaning, capable and motivated people from teaching profession. (here guess I can include myself who quit teaching in disgust or at least have taken a temporary break from teaching). Even the students will end of feeling being constantly judged for each and everything that happens in the class and school. In light of the above, guess CBSE should be rechristened as Central Board of Secondary Examinations!!!

In the above context I dread the implications of the RTE. If such management approach is going to inform all the policies related to schooling, teaching and teachers are to be damned to levels unimaginable and perhaps irreparable.
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PS - Given the IT frenzy that has caught the fancy, imagination, dreams (and whatever that exists of us) of many in India, this CCE appears all set to be a godsend for many in IT industry. Just discovered some small time venture from Dehradun, of all the places, who already have a software solution in place to resolve this dilemma for teachers. ( Check their site out here). Bet more of the established players in Bangalore are already booking their deals. In this teachers have basically to enter data into slots for all the different parameters, criterias, checklists, forms etc and presto! their job load gets reduced by 90% as this site claims!! Talk about the entrepreneurial spirit in India never to miss an marketing opportunity anywhere and the innovativeness of IT honchos to monetize this 'daring' 'bold' venture of CBSE. Can already see the stocks of Educomps, Edurites and Edus...whatever, rising!!

Towards experiential history - The need to include working skills in history curriculum

2010-03-23T20:40:00.023+05:30

Over the years while dealing with different chapters in history, we come across constant references to occupations and trade where artisans evidently had a major role to play. Like for example we constantly read about textiles, jewellery, metalware, pottery either being unearthed in archaeological digs or references to all this in varied literary sources. All these are meant to indicate the richness of material culture of a given period and societies. And there is farming too. If even today nearly 60% of India is directly or indirectly dependent on farming...in the past, societies across the world were largely agricultural. Surplus could never be taken for granted till the 1800s and it is no accident that much of the rapid, intense and extensive technological changes leading to shifts in occupational profile happened only from the beginnings of the 19th century.

But more to the point here - some time back few kids were doing a project on Mughal textiles - the chikans, zardozi, brocades etc which Mughal culture inspired and I was at a total loss to explain what exactly the description (taken from wiki and rest from the net) meant for neither I or the kids had any idea as to how the looms work (i.e. the wefts and warps, jacquards etc). Likewise in another class when the kids were doing a 'project' on Greco-Roman pottery , I really could not explain to the kids how exactly the amphoras were made and how its unique reddish hue was obtained.

So as a teacher and almost all my students deal with history with practically little feel, understanding and ability to apply or create things and connect to those aspects of our existence which shapes our culture and indeed our very existence. What sort of history teaching would this be? Incomplete, un-empathetic, superficial where at best children can be helped to intellectualize something which needs to be experienced at certain physical levels. Professions and work such as farming, weaving, masonry, pottery, carpentry and smithy shaped our existence. In my view nothing can help children better appreciate these different professions and the skill, expertise, energy, focus, dedication, hard work that goes into making things by helping...nay compelling them to pick up skills such as weaving, spinning, farming etc in some measure. Its their products and outcomes which shaped (and shapes) our collective identities, our imagination and ergo our nation. For example while we talk so much of Mysore or Benares silk or the jewel like execution of sculptures on the walls of a Chalukya or Pallava temple, which gives us so much sense of rootedness and pride but do children (and teachers) really realize what all goes into making of all these? and importantly the experience of making these?

While we do have schools emphasizing art and certain skills like pottery and carpentry and even farming but as a history teacher I feel it needs to be historicized and the experience which children gain in trying to weave a cloth, or make some pottery or forge some weapons... be used as important learning objectives in history teaching. Detailed textual understanding of these processes will hardly give children a sense of connect to the products which we routinely use and indeed abuse.

In these days of conspicuous consumption people have no appreciation of how things get made and the conditions of work under which these get made. There is so much of taken-for-grantedness and contempt for people behind these occupations, if not for the things and products that emerge from such painstaking process. These in reality involve so much of creativity, observation and multiple-intelligences . It is the disdainful attitude towards these professions which actually nurtures caste mindset in India. History like i always tell my kids is meant to sensitize and make us alive to the world around us. And to do that we need to 'experientialize' history by giving the kids the ability, means and feel of things like farming, weaving, masonry etc that shaped and shapes our existence. Gandhi indeed was implying something similar, I would imagine, in urging for the need to bring in craft education in our curriculum.

So let us include skills like farming, weaving, pottery etc in our history curriculum and not merely in art and SUPW periods, where we can bring in farmers, artisans to schools to instruct and interact with kids. As my experience shows evaluating kids in this domain will help many who may not have the cognitive-linguistic ability to write well in exams and homework but can hone and display their prowess, application, understanding practically in these domains using their sensory-motor and bodily kinesthetic intelligence.

Now here are some visuals to add some 'super colour' to an another wise dull prose where I conjure the kind of responses I'm likely to get from some of my old students when compelled to 'go dirty' and 'sweat' it out on the way of learning history!!! Click on the images to see captions clearly...ensai!!

What this website is all about

2010-01-16T11:56:00.004+05:30

The domain of social sciences in India, history in particular, is in a state of crisis. It's a subject hardly pursued by anyone, by any 'self-respecting' person if I may add, for not only is history seen to be useless, irrelevant in terms of its epistemological status (for what use is past and its study?) but seen to have little economic value. While there may be some merit in the latter argument, the former perception emerges out of erroneous understanding of the subject matter of history. With my experience in teaching history at different schools largely in mofussil parts of south India I have discovered (and discovering in a slow and painful way, I must add) that history can be everything that a mathematics or sciences could be and more viz it could be stimulating, relevant and yet complex.

Here I seek to share all my efforts in nurturing historical thinking among the young minds of different schools, and put it across on the web which I hope will be a forum of all like minded teachers in India - Teachers and even others who feel that history as a subject in itself is not an issue but more how people perceive it and teach it.

I'm looking at creating a forum for all those interested in popularising history in a fashion which is not chauvinistic, jingoistic but yet history is seen to be romantic, exciting and importantly seen as an imperative to build citizenship qualities and an important tool to fathom the social, political, economic and cultural issues that are transpiring in the society today.

The idea is to dialogue amongst school teachers and others interested in discovering newer framework which are child appropriate and help children/students to the relevance of history. However if one is looking for ready made lesson plans, replicable worksheets etc this is hardly the website for you. The thrust is more towards understanding the concepts, themes in history rather than looking at history through the model of political chronological narratives.

The idea is to share our experiments in history teaching where we can go wrong but nevertheless such failures helps us to better understand what history is and how best children can learn and understand the relevance and importance of history.

R S Krishna, M.Phil [Modern Indian History (JNU)

Helping children to visualize ancient India

2010-01-14T11:08:00.039+05:30

Photo-prints of murals/frescoes at Ajanta, copies of which were given to students

According to more progressive pedagogic wisdom, children are supposed to learn and understand better if the teaching process is made more hands on. Over the years i have been trying to do precisely so with history. But one is not too certain if making history more experiential in itself brings about learning in terms of reasoning, identification, analysis and application. I suppose such learning is predicated on certain measure of language skills, observation skills and listening skills.
In the absence of latter I would imagine, activities which attempts to bring in higher order thinking skills, comes to naught. But perhaps it is also possible to look at this matter the other way viz. skills, either the 'higher order or lower order' all develops simultaneously and the issue is whether we challenge the cognitive domain of a child in such a fashion that all the skills are spurred into operation. It can be argued that skills, even the alleged lower order skills are intertwined with 'higher order' skills and therfore even observation, listening skills comes into effect only when at many levels reasoning and analysis are also in operation.

Background - Be that as it may, while dealing with ancient Indian history - from the period of janapadas to Guptas one of the problems one comes across is the very limited visual element . Unlike ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome we do not see grand buildings, monuments or even icons (till Kushana period) to help anyone, leave alone a child, to get a feel of these periods. The materiality and the visual expression of this epoch in India's history is something that only a few can fathom. Western historiography on the other hand by a careful study of say Greco-Roman cultures' art and visual expression, been able to reconstruct that past in more detail. For example we have books for children where their attires, food, houses etc are well represented and documented which helps children to get a better feel of the same.

On the other hand material culture of ancient India presents only scattered examples and even when it does, it

i. has not been highlighted in our text-books and reference books in the a way where it makes sense to children and

ii. it has also not been contextualized in such a fashion that full import of the material, the socio-economic and political condition of the times, sinks in. Our books fails to bring about any such connections and historicize matters.

Aims - Towards this end I sought to do two things -

i. to bring to relief the materiality of ancient Indian societies and

ii. help kids to arrive at certain observation, reasoning i.e. understanding of ancient India. The materiality I was looking at was the attires and fashion which existed among different social groups in ancient India specifically from Satvahana to Gupta period.

For this an NBT book titled 'Ancient Indian costume' by Roshen Alkazi helped me to figure out a way through which I could convert the sketches given in the book - which provides outlines of different costumes/attires based on mural paintings and sculptures found largely in Ajanta, Bagh caves, Nagarjunakonda, Sanchi and some museums as well - as a pedagogic tool.

Outlines of different images seen in Ajanta paintings (from Roshan Alkazi's book) copies of which were made and given to one group of children

The outlines in this book (see pictures) of different people who appear in the Ajanta paintings, (the kings, courtesans, warriors etc), and from sculptures of Nagarjunakonda, Barhut, Sanchi lends itself to more concrete identification of costumes than directly through the murals and sculptures itself. Much of these murals and sculptures today stand smudged and worn and as one may be aware they largely depict scenes from Buddhism i.e. Buddhas own life, Jataka tales etc. These murals and sculptures over a period of 500 years (approx), from the period of Satvahanas to the reign of the Vakatakas, a contemporary of the Guptas, thus becomes an important source for the study and understanding of not just the Gupta period but even those societies preceding it. Indeed these paintings at Ajanta, along with the numerous chaityas and viharas here and the caves and paintings at Bagh and the Vishnu temples at Deogarh - for the first time such concrete visualization from an ancient Indian period are seen in such numbers. Based on these one can make certain informed guesses as to the how actually the people during and before the Gupta period could have possibly lived.

Process - I had two sets of students. To one I went about photocopying some of the outlines of these pictures from the book and took photo-prints of Ajanta paintings as well. And I gave these to one group of students who were asked to

i. observe these figures and to note the dress, style, jewellery, head gears very carefully and

ii. to identify changes in dress style as gleaned through these pictures over a period from say Satvahana to Guptas i.e. some 500 years.

iii. I also asked them by looking at the photo-prints, to colour the photocopied outline images.

To the other group I gave multiple copies of the famous sketches of Padmapani Bhodisatva and the Apsara, in an outline format from the Ajanta murals. By looking at the photo-prints of the different Ajanta murals I wanted the students to fill up the remainder of the space of these two sketches by drawing images or floral patterns similar to the style which fills the walls of Ajanta.

Outcome - The children highlighted the different variations in attires from Kushana and Satvahana period to Gupta period - i.e. the landed/princely classes used lot of jewellery and

often refined head gears in contrast to the more simplistic attire of the monks. They coloured the images based on what they could make out of the photo-prints. (I had also asked the kids to refer and find out how the murals in Ajanta were painted) The conclusion they arrived on was unlike the kind of fashion and sartorial changes one witnesses in say just 10-20 years today, in ancient India, fundamental changes in attires and fashion across time and space was extremely slow and minimal. Though they did not state this in their report (which was in the form of chart work) one student also pointed out that attires in ancient Indian past indicated one's socio-economic status much more clearly than today. (This comment left me wondering...signs of more democratic times we live in?...did not discuss this further though at some levels these kids in class VII were giving an example of sumptuary laws perhaps?)

The other group put in their effort and this was the result....

Conclusion- In a sense this experiment of mine paid off some limited dividends. Children's attention was drawn to those aspects of ancient Indian history which are not highlighted in conventional books and secondly to help them to see how changes happen (or does not happen) in more concrete fashion (pun intended) rather than merely look at economic and social structures alone. Aspects like attires, food, buildings etc are those that children can easily observe and connect to and thus they are more attuned to notice the changes thereof. The kids also in their attempt to draw in a similar vein the murals in Ajanta, got a better feel of the art form and style. But then technically speaking as one would surmise by looking at their work, their actual drawing skills as in their ability to reproduce, was very limited.

Kapil Sibal and the examination debate...barking up the wrong tree?

2009-06-06T10:42:00.027+05:30

The exams results are out and each and every school worth its salt, pepper and sugar are proudly advertising the jaw dropping performances of their worthy students - 100% passes with more than 50% of its students securing not less than 90% marks in all subjects - maths, sciences, social sciences, languages and many securing centums (sic). The average pass percentages in most of the private schools in Tamil nadu and Karnataka let it be those affiliated to numerous state boards, cbse, icse hovers somewhere between 70-80%! Coming to my own bunch of students and their performance in social sciences - well the results left me breathless!
Students who barely managed to figure in the 50% bracket on an average and who had tremendous difficulty in distinguishing between the two great wars, between Gandhi and Garibaldi, Mandela and Mussolini happily cracked the board paper with 80%!!! There seemed to be no bearing or correlation between the assessment/evaluation that I and my colleagues after spending hours in teaching/coaching with the 'indifferent', 'challenged' 'weak' students had carried out, to the kind of percentages obtained by them based on the evaluation done by the high and mighty "examination/education board". (In the passing I should also note that the "bright" students "shone" in the latter evaluation as well.) What is amusing in this context is how often may of our worthy opinion makers use these 'marks' (results) to make passionate espousals for privatization of education. For, compared to government schools results, the private schools produce numbers that certainly make a better copy. This in the view of the LPG (liberalization, privatization and globalization) votaries reflect better quality of teaching and learning. But only the naive will see any merit in these marks and the farcical examinations that bring forth these magical numbers. Indeed it is truly a magic! These marks hardly reflect any learning and understanding ability of a child and at best only suggests a child's simplistic literacy and memorization ability!

Exams and tests as we have it, and particularly the different board exams, have so colonized the teaching/learning process that no learning and no honest evaluation of learning is ever going to be possible in this country. And if at all any learning that transpires despite such examinations with its emphasis on ensuring scores rather than testing any understanding, it will be purely coincidental, accidental and incidental! These exams reflect no genuine understanding but yet end up putting tremendous pressure on everyone connected with schools, not just kids but even teachers and parents. So the incumbent education minister Kapil Sibal has stirred a hornet's nest by calling for an end to Class X board exams for schools affiliated to CBSE. But are we just looking at the end of public exams or are we looking at end of exams in all its totality where exams just like corporal punishments will be banned and where schools and teachers who conduct these exams will be penalized??!!

Are exams intrinsically horrendous and flawed? What is it that really puts pressure on the kids? Is it the exam itself or much rather the kind of exam papers we have in the country and also the kind of evaluation norms that we have in this country? I would like to imagine and argue that it is the latter which is indeed stressing and traumatizing the students. For doing away with exams at many levels would also mean doing away with learning itself.

When it comes to history, let it be ICSE or Tamil Nadu stateboard exams (CBSE of the lot is perhaps the most progressive but will come to that in a while) the curriculum focus is entirely on cramming tons of information. The texts carry little analysis or reasoning. And likewise in exams again there is very little test of reasoning or application. Teaching of history itself leaves very little room for any of the above to transpire. Lot hinges on how much you cram, memorize and how well you are able to reproduce in the exams which undoubtedly can be stressful. For so much of your mind is taxed in this process than when one is trying to use reasoning, analysis and application. (let me also add here that memorization in itself is not as horrendous a thing as made out to be for it is also a skill which has its relevance and place as long as we do not make it the only skill to be tested)

Having examinations to merely test one's rote 'learning' ability is something that even the government and state educational boards finds it hard to convince itself, leave alone those who fault such a flawed criteria for evaluating a child's understanding. But the powers that be rather than look at a total overhaul of the curriculum and schooling in India have sought to address this problem in a very ingenious and ludicrous fashion.

Now whatever the child writes in the examination paper, even if it has only slim and marginal bearing to the question, even if the answer is a travesty, full of factual errors of names, dates and events ...in other words whatever howler is written, which by rights an evaluator should just score out, even such responses is deemed to be worthy of been given certain weightage i.e. marks! Evaluation benchmarks have been so diluted that only perhaps when a child gives a blank page for its answers that a child can fail these board exams. This explains how some of my students, who like I said cannot really figure out (actually did not care and at many levels it was i who failed to get them interested in history) if Hitler was connected to first world war or second and whether Russian revolution preceded French or did Germany fight against the Chinese or was it the Japs? - managed to do 'exceedingly well'.

For all the inane details that a child has to cram (without figuring out the larger picture, the hows and whys and not just the what, where and whens) which no doubt is frustrating and traumatizing, the board exams offer this sop and assurance of such sloppy evaluation which ensure higher pass percentages. This in the end settles the issue!

CBSE was saddled with the the new NCERT history books and these books, like I have always maintained does not lend itself to easy grasp i.e. memorization. Lot of plodding is required both by the student and teacher and indeed there is no such thing as correct answers but lot of reasoning and analysis i.e. understanding, is needed to figure out the lessons in these books. But not more than 20 marks are set aside for the whole history book (and 20 for geography, another 20 for political science and some 5 marks each for disaster management and economics and 20 marks for so called internal assessment ) in the final cbse exams and in the end a student is expected to attempt only handful of questions. Since so much of virtue is made of "open endededness" in progressive discourses on education that anything that a child writes passes of as great answer. And presto - the kid has scored a distinction!. So here again, while CBSE has a "progressive" tag, it again executes another farce in the name of an exam.

These ways we delude a child and ourselves into believing that s/he has grasped or mastered the subject and we thus make a mockery of exams and mockery of learning itself. The thing is each discipline has got its epistemological status, its ontology or to put it in other words, each subject has got its identity, integrity and character. But having such banal and inane question papers which pass off as "exams" so as to not to stress the students, it only insults the intrinsic merit, beauty and challenge each of the subjects or disciplines represent. It is of course not to suggest that only select few can master subjects. Every subject is learnable and doable but for that to happen we need to have a flexible and decentralized curriculum and more importantly a school faculty who are very resourceful, committed, passionate, creative, who know their discipline inside out and are able to use various pedagogical methods so that the vast demographic majority across social and economic divide are able to 'master the subject'.

Secondly the far greater premium that we put on academics only indicates at several senses the predilection of the Indian ethos of privileging the intellect and theory over praxis. Linking one's intelligence, competence, ability, skills to strictly academia only betrays a very brahmanical mindset. Ability to read and write with understanding is not something that comes easily to all (given the kind of resources children have, more so in government schools where they do not have resources worth naming) but yet the same child who cannot figure out the difference between Asoka and Akbar can figure out which mango tree is going to flower and which one is going to give better fruit and the same child can also figure out where he will get the best price for the mangoes in the market. But yet such a child may not find a job in the swanky retail chains like Big Bazaar and Reliance where blokes with 'better academic record' i.e. an MBA but with little 'native intelligence and hands on experience' will get great openings as purchase managers, marketing vice presidents etc etc. In India we make too much of a person's so called literateness and all our businessess and social systems go to promote and privilege, what I call 'cognitive-intellectual intelligence' - an intelligence in a very abstract sense than in a real or concrete sense. (Maybe using Howard Gardner's much quoted but perhaps less understood, multiple intelligences theory the logico-mathematical intelligence is favoured, nurtured and assessed over the musical, linguistic, inter-personal, bodily-kinesthetic etc) This craze for degrees only arises because everyone in India insists on an academic degree not ability!

Thirdly, thus in India, only professions which are padded to academia have economic value. How much money does a farmer, carpenter, a weaver make compared to techies and management graduates? True elsewhere in the world too white collared professionals make more but no where is the discrepancy between hard physical labour and "labour using intellect" as vast as it is in India and globalization at many levels has only widened the schism. Hence every farmer or carpenters dream is to ensure that their sons (and sometimes daughters as well) enter the hallowed precincts of Infosyss', TCSs, Wipross' making money hands over fist. The intelligences, skills involved in weaving, farming, carpentry can be best exhibited only when people are involved in the act of farming or weaving and not so much in an academic exam where it has little chance of being seen, recognized and valued. How can children coming from such backgrounds be expected to do well in exams where only one's literacy and memorization skills are tested? And it is therefore not surprising, which Prof Krishna Kumar laments, that in states like Madhya Pradesh, in its board exams, only 35% students manage to pass. For majority of these schools, to begin with, do not having a teaching faculty of an order that can help these students to acquire higher order learning and understanding ability - teachers who can give them the necessary linguistic skill to read, listen and articulate answers well. For as things stand intelligence and ability in India has to exist in black and white on a peice of paper and if that is what we really want, our opinion and policy makers do not seem to be taking appropriate measures save making adhoc and knee-jerk changes.

All these i argue is another upper caste bias for brains over brawns. In the past the Brahmins with their intellect dominated the society and were so privileged because of their "literate knowledge" (in this context Vedic texts) but now with the inroads democracy has made literacy is no longer an forte of the Brahmins alone but literacy is indeed seen as a means by which empowerment across the social and economic demographies is possible. But due to contemporary political and economic demands and pressures and the dominant discourses that we have on development and growth, literacy has been emptied of all genuine learning and understanding. Literacy in this sense can hardly be seen as either an enabler or empowerer.

But for true literacy skills to be provided, better schools are needed. Far reaching reforms of schools and schooling is called for. Here in my view to repeat, great talent should be helped to enter school teaching profession which will by far have the most positive impact on education and indeed the society.

Instead we just choose to tweak the system ...some here like the new Right to Education Bill which makes it mandatory for private schools to provide 25% of its seat free to poor kids and some there, like this proposal to end public exams. which in my view is so antithetical to learning. Exams then are not so much to undermine the child's self esteem but on the contrary to give the child the much needed confidence.

We no doubt need exam reforms where a child's comprehension can be genuinely tested and not mere ability to cram data or facts. So what are the ways out?

If different methods of evaluation are opted would exams still be a dirty word? Imagine exams in history where a child is given the freedom of chosing his/her method of evaluation? where one does not have series of banal or inane questions but just two or three essays? or where child can sketch out something of the wars or events which reflects certain understanding? or write a poem? But whatever be the form of evaluation preparing for an exam involves focus, concentration, priortizing and hard work. The latter makes rather, shall we say, discomforting demands and generally speaking the sensation of preparing for the exams is anything but pleasant. But then exams are as much an integral part of the learning process as much as lectures, demonstrations, activities, field trips etc to ensure the learning one has obtained is holistic and complete. And again just like none of the teaching methods can be regarded to be perfect and have its own limitations, examinations too are fraught with many weaknesses and failings. But all these cannot be a ground for removing exams and at the same time a person's ability to survive and survive well and make money should also not depend upon his/her academic record i.e. examination grades or marks. As an economy and society we should evolve and accept many unconventional methods of learning and also figuring out one's ability to perform a task.

To repeat exam reforms are needed and one would realize that for such reforms to happen so many changes are required in the curriculum - textbooks, resource materials and importantly resourceful teachers of ability, standing and credibility who can truly help children learn with understanding. For only then will the vast sections of the Indian society be able to compete with those traditionally privileged without compromising on the sanctity and inherent value of a discipline/subject.

All these one is afraid is a long long time coming.

Understanding material culture through a simulated archaeological dig

2009-03-14T19:22:00.015+05:30

I'm always endeavouring to make history as experiential and as contextual as possible. And I continue to believe that history is all about understanding issues, themes and concepts that affects one's social, economic, political and cultural existence by placing them in context of time and space.

One theme/concept that is essential for developing historical thinking and appreciation of change over a period of time is "material culture" i.e. how the type of materials we use reflect our style of living, our abilities, our skill sets, ideas, our aesthetics etc. Children need to understand that each cultures in the past, across different geographical locations can be identified on the basis of the kind of materials used like pottery, clothes, building materials and the kind of design element that went into them.

It is by careful examination of such historical material evidences corroborated by other literary evidences that we reconstruct the past.

To achieve the above I arranged for a simulated archaeological dig for students of Class VII. The aims were twofold: to help children understand the process of historical investigation and to help them see a link between materials and the time frame in which these materials are obtained. In other words children have to identify and understand that certain kind of materials are associated with certain time periods and specific cultures.

Method: Simulating an archaeological dig involves lot of time and preparation. With the help of my colleagues I first had to make artifacts related to the Pre historic period, Egyptian, Indus, Greek, Romans using plaster-of-paris, thermocol, papermache etc. Then I had also arranged a pit to be made in the school compound where I put these artifacts in layers of stone age, bronze age and iron age. The idea being that stone age being the oldest whence the first human cultures emerged- artifacts connected to it like stone implements would be found buried the deepest. Then came the bronze age cultures of Egypt and Harappa and accordingly artifacts representing these cultures come after the stone age and hence occupies the second layer in the pit. Finally comes the iron age cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Hence in the archaeological site, artifacts from these cultures were on the top layer. But then like I was to discuss with the kids later, no archaeological sites do we find matters arranged so neatly and hence had to shuffle some of the artifacts in such a way that many pre historic artifacts were found on top layer which actually corresponded to iron age and vice versa.

The idea was to help the kids to themselves arrive at such a summation and discern patterns based on i. the number of artifacts they dug up

ii. the layer or part of the pit from where they carefully dug the artifact

and iii. the type of artifact based on shape, design, artwork etc.

The thing is by the third term students of Class VII in our school have already familiar with the pre-historic, ancient Harappan, Egyptian, Roman, greek, Vedic, Mauryan cultures and hence they already have some familiarity of the artifacts and ability to figure out the cultures and time frame to which these artifacts belonged. Therefore it is imperative that anyone seeking to do do a similar archaeological dig, that children are given some grounding and initiated into discussions on the cultures whose artifacts are to be obtained in the dig. Else it becomes too much for children to figure it all out.

Process - The first question that arises is how does one identify a site where it makes sense to start digging to discover artifacts. I wanted to put across to the kids the idea of corroboration where multiple sources are used for a comprehensive understanding of the past. So I kind of simulated an old literary account which hinted the place within the school campus where I had set up the archaeological site. (It was actually a box measuring approx 3 X 3 X 3 but even a pit could be dug depending on the teacher's ability and resources mobilized) I told the kids I was reading from an account of a traveller who had visited this place more than 1000 years back which once stood very close to our school building. This account spoke of a city which was north- west close to the trade route to the coastal city of Chennaipatinam and this city was densely vegetated. This clue was to indicate the location of an old city, no longer in existence but perhaps some remains of it could be found. But then I had also to discuss with the kids what physical evidences would further indicate that something from the past could be buried in the place, as further corroboration? I had to suggest that one has to be on the look for some clues like shreds of pottery, some pieces of cloth, some part of an artifact etc which would indicate something under. Then I also told the kids how often many of potential archaeological sites are often mound like in appearance, for commonly towns and villages get built and rebuilt over the years following floods, famines, invasions and thats how they gain certain elevation.

Then I sent a team of kids from the class to identify the place as it was located in the school compound itself. (TVS Hosur campus is huge and there are parts not frequented by kids where I could set up the whole pit) They failed despite all the hints that were given and finally i had to guide them to the site where all the hints and clues were in evidence.

We then divided into three groups. One group did the digging. (And of course digging an archaeological site is not like a routine digging. The kids were told to dig carefully with certain implements I had provided) lest in the process they destroy the fragile evidences. The other group had to sort out the artifacts, clean them and the third group with the help of certain reference books had to determine the cultures to which these material evidences belonged and thus arrange them in terms of time and cultures.

Conclusion - The simulated activity, on the basis of evaluation I did in its aftermath, helped children to appreciate the following:

a. that archaeology is a painstaking but very crucial element for our understanding of past.

b. certain prior familiarity and grounding of the cultures one is dealing with is also needed before one starts the dig to place the artifacts in the proper context

c. material evidence along with written records gives one a better appreciation of the past and it also helps in verifying the sources one is using to reconstruct the past.

d. the materials/artifacts unearthed indicate in very concrete terms the lifestyle and cultures of people in past.

e. when we encounter any such element from the past i.e. artifacts, buildings, monuments or any material evidence, we need to deal them with care and empathy. For these artifacts, buildings, records etc retrieved through archaeology/history helps us to understand ourselves better - as an individual, a member of a community and society and helps us in a deeper appreciation of the issues, problems that we as an individual and members of the society face.

Slumdog Millionaire: A R Rahman, Globalization and Pedagogy

2009-02-23T18:23:00.012+05:30

So Rahman has made it. And twice over. Well, what else does one say when one gets the most coveted cinema award - The Oscar and two of them to boot. But not just the critics of Rahman's music ( and I'm not one) but even his fans (which I certainly am) would concur that Slumdog...was average music and very average by Rahman's own prodigious standard.
Compared to his soulful 1947 Earth, Swades, Jaane Tu or even his latest elevating Delhi 6 in Hindi and innumerable numbers in Tamil - Roja, En Swase Katre, Rhythym, Pudhiya Mugam, Duet to name a very few - Slumdog is barely a patch on any of these films. Most of these popular Tamil and Hindi films were downright pathetic in terms of screenplay or script or direction, redeemed just by songs composed by Rahman and backed even by melifulous background score.

As a history teacher I often invoke Rehman's music in my interaction with kids while dealing with Early modern Europe, (to tell my kids in small town Hosur/Tumkur where rarely have they heard any western classical music - when he is called Mozart of Madras, kids just do not need to know who Mozart was but sample some of Mozart's music as well.) or while discussing US in geography (to introduce them to pop music in more nuanced terms, to genre of jazz, blues, hip-hop, merengue, rock etc) for one gets to hear all such palpable influences in his musical score. Rahman's eccletic genius lies precisely in his ability to fuse music from very diverse categories and many sounds one hears in Rahman's music, rather a child hears, can be used as sample to contextulaize certain topics in history and geography. I used a song from En Swaase Katre- Theendai in one of my classes some years back while dealing with churches and religion in medieval Europe, for that song uses Gregorian Chants as base. And then I played some Gregorian chants as well along with vedic chants to drive home certain similarities in religions despite their apparent differences. The point here is I used A R Rahman in a classroom as a pedagogical device.

But though it worked as a learning tool, it was interesting the way many kids reacted and react to Rahman's music. It was not typical and did not sound Indian, few remarked. 'Anu Malik is still my bet' said one. And actually in buses and shops one often hears more of Pritham these days. The masses connect so well to a Pritham, an Anu Malik and even a Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (many would consider this trio as successor to Rahman, often mistaking their music for the latter's) but for those in India, largely its middle classes with their global aspirations, find in Rahman's music something they could connect to and project to the world and indeed to themselves - a new identity which is simply not Indian but global. One can thus see Rahman as someone who brought world music to the Indian masses, masses aspiring for 'class'. But now I wonder if Rahman in Slumdog has perhaps brought Bollywood music to the world than his usual adroitness in bringing world music to Indian masses. Truly, Slumdog music could well be off an 'average' Bollywood music director. But then by giving Rahman an Oscar for a 'typical' Bollywood soundtrack created by him , is the world acknowledging popular film music in India, with its unique notes, beats, idiom, in which Rahman's music itself was largely seen as 'atypical'? Globalization championed by the big capital and political power of the US, has as such been lopsided and loaded against India, imposing its economic, social and cultural character but now do we see in an Oscar for Slumdog's music (i'm not going into Slumdog the movie, which perhaps is problemmatic at many a levels) as India finally getting its due share in shaping popular sensibilities across the world, more so in a world dominated by the US? As many proponents of globalization would have it, the latter is always a two way street. Leave this for a debate...

And some years back I had written this peice for Deccan Herald with far greater insights and details which I present here

Helping children to understand Harappan cultures

2009-01-29T12:03:00.011+05:30

Attention to drainage and sanitation on the one hand and emphasis on town planning on the other were two of the outstanding features of the Harappan cultures. Now the challenge is bring out these unique aspects to a students cognition and understanding. I was trying to figure out hard and help my dear colleague Sarada and then I hit upon these two activities, which in my view brings to relief these two singularities.

In the first worksheet I have given pictures from Harappa and Mohenjodaro of their drains and along with it a clip art picture of a person who is sick. The idea is to drive home the point that most of the illnesses in the past (and present as well) are caused by poor sanitary conditions.
In the days of yore the average life span of people was around 40-45 years and mortality rates were generally high. These were largely so because of poor sanitary conditions obtained in the society of the times from ancient period to even modern times. The Harappan people, as evidenced by the extensive network of drains, were among the first to perhaps understand it and thus emphasized on sanitation and cleanliness. This way the children get a context for understanding the prevalence of extensive drainage and also the archaelogical discovery of baths even in small households (and not just the great bath) . The other questions in the worksheet are meant to give further insights into the Harappan culture i.e. how burnt bricks for example is a more durable material than clay which can withstand the test of time better than clay. Perhaps one reason why we have so little of archaeological evidence of the Vedic or even post vedic period whose material culture was perhaps different.

The other singularity of the Harappan culture was town planning. I have asked the kids to look at two maps of two cities. One is in a grid type similar to what we read about Harappan towns viz. wide roads, shops and houses in blocks, etc. The other is all haphazard with no planning whatsoever. I have given few questions like in which town would it be easier for a stranger to find their way and why is it in the planned town all shop and workshops are closer to the river and also if a town becomes a well known trading centre what is required for smooth and easy transportation etc. The idea behind this ws is basically to draw their attention to the fact that Harappan culture was largely commercial which was frequented by traders and merchanst from distant lands. Lots of goods were to be transported and hence the towns were planned to prioritize trade i.e. movement of goods. Therefore the roads had to be wide and well paved for carts and caravans to move quickly, the shops and production centres had to be so located that it was convienient for traders i.e. hence closer to rivers. Children can be told how in India over the last few years with increasing trade with other countries and India's own increasing production the roads, bridges have been brought to shape to facilitate easier and quicker movement of goods. This increasing economic activity has also resulted in the emergence of new townships with proper planning. ( Actually gated communities...now dont know whether the kids of class VI will fully comprehend that such changes actually benefit only the few...this question though valid is another matter and my knowledge of Indus does not go that far to give parallel examples with the location of the Harappan working classes) Once again, I hope this activity/exercise will help children to further contextualize Harappan cultur and its town planning.

Click here and here for the worksheets. (some formating errors have crept in while converting it into pdf)

Attempting to teach religion as political - any ideas?

2008-12-02T16:16:00.015+05:30

As it happens I'm currently dealing with different religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam from classes VII to IX. This is not the first time that I'm dealing with religion as such. Every ancient civilizations that we deal with always has a section on religion i.e. Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses etc.
But then we have exclusive chapters on Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and even Hinduism. So how does one help children to distinguish the latter religions from the former?

It is with the above poser in mind that I seek to handle religions for kids. It is important for children, I think, to arrive at some distinction between the two. It is important for them in other words to figure out the difference between those religions which are more functional and less didactic, less normative than those religions which determine in a far greater degree aspects of one's existence which includes food, dress, occupations etc. It is in the latter category that religions like Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism will fall into. And then I also make another distinction between these religions in terms of political implications.

I first sought to put the above points to the kids in Class VII, VIII and IX through a discussion. I gave them this worksheet (CLICK HERE) to draw similarities between Greco-Roman religions and Hinduism. In this way I sought to highlight that though these two religions were divided in spatial terms but in functional terms they were similar in many aspects.

Then I sought to bring about the commonality in religions such as Christianity, Buddhism (and even Islam)as opposed to Hinduism and Greco-roman religions. These religions, I argue, brought about social change by questioning existing traditions, practices and customs. Christianity and Buddhism with its great emphasis on compassion, love and kindness brought new elements into the religious discourse of the times. Such elements in number of ways undermined the controlling ideas of the political class. I gave the students the example of how a political or ruling class controls the society based on the beliefs and customs of the people. Very often what people believe and do not believe in is determined by the religious idea. For example people in Europe for long believed in geocentric theory largely so because the church deemed it so. Likewise as per controlling idea of the times sacrificing cattle and paying tribute to landlords, priests, indulging and participating in some public ritual, public ceremonies, sports events ( like the barbaric events in the Roman Colosseum) festivals etc helped the ruling classes to legitimize their position and power. In such a scenario if some one starts questioning the futility of such ceremonies, rituals and festivals because thousands of people are affected in the process of such popular practices, for such rituals and practices lack meaning, for such festivals and customs are basically money making means for the kings and priests - what do you think will be the response of the ruling classes like kings and priests to such a person?

What I sought to express to my students was the simple fact that questioning prevailing traditions and practices of the people without even openly opposing the king and seeking to gain power, was in itself a political act. Thus Christ or Buddha never aspired for any political power and were concerned with creating new value system (new controlling idea) for the society. But since even these new value system undermined all those practices, customs and rituals of people by which the kings and priestly classes' power and status was reinforced, the teachings and ideas of people like Christ, Buddha and Muhammad was political for they questioned prevailing traditions and sought to make their religion more inclusive by opening it up to all irrespective of a person's wealth, social background, or status.

I went on to give even further examples - in Greco-Roman tradition and even in early Hinduism there was little in terms of compassion, kindness for the poor, dispossessed, weak. Social stratification i.e. caste system in early Indian society was seen as a given and people continued to carry on with their business and daily lives as if nothing was wrong in their society. Based on these controlling ideas then the kings ruled. Therefore anyone even when not questioning the king but questioning the prevalent practices of the people was also upsetting political equations.

Now I'm not too sure to what extent students in Class VII, VIII and IX where I discussed all these understood all the aspects of the nuanced argument (and I'm trying to develop further some activity to put across this view in a more concrete fashion) but I maintain it is important for children to understand the idea of "political" while dealing with religions.

Teach India or Cheat India? - a dissenting note on TOI's Teach India campaign

2008-10-14T11:19:00.003+05:30

So much is being made in very self righteous and self-congratulatory tone of Times of India's Teach

India

campaign. Now that Aamir Khan has also joined the effort there is this great (though misplaced ) feel good factor. The news reports being carried on this campaign where we come across "enthusiastic", "energetic", "spirited" volunteers on the one hand and school dropouts, street kids with their "bubbling energy", "eager anticipation", "innocent eyes" which has seen so much of life's seamier side, on the other, all sounds so corny and bromodic.

Times of India, a newspaper which has so brazenly and patently promoted a culture of consumerism, elevated the lifestyle of the rich and famous (through its soft pornography of Bangalore Times, Delhi Times, Mumbai Times which school kids read with more enthusiasm and glee than...??? Come to think of it TOI actually has nothing constructive or postive for teens and kids like say Hindu's Young World. Of course they have this fancy NIE programme where I'm told they have student specific editions but then students in their early and late teens swear by TOI not for its NIE versions but its tabloid versions!) as something that all should aspire for; a newspaper that caters basically to that exclusive, self seeking, indulgent classes who reside and work in gated communities of Indian metropolises, but now TOI expects the same classes to reach out to the less fortunate, lesser mortals who do not have the fortune of quality education! Sounds so hypocritical, hollow and spurious!! It seems to escape the powers that be at TOI that it is the same social and economic culture that their broadsheet so passionately and unabashedly espouses i.e. free markets, sex, social exclusivism etc that creates in the first place the chasm between people in terms of haves and have nots, it further negates, subverts and corrupts all those qualities that define good education - values which can transform ordinary students to emerge as responsible citizens. With much of TOI's focus on sleaze (to be fair to them, most of media in India is focussed on smut) Teach

India

is basically a posturing gimmick and a fig leaf for the decadent, consumeristic bourgeoise culture that Samir Jain's TOI so nauseatingly promotes through its brand of journalism. TOI and India's dominat media culture (of India Today, Dainik Jagran, NDTV, Zee, CNN-IBN etc) is so anithetical to the growth, development and nurturing of responsible citizenship qualities among school kids whose values, mindsets have become obsessed by greed, consumerism and self centredness, qualities covertly and overtly promoted by media of TOI variety with its ubiquitous and hegemonic presence.

While the spirit and motives behind Teach

India

is fine in itself (and could have been finer still were it not backed by a rag like TOI), we need to recognize that volunteerism will hardly help in addressing the enormity of the crisis of learning that afflicts

India

. Education and teaching are intense jobs, emotionally consuming, intellectually demanding but of course can provide joy and stimulation like no other. But what Teach India is in fact doing, unwittingly perhaps, is again creating the impression that issues connected to learning can be solved by volunteerism.

We need to remember that learning is not just about acquring some skills - to add up, to read, to write but to facilitate deep and proper understanding of both the natural and social world around us. The prevalent discourse of voluteerism in the field of education, something which Teach India furthers, seems to indicate or rather reduce the whole teaching-learning process as a sum of skills - not learning. Mere literacy skills will hardly help to transform

India

into a nation of well meaning, informed citizens.

The real remedy to the problems of illiteracy and poor learning is to make teaching a worth the while profession which in turn can attract well meaning people into schools, who as teachers can truly make an impact on the students - equip them not just with literacy skills but who help them to mature into well grounded, responsible, thinking citizens. One is not just quick to find fault with teachers for the state of affairs in schools but by reducing teaching to a volunteering effort, one makes it appear that teaching-learning is such a simple process and all that is needed is a spirit of volunteerism to remedy the enormous problem. Do people have any idea what it takes to really teach or help a a child in a fashion where a child's understanding goes beyond mere recollection, repeatition and memorization to reason, analyze, compare, apply, reflect or in other words where a child can be propelled on a trajectory of self-learning and discovery? Or has literacy agenda so colonized our educational policies that basic reading and writing skills alone are seen as sufficient goal or enabler of development? (TOI of course will be happy with latter goals. As long as folks can read Bangalore Times without thought!) So may reports and studies indicate majority of our kids in primary schools after six years of schooling can barely read or write. By setting aside few hours, couple of days a week for such children can barely substitute more sustainable efforts which can only happen in a school on a full time basis.

It's time that we look beyond basic literacy and primary education and recognize that even 'mere literacy skills' needs intense work on the part of teachers and literacy as such is not (maybe should not be) separated from critical thinking skills.

Why does not Teach

India

look into the issue of school teachers and teaching In India and why these days no well meaning person wants to get into school teaching? (must admit there was a story or two on this when Teach

India

was started with all fan fare) Will Teach India also look into the fact that how school teachers across the country (more so in private schools) are as such the most exploited professionals in India - exploited in terms of poor pays, horrible work conditions and denying them self esteem? Will Teach India delve into the kind of emotional pressures that teachers are subjected to by all the other stake holders - students, school managements and parents - who see them as no more than very dispensable entities and who can be knocked around failing to meet "school/parental/student requirements" - and these requirements are as such the whims and fancies of either the (increasingly ill behaved) school students, self opinionated parents and scheming school managements? Will Teach India help initiate a debate by which means and methods are evolved (which goes beyond mouthing platitudes on teaching as a 'noble profession' and instituting few meaningless teacher awards) which brings in better talent to the teaching profession and gives teachers a sense of dignity?Why cannot Teach India also lobby for the Right to Education Bill as well, which seeks to make it mandatory for all private schools to accept at least 25% of students from poor family without any fees? The Gurcharan Dases, Swaminathan Aiyars of TOI who unfailingly and consistently paint the school teaching community black more so if they are from government schools, ever see, like what Azim Premji said, the government school has to become relevant for all and not just the poor?

Helping children understand and contextualize classes

2008-09-01T14:10:00.016+05:30

While dealing with the period of revolutions for students of class IX which includes the French, English Revolution and the American war of independence, it becomes important that a child develops some understanding of classes. At one level classes are determined by the means through which groups of people earn their livelihoods. Classes are embedded in the lifestyle in which people experience themselves, project themselves and indeed identity themselves with. In other words class background of people can be identified on the basis of culture, ideas and the material life in which people socialize.

As an activity/project I sought to help the children to notice this simple but a very important fact. Very often it escapes the notice of children (and even adults) that every aspect of our lifestyle, we consciously and often more unconsciously project our class background and it is important for one to recognize this. And for which children need to be equipped with a context to frame and recognize classes.

Of course at one level people certainly are aware of classes in very simplistic terms as people who are rich and those who are poor. But we need to go much beyond this simplistic schema to bring in a bit more complex schema where, as mentioned, we look at classes in terms of the ways through which people earn or make their livelihoods. So under such framework we come across middle classes who are basically the professionals of doctors, engineers, lawyers, journalists (and the humble teacher of course), but who could be having a lifestyle (given the high salaries that management and software professionals make), which could rival and best those of the bourgeoisie classes. The latter classes (can include industrial entrepreneur as big a player like the Ambanis or Tatas or it could even be those who run a small and medium enterprises/factories in towns like Hosur and Coimbatore and not to forget the small shop owners and retailers) are those who do not 'make money' through salaries and wages but through profits and margins. Then we have the working classes in both organized and unorganized sectors who eke out a living through wages.

We also have the feudal, landed elements of our society. The feudal classes in India have evolved in such a complex process that although most of them derive their income through the growing capitalist relations of production where agricultural produce is sold in the open market and wages paid to workers, many of the attributes of India's colonial and medievalistic past are manifest in their lifestyle. And then these same classes in India dominate its political scene and hence sycophancy, servility, opportunism, the values that define their social life are so evident in their politics too. Indeed given this classes preponderance in politics, Indian politics itself has become synonymous with all the latter attributes and much worse.(This was brought about by two sets of groups in their presentation through their reading of Indian democracy and politics)

The bourgeoise and most middle classes are also identifiable with their patently consumeristic lifestyle and their constant hankering for things. The working classes' lifestyle is characterized by wants, frugality, austerity, deprivation, lack of hygeine and ill health.

Thus classes and their attributes are manifest in many domains i.e. language, lifestyle, mannerisms and such classes have been manifest across time and across space.

After having familiarized children with all the above in some depth I asked them to present their understanding through certain visuals and models. Children tried to determine classes based on people's material life. In itself it did not involve more than collecting pictures from magazines, advertisements and making models and drawings which established the fact that certain lifestyle are connected to the professions and the kind of money you make with those professions. But I would imagine I gave them certain frames or contexts to identify and interpret people and society through the prism of classes. Of course it is not just enough to help children to figure out classes and identify them based on certain external attributes. We also need to question why there are preponderance of certain classes in certain societies and why certain classes in history i.e. the upper classes, albeit in minority, always manage to hold on to the reins of political, economic and social power. This is a much deeper question debates on which I have just initiated with the students, answers for which will take a long time to crystallize.

I have included certain pictures and video clippings of the stuff they did which would explain the extent to which they grasped these facets of life in contemporary world and past as well.

Alas! Poor articulation eclipsed all their effort and work which they put in making these models and charts.

What is historical thinking?

2008-07-12T19:08:00.011+05:30

I have been reading and rereading this wonderful article by Sam Wineburg of Stanford University and Richard Paxton titled 'Expertise and the teaching of history'. (Click here for a website titled historicalthinkingmatters.org maintained by Prof Wineberg). They argue, rightly, that the best way for engendering historical thinking is giving first hand, children different primary sources related to a common event or episode. Since each source carries with it biases, motives and problems, children need to be helped to sift through them and identify the problems and finally arrive at a more "objective" understanding of the past or an event. I have no disputes here. One needs to be sensitized to the fact that knowledge about the past comes from a careful and systematic study of primary sources.
Very often our perception and views of the past are shaped by hearsay and works of poor historical scholarship which refuse to bring upon the sources the kind of questioning and discernment that one needs to for an "objective" understanding of the past. But does historical thinking emerge or refer to this ability to skillfully deal with primary sources in a rigorous and scientific, corroborative fashion? Cannot we look at historical thinking as something which can also emerge from looking at secondary reading, monographs, articles, essays, criticism which satisfies certain criterias? (what those criteria could be i will elaborate later)
As things stand in India, access to primary sources is not easy. Secondly few teachers (including myself) have the kind of linguistic ability that equips one to interpret these primary sources particularly those written in old languages and scripts pertaining to ancient and medieval period. Thirdly and importantly I also wonder if historical thinking is something that one can ascribe to that approach alone where one deals with primary sources alone. Wineburg, of course goes further and also talks about the need for a perspective that one needs to generate from these sources and also perspectives that help one to look at these sources in more than empirical way.

One reconstructs the past basically on the basis of primary literary sources along with archaeological sources but when we (rather I) talk of historical thinking, it is not just in terms of a methodology to examine, deal and interpret with the sources connected to a period or event but more a recognition that events transpire more in temporal terms. In other words when an event or even a process that shapes up, it does so in a social, economic, political and cultural context. And these socio-economic, political, cultural factors impinging on an event have to be studied, recognized and understood as materializing or actualizing in time or over a period of time. This according to me is historical thinking which can be nurtured and needs to be nurtured for the kids and adults as well, for historical thinking is actually an important attribute of citizenship.

Therefore in the first place to bring oneself to raise those questions one needs to look at existing interpretations which examine those events and its sources in more comprehensive ways and help establish the not so evident links that exist between the political, social, economic and cultural domains. In other words one can say that familiarity with secondary sources (monographs and research articles) using frameworks that help explore the sources and events beyond simple empiricism itself helps to nurture historical thinking. And there are innumerable secondary works on various topics whose outline and main ideas teachers can and need to be familiar with so that they can put it across to students to help them realize that- i. an event can be looked at in so many ways, ii. and that events happen in certain concrete contexts. To me historical thinking is an understanding that past or present societal events, changes or even individual actions happen not in simplistic causal fashion but in more complex ways and in more temporal terms.

Historical thinking is not something which can be ascribed just to one's ability to employ certain methods in dealing with primary sources but historical thinking would also mean looking at contemporary issues and events in a diachronic or temporal perspective. This is the ability to identify certain broad contours, features and trends which shape the more manifest political, social and cultural events that transpire across space and time. And this ability need not just be arrived only when confronted with primary sources. On the other hand making use of existing studies that have used various primary sources and have factored in earlier interpretations as well, and putting it before students highlighting the ways the sources pertaining to a particular period or an event have been used would be of greater help in engendering historical thinking. Historical thinking thus is also the ability to ask questions which helps one to arrive at broad generalizations that help to understand society better across space and time. It is a different matter that we do not have books appropriately written for children (and even teachers) which reflect such intense scholarship and use of primary sources.

For example if one is looking into the conflict between Mughals and Marathas, in my opinion it is more important for the students to understand land relations, the social structure (caste system), methods of warfare, religious beliefs of the people etc to establish the fact that it was more a conflict between two competing classes, than just look at it as a Hindu v/s Muslim conflict. One is not trying to minimize the influence of religion and that religion did not play a role in one's identity but more to establish the idea that religion itself was enmeshed in social, economic and political changes of the times. And the thing is there is a rich historiography dealing with this conflict by historians/scholars like Andre Wink, Irfan Habib, Jadunath Sarkar, Sardesai etc to name a only a few, following whose works one can arrive at a more complex and rich but by no means a closed and sealed understanding of this chapter in late medieval Indian history. Historical thinking then is about recognizing the latter and since we have great number of studies (secondary sources) exploring that particular aspect of Mughal history, historical thinking is not incumbent on one's ability to sift through various sources from that period. Historical thinking can also be generated by helping children become familiar with different perspective offered by different studies which extends the canvas on which events take place.

Such an ability or skill to look at events then becomes, to repeat, an important attribute of citizenship in the same way scientific thinking and temperament is also used as a marker of citizenship and maybe even modernity.

Common sense and history

2008-05-28T15:29:00.016+05:30

Helping students to arrive at historical outlooks through concrete evidences

Over the last four weeks, there were occasions for me, where I encountered history in action so to speak or more specifically reaffirmed my belief that past is not what our commonsense would have us believe. Second, many of our practices, customs, "values" including language we use and the way we use it are again historically conditioned.

Common sense tell us that India has mostly been a Hindu society (if not a nation) before the advent of Muslim political rule. But if we say that ancient India was largely Hindu we need to make a qualification and a very big one at that. Hinduism, as it is practised today and as the way people see it, was never the kind of dominant force and religion in India till about 400 AD, that it is today. It was Buddhism which formed and shaped the world view and sensibilities of the majority of its people in India till well about 1000 AD (most certainly till the beginnings of the Guptas around 400 AD)

Was away holidaying in Himachal's Lahaul-Spiti Valley (LSV) last month. And what a valley it was! Swathed in every shades of brown, LSV is basically a cold desert - stark, barren with swatches of green (being the cultivated parts - peas, barley, corn are most dominantly cultivated) And there in middle of nowhere are these remote Buddhist monastries like Dhankar, Ki and Tabo.
The latter has some fantastic Buddhist murals akin to those found in Ajanta (and hence often referred to as the Ajanta of the Himalayas- Alas could not take photos inside...usual restrictions applied!!) Buddhism continues to be the predominant religion in these sparsely populated parts. And then it occured to me - further north west in Afghanistan (Bamiyan statues), Ladakh (innumerable monastries here) and then in central India (exemplified by Ajanta), in the east (Tantra, Nalanda) and then deep south (Tamil epics of Sillapadikaram and especially Manimekhalai.) were evidences to prove my above stated assertion - All these examples were deeply reflective of ubiquitous Buddhist presence in much of ancient and even early medieval India.

The Dhankar monastery

The spectacular Ki monastery

But why did Buddhism decline? Look at it this way - drawing parallels from ancient and beginnings of medieval Europe, if Europe is seen to be Christian today it became so only from the medieval period similar to the way India became "hindu" in the early medieval period. Both Christianity and Hinduism at some level became more expedient for the new political economy that emerged in medieval times and hence its increasing acceptance and popularity. More important for me here was the framework I had within which I was able to place all these concrete evidences or sources and reaffirm the perspective - that ancient India was largely Buddhist and instances that I have been quoting only goes to prove that point. What I would or should really be looking into now is whether my own students, when I put across all these evidences would arrive at similar summations? I have got an activity here I guess to help them see the need for evidence in history and how evidences can be used to arrive at certain perspectives and how these perspectives can be used to counter certain common assumptions on our past.

The Tabo monastrey - one can also see the old monastrey built circa 1000 AD and built out of mud - standing the test of times, where one can witness some of the finest Buddhist murals

And then I get this e-mail while I was in the beautiful valley of Manali - in the shadow of Pir-Panjals, forwarded by my father in law and boy! Have a look at it here. Titled Life in 1500, it is full of nuggets of information but information which tells us so much about our customs and traditions (Here it is the European past). We take so many of them for granted - things as simple as bathing, marriage, the idioms, proverbs that we use etc all have concrete historical origins. Check it out and you will gather what I'm driving at. I think I have another activity in hand while dealing with feudal Europe - how many usages and contemporary customs in English have medieval origins!

Thus this e-mail and my visit to the Himalayas turned out to be a learning experience for me. Both revealed to me aspects of history which our "common sense" fails to account for. What remains to be seen is how effectively I'm able to use all this as a pedagogic tool in my classroom.

Looking at temples historically through theatre

2008-04-20T11:28:00.018+05:30

The king peered at the staff which the priest wielded with flourish and listened to his words carefully: "Listen O king! If you seek to legitimize your rule and gain acceptance amongst the people as someone who is indeed a legitimate wielder of power and not a thug who has usurped political power, you can make use of religion to achieve this end. You exploit religious sentiments of the people and coupled with the blessings of the priestly class, er..., " the priest pauses sheepishly, "that is me, who can attribute a warrior status (kshatriyas) to you and all members from your community, people will start accepting you as the king."

The king ponders on the priests' sermon which on the face of it seemed very self serving. The ministers naturally were not amused and looked suspiciously at the priest. Minister Arunachalesvarar comments sarcastically. "The wily Brahmin as usual is upto his ingenious scheme to forward his community's interest. Rascal!"
The priest contends- "listen Arunachalesvara. Rightly or wrongly the society fears god and those seen in service of God are the most respected. You see as things stand we priests are respected (under the breath, the priest adds - or fear is more like it!) due to our alleged proximity to the gods. Now I'm suggesting means by which even people like you who wield political power can claim proximity to the divine and almighty!"

The king and the ministers in chorus query: "how?"

The priest pauses and then walks across the durbar. He pauses again and shuffles the staff and turns around.

"Build a place of worship which will catch the fancy and imagination of the people. A place of worship - a temple so grand, stupendous and huge to leave people stupified. A temple which symbolizes your devotion to the almighty as much as it symbolizes your power and strength."

The king nods but interjects: " yes yes...but then temples are your domains o priest, the domain of religion and hence the domain of the priests but I'm not too sure if what you are suggesting would help me build on my name and fame..." The king looks at the crown and picks it up..."will this gilded crown be one of thorns...??" and sighs.

The priest counters - "Temples of course are nothing new. But now temples have to be something which is just not the concern of the priest but temples have to be everybody's concern."

Before anyone could counter the priest, he continues: "O king you have the finances and people under your command, do you not?. You are a believer, are you not? People also believe in the powers above, do they not? So why not do something which not only helps in affirming your status as a warrior who can rightly claim to be a king and also reaffirm your faith in the divine? When you build this temple on a grand scale you give everyone a stake in it - masons, artisans like sculptors, weavers, painters etc - hence these very people who are now questioning your legitimacy will now laud you for your devotion and also giving them an opportunity to serve the almighty!"

The priest rested his case.

This was a gist of the play titled Aalayathin Asthivaram (foundations of a temple)which students of class VIII so wonderfully executed on March 27 which also happened to be the world theatre day. This was another attempt in using theatre to popularize and internalize history within the fuzzy interiors of the child's mind. This time around the quiet, unassuming, Rajesh Chandran, my colleague and drama educator did more than the needful in concretizing a rather abstract but vital aspect of early medeival Indian history.

To me one of the issues that intrigues me is why and how India witnessed proliferation of temples from around the 5th century AD? The gist above I suppose will give one the reasoning. It is important for one to understand not just temple in its chronological or architectural specificities (when temple was built, who built it and its unique architectural elements) but also understanding the sociological and historical uniqueness of temples.

One thing I realized during the course of our work on the play - Rajesh's enthusiasm and energy. He jumped at the idea when I discussed with him few months back. I started working on 'something like a script' based on which he worked out the scenes - and he did that quite uniquely by making brilliant use of metaphors. The use of the staff (stick) I thought was an intelligent way of connecting staff with power. But initially it is the priest who wields it but later hands over to the king as part of the coronation ceremony. This in effect proved the point that political legitimacy all said and done remained within the precincts of religion and its representative i.e. the priest. Thus the subtle use of the staff to drive the point. And Mani the student essaying the role of the priest played it so well.

That the ruling classes were basically a class of "suckers", narcissists and megalomaniacs, Rajesh brought this facet by characterizing the king as someone who is constantly ingesting victuals i.e. fruits, nuts even as ministers salivate. Vijith the kid who played the role of the king wowed the audience.

Rajesh opened the narrative with contemporary scenario where temples have lost its symbolic, social, cultural and intrinsically political value ( as opposed to the overt use of temple politics by the Hindu right wing which today not surprisingly fails to make much of an impact beyond certain time and space) The mute sculptures adorning the walls and pillars of the temples who have witnessed better days of glory and power, are given a voice whence they narrate with lament and resignation, at the present state of temples and how it was in the past. Each kid acting as a sculpture performed their part well with excellent articulation of dialogues through which the temples history unfolded.

On my suggestion Rajesh agreed to the use of a screen as a backdrop which projected the numerous images of temples with an excellent rendition of an alaap as a background by another underrated faculty member, my colleague and music educator Nagraj Hegde. The play reached its crescendo with image of two different temple projected on to the screen. So it was also a multi-media presentation to boot where MS powerpoint was put to an integrated use and was not used merely as a prop. Once again it were the kids who did the montage of temples and the execution was flawless.

In the end the sculptures make a plea as to why temples have to be treated with certain respect and empathy - temples were the spaces which provided identity to the people in the past - priests and nobility apart but even sculptors, painters, masons, musicians, dancers, weavers and farmers all developed a stake in temples and indeed contributed towards it. People's identity then in terms of public spaces were constituted inter alia through temples and festivities just like today important markets, streets, theatres and shopping malls shape contemporary identities. Temples are reminders of our collective past.

The point is in this play there were no historic specificities - the year (except the fact that we were careful to mention as sometime in the early medieval period and not ancient period when India was basically Buddhist), the king was fictitious, the place, the temple itself, all were fictitious but yet I argue the play was historical since it captured the economic, social, political processes that transpired in medieval India. And that is more important I think in history to get a broader sweep rather than be bogged down completely ( I say completely here for it is still important for children or anyone not to completely loose sight of time frames, important events in that time frame, and the players in that event i.e. the whats, wheres and whens) by obsession with facts and sticking to those facts. In fact this was an attempt to expand the frontiers of history for children by using theatre as a tool of pedagogy.

At the end of the day I was wondering why in this school, especially its arts faculty which has the most proven and professional members, is the least seen and observed and hardly occupy much mindshare among faculty members, parents and even children alike? Are we underestimating their prowess? Is it also because verbally they are not articulate? and hence their presence and work goes unnoticed? Anyway good work Rajesh. Hope to work with him in future on certain select themes, in the realms of historical than history.

Using dumb charades to connect...

2008-02-21T20:30:00.013+05:30

For those eager to see me in action...here I'm! One thing that I have been noticing is the reticence and indifference of a sizeable number of students in most of my classes. Are these kids listening and if they are, is their listening and observation good enough? And another thing I wanted to ascertain was maybe the kids do understand stuff but they cannot express it in very articulate fashion either orally or in print. Third - how do I appear as a teacher? my diction? body language? my lingo? Am I communicative enough as a teacher? How effective are my teaching methods?

To bring these "passive" kids right into the heart of the teaching learning process I ended up using methods that involved using a child's kinesthetic and physical energies towards which a child has natural proclivities. Children had to use their kinesthetic ability to put across their cognition, recognition, understanding of concepts, individuals, process, events, places etc. All this goes by a more simpler name: i.e. dumb charades. Here I used dumb charades as an reinforcing activity - names, terms and events which we had dwelt on for the last one year in class VII I sought to reinforce. In dumb charades by breaking up the words, which as such remain just that for many kids - words, without having any contextual significance, I thought/think that it offers kids means by which they can reconnect to these words in a fashion which makes sense to them. Once the basic ground rules and common gestures were accepted it is up to the kid to make meaning of it and that too using body and sign language.

But did it? I notice/d few things - for many kids names like Gandhara Buddha were just that - names. Ditto for places, events or even concepts. For example when I whispered Pelopessian wars I got blank looks. Either these kids had forgotten or they registered nothing (the whats, wheres and whens) of the Peleponessian wars or Gandhara Buddha in the first place. Secondly words remained words. Kids were (as you will notice in the recording itself) trying to deal with the word phonetically and not with the meaning or association of the word. For example the child pointed me out to deal with the word "surplus" (Sir and then a + sign)...and another girl pointed to her socks to help her team mates crack the word "Socrates". It was clever but they were not as such dealing with the ideas or event the person is associated with or meaning of the concept or the historical context in their sign/body language. Well at one level that is what dumb charades are meant to be, is it not? And as you would notice I gave a similar demo my self. But in the end I was looking for more and hoped that some kids would transcend to do something more substantial. Guess I should have also given a demo where they attempt to look at the word not phonetically but more contextually. Will need to factor this in next time around I use dumb charades as a pedagogic tool.

So was this attempt of mine wasted? For my contention is the children need to internalize ideas and understanding and using such "brain based" methodology while at one level helped them to reconnect externally to certain names, events and places, it did not really reveal their understanding. Kids of course enjoyed the whole exercise and even those "smart" ones whom I had excluded out of this exercise wanted to be in the thick of it. But then, simply because children are having fun can that be seen as a learning exercise? Guess very often we confuse the two and activities that we have to offer hands-on learning to kids gets "reduced to fun".
But given the fact that this exercise of mine was confined to those "passive", "non responsive", "dull", "disinterested"...(the works)lot and also given the use of body language and "fun" they had in the process, in some future date I hope they would once again revisit and reconnect with the same terms, names, events from Ancient Greece, Rome, Buddhism etc with far deeper understanding and meaning.

A fascinating documentary on south Indian temples

2008-02-17T14:43:00.016+05:30

This is an interesting documentary on temples of south India particularly on the Cholas. It dwells in great lengths on the construction of the Vimana of the Brihadeswara Temple at Thanjavur. What is fascinating and impressive is the extent to which the film makers have gone in giving a very palpable feel of the temples - They try to recreate the process by which the huge granite blocks could have possibly been moved to built the vimana of the Brihadesvara temple. This documentary also underscores the fact how the Taj Mahal and the other Mughal monument which appealed a lot more to the British with their Victorian morality, eclipsed the temples of central and south India from popular imagination.
Thus it is Taj Mahal which continues to be associated with India and things Indian rather than temples. There are interesting insights into the social significance of temples and the social culture that temples embodied. This documentary certainly would make a fascinating watch for children while dealing with medeival south India.

Attempting Mauryas

2008-02-08T20:36:00.001+05:30

The pillar edict at Lauriya-Nandgarh, Bihar in Brahmi

Tried using this activity worksheet (click here) while dealing with the Mauryas and Asoka. The idea was to help children relate to Asoka's dhamma and make it personal for them and secondly I wanted to underscore the ethical aspect of Asoka's dhamma (and Asoka dhamma was basically a means by which Asoka sought to administer the empire) in contrast to the rather instrumentalist notions embedded in the Arthasahstra. I generally approach the Mauryan period more on the basis of the framework of Prof R S Sharma and less of Romilla Thapar. Prof Sharma, as one would expect from him, gives a materialistic view on the factors that lead to the strengthening of the Mauryas. Iron and its widespread use and Magadha's nearness to the rich iron ore deposits in the Gondwana belt gave Magadha that edge to dominate as a janapada over the other janapadas in the Indo-Gangetic belt.
Sharma also talks about topographical factors like the elevated location along with the forests in the vicinity which added to the "resource richness" of Magadha, which the Mauryas exploited to their advantage and built such an vast empire.But as and when the "material" advantage (use of iron and iron implements, pottery etc) had spread to other parts of the empire, that unique material advantage was lost and the Mauryas were eclipsed. (Source: Sharma, R.S.,Ancient India, NCERT, New Delhi, 1984) The other view is how Asoka's liberal dhamma which focussed on ethics helped to weld a vast geographic space even as he could have used force to bring people under his suzerainty. Such a conscious use of liberal, tolerant, non-violent and ethical principle was perhaps the first such attempt in Indian history where till that point in time people had come to see and accept subjugation only through war and struggle. Of course some may counter this with the example of Rama-rajya which was supposedly dharma rajya again. But this is more in the realms of mythology and less of history and even mythologically speaking Rama's reign has far too many blemishes to be characterized as ethical.

Punch marked Mauryan coins

While I did not get a very emphatic response when I tried to discuss the material factors that made Mauryas strong (save a few students), the former worksheet evinced a much more keener response from the large majority of students.

Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya's take on history textbooks- podcast

2007-12-30T19:31:00.000+05:30

Continuing with my series and critique of the ncert history textbooks I'm including a podcast of Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya's presentation on history textbooks at a seminar titled: History Textbooks and the Profession: Comparing National Controversies in a Globalizing Age, which was held in the University of Chicago in May 2007. Prof Neeladri Bhattacharya, currently professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi has been responsible for the new ncert history textbooks which were written under his supervision by a team of academics. It is a very engaging presentation where Prof Bhattacharya raises several issues related to history texts in India and leads us to the circumstances which brought him and his team to write the current crop of textbooks. He also acknowledges criticisms, criticism not just by the Hindutva forces but even the left, which echoed some of my own reservations against this book.

Toiling for history - S Suresh

2007-12-27T14:26:00.020+05:30

Suresh puts across the significance of the panels at the Vaikunta Perumal temple to the kids...untiring passion!

Those familiar with my blog would notice couple of people who figure often in my accounts. People, who I think add lot of value to history and historical thinking. And to my mind there are not many in India who seek to do much to popularize history particularly among kids. In my humble opinion, while academic researches are fine and very much needed but ultimately the popularity and relevance of history depends largely on people who not only research but are eager to share those researches and understanding with the hoi polloi.

The prakara of the Vaikunta Perumal temple...a closer view of the panel, below

One such scholar is is S Suresh, historian and art history expert with whom my acquaintance goes some 20 years but acquaintance which was sporadic.

In 2006 with Suresh's guidance I had organised a study tour of the Cholas. This year (actually December 2007) it was a tour of the Pallavas again under his guidance. The thing about Suresh is the way he is able to simplify matters and put it in a format that children relate to well and enjoy. This time around his explanation of the Vaikunta Perumal temple in Kanchipuram was a revelation. By rights, Suresh who had undertaken a systemmatic study of this temple and the revealing insights he had to offer should have made to page one of our national dailies for his findings could result in a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of Indian history or what constitutes Indian historical sense. 'Common sense' has it that Indians understanding of past is all enmeshed with myths and puranas and our understanding of time is not linear. In other words Indians lack a sense of history - a truism, now part of the worlds' "common sense". But Suresh through his study of the sculptural panel that runs around the Prakara of the Vaikunta Perumal temple built by Nandivarman II Pallava, established the unfolding of Pallava history in linear and secular mode! And though in these panels there are references to myths and religious sanction is clearly sought, the panels talk of 18 coronations, important events in Pallava history, which includes even unflattering portrayals. For example there is this panel which depicts the rather brutal victimization of the Jains by the Pallavas. And then there are two panels left hollow to indicate turmoil, confusion in Pallava history that are best forgotten! Such a version of history put across in a sculptural narrative effectively puts a lid to the claim that Indians did not possess the mindset to look at time in more temporal terms.
This panel shows a Jain being held upside down and on the verge of being slaughtered...days of Hindu revivalism??

Suresh carried the kids along extremely well as he asked the kids to identify the panel of the coronation of 18 Pallava kings which naturally enough appears 18 times along the prakara. Then he often narrated a particular event and asked the kids which of the panels best described the event.
We also covered the Kailasnatha temple and Ekambarshwara temple at Kanchipuram, architecturally and sculpturally both more accomplished than Vaikunt Perumal but after the seeing the panels at the latter, the refined sculptures at Kailasnatha and the huge Vimana and the fascinating pillars of Ekambarshwara, did not seem to make as great an impression on me. Of course a study tour of the Pallavas without a visit to Mahaballipuram, is not complete. But heavy rains prevented us from going to the shore temple but did manage the Varaha cave and Arjunas penance.

So here it was again - a field visit where kids get to see, feel and experience the past as it were. How much the kids understood of the historical significance of the Vaikunt Perumal temple, I'm not too sure. (a look at the report will give one a better idea...) Thanks were all due to Suresh and like I was telling kids repeatedly lest they may assume that he was no more than a "guide" that Suresh with his doctorate in Roman antiquities and countless papers on south Indian coins, temple architecture in different seminars across the world and also an INLAKS scholar should by rights be occupying an archeology chair in JNU or Deccan College (if not Cambridge or Smithsonian!!). It was therefore so fortuitous for us and countless others who have benefited from his study tours which he so regularly conducts helping us all to gain first hand, an appreciation of south Indian heritage and history.

Keeping late hours to meet my deadline!!Kids put their heads together to finish their report on Pallavas...

I ensured that once students got back to the lodge they put their heads together and wrote a project report. I'm also enclosing what children had to offer as their understanding of Pallava history here. Please note some of the larger concerns which I highlighted in my earlier entry on the Chola tour, remained even here. In fact I continued with my study of temples even this term where along with tremendous support and inputs from my colleague Rajesh Chandran, the children sought to highlight the temples political and social significance through theatre and multimedia. More about it later.

Trying to figure out the new NCERT history books - another critique and an effort

2007-12-08T19:00:00.002+05:30

The new NCERT history text books across standards VI to X present a different kind of challenge to teachers like never before. History has been reworked from the three Rs - Read, Recall and Write to the three Cs - consider, conceive and compose. In itself this is great but in the process teachers and students have been saddled with other kinds of problems.
Some problems of these books I have dealt with before.(click here to see my earlier critique) As a positive it will no longer be possible for the teacher or the student to memorise points and write an answer in neatly defined causes, course and consequence. But then my interaction with students, confronted with an approach where every topic is presented in a non-linear format, where topics are located in various contexts, where individuals like Hitler or Gandhi appear in the wider socio-economic contexts etc, made evident their total confusion and frustration. To be honest, even I cannot claim to have mastered these topics and to me all the chapters in class IX and X books were multi-layered and open to multiple interpretations. In fact I would go the extent of saying that even clarity is lacking but which again in my view has been deliberate. Used as we all are (students, teachers and even the lay public) to a more conventional narratives in history, this new approach in fact goads us to take a stand on different themes and issues. This in itself is good again. But then this is something teachers and students (and even parents) have not been equipped for. Our earlier approaches in history (or for that matter education itself) did not encourage one to arrive at any opinions. History was all about 'facts' and history exams were all about recollection of those 'facts'. Now a teacher is expected to encourage students to arrive at an understanding that is personal but at the same time the opinion that is formed is an informed opinion - based on certain 'facts'. Ergo these textbooks dwell more on explanation than stating 'facts'. This like I repeat poses serious challenges and given the context in which social sciences disciplines are practised in the schools in India (which evidently the worthy authors of these textbooks seem to be oblivious of) the initial response to these books by many teachers, students and parents is one of hostility and spite. From the examination point of view it can be alleged that these texts do not offer a 'grip' on the subject. These books are not about scoring marks. But unfortunately as things stand, examinations in India are all about scoring marks. If one question can have multiple answers, which answer will get maximum marks? What kind of answer keys will the worthy evaluators have with them to assess the answers if the questions like the texts are going to be so open ended? How many teachers are really equipped to evaluate open ended answers? Do these teachers have the kind of reading and understanding of history that these books warrant? And importantly how many children across the country are really so articulate to expound opinionated answers with some clarity? Have they been given such writing skills in the first place? I actually get a feeling these texts have been written on certain assumptions i.e. expecting social science teachers to be familiar with E J Hobsbawm and Benedict Anderson! How many schools have specialist social science teachers? And if yes, do these teachers ever read newspapers leave alone specialist books? It is for this reason I feel the authors of these texts are ignorant of the reality of schools in general, and certainly ignorant of the fact that social science teachers are the jokers of the pack in most schools (with few exceptions). Here I would hold the fancied scholars and organizations like NCERT, CBSE, ICSE (the latter being the most fraudulent) and state education boards for such a sorry state of affairs. How many school teachers would the likes of Neeladri Bhattacharya, Janaki Nair, Ramachandra Guha ( big guns of Indian history who have had a role in authoring these NCERT textbooks) have interacted with? How many workshops have been conducted either by CBSE or NCERT to help teachers to come to some understanding on contemporary trends in historiography?

Under the circumstances therefore I think it would make lot of sense to make some revisions in the text or at least have a teacher resource book which clearly helps teachers in given a sound macro view. The macro view given now is too wishy-washy and like I mentioned before lacks clarity. The text or a teacher resource book should contain some kind of a summative comment (similar to the one I have tried to do below), on different chapters of the texts. The summation should provide a concrete hinge for teachers to latch on to and provide an entry point for further critiquing and inquiry. The summation need not be hermetically sealed. In the name of complexity of issues and attempting to be nuanced, many top ranking scholars and historians as evidenced in their monographs, state far too many arguments at the same time. So much so it becomes difficult what these scholar/historians are trying to say. (I must tongue in cheek mention the writings of historians like Sumit Sarkar, R Champakalakshmi here. I'm yet to figure them out) Such a mode of writing is perhaps all right at very specialised levels but to do this at school level is going to prove counterproductive.

I would be critiquing further these books at this level with more examples on some later date. But for the moment I have also tried to put across few activity worksheets which I used to handle Nationalism and Nazism. I hope these would be of some help to fellow history teachers who are convinced that these new books have more meat to offer but cannot figure out how to bite into them!

One would notice that the two chapters are not part of the same textbook - the chapter on Nazism is included in class IX and the chapter on Nationalism in Europe in Class X. This in my view creates needless confusion and by rights both the chapter should have been included in IX itself. The chapter on French revolution which again is included in Class IX could have preceded this chapter on nationalism.

A brief overview

The chapter on nationalism basically talks how a modern nation was sought to be forged based on an understanding of a nation inclusive in its ideals - a nation state based on equality, liberty and fraternity and therefore democracy. This ideal was expounded in the French revolution. But then with Napoleon many of the progressive ideals of French revolution were subverted and the French nation from being one based on liberal values came to be based on cultural attributes. The French under Napoleon imposed French culture and identity on people in Europe instead of the progressive liberal values the people expected Napoleon to bring in when he invaded places like Austria, Prussia etc. Thus cultural values became determinant of a nation particularly for Germany and Italy. German unification was culturally constituted and it was done so aggressively. It was this strong sense of cultural nationalism which formed the ethos of German nation that a demagogue like Hitler exploited in the 1930s, some fifty years after Germany was united under the authoritarian Bismarck. A nation nurtured on liberal values of democracy, equality, liberty has a better chances of dealing with economic and social crisis that Germany faced after world war I.France would be a good example here - remember its liberal legacy of liberty, equality and fraternity) The liberal democracy (the so called Weimar republic) that was in force in Germany after Treaty of Versailles was something which was imposed on Germany by the allied powers. My understanding is (may not be fully correct) Germany was actually nurtured on cultural terms where its language and folklore (the book for example mentions Grimm brothers role in fomenting the German nationalists spirit through their collection of folktales.) were its prime movers in its nation formation. This 'Romanticist' turn of nationalism also had a class aspect. Here it was not the working class but its feudal-industrial classes (the Junkers)that were main players in shaping German identity, German nationalism and German unification. Therefore such a nation so formed was always going to be a fertile ground for fascism. In contrast Indian nationalism (the chapter should have again by rights been included in class IX textbook)with its liberal ethos of secularism, liberty and equality which charted the Indian freedom struggle continues to check forces of fascism in some measure.

The above macro-view forms the basis of my understanding of the chapters on French Revolution, Nationalism in Europe and Nazism. People would perhaps agree that there is indeed a certain continuity in these chapters and therefore these chapters had to be kept in one textbook. Based on this, have a look at couple at my simulated activity worksheet on nations and nationalism here. Ideally the questions raised in the worksheet needs to be dealt with by students in groups.
Here is the simulated worksheet on Nazism

Historicizing knowledge - a theatrical effort

2007-11-17T20:08:00.001+05:30

During the workshop - Kids mull on Pralayan's observations

Two things have been quite close to my heart: one is my belief in education, particularly school education and its role in transforming students in becoming reflective, empathetic and importantly where they become active and critical subjects and not merely moronic consumers. Secondly I believe in history's (as a subject) pivotal role in achieving such goals.

All my efforts in the classroom is geared towards this end and I constantly strive (not always successfully) to put across history in a way that goes beyond the obvious markers with which history is associated - dates, names, events etc.
Rather, to all those following my entries on this website will know, my approach is to help students make connections between seemingly unrelated events and process. This non-empiricist approach to history teaching is not easy - for various reasons about which i have dwelt before and would like to dwell with further but some other time.

Sweating it out - Muthu, our Tamil department head, proved to be the backbone of both the workshop and presentation - handling script, dialogues, coordinating scenes, roles, costumes...phew!! Here she is engrossed in writing the script following a heady discussion with Pralayan even as children continue with their practice during the workshop

To put across history in such a framework, theatre comes in handy ( or so I would like to imagine). Theatre makes history learning experiential. Particularly the kind of theatre that Tamil theatre doyen Pralayan seeks to do is well suited for the kind of framework I'm myself trying to put across in history.

This year theatre's presentation at TVS Academy, Hosur saw us working on a new theme with high school students. The theme was knowledge and how knowledge gets obscured, manufactured and sanctioned by powers that be. For this Pralayan used Bertolt Brecht's Galileo Galilee as one narrative and interwove it with another narrative which evolved over the three week workshop leading to the final presentation on November 4, 2007. While Brecht's Galilee dealt with problems of scientific truth, our own narrative had a group of students visiting a village who then arrive at certain social truths. Through both the narratives, we sought to raise questions pertaining to knowledge creation, knowledge control and knowledge dissemination. What is knowledge? Is knowledge all about truth? Who decides what is knowledge? While it was the church in Galileo's time that determined knowledge, who decides what is knowledge now?

All these dialoguing can become too tiresome guys!

In this play which was titled Tholainokki (telescope) ( the telescope used by Galileo to observe the stars with which he established new knowledge systems was used as a metaphor in our narrative to 'telescope' into contemporary social practices, mindsets and norms)we tried bringing closer to people how similar powers are further sanctioning, and shaping contemporary knowledges. In the process we show how certain forms of knowledge or to be precise only certain kinds of sciences gets privileged. For example computer sciences and information technology domain alone appear to be worth pursuing today both in research and as a career. As a result other sciences like for example traditional knowledge systems which exist as a living tradition among much of the rural masses in India even today, gets marginalized. These days, as we show in one of the scenes of the play, certain aspects of traditional farming practices i.e. use of neem as bio-repellant and insecticide are falling by the way side what with agriculture itself becoming “unproductive” and people leaving it for more lucrative and “successful” careers in cities.

Pralayan floored - But actually leading from the front

Boo-hoo-hoo - A student breaks down trying to measure up to the demands of the play

While it is true that scientific truths are accepted these days, when will society accept certain social realities as truth? As a group of children discover in the play, caste discrimination, gender divide racks much of rural India. But this is a reality which nobody wants to see and what is unfortunate is our schools and colleges makes no attempt to help children to take cognizance of the social realities. Now here while no overt references were made in the play, Pralayan rather insidiously made an indirect case for the social sciences (something which I'm constantly seek to do- close to my heart!). History and geography which are as such meant to equip one with the ability to perceive and fathom social, economic, cultural and political realities fails to offer any kind of insights into contemporary social realities. Without even giving a chance for certain disciplines to mature or nurture we seek to seal the fate of certain knowledge systems i.e. non-conventional sciences (as opposed to the laboratory science managed by state and now increasingly in the hands of private capital) and social sciences by declaring it non-relevant.

Rajesh, our drama educator does a brilliant job with make up

The powers that be has a vested interest in stifling certain knowledge and skill sets in the same way vested interests tried to sabotage Galileo’s new discoveries and insights. Our education systems highlights or privileges certain domains of knowledge which has the approval and backing of the powers that be. Ultimately education has become another commodity to be peddled in the market. The market, as the registrar argues with Galileo in the first scene, should determine knowledge. Knowledge that does not have takers in the market is useless knowledge. But then when certain modes of enquiry or knowledges are thus stifled (by the powers that be or the market) can education truly claim to be pursuit of truth?? Therefore is it also not legitimate to ask whether the so called scientific truths also in which we all believe today and which our education ‘markets’ as ‘objective truths’ are perhaps socially determined truths?

Vettipodovoum!! - kids essaying the characters of caste warriors pose for my camera

Their holiness - the Pope and the Cardinal - the lords of all they survey

So when will such education emerge in India which highlights the very problematic nature of knowledge – let it be scientific or even social knowledge?

Perhaps a very conscious effort is to be made where we need to reorient our education –an education which lays threadbare the manner in which knowledge gets manufactured, how and why certain knowledges become ‘relevant’ or ‘irrelevant’ and what knowledge or skills would really help the society at large.

In fact this is the personal understanding that the character Siddharth, a high school boy in the play, is able to arrive at and hence decides to become a school teacher. This is much to the disgust of his parents who otherwise want to make him more market worthy by providing him dominant knowledge skills of IT and management.

The play alternated between Brechts Galileo where one group of students are rehearsing the play and another group of students visit a village. Through both these experiences students arrive at some understanding of the world and manner in which knowledge gets formed.

Galileo - an intellectual snob? a hero? or a traitor??

As with Pralayan’s productions the narrative was replete with songs, costumes and dialogues all of which acted much more than props. They added more substance and context to our play. The character of Siddharth was intelligently scripted. Through him Pralayan sought to highlight the transformative possibilities of education and that of a teacher (the other idea close to my heart!) The penultimate scene
where a parent couple is making a spectacle of their young kid in the name of encouragement and nurturing of his 'talents' (this scene was received with guffaws from the audiences) was well contrasted to Siddharth's solemn proclamation of becoming a government school teacher.

Strike a pose - In many scenes the choreography was conceived by the students themselves

My colleague Ashok's art work as reflected in the props he and his team of both teachers and students made for the play was excellent

Now I'm not too sure whether students would have figured and internalised all this, despite all the dialoguing we had in the course of the workshop. Whether this theatre workshop and presentation helped in making non-empirical, contextual and processual history more experiential and understandable, I have my doubts. I'm actually struggling trying to establish things less complex and more linear in my class room to largely discouraging results. Nevertheless I guess I need to revisit the issues raised in the play repeatedly in my classroom interactions. Well actually as my students would vouch I'm always doing it but having been involved physically, emotionally in the play I hope the students ( at least certain percentage of them) would find much quicker resonance to the historical issues (caste, class, religion, power and as in this play, knowledge) that I continously raise in my class. It is only then we can say this theatrical workshop and presentation was complete.

Another plus of the play was the skillful use of lighting by my colleague Rajesh. This snap should say it all

The production undoubtedly came out very well and the children helped by team of teachers did an excellent job.

Siddharth proclaims to the world about his (laudable) intentions. For Rohein (who played Siddharth) this play turned out to be a metamorphosis - through the course of the play he evolved from an nervous wreck wrought with stage fright to someone confident and empathetic who delivered a fairly competent performance. Theatre did prove to be therapeutic for him and many more

Mughals - the way history can be told through documentaries!

2007-10-07T12:14:00.001+05:30

While it was commendable of Arvind Narayan Das to make D D Kosambi's seminal book into a documentary series, its rather sombre tone may not appeal to children (or even adults for that matter). Maybe the seriousness of the issues and themes raised merited such an approach - where history is not merely telling you something very empirical from the past but focusing more on the underlying forces and socio-economic processes that shape the more visible aspect of our past. But here we have this wonderful documentary on Mughals titled "The Mughal Empire" under the series called Warrior empires shown on the History Channel, which even as it focuses on empirical history makes for compelling viewing and offers very revealing insights into the way Mughals fought their war, the way they built their massive monuments and the 'class' they brought to the royal lifestyle.

Much of the works in history written today are largely concerned in giving insights into political economy and mode of production of a given epoch or a period. The problem with such an approach is that history then does not come to us, a lay reader (most certainly a school student) as lived history - something so experiential to which we can connect with our lived experience and contemporary perceptions. The more visible aspects of people's life in the past which one can easily relate has been jettisoned by many of the JNU or Aligarh Muslim University scholars in favour of the more processual approach. While I do not want to belabor such efforts but when will our JNU or Aligarh guys ever get to make their writings, their researches and their scholarship engaging as this wonderful documentary on Mughals does?? I wonder if any of the leading scholars of Mughal India i.e. the caucus headed by Irfan Habib in Aligarh Muslim University, his bete noire Sanjay Subhramanyam and his close associate from JNU Muzaffar Alam or even outside these loops like the late John Richards have and would ever present their researches and findings in such a simple way but yet deeply profound to which even a 10 year old can connect. ( As I see it the value, worth or popularity of a scholar in social science circles in India is directly proportional to his/her ability to be obscure, jargon ridden and convoluted. The less people understand you the better it is and more good are your chances to be taken seriously. So if more people including children can understand you, the lesser are your abilities and accomplishment as a scholar!! But guess you can counter this argument with this red herring: When not all can understand scientific journals with their formulas, theorems and calculations why expect history research to be any different eh??) Based on some modest reading on the Mughals including the book edited by Sanjay Subhramanyam and Muzaffar Alam titled 'The Mughal State' and parts of Irfan Habib's classic 'The Agrarian systems of Mughal India', (with their alleged claims of 'nuanced' and 'complex' study of aspects like economy, administration and state formation) I never obtained the kind of insights that this documentary puts across. Like for example the way Mughals fought their battles using the composite bows, the thick armoury used for their elephants, the muskets and pikes and the rockets used and how all these were fundamentally different from the arms and armaments and the battle strategies used by the predecessors of Mughals in India and elsewhere. And it is not just about battles and arms that this documentary is talking about. It also highlights certain aspects of Mughal architecture and gives certain rare insights into their building techniques. The rather imperceptible gradation they were able to give to their water ways to ensure gentle movement of water in their gardens that would make the right gurgling sound and thereby heighten the effect on one's presence in the beautiful gardens they designed!! This documentary left me breathless! With some brilliant animations (in 3D) and where even the siege by Akbar of the Chittaurgarh fort is so well simulated, this incisive documentary is a must watch. I'm offering this on my own website.

Not surprisingly not one scholar that an average student of Indian history (in India) would normally associate with the Mughals like Irfan Habib or Harbans Mukhia appear anywhere in the film giving their expert comments. Most are European and American. Many may perhaps argue that this documentary is more Hollywoodish in its approach and romanticizes the past. But who cares! Element of romance in right doses does a lot to heighten the appeal of the past and study of history. In the process this documentary is so engagingly made that one just wishes that Arvind N Das's work too would have had some slick elements and made half as exciting as this one! Happy viewing!

In sequential order - The first episode is a general introduction to Mughals, the second and third episodes deal with Babur. The next three episodes are about Akbar and the weapons used by Akbar's army. The fourth, fifth and sixth episode delves elaborately into Akbar's campaign against Chittaurgarh. The final episode is on Fateh pur Sikhri.

{Good Broadband connectivity will be needed. Alternatively you can press the play button and then pause it. Allow the film to load (the time for the film to load completely will depend on your bandwidth) and then press the play button again for uniteruppted viewing.}

Needed: A teacher perspective to school education

2007-08-28T21:24:00.001+05:30

Over the last few weeks certain episodes happened in my classes that compelled me to use force to put across to the children that I meant business. It certainly left me unhappy and frustrated, something I deeply regretted and still regret. I did apologize to the students concerned but nevertheless I also recognized that by my using certain element of physical force also helped me to bring about certain decorum and discipline in the classroom, something which is deeply lacking not just in this school but other schools as well. The greater cooperation I was able to elicit from the kids saw greater learning (oh well...or so I would like to believe) happening in the classrooms since less of my time was lost in just 'disciplining' the kids and classroom time became more 'productive' as well. Nevertheless there is so much being reported these days on teacher excesses where students are thrashed black and blue resulting in grievous injuries to children. Many of my well meaning friends and colleagues have been advising me to bring my temper tantrums under control in my own interest what with the government now seeking to bring such teachers to book.

While I'm not trying to justify such horrendous acts it is at the same time important to figure out the context in which school teachers resort to such measures which are certainly inhuman. The arguments that I now seek to present will not sound politically correct and importantly do not refer to me in particular for my experience as a teacher in TVS institutions has certainly been very favourable, comfortable and memorable thanks to a very supportive management. Nevertheless from my interaction with teachers from other schools and from my own experience in couple of 'elite' schools of Bangalore and what I continue to see and observe of teachers across schools in general, it pains me to find members of my profession being targeted by a shallow media, arrogant parents and an exploitative school managements. While society expects the teachers to be sensitive but how sensitive is the society to members of this profession?

It is a truism that success of any educational programs and policies depends a great deal on the teachers. And it’s this nation’s unfortunate truth that indifferent teachers have often derailed many of our educational programs, particularly so in government schools. While inadequate budgetary support and other socio-economic and cultural factors are also seen as reasons that prevent universalisation of education, the culpability of teachers for its sorry state, among host of other reasons, has more or less acquired a paradigmatic status.While teachers are finally responsible for the success or failure for school education, it’s time for us to stop abusing the teaching community and use them as whipping ‘boys’ (for how many 'boys' really get into this profession?) for much of the ills that plague schools in India. It’s time to recognize that school teachers and the teaching profession itself has problems, much of it not of their own making but caused by factors external to their power and control.

If for example we examine as to where the teaching profession stands in contemporary India vis a vis other professions, the embarrassing and unfortunate conclusion is that no well educated, well read person in India desires to be a school teacher. It’s rarely considered as a respectable and worth a while vocation to be pursued by the large majority of educated Indians.

Poor payscales are largely to be blamed for such a scenario, particularly so in private schools. While government schools payscales are attractive in comparison, nevertheless the lack of ‘status’ and ‘respectability’ attached to the teaching profession due to the society’s failure to recognize the role and importance of teachers, is preventing many from embracing this profession. Though at one level the problems posed by government school teachers are not much different from the problems one faces in any government establishments, private school teachers themselves face acute problems. While many thinkers and economists are calling for greater private initiatives in school education, one also has to take cognizance of the poor working conditions in private schools. Whereas on the one hand expectations and accountability is high in private schools, the payscales are ridiculously low. In other words, the economic returns are not commensurate with the vigor involved in teaching. Then many such teachers travel a long distance through public transport, even walking, for they cannot afford a transport of their own. For their own illness and ailments, they have no option to head for a Wockhardt or an Apollo but only government hospitals about which less said the better. While techies get home loans to move into a fancy flats of Sobhas, DLFs or an Hiranandanis on very favorable terms, majority of school teachers given the salary they get are not seen credit worthy even for a loan to buy a two wheeler! True teachers may get paid holidays but even here many private school managements do not pay them during vacations. Besides what holidays can teachers have with the 'wonderful' salary they receive ? All these problems are compounded particularly so if you are of the male sex and happen to be the main bread winner of the family.

Secondly few of the private schools have a continous teacher training program and offer any refresher courses to keep teachers abreast of latest trends and researches in various disciplines. (And even here the so called training programmes offered by some schools are a total hogwash often conducted by fancy management experts with little practical classroom experience serving holier than thou homilies. In fact most private schools are now run by such management experts, lawyers, chartered accountants, ex-servicemen etc everyone other than people who have ever taught in schools. The unfortunate thing is even teachers with years of experience will have to take their orders from them and put up with their sermonizing on how to teach children!) In fact in many of the private schools, it appears the management is more interested in keeping the teaching staff on a leash, giving teachers little freedom to experiment or innovate. In the name of professionalism and standardization, all kinds of bureaucratic norms are put in place and teachers are forced to kow-tow to the whims and fancies of the management. Initiative and enterprise are killed.

Thirdly whether private or government schools, what makes teaching doubly a challenging work is that apart from knowledge sharing and creation, teaching is also about instilling some values and ideals among children and helping the children cope both with their academic, cognitive and emotive problems. But these days handling post Y2K kids is an Herculean task. (I'm specifically referring to middle and high school students here) The kids these days are highly distracted, subjected to all kinds of psychological, social and emotional pressures, thanks largely to the impact of consumeristic culture and media, in which kids are socialized. All these makes the latter’s emotive/behaviourial problems more acute and teachers bear the brunt of such problems, which consumes the teachers emotionally, leaving them drained and frustrated. The school managements are often found lacking in providing any kind of support to teachers and not surprisingly teachers on the edge sometimes go overboard in dealing with erring students. While the media is very quick to report any instances of teacher abuse, has it ever tried to contextualize such instances of abuses? And on the contrary teachers get abused by boorish, ill-tempered and badly brought up kids but this hardly gets reported in the media. The recent proposal by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on teacher abuse seeks to penalize erring teachers not just for physical abuse but even oral abuse. There seems to be over the top response towards coporal punishment of late orchestrated by an ill-informed media and self righteous sounding NGO’s who are so evidently cut off from hard realities of dealing with restless students in the crowded Indian classrooms. Very often this lack of discipline, attitudinal and behavioural problems among students is again attributed to teachers lack of understanding of a child’s emotive, cognitive world and children’s socializing process – that is the teacher is unable to use appropriate pedagogic tools to engage the child. This argument again overlooks the fact that despite the best efforts of teachers to put across the subjects in a manner which is child centred and which seeks to provide experiential learning flounders because very often gross student indiscipline exists a priori even to all perfectly child appropriate teaching methods and techniques. If only a child learns to sit tight for two minutes and allow the teacher to even commence lessons in a fashion which can further engage a child can any learning take place. To simply put the blame on teachers without holistically examining classroom situations is to look for quick scapegoats. Student ill-discipline is a major problem and society as a whole needs to recognize, accept and tackle it. We cannot just leave the teachers to bear the brunt of children’s social, attitudnal and emotive problems and then find fault with the way teachers seek to handle the issue. I'm certainly not arguing for the kind of brutal punishments meted out to kids that one gets to hear from different quarters of the country but some degree of corporal punishment certainly helps. Recent government strictures banning corporal punishments in its totality including oral abuse/reprimand hardly augurs well for a country because one, there is little fear or respect or regard for law and authority as such in this nation; second knowing the ground reality of rampant student misbehaviour, few well meaning people will grace this profession where even a minor ‘slip’ can be blown out of proportion and teachers can be victimized by self opinionated parents who think their children are beyond reproach and scheming school managements. We would only be nurturing a generation of extremely egoistic, neurotic kids. Schools (as indeed life) is not always pleasant and sooner the children come to terms with it the better for children and the society as well.

Thus society needs to be sensitized to the economic, social and emotional needs of teachers, or else the latter will continue to feel alienated. Means and methods have to be evolved (which needs to go beyond mouthing platitudes on teaching as a ‘noble profession’ and instituting few meaningless teacher awards) which brings in better talent to the teaching profession and gives teachers a sense of dignity. The society, media and polity have to recognize and position teaching profession as one worth pursuing on par with other professions. And without the teachers empathetic support and involvement, all educational plans or policies, however well meaning, will come to nought.

The new NCERT history textbooks 2007 - A critique

2007-07-14T22:29:00.001+05:30

The much maligned, misunderstood and maltreated subject of history can finally be seen as being given some respectability, credence and relevance thanks to the new history textbooks brought out by NCERT. I personally see some hope for history with these new text books which seeks to present history not so much as past information but as a mode of inquiry. History in these books comes out as more contextual, multi-dimensional and much more than mere political narratives. For example the class IX and X books are a sheer delight as for the first time, students are sought to be given some exposure to issues connected to cricket and nationalism!!! Howazzat!!! By including chapters on pastoral society and the effect of colonial forest policy, contemporary environmental issues have also been sought to be historicised. The chapter on clothing emphasizes the political and economic implication of Gandhi's use of Khadi. Then there are chapters which give insights into literature and art during the nationalist movement. Even in chapters on Gandhi, French Revolution, Nazism etc which are as such treated in other text book publications affiliated to educational boards other than CBSE as well, the emphasis is not on giving all the boring details but in delineating the broad contour and features which characterised these epochs.
So in the end where earlier you bombarded the students (and teachers as well) with so much of information that one ended up missing the woods for the trees, now you get a more broader perspective. One gets to know how, for example nationalism as an ideology in late 18th and 19th century Europe was not simply based on language or religion (as our 'common sense' would have us believe) but on more democratic and egalitarian ideals. But then the chapter also talks about the contradictions that emerged following the linguistic and cultural championing which on the one hand helped mobilise people but that very ability also limited its more inclusive ideals. It is in this context that the chapter on Gandhian phase of Indian nationalism is introduced. It highlights the more progressive aspect of India's freedom movement which attempted to accommodate economic (class) and cultural (caste and religion) diversities. In other words the chapters in a rather complex way perhaps, brings to fore that nationalism is historically contingent. (click on the image of the books to see the content online)

But nevertheless these books I would say have certain problems - problems not intrinsic to these books as such but more extrinsic in ways the book is likely (in fact it already is) to be received by the community of teachers and students. Firstly how many school teachers in India are competent to tackle these chapters in a way that these chapters warrant? From what little interactions I have had with few teachers, they all complained that the chapters in Class IX and X books were far too complicated for their liking. They were not too sure if they have understood the chapters themselves very clearly. If the teachers themselves are not clear about these topics and themes then how does one expect them to put it across to students? One can very well sympathise with their predicament. For how many school teachers have a clue about history being anything other than names, dates and events? That history is not so much a study of the past but more an attempt to understand the present in light of the past is something that escapes the attention of the majority of school teachers. Therefore it is imperative that teachers at least are well informed about current issues in the world. But how many school teachers even read newspapers in the first place to keep themselves abreast of contemporary social, economic and political developments? As such school teachers who are supposed to be one of the most well informed segment of the society happen to be the least well informed and most certainly the social science teachers. And even when they are so, given the skewed perspective offered by the dominant media which reinforces certain received wisdom and understanding on our past and present, they would hardly be in a position to appreciate the nuanced study which have been undertaken in the writing of these new textbooks. NCERT says that refresher courses are afoot to equip the teachers to deal with such issues. How effectively they are going to be carried out, remains to be seen.

Secondly though I'm trying to contextulaize history myself similar in approach adopted by these textbooks but like I mentioned in my previous blog entry, many students themselves appear to be resistant to any approach which seeks to bring in some level of rigour and complexity to the themes. As per my experience, many students feel and want history to be conventional, straightforward as always, which lends itself to easy mark scoring. In this context are the new NCERT books expecting too much from both the students and teachers? Are these books 'children appropriate' i.e. cognitively and emotionally proper? Of course my contention is history has to go beyond the story and linear narrative approach. If history is to be made relevant some degree of complexity has to be brought in. But how the complexity is dealt with by the teacher is the moot point.

Thirdly, I'm still awaiting the guidelines by NCERT/CBSE for examinations. For like it is and has been the case with most of the history examinations based as they are on cramming, if the exams are going to be again based on memorisation and standard questions format, then the whole purpose of these books will get defeated. These new textbooks are basically based on the premise that events do not happen in neatly defined 'causes' and its impact again cannot be neatly classified into 'consequences'. Examinations, public examinations in particular, because of their own compulsions and pressures hardly seek to discover any understanding of the students. All the chapters are standardised, prioritised in terms of marks, and then sample question papers guide the students to prepare well for the exams. The idea is to ensure that students get 'good marks', their understanding and opinions be damned!!. Also even when students end up writing well informed answers which express their personal opinion , are our teacher- evaluators, used to corrections based on answer keys, competent to judge such answers where a student has given answers without using the usual keywords or catch phrases? If the new textbooks are subjected to such modes of examination preparation and evaluation, the whole effort, however noble the intentions may be, will be wasted.

Chronologizing history visually

2007-04-01T17:18:00.001+05:30

It can be be argued that History is essentially about time. History is conceptualised through time. It is in time that history becomes. Indeed history is time. But to get this fundamental albeit abstract idea to children at middle school level is naturally not easy. How does a child get a sense of time? Though we have this rather Orientalist conception of time standing still in India, we can use a visual time line to help children to draw some connection between art, artifacts, architecture on the one hand and the time frame these latter belonged to, on the other. In other words a child by looking at an image or any material, work of art, architecture, coins etc, is able to connect those images or things from a particular epoch in the past and by contrasting these images over a period of time the students perceive historical change.
Here the past epoch is not defined in terms of numbers i.e. precise dates. Instead we give the time frame in terms of art, architecture and artifacts. The teacher helps the child to draw linkages between an image and the time frame. For as we all know, even as adults we tend to relate better to visual medium. Here we are trying to utilize visual images of the past and historicize them or chronoligize them.

I also emphasize time frames here for we tend to be absolutist and fetishistic about dates. It is no doubt important not to associate the Cholas with 18th century AD and the Mughals with the 12th century. Likewise we cannot associate Cholas with Kashmir or the Mughals with Kerala. But nevertheless rather than knowing the exact date of ascension of Rajendra Chola to the throne or the exact year when a particular temple was built, it would be historically more important to know and locate the Cholas within an epoch or time frame rather than exact dates. If a child or even a teacher goofs up with a particular event by few years, what is perhaps more important is to know the epoch and its social, economic, cultural, political constituents. By that yardstick the Mauryas, Satvahanas, Kushanas, the Sangam period etc can all be classified as belonging to one time frame i.e. ancient but importantly we need to highlight the commonalities in the visual manifestations of these dynasties i.e. art, architecture.

Most of the teachers in history use dates merely as numbers. For example 500 AD, 645 AD, 1526 AD occur to children merely as dates and very rarely we as teachers care to help children to figure how many years in the past are we talking about. Instead if we say the year 1206 AD, the beginnings of political Islam (establishment of Delhi Sultanate) in India would mean (2007 AD - 1206 AD = ) 801 years back in the past, the student is more likely to gain better appreciation of the number of years past we are talking about. And that many years in the past, if we tell them, the material manifestation of that period in terms of art, coins, architecture were these...(showing them the pictures of art, coins, temples, forts, etc and much rather have the kids taken to few historical sites in and around your place), the student thus gets to better appreciate (by looking at the image of Mathura Buddha or Gandhara Buddha), the time frame they belonged to. Of course in the same time frame different cultures develop and consequently the varied cultures had varied visual representations. For example the early medieval south India from 600 AD beginning with the Pallavas and Chalukyas up to the Hoyasalas and Cholas in 1200 AD can be treated as one time frame or epoch but yet each of these dynasties certainly had a distinct, unique and separate visual manifestation when it came to their art, architecture and coins. Like there is a Chola style, Hoyasala style, Pallava style, Chalukya style of temple building which all belong to the epoch/time frame of early medieval south India. As teachers we need to familiarize the students and help them to contrast, through as many pictures, the distinct temples styles of Pallavas, Cholas, Hoyasalas etc as emerging from a distinct time frame ( i.e. early medieval) and once again contrast these with images of Gandhara Buddha, Mathura Buddha, punch marked coins of the Mauryas, the Mauryan and Gupta pillars etc from another time frame i.e. the ancient period in India. Likewise the early medeival temple architecture can be contrasted with pictures of the Qutab minar, Red fort, Jama Masjid etc to help children see how the change in art/architecture was a reflection in changes in culture, religion and polity. By using images,pictures and field visits, all powerful visual mediums, and then delineating the socio-political and economic changes will better help children in understanding many aspects connected to history. For example the mushrooming of temples in the early medieval period when contrasted with the Buddha images, viharas, chaityas, stupas that were in abundance in the ancient period tells us how Buddhism waned by the early medieval period to give way to Brahmanic Hinduism. This maybe a simple point but children and teachers generally do not tend to see these pictures in a chronological order and as making a much deeper point of political, religious and social change. As things stand pictures of monuments, temples, forts in our textbooks (and many textbooks have little and of poor quality) are not even given a second look by the teachers though children are more tuned to take cognizance of visuals than print.

Click here for a worksheet which gives you an idea how I used pictures/visuals to put across my idea on chronologizing history and more.

Making heritage tours more meaningful

2006-12-25T14:04:00.001+05:30

Like theatre which enables children to 'experience the past' in a fashion which goes beyond the empirical, linear, 'narrative', event centred history, yet another method of making history experiential is visiting places where 'history has transpired'. When I say history has transpired I mean it in a very conventional sense for I actually believe (and which I have been stressing all along) that history is not so much something which happened in the past but more a method of enquiry (inquiry?) to understand various aspects of the present in which past becomes an important reference point.

It certainly helps the child to see a place where important events have transpired, if such a place has something tangible to offer like a temple, fort or some monument which can even be felt and some mental picture can be visualised by a child. It was in this context that I had organised a Chola temple study tour with the help of Dr S Suresh, noted historian and archaeologist with specialization in Roman antiquities, coins and south Indian temples. Currently associated with INTACH, I chose to do the chapter on the Cholas in situ viz Thanjavur district which was early medeival Cholas core area.

We covered four important temples of the Cholas beginning with their very first at Naartamalai built by Vijayalaya Chola and ended with the Brihadeshwara temple at Thanjavur but it was in the Airateshvara temple where we could see the culmination of Chola temple building genius. As the children of grade VIII went around these temples Suresh unfolded the political history of the Cholas even as he put forth the unique features of each of the Chola temples. It was indeed hands on history learning at its best and to make sure that the children internalise much of what was being told to them I had also prepared a template consisting of questions which were pertinent to the temple tour. (CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TEMPLATE) While it was no doubt important that the children get to know as much of the details on the Chola temples i.e. the folklore about the temple, its unique architectural and artistic features) the other very important purpose for me was to help children relate to these places temple/monument in a manner they would connect to a place of immediate relevance like a film theatre, playground, shopping malls, etc. These latter places bear immediate value to them for these are the places of their socialisation through which their identity is constituted. I think it is important for us to locate all these manifest aspects from the past i.e temples, forts, museums etc in such a mental landscape of a middle-school child.

As you would gather by looking at my template, towards the end I have laboured to help the students to figure out the relevance of such temples in today's world. I have drawn analogies with present day cinema halls, shopping malls, etc. What is the link between the two? A place of commerce like shopping malls today to a place of religion like a temple? Because temples in the past also had temporal significances and not just spiritual and religious. Temples were indeed places of socialisation and it would have impacted the people the same way a shopping mall today replete with cinema halls, restaurants, shops impacts us. Because it were in these temples one came across dance, music, art and a general meeting ground for sundry (of course with the exception of the untouchables and few other lower castes) It were in these temples places one could 'chill out' then. By interacting in such spaces, (temples in the past and shopping malls today) one's identity, world view, mindset etc is shaped. It's only by visiting these old temples and observing the wonderful sculptural panels, its different features of vimana, mandapa, gopura that we can visualise the nature of socialisation and identity formation of the people in the past who frequented them in the same way we frequent contemporary public spaces. Indeed it helps us to understand better how present public spaces of shopping malls, streets, cinemas impacts us. It makes one more conscious about those forces which shapes our identity, consciousness which we usually tend to disregard or take for granted.

Therefore it is for these reasons that all the remnants i.e. temples, forts, coins and even the non-visible and non-tangibles like language, songs, folklore etc which have their origins (shrouded?) in the past have to be safeguarded. Safeguarding our heritage therefore is not so much to protect our past out of some sentimental reasons but in fact to figure out the myriad ways in which one's identity is shaped and constituted today for which past becomes a vital reference point. Like I keep saying history is not studying the past for its own sake but more to understand the present.

The issue is not merely to understand temple art or its significances let it be political, social and cultural (and it was my endeavour to help children to see temples much more than a place of worship) but to see its relevance even today.
Yet another aspect that I seek to labour here is that by merely looking and observing the temples or monuments would not help a child to appreciate better the importance of the past and its relevance. That relevance can only emerge if as a teacher I seek to ask the kind of questions which help the child to historicize issues which are central to them. (here the issue was socialization and identity formation)What is needed is to contextualise these issues in some framework. My own feeling is without the questions (as given in my template) on the need for safeguarding the temples, and an account in first person on the views of the temple as a dancer, worker, priest and a king (the most important stakeholders in a temple)the temple visit would have been fun but the learning, in terms of critical thinking, limited.
Please look at my earlier post on temples too...
The whys and hows of temples...
(Snaps from top to bottom- Suresh has the ears of my students as he unfolds the political history of Cholas at Nartamalai; Students admire Goddess Saraswathi at Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple; Students see the first archaeological site of the Chola palace at Gangaikondacholapuram and Shreya is awestruck by the multifaceted intricacies of Chola skill exhibited on the pillars of the Airatavereshvara temple, Dharasuram)
(In a similar fashion I had also organised through Bangalore Walks, a historical tour of Bangalore for junior school kids. But I'm not too sure what impact this would have had for kids who had just about began to acquire the skill of chronological abstraction in a very formal sense. Also was not around to check its effectiveness and in any case was not really calling the shots in the classroom. Guess one would get my drift...)

Theatre for more hands on history

2006-11-25T16:37:00.002+05:30

The swirls and twirls of the dancers

The greatest challenge that any history teacher faces is to get students involved into the past. How does a teacher make the past familiar to the student, in a way that students can identify with the past, or its parts, at some level which brings out the relevance of history? This becomes a more complex and difficult task when a teacher like myself attempts to reconstruct the past focusing on the processes that go to shape certain events (rather than the events themselves which constitutes the subject matter of History in most history books. Alas!) in the past or understand those aspects of the past which helps to relate the present of festivals, entertainment, sports on the one hand (i.e. popular culture) and the present of social, political and cultural issues on the other.

In this respect theatre emerges as a helpful medium in exploring history in a multifaceted perspective. Theatre becomes all the more important to make the rather abstract kind of history of hows and whys,of seeking to understand contemporary social and political issues experiential rather than providing a purely emperical approach of dates, events and individual exploits and then enacting all that in a drama. In the latter approach theatre largely remains an embellishment which certainly 'makes history fun' but it certainly leave the question of relevance unanswered.

Sohna, the girl pays for her 'tomboyishness'

At TVS school, Hosur under Tamil theatre personna Pralayan I had the opportunity to observe and help Pralayan in formulating a new approach to the interpretation of ancient Tamil history. This specifically included the period covering the epics Sillapadikaram and Manimekhazlai and what is referred to as the Sangam age. Through a theatre workshop involving students of classes VIII to XII, we tried to look at this period of Tamil history (which went beyond the laudatory and reverential, the dominant mode by which Sangam literature is conventionally approached) through the perspective of gender. Beginning as a history project the students are shown going back in time to interact with both historical and literary characters to unearth the complexities of the past. (The play after three weeks of intense workshop was finally put up for the most important stakeholders of the school - parents and few other well wishers as well on November 11 and 12 to a very positive response)

Nobody wants to include Sohna as part of their study of the Tamil past

The students cycle into the past

The students go back in time where they discover the verve and spontaniety of the Panars and Viriliars, the bards of the Sangam era

Given the overall approach of the play where we sought to ask different questions about ourselves and our past, the characters were presented in different light. Thus the danseuse Chitrapathi, Madhavi's mother is seen to be a person who understands the inherent hypocrisies and double standards of the patriarchal order of the times. As the students discover, her acceptance of her stigmatised identity is arrived at after tremendous critical engagement and reflection with the 'gendered' state of affairs during the epic times. Likewise Manimekhazlai, Chitrapathi's grandaughter and her act of becoming a Buddhist nun was not merely an act of individual salvation but more to register her protest against the dominant patriarchal order in ancient Tamil Society. Avvai, the single, young poet-singer of the Sangam times who is often confused with the Avvaiyaar mythologised in S S Vasan's bio-pic sums up the travails of women in early Tamil times. The most extolled and revered of all the characters of the Tamil epic - Kannagi, as the fervent, yet dutiful wife whose curse and anger on her husband's death at the hands of the Pandya king consumed the city of Madurai in flames, appears in the play as vulnerable, silent, almost innocent. The motive was not to impute victimhood to her but on the contrary, as the children question in the play: "If the sense of injustice to her husband could provoke this seemingly quiet woman to a rage that consumed most of the inhabitants of Madurai (note: except women, children, the learned but not the people living in the shanties where Kannagi and Kovalan where given refuge by Madri) where was this rage when Kovalan leaves Kannagi for Madhavi?"

Could this so benign a woman really be Kannagi?, the students wonder

Students peep into the past

All the other characters that emerge in this play, not just women, are given their own subjective voices and emerge with multi-dimensional aspects. On the margins issues pertaining to linguistic identity is also addressed and questioned.

What was unique was the whole process in which the workshop shaped itself - dialoguing before on each of the many issues that we dealt, encouraging the students themselves to ask critical, 'uncomfortable' questions which otherwise are glossed over in conventional discourse. Naturally middle and high school kids are still too green to understand issues of this ilk in all its nuances and ramifications and the skepticism of bringing in 'adult' themes to the fore before children still remains a moot question. But then does children's theatre have always to be about enacting Cindrellas, Ali Babas in an empirical fashion? Will it be 'adult' to contextualize these popular themes in terms of the social and political? Further still could we 'interpolate' newer post-modern perspective into the mental landscape of 'juvenile' minds? Would it be cognitively appropriate?
If we are all agreed on Vygotskyian perspective that cognitive abilities are also culturally, socially determined implying that the very act of perception, cognition is again a construct, then my answer to the above would be in the affirmative.

Students try to figure out Avvai - single, young but yet erudite

One of the highlights of the play was its music - largely the contribution of Ms Shanthi and Ms Muthu (the latter who substantially contributed in crystalising the script) of TVS Academy, Hosur in terms of lyrics, not to speak about music teachers of TVS Academy Hosur and Tumkur, Mr Nagaraj and Mr Subash respectively who set the lyrics to appropriate ragas. The songs and music continue to haunt me even today and will haunt me (and all those who were part of the play and those who had the fortune to see the final presentation) for many years to come. I should also mention the contribution of the students themselves here, in particular Narasimhan (TVS Academy, Hosur's own Umayalpuram Sivaraman) and Vishal on the mrindingam and Vaishnavi, Gayatri and Janani with their stunning vocals. The choreography was handled very well by Ms Meenakshi

Pralayan has the audience on its feet...a deserved standing ovation

Familiarising feudalism for children

2006-11-08T18:17:00.001+05:30

Painting of De Limbourg brothers, 15th century, which shows serfs involved in agriculture in a feudal manor. One can see the lord's castle in the background

Most of the history books in India rarely and hardly use the word feudal to describe medeival Europe and India. And even if they do so the chapters hardly delve into medeival period's distinct socio-economic and political structure. In fact till the beginning of colonial period Indian history is basically represented as a linear movement of different political dynasties from the ancient period to the pre-modern or till the advent of the colonial period.

That the political set of the Mauryas was distinct from say the Rashtrakuta or Chola period is hardly highlighted, much less understood.

It is imperative that students in middle and high school develop an undersatnding which helps them to look at the medeival period as a distinctively different period characterised by decline in trade and consequently towns, religious consolidation, political devolution. This was in contrast to the centralised bureucratic empires of the Mauryas or even the Guptas.

The best way to help the child understand the nature of feudalism based on loyalty between the vassals and the king on the one hand and the people (call them peasants or serfs), and the vassals on the other is to give them an idea about its more perceptible features. In other words the specific socio-economic and political arrangement of this epoch was reflected in the social and cultural practices and mores of the people.

Towards this effect I have designed few worksheets which I would like to believe would help children to immediately draw linkages between feudalism and the socio-cultural behaviour it engendered i.e. practices and institutions which can be seen as typically feudal. And in my continuing discourse on understanding of history where I constantly seek to establish linkages between past and present, many of the feudal practices can be very visibly seen in India even today.

Click here for activity/worksheet

Contextualising religion

2006-10-23T21:35:00.001+05:30

Giving the context for the text

Trying to problematise religion for children (grade VIII), I experimented with something new. I had to deal with Reformation and at a later stage I also have to deal with Bhakthi movement. The urge was to help the kids get a concrete understanding of religion that was not simply in the realms of the mystical or religion as an entity that all of us had to treat in very reverential terms but the effort was to help the children see religion serving some concrete utilitarian needs. And when those needs were not met, religious practices of the people witnessed lot of changes. The point was to demystify religion.

I identified four distinct phases in the evolution of religion.

1. Religion of hunter gatherers
2. Religion of Early civilizations - bronze and iron age i.e Egyptians, Early and later Vedic, Graeco-Romans
3. Religion in feudal times
4. Religion in the beginning and early modern age

The idea was to help the children to see connections between these four periods and how religion and religious ideas change when the uncertainities of a given age changes. For example in early pre-historic age the very fact that forces of nature like rain, wind and sun were worshipped is only to be expected given human ability to counter, understand and overcome these were extremely limited. Likewise with the emergence of surplus and a political apparatus (i.e. the river valley and iron age cultures) to safeguard and distribute these surplus it is not surprising that monarchs themselves were revered as Gods.
In feudal epochs religion saw tremendous churning which on the one hand was always fraught with the possibilities of being utilised as an instrument of social and cultural change but on the other also witnessed institutionalisation giving the ruling classes greater control over the toiling masses. It was the former tendencies which matured into the reforming movement led by the likes of Martin Luther and John Calvin in Europe and people like Nanak and Kabir in India with beginning of a new period (the early modern).
At one level many uncertainities like death, material security are constant with us even today and also the fact that when we move to the next epoch, we do not start with a clean slate and carry forward many practices from our earliest pasts into our current religious beliefs.
I concede my attempt here tends be reductionist but given the way people are increasingly looking at religion as the ultimate arbiter in one's identity and religious identity as being one monolithic entity such generalisation is needed.

It is only after doing this exercise (check the worksheets out here) that I proceeded to give the what, wheres and whens of Reformation in Europe.

Shapely! Belur Temple

2006-09-18T20:00:00.000+05:30

Traditional Hindu icons were usually full bodied where musculature was absent unlike in Graeco-Roman icons

Hoyasala masterpeice

2006-09-18T19:44:00.000+05:30

Mina is spellbound looking at the craft of the Hoyasala artisans of yore....Whatever be the ideological ramifications of temples, it is certainly part of our heritage. It represents a slice from our past (I would avoid using superlatives like 'great', 'glorious' heritage) about which we all need to be concerned.

Exploring Bangalore

2006-09-18T19:40:00.000+05:30

Spice street, Chikpet, Bangalore: History is just not about monuments and people from the past. History is as much about the present as much it is about the past. Here Inventure kids try to relate to the gullies in the old city of Bangalore and try to figure out: How did we all get into this mess?? Guess histoory alone can give satisfying answers. (Check out the website of Bangalore Walks through whom this trip was organised)

Exploring Bangalore

2006-09-18T19:34:00.000+05:30

Bangalore fort: Inventure kids discover how Bangalore was globalised in the days of Tippu himself when Lord Corwallis after losing America took it upon himself to leave no stone unturned here in India to acquire Tippus kingdom to the British empire

Exploring Bangalore

2006-09-18T19:27:00.000+05:30

Bangalore was supposed to be confined with in the four towers as envisaged by Kempe Gowda. But....lets not go into the mess that is Bangalore. Here kids of Inventure Academy, Bangalore explore the history of Bangalore. Children need exposue of these kind to make history more hands on and help them to realise the processual nature of history...rather than factual

My framework for teaching history

2006-09-16T19:15:00.001+05:30

Often wondered what history and history teaching is all about...??

Is history a mere study of the past? Does accumulation of information about the past tantamount to mastery of history?? I have always maintained that if history is seen through such a prism, it becomes a task to labour on history's 'merits' or 'relevance. What purpose does it serve to know history merely in such terms? Yeah...one can win few quizzes or at best it can be one of the optional papers for the IAS exams...and then?? And then nothing....

So what if we were to look at history as something which helps one to develop historical thinking?? Just like we attribute the generation of scientific thinking to the study of science, how about looking at history as a discipline which helps in evolving historical thinking?? Now what is historical thinking??

My take - History's ability to make itself more relevant is perhaps based on the approach of looking at history or looking at the past as a process rather than looking at the past in a very empirical fashion in an encasulated water tight time frames i.e. as something which happened in the past and the past ends at a particular point of time. For example popular wisdom and even academic wisdom has it that India's past began some 5000 years ago (approx 3000 BC) and ended some 60 years back in 1947. This past is then defined by certain epochs which are primarily determined by changes in the political domain. Ergo you have important dates, important events, important personalities, important battles, et al. Under such an approach one would notice there is little bearing or rather little possibility of bearing on us today. Like I'm code jockey or some techno geek and I cant fathom how something from our collective past (for example what happened sometime in 1206 AD or 263 BC??) would in any way help me to become a better jock?? True...no bearing, no relevance at all.

But if we were to look at history as a process, where things that happen in the past are actually determined by things that are happening in the present??!!!

What the...!!! Is not past the same whatever be the difference in present?? How can we allow our present to determine the past?? How can past change or have multiple meanings for whenever things happen they happen and we cannot make the past happen all over again?? Like there is something like objectivity in History..Is it not?? True. Things that happened in the past cannot be undone by the present but...Let me explain...

What if we tell this code jockey that the C++ or Java programming that s/he is employing and the kind of thinking, reasoning that goes behind this has followed a certain trajectory which had its origins sometime in the past?? In other words if this joc starts looking into the past of programming language - the hows and whys of it...not so much the wheres, whats and whens of it, it is possible that s/he will delve into that part of the past which hardly figures in our conventional consciouness and understanding of past. This approach may well be very specialised but then it is possible to link some of the important breakthrough in the evolution of coding language i.e. binary system, algorithms, googlean...(watever) to the larger political, social, economic, cultural, religious changes happening in the world or in a particular society at the time when these breakthroughs were acheived. It will then dawn on us that many technological changes/innovations emerge in certain context not simply (note, not simply) because of the genius of certain individuals. Likewise in the present even in our specialised domain of software, bio-technology, medicine, mecahnical engineering etc there are so many other factors that shape and limit our profession, and our ability to master it, which goes beyond mere grasp of core specialisation or subject competence i.e. things that are internal to the subject.

We need to understand that there are factors in our specialised disciplines which is hemmed in by certain sociological, economic and importantly historical forces. But these forces act in a fashion where they cannot be seen very obviously or empirically but can be seen only when we take the effort to consciously study the past. This is where history and historians come in.

So here the past becomes a process where we chose to look at that aspect of the past which interests us. A past which actually did not exist till we started asking some particular questions from our present.

In other words when making a case for studying past as a process, I'm also making a case for more holistic and comprehensive approach to our past which goes beyond the chronological and political. In this context borrowing ideas from political thought, philosophy, linguistics and economics like Marxism, Sasuurean linguistic structuralism and Foucaultian and Derridian sociological paradigms helps us to make history into a dynamic, alive discipline which while still may not be regarded as a hard skill discipline, but will certainly emerge as a much needed soft skill discipline which gives new dimension to one's mastery of hard skill disciplines i.e. medicine, IT, law, finance etc

Now as a humble school teacher what should I do to help, in some small measure, the kids to discover these multifacedness of history. What simple framework should one bear in mind that will help history teachers, to draw this fascinating aspect for children of middle and high school? I have drawn some key points, which I call it the five point charter for the benefit of my colleagues in the TVS group of educational institutions, which should guide their teaching process in history.

1. FOCUS MORE ON THE WHYS AND HOWS AND LESS ON WHERES, WHATS AND WHENS

2. EXPLORE TOPICS/THEMES THAT HELP TO EXPLAIN CURRENT SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ISSUES

3. ENCOURAGE AND LOOK FOR NEWER PERSPECTIVES TO EXPLAIN EVENTS AND PROCESSESS OF THE PAST

4. ENDEAVOUR TO ADOPT TEACHING APPROACHES THAT ACCOMMODATE CHILD’S WORLDVIEW AND ARE SENSITIVE TO THEIR SOCIALISING PROCESS

5. HELP TO ENGENDER HISTORICAL THINKING THAN MERE ABILITY TO RECOLLECT ‘FACTS’ FROM THE PAST

What really caused Europe to rise and grow?

2006-09-05T20:37:00.001+05:30

After a while....
The Background
Based on my recent teaching of Rise of western Europe in the classroom for students of class VIII I would like to make two important surmises - what ultimately helped Europe to tower over other existing prosperous civilizations were intangibles like enterprise, cunning, deviousness, proselytising zeal and secondly the technological changes that swept Europe over the period of 300 years starting from the 15th century to 19th. While we tend to see only the industrial revolution as heralding a technological revolution and changing the world for the better (or for the worse??)the first technological revolution was seen in the realms of marine transport i.e. changes witnessed in shipping, the kinds of ships made - multimasts, multi sails, mariners compass, maps, astrolabe...the works. It was this geographical revolution that paved the way for the rise of Europe. While the latter revolution saw the rise of Europe and Spain, the Industrial Revolution saw the rise of England and France.

To put this across, more so the first change: how India despite having more tangibles of precious metals, cotton textiles, spices but yet....we know the story

It helps a student to memorise names, dates and events if a teacher helps him/her to contextualise the facts as a process and in a fashion through which a student can easily relate to. We believe in telling children about values like hardwork, enterprise, initiative etc. By putting across the merits of these'values' in a pedantic fashion, its full import is rarely grasped by the student. (Of course by no stretch of arguement can one argue for cunning, deviousness, proselytizing zeal as virtues) Here through history we can establish how in very concrete terms certain attributes among the Europeans helped them to set the process of colonization (about which there is enough harangue and on whose doorsteps undoubtedly lie the roots of much contemporary social, economic, cultural malaise) but also herald a new epoch where societies having a strong enterpreunial class, in which 'free' trade, industry and free enterprise, helps itself in providing a better quality of life (in material terms) to its people. Today every other society, the developing ones and the socialist ones included, seek to build a society in such terms.

Control group - a classroom of 15 students

The Process

Step 1

Discussion - Most of the middle school history text books (grades VIII or IX...would suggest these topics are dealt with in class IX. It would be cognitively more appropriate) do talk about or have a chapter on the so called explorers i.e. Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and some reference to mariners compass and stuff. A simple interaction on all these is needed to familiarise the students. Pictures of early medeival ships, mariners compass (google it) would help children to give them some sense of concreteness. The questions and posers to kick off a discussion: why did Europeans seek new sea routes to India? Why spices were needed? How was India socially, politically, economically during the 15th century?

Step 2

Have different flash cards made in shapes and colours 15 in mumber with each card representing gold (have 5 of them), pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, hardwork, risk taking, enterprise, capital, ships with sails, (mariners compass and maps), cannons.

Shuffle these cards and have each student pick up these. Now ask the students, based on the earlier discussion to find out which of these flash cards can be clubbed into two groups of cultures/countries/regions. Thus those having flash cards of gold, ships,cannons would naturally be the European cultures where for example shipping emerged as a dominant economic activity and who used gold to trade with Indian traders.

Those having the flash cards of spices naturally would be India.

What about cards bearing values like enterprise, hardwork, quiz the students which society is likely to be more hard pressed for food, comforts? Who possesed them and importantly how these qualities came to be converted into creating political and economic dominance?

Step 3

Discussion
Quiz by asking the students - Would people in a tropical society like India with greater months of cultivation, fertile river valley plains with favourable terms of trade have any incentive to change or (this is not to suggest things were honky-dory with everyone in India. The teacher will certainly have to explain the exploitation and oppression by the feudal lords of the peasants)people living in temperate climate with limited period of cultivation, unfavourable terms of trade with the Orienti.e the Sarcens and India and a nobility whose craving for spices was only bleeding them financially (and an equally oppressive heirachical order)? On hindsight the Europeans certainly risked a great deal compared to Indians where Protestant reformation and rise of nation states also provided the right context for taking initiatives such as exploring the high seas, inventions and popularising use of technologies. Hence it can be argued that the Europeans given their material, economic and social conditions displayed more of these attributes. Hence these intagibles flash cards would be attributes of Europeans .

Step 4

Now have one of the student having the gold cards to come forward as an English trader (ask this student to collect the gold flash cards from others in the group representing Europe) and ask him/her to exchange all the five gold cards with two students (representing Indian traders) having cloves and pepper cards.

Once this exchange has been done, ask the two groups to recheck the economic equation. One will find that the group which represents India apart from the flash cards of spices, now also have flash cards of gold. In other words people in India apart from the bounty of spices, also had gold to boot. But despite the fact that India had more tangibles to measure wealth at that point of time, in the long run India was overrun by Europe, which had more of intangibles i.e. values like enterprise, hardwork etc along with tangibles like shipping and cannons which in itself did not connote wealth, not even power. (for cannons, pikes were things which the Mughals used in equal measure and competence as the Portuguese, Spaniards or even the British)

How did these happen? Here the teacher should bring in the idea of political economy. These value flash cards, attributes of Europeans, were both socially and importantly politically valued and converted into an economic value. It was not as if Indians were and are not hardworking or lacked enterprise (one thought of the Marwari, Nadar and Punjabi Khatri would put to rest any such ideas) but perhaps these attributes could not be converted into a productive component thanks to a polity which privileged only values of obseiance to lords and gods, a largely feudal attribute. In other words Indian polity, its ruling class, at that point of time failed to see merits in acquring wealth through the means of commerce. (I'm basing these arguements based on my understanding of the great debates on 18th century India where scholars like David Washbrook, Muzaffar Alam, Sanjay Subramaniam, C A Bayly among others have contributed. Please refer to Sekhar Bandopadhyaya's India - From Plassey to Partition, Orient Longmans for a summation of the main contours of the debate)

Step 5

Discussion
Continuing from where the teacher left the previous discussion, it has to be explained, that the European monarchs/polity particularly England, Netherlands and to begin with Portugal, Spain and later even France supported attributes like enterprise, commerce, in whose success they saw monetary benefit and hence supported ventures on the sea and other economic activities as enterprise. Helped by the new concept of Joint Stock companies which helped investors to hedge their bets, these states began to issue charters to such companies giving them exclusive rights to trade with the east or elsewhere as the new world unfolded. In such joint stock companies, the state could also have a stake and importantly it was another means of revenue for the state. Hence the charter grantd by Queen Elizabeth to merchants of East India Company in 1600.
Thus attributes geared towards profits, then spurred other values like hardwork, discipline, perseverance, punctuality etc.

On the other hand the teacher can even explain how in contrast Mughal rulers including Akbar, did not see much value in technology like Printing (Akbar was introduced to this idea by the Jesuits) and Shahjehan brought down the clock in the church in Agra, for its chiming 'disturbed' him. (See A Qaisar's Indian response to technology, OUP)

Thus one can hazard to say that Indian commercial class lost out in converting their entreprenuial skill and spirit into creating inroads elsewhere in the world. This was again due to political indifference and perhaps interference. And even by the time the decided to do anything of this sort, it was perhaps too late.

Conclusion
Thus it becomes possible for a teacher to put across how western Europe by circumstantial and propitious social, economic and political condition took advantage and often created advantages for themselves when not there, charted a trajectory of growth and prosperity for itself which of course was splattered with blood,of millions of Asians and Africans.

The basic idea for a teacher to understand and to convey to the child to the extent possible is how policy decisions by the powers that be (i.e. government) can promote industry and enterprise which by the way things are going now in India (in the context of globalisation), certainly helps economy to grow and help people to move out of the grips of poverty (though very haltingly, slowly through the process of trickle down effect). So then is globalisation good? or is globalisation fine but the way in which it is been carried out without making adequate provisions for infrastructure like schools, basic health, road, water, the problem? Or do we see globalisation and attributes of commerce, trade, industry itself as a problem i.e. Capitalism?

Must reads for understanding and teaching of history

2006-07-02T09:00:00.003+05:30

Few of my friends have been asking me to put a list of books on Indian history, which in my 'esteemed' opinion has made seminal contribution to our understanding of our pasts. So here it is - my twenty books on Indian history, a must read for any pretender who claims to be passionate about Indian history and for anyone seeking to know Indian history in all its dynamism, nuances and vibrancy -

1. Culture and civilization of Ancient India in an historical outline - D D Kosambi

2. History of India (Vol 1) - Romilla Thapar

3. Agrarian systems of Mughal India - Irfan Habib

4. Material culture and ancient social formation - R S Sharma

5. History of South India - Nilakanta Shastri

6. R. Champakalakshmi. Trade Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to AD 1300

7. On history - the history and culture of Karnataka's people - Saki

8. The Mughal State - Sanjay Subhramanyam & Muzaffar Alam (Ed)

9. The intimate enemy - Ashis Nandy

10. Indian nationalism - A derivative discourse - Partha Chatterjee

11. Ecology and Equity - Ramchandra Guha & Madhav Gadgil

12. India's struggle for independence - Bipan Chandra & others

13. Modern India - Sumit Sarkar

14. Social history of Indian architecture - V B Pramar

15. India - a painful transition - Achin Vanaik

16. India's mistaking modernity - Dipankar Gupta

17. Subaltern studies Vol 4 - Ranajit Guha (ed)

18. Social Startification - Dipankar Gupta (ed)

19. Colonialism, property and the state - Dharma Kumar

20. Social Change in modern India - M N Srinivas

(Caveat - As a student of modern indian history, one naturally will see a bias towards the modern period of Indian history. Would like to have your valued feedback and suggestion to expand the number of essential reading beyond 20 books)

Hot stuff!!!

2006-06-04T16:51:00.001+05:30

Introduction - What connects biriyani, a mobile phone operator and a music channel?? As disparate as these may appear to be, an aspect that is essentially gastronomic in nature but has rather varied connotations and uses, spices have more than anything else in world history shaped much of its course and outcomes. Wars,
conquests, literature, science, religion and of course food – stuff that constitutes history’s subject matter, all have at one point of time had to contend with spice’s aura, charm, mystique and its imagined or real medicinal/gastronomic properties.

Spices is so much part of our lives today that few would realize or recognize that we can learn a lot of ourselves and the world we liv(ed) in past and present. Given its widespread ramifications a study of spices would be a very appropriate way of getting kids interested in history. It would help in applying a ‘cognitively appropriate’ or to be more precise, a brain based method, to bring in greater appreciation of history for kids.

The western ghats - but for these, India's history would have been very different

Specific themes connected to history of spices

Food, Colonialism, medicine, sex (yes, sex ! but I shall leave it to more creative minds to figure it out how the not-so-obvious link between sex and spice could be put across to the kids.)

All these themes can be incorporated while dealing with chapters on medieval Europe, early medieval and Medeival India and Coming of the Europeans to India (colonialism)
(The reason for largely looking at medieval period and after is the easy availability of materials, sources, books which can usefully applied for teaching these themes)

Grades - Class VII to IX

Theme - Food

Background – The teacher should remember that much of India and the world till the beginnings of the 20th century was largely agrarian where nearly 90% of the people were connected directly or indirectly to agriculture but yet food was usually in short supply. This is something that teacher should also put across to the kids.

Teaching process – Begin with an activity – (Need to prepare beforehand a bowl of plain rice and biriyani and pulao (note-without vegetables…something like jeera rice))

i. Have children taste both the rice. The pulao is evidently more tasteful than plain rice. The point made – Spices truly adds zing to blandest of food.

ii. Ask the students find out the market costs of pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, chillies etc. The point made – spices were and are expensive.

iii. Ask the class (may be in groups) to observe the menu of people living in a slum/village or rather a worker or a landless labourer and compare with their own dishes they eat for lunch.

Discussion pointers - Archeologists estimate that by 50,000 B.C. early humans had discovered that parts of certain aromatic plants help make food taste better. To reconstruct what may have happened, we can imagine that few humans were about to cook a piece of meat in a pit. They saw some leaves and it occurred to them that if wrapped the meat could be kept free of grit and ashes. They covered the meat with the leaves and left it buried in the hot pit. Later, to their surprise and delight, they found that the leaves had given a new flavor to meal. At that moment humankind discovered the art of seasoning.

But the more important question to be raised by the teacher – i. what does the difference in the eating habits of the people tell us?

– Historically food has been more an utilitarian aspect of human existence. In pre-historic times recipes were, as one website put it: grain-free, bean-free, potato-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free. Ingredients used: meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and berries.

Cinnamon - the difference this can make to our biriyani!

Meat, cereals, vegetables and fruits were largely eaten in uncooked forms during the pre-historic times and it gave people the necessary nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins to survive….But with the emergence of class society, when for some section food was an guranteed entity (surplus) and the class which had access to this surplus, began to make their life more comfortable not only in physical terms (better housing, clothes,) but also in gastronomic terms and looked at edibles that would satisfy not merely their hunger but also their palate. With surplus came the need to store and therefore emerged different kinds of vessels to stock up grains and cereals. (most of the archeological digs across the world have revealed remains of pitchers, pots, utensils and vessels and images of these can be easily downloaded from the net and shown to drive home the point) With cooking came more variety of vessels which could withstand heat. Then began experimentation, which is when spices came into the picture. And so did vegetables providing extra nutrient supplement to the people. (classes rather) So uses of spices, vegetables in combination with plain cereals and meat, emerged and largely remained the preserve of the classes while the vast majority of people continued to live on bland diet (as the activity on figuring out cost of spices and observing the diet of people in villages and slums would have shown)

In the study of Roman culture, we have books for children which also tell us the exotique dishes that the patricians had in contrast to the plebians who lived on the blandest of diet.

Likewise on the net one can access the net for different kinds of dishes that were consumed by the landed gentry both in medieval feudal Europe and medieval India. Check these websites for more of the whats, wheres and the whens of food….

www.teacheroz.com/food

inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpotatochip.htm

A cursory check of these websites will reveal that much of the food consumed by the rich did involve the use of spices. The poor by and large, across space and time always consumed food in its rawest form i.e. uncooked, bland and a very limited spread of food items.

Perhaps the most important and comprehensive book written on Indian food is ‘Indian Food- A historical companion, K T Achaya, OUP, New Delhi)
[Yet another take the teacher can give is the current understanding that bland food is the healthiest food and how the rich are giving up eating heavily spiced food just to stay in good health after they have lived on a diet of ‘rich’ food!!]

Theme - Colonialism

Black pepper - The classes in the west could not conceive their wines and any dish worth its salt(!) should boast of generous sprinkling of pepper! No wonder it was called black gold.

Teaching process - i. Keep the remaining pulao and rice for few days. Notice which decomposes first. The point made – spices helps in longer preservation of food.

ii. Divide the students into groups and ask them to find out the countries known for its spices by looking into encyclopedias and maps. The point made – spices are largely found in south India, south east Asia, south America. The point made – spices are tropical crops.

Discussion pointers – Once the worth of spices in improving the quality of food was realized, spices have always been in demand till about the beginning of the 19th century. (Now why did spices cease to be important after 19th century?? While refrigeration was still a good century away, still the Europeans were no longer craving for this ambrosia as their ancestors have been for nearly two millennium. Why? In an very engrossing and highly enlightening book by Jack Turner, (Spice – The history of temptation, Jack Turner, London, 2005) it is pointed out that spices were in demand much more for its imagined than real properties. While it is true that spices had preservative properties and helped to conceal the smell of rotten meat and the excess salt that meat acquired while being kept in brine, spices were more of an exotica, whose possession was always sought after. Cloves, cardamom, ginger and pepper had more of a snob value than anything else. Therefore after Reformation and change in the value systems with the advent of scientific temper, the aura and values associated with spices were on the wane. By 19th century the culinary values had undergone a change where folks preferred to eat meat and vegetables bland. In fact Europeans began to look down upon spicy food and it was at this point of time that oriental food came to be regarded spicy, something to be looked down upon or an attribute of eastern exotica, the oriental ‘other’.

Cloves - Balsara made a fortune and gave stablished brands like Colgate a good run for their money with its clove oil based 'Promise' toothpaste

It is important for the teacher to incorporate any study of colonialism beginning with spices for it was the insatiable craving for spices that brought Europeans to India, south east Asia, Africa and South America. All the European nations, beginning with Portugal, followed by Sapin, Netherlands, England and France began undertaking their ‘discoveries’ and ‘explorations’ across the seas seeking a steady, cheap supply of spices to satiate their gastronomic proclivities only to be sold for a fortune to their ‘taste-starved classes’. It would be useful to reiterate the much stated fact how trading with the Arabs did not really help matters for the Europeans who had to pay very heavily for the spices.

Often it is forgotten that the Europeans did not seek India’s material resources and our markets to begin with but came more for something which hardly exercises our imagination and occupies a very miniscule mindshare. i.e. spices. It was the industrial revolution which on hindsight made it incumbent upon the Europeans to look for markets and raw materials like cotton, sugar, coffee, etc.

Turmeric - Where do you think the world's finest antiseptic cream 'Burnol' came from?

Theme – medicine

Background – It can well be argued that spices in India were and are more valued for its medicinal values than gastronomic. For example clove oil is synonymous with tooth trouble and likewise pepper is an important ingredient in the concotion made for all bronchial ailments.
Teaching process – Divide the class into groups and give them the following case scenario –

There is this village in the Sahayadri range in Karnataka. The village is quite remote and the nearest doctor is a good 50 kms away. But people do fall sick and yet they do not seem to greatly miss the absence of professional medical doctors.

1. The obvious question – why don’t u think the people feel the absence of doctors and how do you think they cope with diseases and illness? (Hint – topography and vegetation and recall previous activity)

2. Find out the medicinal properties and significance of few of the spices.

3. We discussed earlier that spices are expensive – so if they are expensive how can the villagers afford them? Why are they expensive in the first place?

4. Ask the students to find out (largely through the internet) some medicines available as syrups and tablets to deal with cough, colds, toothache, stomach problems, antiseptics etc which are based on spices.

Discussion pointers –

This is one of the important paradoxes of spices today- greater demand for it in cities and elsewhere in the world as an important cooking ingredient has greatly shot up the price of spices making it increasingly difficult to the people living in the western ghats to have access to them in their times of utmost need. This is an important aspect of modern India where big national and multinational drug companies discovering, rather rediscovering, the medicinal merits of these spices and herbs are patenting them to factory produce drugs hence creating a spiraling demand for them, pushing up its costs, and hence local people themselves who grow spices for their domestic use are finding it difficult to use it for their necessesties.

'Unburdening history from past'

2006-05-21T16:23:00.001+05:30

Well, I'm back after a long long time....been dwelling on some issues connected both to history and history teaching and i ultimately figured that current trends in historiography would actually help children more than anything else in recognising history's worth as a subject beyond chronology of events. Read on....

Unburdening history from ‘past’

As the popular definition goes history is a study of the past, which it indeed is. But it’s the way that one perceives the past which is problematic and ergo the title unburdening history from past.

In the discourse of 'common sense', knowledge of the past constitutes the subject matter of history. This knowledge is constituted in terms of information on events across space and time. Information largely on what, wheres, whens of the past and to a lesser degree hows and whys, gives one the picture of the past. This is history for you and indeed for most of us. ‘Showing the past as it was’ to restate the oft quoted phrase of Leopold von Ranke.

Limits of empirical, linear political history
Under such a schema therefore, history is very understandably seen as a discipline having little bearing to the present. ‘History is studied for its own sake’ and though avowed tokenism such ‘learning from the past’ is also uttered in the same breath, it falls, rather fails, even the most hardened history scholars/historians of such empirical, positivist persuasion, to convince anyone of its relevance. [Note - It is certainly possible to argue and prove the relevance of history in such a positivist mode as one of the recent book by Partha Bose on Alexander of Macedonia has shown. Here purely going by the campaigns of Alexander, Partha Bose argues how Alexander’s strategies have been similarly employed to survive and excel in corporate world. See Partha Bose, Alexander the great’s art of strategy – Lessons from the great empire builder, (New Delhi, Penguin, 2003)] Thus if such be the 'common sensical' understanding of history and indeed our past, the foundation and indeed the future of a discipline which merely stands on the twin pillars of ‘fact’ and information and in the process privileges political history in a very linear fashion, is most certainly bleak and shaky.

Cognition and effects of empirical approach

As for children, history also becomes even more far removed from their social lives. Given the way children in their early and mid-teens (middle and high school kids) take cognizance of the world, adopting such an approach and perception of history and then attempt to teach it is to take a very non-child centric approach. Middle and high school teachers fail to satisfactorily answer the probing questions of kids who seek more concrete examples of relevance than mere mouthing of tokenisms of ‘learning from the past’. Perhaps the most important fallout of such a perspective and method of teaching history is making memorization the most important tool for studying history. In no other discipline is memorization as intensely used as it is in history where other means of developing and using cognitive faculties are extremely limited. And even when some little analysis that one attempts in the study of certain topics i.e. comparisons, reasoning etc it is not left to the discretion of a student to arrive at his/her own conclusions. Once again a student is expected to recall and recollect (for example in the study of Cholas), the factors, say that prompted Rajendra Chola to undertake an expedition to south-east Asia. Such a staid and one-dimensional approach to the past is justified and legitimized in the name of ‘objectivity’, to see and understand the past ‘as it really was’.

Any criticism is responded with a view that history afterall is such a discipline where interpretations, views and opinions of the past is immaterial to its epistemic status where ‘facts are sacred’ and ‘opinions are free’ and largely irrelevant.

Such an approach hardly augurs well for middle and high school students if we believe in child’s own ability to perceive events and arriving at certain inferences. Though cognitively speaking, children do get more decentred and have the ability to think beyond their ‘self’ and telescope into the past and picture themselves and others in different cultures and civilizations, nevertheless children feel that in history, their individual perception even when based on informed reasoning is not given credence. A child is merely expected to parrot the so called views as obtained in their textbooks and what ever the teacher puts across in the classroom. It is precisely for all these reason where child’s views are not factored in that history is rarely a subject of choice or liking by the students.

Current historiographical trends
Therefore if we are to make a discipline like history relevant it will be possible to do so only by altering the perception that history is a mere accumulation of ‘facts’. In this context the recent trends in historiography which has veered the discipline away from events, personalities and their exploits, in fact holds tremendous promise for making history fun, interesting and relevant for kids. The move to social history and also ‘cultural turn’ of history, best evidenced in the subaltern history series, have helped in giving a new meaning to history. For such efforts have made history processual where history is realized more as a way of knowing the world around both in the past and also the present. In such a perspective establishing facts of the past is jettisoned to understand the context in which the events in the past transpire.

We need to clarify that in the process of making way for a ‘subjective’ look, the notion of objectivity is not being jettisoned here. One needs to understand that certain things in history are sine qua non. It certainly is important to get the dates of certain event, people to whom certain events are attributed, where these events took place etc correctly. For example we cannot say that the second battle of Panipat was fought in 1857 between Babur and the British!! The point is once we have the dates, names, events and the flow of events right, do we stop at that in history?? [Note- It is for such a reason why even attempts to make an empirical study of the past experiential for kids by telling them stories, taking them on field visits to temples, forts and museums and employing activities like art, quiz etc which is no doubt fun but in itself may not help them to understand why history as a subject is relevant or why past is studied.]

This is where when interpretations and subjectivity is brought in where one makes informed interpretations based on careful reading and re-reading of different sources available for the study of a particular period in history. In this re-reading (the hermeunitic turn) as mentioned, one takes the help of other social-science disciplines like sociology, economics, anthropology and linguistics whose theories help us in a more nuanced understanding of the past.

That the past is not therefore studied for its own sake but more for an understanding to emerge about the world around as manifested in both nature and society – this is the crux that a child, indeed all of us, have to understand. The fallout of such a view is the understanding that history is more an mode of enquiry (make it inquiry) available for one to understand the world around as obtained in both its physical aspect (the usual matter attributed to science) and also the social aspect (the domain attributed to sociology, economics, anthropology other than history). Thus if this fixation for dates, events, exploits of kings (and rarely queens) is discarded for a more balanced view where not just these but also the context in which much of the past have transpired is also included, history as a subject matter emerges more dynamic. The notion of history as mere presentation of events of the past in a linear chronological fashion, gives way to a more ‘subjective’ view.

More than anything else what such an approach does is that history as taught, understood in schools no longer rests on the mere use of memory as the most important pedagogical tool in the understanding of history. It also validates possibilities of looking at events in different manner and it becomes incumbent on the teachers, syllabus framers, and text books to help understand history not so much as a subject that hinges on certain ‘facts’ of the past but also encourages one to make ‘meaningful’, ‘appropriate’ and informed interpretations. This implies that a child also can have a say in the interpretation of past and in this approach history is taught where not just the past but even the present and importantly the child matter. Nothing will help to bring the child back into the classroom and the subject than adopting such an approach.

Watch out for my take on the new NCERT syllabus and history text...

Indian forts - An attempt to historicize

2006-01-11T18:41:00.001+05:30

The Jodhpur fort

Forts as defensive measures existed in ancient India. The two towns of Mohenjo-daro and Harrapa on the Indus river were themselves fortified particularly the granary in the former which was specifically fortified located at a height of 50 feet. Archaeologically, very few remains have been found of forts belong to the early vedic and later vedic periods, though the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharatha, give extensive references of forts. Ayodhya’s was a fortified town which according to the epic had “walls that extended upto twelve measured leagues from end to end. High are her ramparts strong and vast…” The Shanthi Parva stresses that the king should reside in city defended by a citadel, of having abundant stock of grain and weapons, protected by impenetrable trenches…” (And hey…wasn’t Indira also referred to as Punrandar…destroyer of forts???)

From about the Mauryan period, we have further archaeological evidence of forts in the ancient period in India. Further contemporary literary source of Arthashastra corroborates the existence of forts and considers them as one of the seven elements of sovereignty. India’s Machiavelli (pardon the ethnocentrism) classifies forts into four types – Parvata ( forts on hills), Audaka (water), Dhanvan ( desert) and Vandurga (forest).

Most of the forts that are seen today and which are favourite tourist destinations belong to the medieval period. Just like temples, the multiple presence of forts was specifically a medieval activity and like temples again the study of forts needs to be contextualised in terms of the socio-economic, cultural and political factors.

(For the usual what,wheres and whens of forts click here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Forts_in_India

The elegance but aloofness Jaisalmer fort

Forts as much more than defense mechanism

On the basis of some reading on aspects of military of medieval India, I hazard to draw certain conclusions which helps to contextualise forts in larger socio-economic framework.

One of the most important aspect of the forts, as any casual visitor would notice, are the granary and the water supply source. Why was it the case? The reasons are not as apparent as it may seem.

Delving into the early medieval past of India (i.e. 700 to 1200 AD) the feudal period, the society was distinctly divided into three distinctive groups or class groups (castes) i.e. the priestly and the warrior class, the landed ( the rais, ranas and rawats, the zamindars; the share croppers??) and working class i.e. ordinary farmers, artisans like carpenters, masons and finally the untouchable class i.e. scavengers, cleaners etc.

The warrior classes (Kings) and the priestly classes lived within the four walls of the forts – well protected with adequate stock of food grains, water and other conveniences which could even last months even as their fort was besieged by invaders.

The surplus was appropriated from the peasants in villages by the feudatories ( the rais, ranas and rawats).

Mandu fort - made romantic by the eternal love of Baz Bahadur and Rani Rupmati

Map showing the layout of Mandu fort which extended 23 miles in circumference

Forts and the caste system

Some understanding of the caste system is also needed here as prevalent in India between 7th century to 14th century AD.

In the social order obtained at this period of time war and waging war was largely the job of the kings and the warrior castes. The so called army as envisioned then comprised basically of members from the Kshatriya caste i.e. kings and and other nobles with the peasants also doubling as soldiers. But the caste system gave these peasants/soldiers a poor status and social intermingling was not something that was approved. The social distance had to be maintained. Hence forts became a remote entity for most. The forts remoteness, a physical manifestation of the caste system, usually on a hill with numerous defense mechanisms inherent in it like the moat, multiple gates, the peasants/soldiers could hardly connect with their own monarchs. On the other hand these peasants offered their services to the invading West and Central Asian armies (read Muslim rulers) against their own monarchs.
The slumber and sloth of the so called warrior class was such that their mindset was more defensive. The preferred mode of defense was to remain enconsed in the forts, which were no doubt very strategically located and thoughtfully built. (Since the sieges often went on for months and then the army was weak, the forts had to sustain itself with food and water. Hence the prime of place for them in forts and it is not surprising that the invading armies from West Asia and Central Asia (the Turks) always tried to attack the granary in a fort.) Rajasthan with its numerous forts at Ranthambhore, Chittaurgarh in particular offered stubborn resistance to the Delhi Sultans and Mughals. Similarly in the Deccan the Daulatabad fort remained unassailable for many years when the Sultanate tried to expand their empire further south.

The fort built by themaverick Mohammad-bin-Tughlaq
When the peasants shifted their loyalties it only meant that their feudal lords in the countryside had already shifted their loyalties to the invading armies and within 12-15 years of Delhi Sultanate kingdom, much of North India upto Bengal was conquered by the Mameluk Turks except some pockets of present day Rajasthan. (Why Rajasthan? I gather that in Rajasthan for various historical reasons filial ties were very strong between the kings and the landed gentry and hence it were these Rais and Ranas under the tutelage of their Kings offered the most stubborn resistance to the Muslim rule in India.) The so called Muslim conquest was possible not because of any inherent strength of the Mameluks militarily (where one can perhaps differ) but because the social structure itself was such that the Indian society offered least resistance and was in fact eager for social changes where petty professionals like craftsmen, artisans, weavers not to speak about untouchable castes were ready to be part of a social system which gave them better social status and reckoning. Not that there was whole scale conversion to Islam but these socio-economic changes also heralded the Bhakthi movement, a petty bourgeoisie social reform movement guided by the likes of Kabir and Nanak. (It should however not be concluded that the Muslim rule brought cataclysmic social and economic changes. Once the new Muslim monarchs discovered that surplus could be appropriated in the same fashion which caste system facilitated, the Muslim rulers helped in just tweaking of the caste system and caste continued in Hindu society)

The Chittaurgarh fort of Mewar, Rajasthan. Note how the city has grown outside on the lower reaches of the hill
Hence forts, with the commencement of the Turko-Persian rule became more inclusive, a true town with the presence of all communities and classes – a thriving center of economic activity. Forts in fact became more like cities. An urban revolution as historian Mohammad Habib called it. In fact it is for this reason that forts belonging to the so called Muslim period were also built differently. Take the example of Mandu fort. It was a huge complex with its outermost wall running for nearly 45 kms.

Thus all city dwellers irrespective of caste distinctions, if not class distinctions, lived within its ramparts (but since the caste system never really died down there where perhaps different localities for different communities within the ramparts of the forts and hence caste segregations were maintained). Likewise take Golconda fort or Tughlaqabad fort. And even Hampi!- The so called Hindu empire and capital.

The social and physical remoteness of pre thirteenth century forts was gone post 1206 AD. Forts of the Mughal era like the Red forts in Delhi, Agra and Lahore, in my view, based my little reading, observation and intution (!) were actually palaces with towering walls for the privacy of the Mughal royalty behind which transpired all the orgies and schemings.

The more 'approachable' Agra Red fort of the Mughals

Therefore now the preferred form of waging wars was not so much sieges but battling out the enemies on the battlefield. The Mughal army along with the extensive use of gun powder and armaments like cannons, flintlocks became a more pro-battle empire whose mindset unlike its pre 1206 predecessors was not defensive. (Gun powder regimes as historian Burton Stein called it) Recall the number of battles fought in ‘battlefields’ like Terrain, Panipat, Khanwa, Talikota. In this context the criticism of Indian forts not adopting the new fort building style of trace Italienne, developed in Italy which slowly became a standard fort building method across Europe, does not seem tenable. (See Jos J.L.Gommans and Dirk H.A.Kolf (ed.), Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia 1000 to 1800 AD, New Delhi, 2001) True siege of forts continued even during the post 1206 period but methods of warfare changed from being fort centred to battlefield centred.

To conclude

In our anxiety to make history more concrete and give it some complexity, the idea is not to burden kids with such nuanced understanding of armies and forts in India but to help them to figure out how the matters in the past were always in a state of flux. There is much more to history even if seen as a chronology of battles. The nature and context of battles changed which also tell us about the society of the times of the battle – its economy, culture and technology. Now how are we going to teach such a topic like this one, to kids without making it heavy or without making it trivial, has to be worked out. Watch this space and in the meanwhile continue to give your responses.

wars, battles, conflicts, belligerence....

2005-11-01T11:10:00.000+05:30

History as conflict

2005-11-01T10:11:00.001+05:30

The one meta-narrative that runs through much of history is wars. Whether the ruling classes in the past had indeed nothing better to do
other than wage wars against one another, for the flimsiest of reasons, one really cannot say. But yet our soporific textbooks glean
little of the manner in which these battles were fought other than the place and participants in these wars.

Major wars of Indian history

While no textbooks or books meant specifically for children on wars comes to one’s mind, a recent book by Kaushik Roy, an young scholar based in Delhi, titled ‘India’s historic battles’
(Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2004) highlights in excellent detail the important battles in  the history of India. Covering 12 battles from The Battle of Jhelum to Kargil, Roy, from
whatever sources he could muster, outlines the context in which two (or more) opposing forces met and how the outcome of the war changed the course of Indian history.
There is wealth of information on how each leader of the opposing forces planned (or did not plan) for the war and the ideas that shaped a dynasty’s perception of warfare.
For example while describing the second battle of Terrain, Roy describes how the Rajput notion of ‘dharmayudha’ (righteous warfare) limited the lethality of warfare but which was
hardly to be appropriate to the ‘kuttayudha’ (warfare by deceit and deception) mindset of the Islamic Turks. The misplaced notion of individual bravery and the persistent undermining
of infantry who were provided with little or no training and the dependence of Arab steeds rather than the  Central Asian steppe horses, led to the undoing of Prithviraj Chauhan and
his forces against Mohammad of Ghore’s mounted archers.

A revealing narrative interspersed with interesting nuggets of information on 12 important battles which includes among others, the first, second and third battle of Panipat, Buxar,
Plassey, this book is a must read for all teachers who are eager to make history interesting. This book can help teachers to prepare a primer for children who can usefully refer to for
projects on battles in India.

Teaching method/tips

Why so many wars?

Very often in our eagerness to provide all the necessary details of the different battles, both teachers and children miss the woods for the trees. While each battle was unique there
were commonalities too. Conflict was perhaps intrinsic to the nature of ancient, medieval and early modern societies. While one can also argue that violence and war is intrinsic to the
human specie, wars were essentially conflicts between the ruling classes (kings, zamindars, landlords etc) for appropriating surplus (revenue) and each attempting to define and form
a state using different ideologies. The political class i.e. ruling classes were a divided lot in the past and though they may have been alike in terms of religion and language, these
classes competed with each other to gather as much surplus i.e. state revenue through taxes on agricultural produce, as possible. (We should remember that This brought them into
mutual conflict again and again. Hence the wars. Bear in mind that till early modern times, agricultural revenue was the dominant source of income for the kingdoms/empires.
In Europe once nationalism emerged as an ideology thanks to the print culture and nation states emerged by 15^th century, the nation states fought wars again for maximizing revenue from trade.
(i.e. colonial wars) Today perhaps wars are also fought apart from territorial, religious, economic reasons for issues like democracy, human rights etc (the ostensible claim of George
Bush for US presence in Iraq!!!). For what can be seen as ‘secular reasons’.

Establishing a scenario

After putting across such a broad perspective, build a scenario where the children can picture themselves as a rich landlords having thousand of acres of lands living in the time of Chalukyas (7^th century AD),
with all the local people in his village and other villages too looking upto him. You also serve your king but realize that the king is weak and also figure out that the neighbouring monarch with much of his territory
in the fertile river belt, too is there for the taking. You declare war on the king and mobilize support among the local people, who are mostly worshippers of a local goddess whereas the king and also the
neighbouring rulers worship Vishnu and Shiva respectively.

Tell them now to prepare an army and they have to pick three of the following arms: bows & arrows, spears, chariots, horses, cannons, catapults, armour made of steel. Please ask them
to factor in the terrain (hills and jungles) where the battle is likely to be fought and limited ‘man power’ (less than 1000) they have at their disposal. This against an army of 10,000 men.

Dealing with children’s response

Children are more likely to be tempted to include armaments like cannon and catapults. This would naturaly be erroneous since cannons were not used in India till the Delhi Sultans
(Babur actually, by popular consent). And when children query as to how is it possible for a mere 1000 men to fight an arm of 10,000, then give them instances of Alexander’s battle
against Paurava where despite the latter having the numerical superiority, lost to Alexander  who was a better strategist and tactician. Like wise East India Company with mere 2000
men under Robert Clive through shrewd (and cunning) moves defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah army numbering more than 50,000. Also help the children to figure out how the terrain can be put
to one’s advantage to defeat your adversary (Sivaji against Aurangazeb) Kaushik Roy’s book  would come in as an excellent book for the teacher’s reference giving details of these
battles.

Now ask the children as to why as a rich landlord they are tempted not only to go against their own king but also neighbouring king. (Hint: fertile lands/revenue) And what will make
their attempt to mobilize people around their villages easier (hint: different religious ideology)

Making history current

As a teacher you need to make the study of wars/battles contemporary. Show them film clippings of films like
A thin Red Line, Platoon (avoid blockbuster films which tend to romanticize war) and have somebody do
a comparative study on how wars have changed from medieval times to Kargil. Raise questions if war is still the best way
to settle differences (India-Pak dispute over Kashmir) and highlight the death and destruction which war causes to common people.

History will become meaningful, relevant and alive only when children themselves are encouraged to think independently, make abstractions and form their own opinions on the present and the past.

seeing this is beleivin...

2005-10-17T23:13:00.000+05:30

have a dekko at this website... this is technology used effectively to popularise and stun u abt the past....technology to popularise history teaching in the classrooms....with computers of course...so is history still beyond the pale of govt school kids where despite claims there is hardly any penetration of computers with requisite software??

www.world-heritage-tour.org

What is 'good' history teaching all about??

2005-10-03T20:54:00.001+05:30

Ms Srivastava is a committed history teacher. She is very passionate about history, in particular Indian history. She tries to make the subject as hands on as possible by giving lot of activities to the students that includes modeling, art work, creative writing, charts and she even takes students to field visits where ever possible. Her conception of Indian history goes something like this: India has a very rich past and heritage, 5000 years of history. India had some of the finest monarchs like Asoka, Kanishka, Chandragupta Vikramaditya, Harsha. India also was extremely plural in its ethos with so many religions, ethnicities, mores absorbed into its socio-cultural matrices. India also had tremendous contribution to make in the domains of science. Plastic surgery was discovered in India. The concept of zero was discovered in India. And Indian art?? What could ever surpass the beauty and colour of the murals at Ajanta or the elegant craftsmanship of Khajuraho temples or the amazing symmetry of the Taj Mahal.?

Thus India has a rich past, which we have to learn about and learn from it. Children love her classes and she is very popular until one day…Chetak, one skeptical student in Class VIII also likes history thanks to the efforts made by Ms Srivastava but certain questions do bother him i.e. Yes we have a great past and studying about the past is all interesting but in what way is it all useful and relevant? In what way does reading about Asoka’s dhamma help me to understand about Manmohan Singh and his efforts to get the support of other parties?? In what way is it useful today to understand the smile of Buddha in the standing (or is it the sitting?) statue at Sarnath?? In what way is it relevant to know about Samudragupta’s southern expedition some 1,600 years back?? Is an understanding of Allauddin Khalji’s administrative reforms or even Tughlaq’s help to solve any of the current socio-economic and social problems which are so different form the ones obtained in the past??

Chetak wondered and indeed raised these questions in the class. ‘In what way do we learn anything from the past when times and situation has changed so much?’ Ms Srivastava had no answer. She knew in heart of hearts that the questioned raised by Chetak was also bothering her for many years but she herself did not find a satisfying answer to it.

Please click (my earlier post) on my views on good history teaching for my response...

This is history...from children's examination perspective!!!

2005-10-03T20:13:00.000+05:30

From the Telegraph by Bibek Debroy...cannot recall which issue...great fun...

This is exam time. At least for school-leaving students. Perhaps that’s the reason an Indian magazine decided to carry “A Concise History of the World”. This is a collation of student bloopers in the United States of America, from eighth grade to college. Through one of the cleverest collations I have ever seen, you have the world’s history. I don’t know how many Indians are familiar with Richard Lederer’s name. He teaches in St Paul’s School, New Hampshire, and is the author of this collation. So successful was this collation that he even expanded it to produce a book titled, Anguished English. One test of success is piracy and the unacknowledged reproduction you are subjected to. Lederer is no different and this Indian magazine doesn’t even mention his name. Now that I have cited him as the author, here is his concise history edited for space.
The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and travelled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fought with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines. Without the Greeks, we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns — Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in The Illiad, by Homer. Homer also wrote the “Oddity”, in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice.

They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athens was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn’t climb over to see what their neighbours were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

Eventually, the Romans conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrant who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen”. As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted “hurrah”. Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote “Donkey Hote”. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote “Paradise Lost”. Then his wife dies and he wrote “Paradise Regained”.

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and this was called the Pilgrim’s Progress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared “a horse divided against itself cannot stand”. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead. George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Then the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, “In onion there is strength.” Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while travelling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called “Candy”. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon’s flanks. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn’t bear him any children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her death was the final event which ended her reign. The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the “Organ of the Species”. Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

the whys and hows of temples

2005-09-26T19:44:00.001+05:30

The need to study temples (Pardon formatting errors...)

(My response to my earlier blog on temples....)

One of the major problems with teaching of Indian history for children is that they find no physical bearing
of  the past in their lives. Hence for many children history, which is largely taught in the four walls of the
classroom, is a big bore. While past remains with us in so many aspects, material and non-material, for
children it is important that they see, hold, and feel the past manifest in coins, artifacts, sculpture and temples.
Hence visits to medieval temples and forts becomes an important entry point for taking the children into
the past. The word entry point is to be noted since study of temples should not become an end in itself.
It is important that, as many middle school textbooks do, not to burden the children with details of temple
planning, execution, temple sculpture etc. While it is important for a child to have some background on the temple
i.e. who built it, when it was build, it is perhaps more important to know how and why it was built.

 When did temple construction start in India?

Temples were not being built since time immemorial as many would like to believe.
It was not before 4^th -5^th century CE, during the period of the Guptas that temples
and the attributes by which we identify temples really began to be built. In
Karnataka, the Kadambas and Gangas can be seen to have pioneered temple building
later perfected by the medieval Chalukyas, Hoyasala and Vijaynagar dynasties.

Why temples?

For worship obviously but the fact that temples began to be built at a particular
point in  history, i.e. CE 4 and 5^th century onwards certainly suggests more than
what meets our eye.
This was the time when India entered a new socio-economic phase called feudal
period. Trade and commerce were on the wane and few coins were minted. As
historian R S Sharma points out with the decline of the Guptas new socio-economic
system and states based on land grants emerged. These states/kingdoms needed new
forms of social control. The rulers and ruling classes needed new ideology and
ideas by which they could exercise authority and power over people. Since
it was a period marked by warfare, insecurity and uncertainity,the propensity
of the people to believe in the supernatural, mystical, the unknown was more
intense than ever. Religious beliefs centring on idol worship, particularly
practiced by eco-system people i.e. ‘tribals’ was sought to political advantage
by the political class of the times. The fears of the people were channelised
towards God and the house of God i.e. temples. Hence both the era of
Bhakthi movement and temple building emerged concurrently.

Temple building became a very specialized activity by 6^th century CE and by 9^th and
10^th centuries temple building entered its mature phase under the Rashtrakutas,
Cholas, Chandelas and Hoysalas. While each region in India developed its own style
of temple building,  a temple was to have the following identifiable features:

Vimana– the tower like structure over the garbha griha

Gopura – the structure towering over the entrance of the temple complex

Mandapa – The prayer hall after the sanctum sanctorum and the ante –room

Garbhagriha – the place where idols were installed (sanctum sanctorum)

Antarala – the anteroom connecting the mandapa and garbhagriha

Though each region developed its own unique styles temples could be broadly
classified into three major groups:

Nagara style (the kind of temples found in North India i.e. Khajuraho temples)

Dravida style (temples found mostly in Tamil Nadu i.e. Madurai Minakshi temple)

The Chalukya style – combined elements of both Dravida and Nagara style

Suggested activity/Teaching method:

Temple study can never be accomplished in the classroom. When temples are being
studied, children will have to be taken to the site of few medieval
temples. Karnataka is blessed with some fine examples of temples. The
Chennakesava and Hoysaleshwara temple in Belur and Halebid built by the Hoyasalas
is a must visit. The teacher can ask the students to identify the parts of the
temple as discussed above, once at the site. The local guides can take the students
around to identify the other different parts of the temple and offer interesting
tid-bits on the exquistely carved panels depicting scenes from the epics, puranas
or mythology, the shapely celestial sculpture called the Mandanikas or its delicate
filigree work. One needs to take some of the wisdom which these guides are excited
to offer with a pinch of salt. It is important to corroborate these with information
that can be gleaned from any of the innumerable websites or books.

Ask the children to closely observe the sculptures and engraved panels to find out if some informed guesses could  be
made about the lifestyle people lead in the past i.e. their dress, modes of transport, food, entertainment etc. (There are
innumerable panels which gives more than an adequate idea to make informed guesses. The tourist guide may not
highlight these but as teachers it is mportant to draw the child’s attention to dress, jewellery, amusements etc) Also ask
the children what other function other than worship could the temple possibly have performed. Have a discussion on what
forms of entertainment we have today and what forms of entertainment people could have had in the past and explain
how temples fulfilled a important social and cultural role other than religious.

on temples...

2005-09-15T17:53:00.000+05:30

Well...snaps of temples in Badami and Aihole picked from different websites.Leading my students from TVS School, Tumkur in 1999 (where my romance with history and history teaching really began) into this grand rift in the sandstone hillock of Badami, with the (slimy looking as you can see in the second picture, run in by a temple ) Agastayar lake providing a visually appealing setting, my interest in temples were aroused (no, I did not come across any erotic sculpture) which continues to ignite my passions... These stately temples, spread across Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal, are all distinguished by different shapes, sizes, designs, and in my opinion defied canonical traditions of temple building. The Chalukyas were no doubt experimenting with form here before evolving their distinctne style as evidenced in the temples in Pattadakkal. Want to say something more on how temples can be taught meaningfully in classrooms. Comments invited...

The first snap on the top is one of the four cave temples in Badami depicting Vishnu in a setaed posture...note the monolithic pillars bearing a teak like quality...The snap below gives a birds eye view of the Aihole temple complex...the temple in the background called the Durga temple evidences Buddhist influence...