Quality Assurance in Education
Pedagogy for its Own Sake Teacher’s Beliefs about Activity based learning in Rural
Government Schools of Kashmir
Journal: Quality Assurance in Education Manuscript ID QAE-01-2021-0013
Manuscript Type: Research Article
Keywords: Rural Education, Activity based learning, Teacher beliefs, Performativity
Quality Assurance in Education Pedagogy for its Own Sake
Teacher’s Beliefs about Activity based learning in Rural Government Schools of Kashmir
This study uses anthropological approach on policy implementation to unleash factors creating disjunction between policy text and policy practice. This study is based on interviews with teachers entitled with implementing Activity based learning (ABL) reform: Learning Enhancement through Active Pedagogy (LEAP) in Kashmir (North India). Narratives from teachers reveal how critical awareness about context constrains and shapes their beliefs about Activity based learning (ABL). Their beliefs about ABL can be summed as ‘pedagogy for its own sake’, which are conditioned largely by the inaptness of ABL in bringing considerable improvements in students learning outcomes. Reference to ‘outcomes’ was embodied as a crucial recontextualising discourse in teacher’s pedagogic orientation which resulted primarily from the poor learning attainments of rural kids and the prevalent preoccupation with performativity among agrarian parents.
The underlying argument is that performative teaching orientation is not always shaped by forces from above but sometimes by unique cultural contexts surrounding schools. This has significant implications to the understanding of embeddedness of performative and the relevance of ABL in diverse contexts.
Keywords: Learning outcomes; Active pedagogy; rural education; teacher beliefs; performativity.
Pedagogic praxis in poor South Asian government schools has not been able to cope with grassroot complexities arsing out in diverse contexts. Despite the fact that child centred instruction has been recommended by various commissions, policy documents, teaching practice in South Asian schools remains dominated by conventional modes (Shetty, 2019). Particularly for India, A state of ambivalence looms over the discourse of pedagogic transformation at school education level.
This has consequentially resulted into poor performance of students, particularly those from marginal communities (Author & Author, 2018), as has been evidenced by (ASER, 2016, 2017). Hoping for an anthropological insight, we hypothise, that implementation of child centred pedagogies (CCP) in diverse context is
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
considerably influenced by critical engagement of teacher’s agency. For teachers at the grass root level CCP “in practice” are a negotiation between varied limitations, dilemmas, tensions, and compromises (Windschitl, 2002).
Using anthropological research approach, this study analyses how teacher’s critical engagement with activity based learning (ABL) shapes its implementation. Study is based on interviews with teachers engaged within specific schools enshrined to implement Learning Enhancement through Active Pedagogy (LEAP) policy reform launched by government of Jammu & Kashmir. These specific schools designated as LEAP schools have been missioned to promote activity based learning (ABL).
Narratives from teachers reveal how critical awareness about context constrains and shapes their beliefs about Activity based learning (ABL). Their beliefs about ABL can be summed as ‘pedagogy for its own sake’, which reflects a sense of uncertainty about the practical value. Such beliefs are conditioned largely by the inaptness of ABL in bringing considerable improvements in students learning outcomes.
Reference to ‘outcomes’ was embodied as a crucial recontextualising discourse in teacher’s pedagogic orientation which resulted primarily from the poor learning attainments of rural kids and the prevalent preoccupation with performativity among agrarian parents. Teachers decode ABL with respect to its aptness in addressing on hand priorities and demands. Willingly or unwillingly, reference to
‘outcomes’ was invoked as a crucial recontextualising discourse in teacher’s pedagogic orientation. Besides the prevalence of popular competitive and result focused culture, teacher’s pre-occupation with ‘outcomes’ was shaped largely by the poor learning attainments of rural kids. Teachers attune their approach to expeditiously address real time imperatives (Barrett, 2007). Much of the LEAP reform was customised to fit local realities. Official narratives about LEAP have a tendency to demphasise information centric and outcome focused learning, while on contrary teachers consider such strategies apt for raising attainment levels of rural kids. Such disposition are encouraged as ABL fails to provide teachers with tangible dividends, which are temporally demanded in rural setup.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
As Bernstein (2000), taught us long ago, progressive pedagogic approaches may not fit in all kind of situations, acknowledging teachers perspectives in recontextualising pedagogic change at local level is crucial for successful policy implementation. Though, official framework for pedagogic recontextualisation have been transformed, the overall social and cultural context in which teachers are asked to operate remains unchanged, leading to negative beliefs about ABL Relevance of Activity based pedagogy in India:
Debates surrounding the notion pedagogic change in India have unequivocally concluded that improving the standards of learning at school level depends largely upon promoting activity based learning methods (Brinkmann, 2015). This has not only been regarded as a fundamental condition for realising the targets of
‘education for all’, but to make educational spaces truly democratic and inclusive (Author, 2021). Arguments in favour of activity based learning (ABL) have become vocal with the concerns regarding diversity management becoming critically important for ethnically diverse South Asian countries, particularly India (Author
& Author, 2018). An allied concept to ABL is locality based learning (LBL), both are part of the popular constructivist discourse in educational studies. Proponents of LBL or culturally relevant pedagogy are educational anthropologist, who argue in theory and in practice, that curriculum is a medium of ideological, legal and political representation for people. While ABL talks of the need for relying on human-centric psychological principles of learning, (LBL) highlights the dangers of narrow interests and political hegemony in the educational landscape (Author, 2021). ABL has been deemed to be best antidote to counter the currently predominant educational system in India, which is considered to be rule-centric, top-down and doctrinal instruction, justified as teaching the principles of citizenship and nationalism (Hedge, 2018). The Indian system of education is bookish, decontextualised, reinforcing obedience, compliance and uncritical mentality and a never changing attitude of status quo (Kumar, 1988). ABL or LBL have been considered as most effective in making pedagogy culturally responsive, annihilating the influence of ideology travelling all the way from dominant political
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
regimes in the centre to the classroom (Hedge, 2018). Moreover such approaches have been argued to be more appealing to the marginalized tribal child (Panda, 2005). Realising the relevance and effectiveness of ABL at elementary level, NCF 2005, NCFTE 2009 and recent National Policy on Education 2020 have unanimously recommended implementation of ABL in school education.
We must remind ourselves that ABL faces range of implementation barriers and it will be too presumptuous to set overwhelming expectations from it (Harley et al., 2000). Brinkmann (2015), argued that teacher’s conventional cultural beliefs are one of the major barriers in the implementation of learner centred pedagogies in India. Brinkmann (2015), emphasised the need for symphonising Western- originating learner centred teaching methods in Indian contexts. Niesz & Ryan (2018), illustrated the importance of recognising the perspectives of frontline workers in designing ABL movement with case studies from Tamil Nadu (South India). Teacher’s prudence in selecting methods of teaching appropriate for a particular situation is critical and teachers think relocation and recontextualisation of ABL as per needs and feasibility within a particular situation as a necessary precondition for its effectiveness (Singal et al., 2018). Taking implementation of ABL as a target in itself causes official policy narratives about it as final word, abnegating bottom up perspectives (Sriprakash, 2009, 2011a, 2011b, 2012).
LEAP learning corners
Government of J&K through Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), tried to promote activity based pedagogic programmes in school education during 2009-2010, In order to make learning more engaging for students in line with recommendations of NCF 2005. These efforts have been institutionalised through ‘learning LEAP policy reform. Initially, LEAP was designed as a supplementary intervention in order to promote ‘Read J&K’, latter was an initiative launched in some educationally backward districts of J&K, with the aim of promoting literacy and numeracy skills among backward children as per national curriculum framework.
Latter on LEAP reform was launched throughout the State up to primary school
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
level. LEAP involved salient features of active pedagogy, encouraging independent learning with teacher as a facilitating agent. Local institutional framework was set out to reinforce, monitor and regulate the programme. The framework included cluster level planning. Cluster is group of 5-10 closely located schools, with one school designated as cluster head. Through LEAP reform each child is actively engaged in learning activities, with a focus on critical thinking, questioning and learning by doing. Development of subject centric easily accessible Learning Corners, which could be help in promoting explorative, cooperative group activities. Planning and decision making about learning corners must be such that it is locally responsive and takes into consideration the inputs of an engaged community. Teachers were supposed to shift towards continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) modes, so that slow learners can be provided effective remedial teaching (Department of Education, 2010).
All these reforms were implemented within the milieu of existing top down administrative and accountability framework. Reforms in Instructional design were expected within the existing curriculum framework, same textbooks have been recommended for the LEAP schools as they are for usual schools. Learning corners and models for activity are used as supplementary to the normal curriculum.
Besides teachers are trained to prepare teaching aids and learning enhancement kits only to supplement the existing pedagogy. Though CCE is expected to reduce root memorisation and encourage critical thinking, in reality same system of examination is recommended in other schools also, only the timing of the examination has been changed. Though, officially teachers have been entitled to use ABL, the overall educational and administrative context for such a practice remains unchanged. Much of the confusion has been created by the fact that ABL in LEAP schools is neither merely recommended neither fully mandated.
Methodology approach
This research primarily concerned about how teachers made sense of activity based pedagogies in their day to day professional encounters. It draws on interview data
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
to develop critical narrative about implementation of ABL in the context of poor rural background. Following the framework of anthropology of policy it emphasises upon how policies are livid and negotiated in everyday life. Against popular dichotomy of teacher centred and learner centred pedagogy, this article rests on the argument that diversity in contexts in which pedagogic reform policies are implemented, create possibilities not only for juxtaposition of competing pedagogic discourses (Barrett, 2007), but also for creative appropriation of policies (Ball et al., 2011). Anthropology of policies examines policy not in the context of as they are written, but as the experiential, affective, and embodied forms that policy takes as it is enacted by frontline actors (Ball et al. 2012). This approach is comes handy in examining micro amalgamation of pedagogic policy reform and teacher’s repertoire of experience and skills. Anthropologically, in practice official policies are always heterogenised due to localised translations and juxtaposition of old and new professional and governmental discourses (Wilinski & Vellanki, 2020). Such perspectives on how policies are heuristically translated, interpreted and enacted remains crucial for understanding the disjunction between theory and practice. Another important dimension to this framework is how policies are affectively embedded and meanings construed (Maguire, Braun & Ball 2015). In this context, the study considered the following research questions:
1. How are contextual priorities and problems constraining implementation of LEAP policy reform?
2. How do these factors influence teacher’s beliefs about ABL?
J&K northern most State of India, due to its special constitutional position and partial autonomy in politics and administration most of India’s national policies are implemented after they get consent by state assembly. Data collection took place by interviewing 29 LEAP teachers from district Budgam of State, who had received at least one training programme regarding activity based learning.
Though, most participating teachers held a positive attitude towards ABL, but most of them believed that practice of ABL is not fully relevant in rural conditions. Most
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
of the teachers employed learner centred strategies, such as encouraging students to ask questions, motivating them by using enhanced teaching learning aids and lesser usage of textbooks (Sriprakash, 2012: 71-86).
We encourage teachers to use learner centred strategies, one of our teachers invests a lot of time to prepare teaching aids for his lectures in class 8th … other teacher use his skills to paint the walls of 1st standard classroom so that students don’t need to open textbooks for learning names of animals, vegetables etc. ABL teaches us that we have to treat students with love and affection…. We have to make efforts for making learning joyful and entertaining…Learning shouldn’t be a burden. (Abdul Rashid, Headmaster).
ABL has considerably changed the idea of teaching and learning. A range of new ideas are coming down about how we should treat the child and how a teacher should behave in the classroom. These days we teachers are expected to be more democratic and open minded. We shouldn’t terrorise the student, we have to provide convenient environment for teaching and learning. Student’s idea have to be considered and we have to encourage them unconditionally (Sajad Ahmad, Teacher).
Most of teachers valued the new ideas about teaching and learning associated with ABL. Teachers experienced ABL driving force transforming the idea of teaching and learning. The conventional understanding of teaching as an act of disciplining and subduing students has been replaced with the idea of freedom and amusement.
Application of these child centred strategies foregrounds the discussions in the following sections. We have focused primarily on the contextual understanding of ABL and the resulting predicaments for teachers. As Arathi Sriprakash (2012: 1- 8), has asserted there is an urgent need to dig deeper into the uncritical policy narrative that ‘child centred Pedagogy is always good’ and understand it in relation local problems and contexts. Moreover, analysis is required to understand how ABL will run within the existing milieu of neoliberal performativity (p 2).
To unveil various themes and patterns from the qualitative data, coding technique has be used for data analysis. Coding entails reviewing transcripts, interviews, discussions, narratives and/or field notes and giving labels (names) to component
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
parts that seem to be of potential theoretical significance and/or that appear to be particularly salient within the social worlds of those being studied (Brayman, 2012 pp. 568).
The findings of the study before final report writing were communicated to and validated through participant researchers. This has been done in order to avoid inclusion of biases and preconceived notions in research findings. In order to make data collection more accurate and reality grounded, coding was done side by side during the fieldwork. This is a usual way of data collection in qualitative studies as this helps in reframing codes and consequently research question and turning them into more succinct and precise ones (Bryman, 2012: 564-570).
ABL and Learning lag.
Techer’s agency is very important in recontextualising pedagogic discourse at the grass root level (Poulton, 2020). Rural government schools in Kashmir often serve the most marginalised sections of the community, majority of the children are first generation learners. Importance of family background was frequently highlighted in the discussions with teachers. The backwardness of children in learning attainments at the elementary level has been attributed to a large extent to the educational backwardness of rural community and the poor economic conditions of parents. This seems to legitimise application of more explicit and regulated frameworks of teaching and discourage practice of ABL. Sriprakash (2009; 2015), seems to have experienced similar situation, while analysing Nali Kali programme in south Indian contexts. Learning lag among rural kids plays a decisive role in shaping teacher’s belief about relevance of ABL. In the context of rural government schools, this localised emphasis on raising learning attainment creates a contradiction in teacher’s behaviour, which vacillates between weaker and stronger controls of pedagogic relationships. This preoccupation with children’s learning attainment within a LEAP school results into a situation of “doing without believing” (see Brauna & Maguire, 2018). This section also discusses how tension between two competing perspectives on teaching shape teacher’s predispositions about how to teach. Teachers find it more imperative to ‘teach for outcomes’,
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
motivation for which doesn’t emanate from pressures of accountability and competition, but are result of teacher’s sagacious understanding of what should be prioritised for the poor rural kids.
The day I joined as a teacher, I was highly enthusiastic to transfer into practice, all skills I have learned. But, I realised in couple of weeks that the situation is not very feasible. Instead of focusing on activity modes of learning, our primary concern is teaching of basic skills of arithmetic, communication, reading and writing. I have realised, that you can move to the next level only when you have completed the previous level. (Tariq Ahmad, Middle school teacher)
We have been using many ABL based strategies to engage and attract these kids within the school, such as cards, games, graphics and teaching aids.
But this is not the only thing we do, exclusive use of ABL is possible and feasible only when you have all the basic requirements fulfilled. Our schools suffer with this problem that 5th class student is not able to solve 3rd class arithmetic problem. For activity based learning to be effective, I feel, it is important that the basics have been taught (Abdul Rashid, Headmaster).
As indicated in the ASER (2016, 2017), the learning outcomes of government school in India is significantly lower than the expected. Teachers find it more feasible to focus upon the teaching of basic skills using conventional teaching techniques. Learning lag is one of the primary reasons why exclusive practice of ABL is not possible in LEAP designated schools. Teachers not only know their learners, but also know what is imminently required for them. It is important to mention here that the critical awareness of the teacher regarding the limitations and advantages of competing teaching methods shapes up his/her approach in coping up with the challenges posed by spatial and temporal context (Sriprakash, 2012:
71-86). The interview subtly signals, that teacher’s belief about the effectiveness of ABL in enhancing literacy and numeracy skills for children are not on the favourable side (Singal et al., 2018). Though, teachers believe that ABL is more effective in attracting and engaging students within school hours.
Parvaiz Ahmad illustrates why conventional teaching practices such as, reading writing and short viva evaluations are important to engage students beyond the
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
school hours. Too repetitive reading and writing practice is more effective in enabling children to attain some basic skills.
It is more important for teachers to keep these kids engaged with educational activities in out-of-school hours. These children doesn’t enjoy the luxury of education friendly family environment. Their educational motivations may get lost in the kind of social environment they are living in.
Therefore, it much more important for teachers to engage students with school related homework, which may include memorising, reading and writing. Memorising is not important as such, but it helps to keep the child engaged (Parvaiz Bhat, Middle school Teacher).
This transcript talks about the importance of homework, memorisation and other activities associated with performance modes of pedagogy (Thirumurthy, 2014).
Though, there is little understanding about how pedagogic changes may influence the nature of homework, teachers opine that in case of rural agrarian conditions conventional modes of teaching are more relevant, as they help to engage students out-of-school hours. The notion of homework in ABL is either not amenable to evaluation or is not so engaging due to lack of supportive family culture.
It is certain that things learned through activity will be remembered for long, but the process is very slow and what disappoints me is that children are not able to attain minimally required numeracy and literacy skills.
Therefore, most often I and other teachers are forced to bypass the activity methods and rely on old techniques (Lateef Wani, Middle school teacher).
Though, we are being trained to teach through activity based methods and promote locality based learning, but if you start doing that in these schools, parents will oppose it straightaway. They understand teaching as memorising. For them, learning means only how much notes you have given to students and how much you made them to memorise (Sayima, primary school teacher).
As against the narratives of parents that “teachers are always right” (Ganapathy- Coleman 2014), teachers often complained about the attitude of parents towards new methods of teaching, challenging the notion that South Asian parents are
“Hard to reach” (Crozier & Davies 2007). Parents often see activity based approaches as irrelevant and time wasting and are doubtful about the positive
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
consequences of such pedagogy. Poor Indian parents seem to be emphasising the informative role of education, which makes them doubt the indirect forms of pedagogy. As part of working class ideology, parent’s opinions about good teaching and learning are mostly conditioned by economic risks and livelihood opportunities (Froerer, 2015), where scholastic achievement and formal credentials of an individual are encouraged rather than on qualitative personal developments (Thirumurthy, 2014). Therefore, in order to become more responsive to parent community, teachers find it more feasible to apply performance based pedagogies.
As has been experienced elsewhere (see Brauna & Maguire, 2018) this kind of tension between academic learning and activity learning, emerged due to policy moves aimed at accountability and baseline surveys like ASER.
If we teach through activity based methods, it will take a lot of time to complete one topic. You have 5-6 classes a day to teach and activity based teaching cannot be finished in half an hour. I mean, this way of teaching doesn’t run well with the kind of system we currently have in place (Abdul Rashid, Headmaster).
Time has been one of the major limiting factors for ABL in school education. As mentioned earlier an overtly competitive educational environment discourages any form of indirect teaching (Brauna & Maguire, 2018). Together with other conventional problems of Indian school education like, shortage of manpower and overloaded curriculum, teachers feel short of time for trying out new methods and skills. They are mostly overloaded by the bookish curriculum which should mandatorily be completed. This section has illustrated as to why competence based practices of teaching are resisted by teachers in rural context.
Predicament for local teachers
This section highlights the dilemmas faced by teachers in the process of enacting ABL. Mohmad Ashraf experiences a sense of dissonance between theory and practice of ABL. He is confused with the baffling expectations bombarded on LEAP teachers from all sides. Confusions and contradictions are experienced by
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
teachers when they are expected to enact progressive pedagogies within existing unfavourable contexts.
On one hand we are trained in DIET to teach through activity based methods, but at the same time you have to complete the syllabus and prepare students for exams. You have to enable students to memorise more information and compete with kids from private schools. At the end of the day students will be evaluated and teacher’s performance will be inferred from it. If we continue teaching through new methods, much of the prescribed syllabus will remain untouched. If syllabus remains unfinished parents and headmasters will label us as incompetent (Mohmad Ashraf, middle school teacher).
LEAP teachers must deal with the problem of accountability, which is solely assessed based on the results of Board of School education examinations. Board examination process is rigidly based on the prescribed textbooks and textbooks in LEAP schools are of the same nature as normal schools. Pressures of accountability from administration forces teachers to use root memorising techniques (Troman, 2008). Teachers are forced to forge an uncanny negotiation between explicit and performance oriented mechanisms of evaluation and an invisible instructional discourse. Teachers have realised that activity based teaching methodology is not compatible with JKBOSE pattern of testing. The process of examination will always encourage teachers to follow performance methods of teaching. Therefore, prevalence of examination system which encourages root memorisation precludes possibilities for exclusive annihilation of visible pedagogic discourse (Sriprakash, 2012: 3).
I personally believe in keeping thing simple for myself… most of the teachers are confused with what to teach and what to expect from activity learning. In desperation most of them using conventional strategies to teach….in conventional methods you have simple and more certain targets, you can easily assess whether goals have been achieved.
Conventional and performance based pedagogic approaches are more simple looking and provides teachers more certain and clear learning goals. For teachers, who are not well trained, performance pedagogic approaches are more easily
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
comprehensible and provides direct channels to refer to targets. Performance based pedagogies require less contemplation about how a particular activity can be related to a certain target.
I have experienced that students usually don’t take this way of teaching seriously. It interests them, they enjoy it, but as far as learning outcomes are concerned they take it less seriously. It also seems to take away sense of seriousness towards studies. As a teacher you need extra skills to maintain student’s attentiveness towards expected outcomes. For example, if you take students to a trip to collect medicinal herbs in a nearby jungle, they will enjoy the trip, but they will hardly bother about collecting the herbs (Anayat, Middle school teacher).
This transcript illustrates another way why teacher’s beliefs about ABL as
‘pedagogy for its own sake’ are encouraged. Teachers face difficulties in enacting expected behaviours and roles students should play in ABL. ABL classroom situation ranges from placidity to pandemonium. Teachers feel that ABL takes students interests away from learning towards recreation and dalliance. Teachers face problems in navigating student’s interests towards the focus of learning activity (Tang, 2011). The range of attention diverters in ABL are more than they are in conventional classroom.
With ABL we have given up many aspects of teaching which have been valued for so long. Personally, I believe that good teaching involves an intensely involved teacher. When you are asked to watch children from a bit of distance, in the end it makes you feel like you haven’t done your work… If ABL satisfies students it may not satisfy most teachers. The obvious reason is that teacher’s satisfaction lies in students attaining the concepts and required information. ABL may not satisfy most teachers because it doesn’t guarantee the results or there is no explicit mechanism you can ensure it (Showkat, Middle school teacher).
Teachers experience a feeling of dissatisfaction or incompleteness with the process of ABL. Teachers are predisposed to an idea of good teaching, which is defined by the notion of intense involvement with the process of student learning.
Conventional understanding of good teaching involves intervenist teacher, while as ABL promotes a concept of non-intervenist teacher. A state of non-intervention
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
ameliorates teacher’s feelings of disenchantment and discontentment with the process of teaching (Troman, 2008). They experience a feeling of unsatisfied and disquieted professional conscience. As earlier research from elsewhere has revealed that progressive school reforms may lead to teacher alienation if teachers are not provided with proper support and encouragement (Brooks, Hughes & Brooks, 2008).
At the end of the day you cannot force a teacher to teach in a manner which he doesn’t like. Everything has been already predetermined and pre-fixed for teachers from curriculum to examination by authorities from above.
Except the act of teaching where we have freedom, and when you say ABL, I see it as an effort aimed at regulating the very act of teaching itself, so leaving us with no freedom at all (Haleema, Headmaster).
ABL entails the “unlearning” of what has long been valued, with the result ABL is experienced as an interference from above in the business of teaching, leading to a sense of loss (Harley et al., 2000). Classroom is a kind of niche for teachers where they may fully assuage their teaching agency, which involves directing, lecturing, questioning in a propitiated and satiated manner. More important for a teacher is that expected learning outcomes are attained by the students rather than teaching in a particular manner in order to fulfil commitments from above. Teaching for its own sake may not be good some references to targets is important. Moreover, you have to give teachers the much needed freedom in deciding the manner of teaching.
ABL must not turn into a divine commandment from above. Teachers are themselves very prudent and sagacious in picking up the best way of teaching in a particular contexts and many questions must be left for teacher’s discernment (see Brodie et al. 2002). For example if a teacher has an alternative and effective way of teaching ‘how to collect wild herbs and the names of local wild herbs’, the ABL should not be forced upon.
The headmasters have also become vigilant over ABL, they won’t let the teachers and students play without ensuring that things are being taught genuinely. They know how keep the balance. Even headmasters feel annoyed if teachers use ABL just to hide their weaknesses. Many times our headmaster recommends lecturing if he/she feels unsatisfied with some of
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
the teachers not able to engage students meaningfully in an activity (Bashir, Middle School teacher).
Headmaster out of their own professional awareness recommend teaching through visible instructional discourses. Practising ABL needs a proper support system within and outside school. Teachers asserted that there is lack of proper coordination within LEAP schools. As reported, some teachers use ABL to get rid of their routine responsibilities. If they claim to teach through ABL, proper mechanism should be put into place to evaluate if the desired objectives have been achieved. Such as whether the herbs have been collected. Or whether students have learned the expected skills of collecting the wild herbs. The first one is easy, but the second one is difficult to assess. Therefore, controls over evaluation of pedagogic transmission and teacher performance are recommended by teachers themselves. Such opinions about control over teacher behaviour in LEAP contexts are conditioned by disinterested and negative attitude of some of the teachers.
Theorising ABL as ‘Pedagogy for its own Sake’
This discussion highlights two important ways through which reference to
‘outcomes’ is invoked within rural LEAP schools, pushing teachers for a much demanded pedagogic recontextualisation (Sriprakash, 2010). With the growing examination focused orientation of educational institution and the job markets surrounding them, competence based indirect teaching strategies are becoming lesser and lesser appealing to teachers. Teachers want their students to be happy learners as well as academically enabled competitors. As this discussion illustrates, teachers are expected to handle such a quagmire, at a very personal level in their livid encounters in classrooms, which results into fundamental disjunctions between what is enshrined in the LEAP policy and what is done in reality (Harley et al., 2000). Firstly, teacher’s imagining of legitimate professional identity within the rural cultural milieu is shaped largely by the ability to enhance student’s reading and writing skills (see Batra, 2014). Secondly, ambivalence about ‘expected zones of contentment’ in ABL renders ABL more unsatisfying for teachers. Deep inside, teachers have been experiencing a sense of estrangement, as both old and new
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
methods lead to equally unsatisfying state of affairs (McPhail, 2015; Sriprakash, 2010; Barrett, 2007). From the progressive point of view, teaching is a facilitation process with teacher’s ‘zones of contentment’ lying within the happiness and joyful experiences of students (Fox, 2003). With an uncanny convergence, neoliberal and conventional pedagogic practices locate teacher’s satisfaction is students’ academic achievement. This results into a predicament for teachers who consider ABL as a pedagogy which is intrinsically good, but is immediately not demanded due to prevalent neoliberal examination setup and the educationally backward rural conditions. A range of baffling professional demands, insecurities and anxieties shape teachers understanding of ABL as ‘pedagogy for its own sake’. Though, relying directly on much needed basic learning targets gives teachers more certain and clear focus, but at the same time generating a troubling sense of professional estrangement. As per teachers, practice of ABL seems to be a counterstroke to favoured learning practices by parents, of which “mugging up” is a pragmatic indicative (Gilbertson, 2019). Student’s poor performance in basic literacy skills and knowledge motivates teachers to exercise direct teaching strategies in LEAP schools. This can be analysed in relation to Bernstein’s understanding of pedagogic pellet, the latter is a situation where teachers mix techniques from competing pedagogic approaches. This quagmire faced by teacher’s results into a situation of pedagogic eclecticism, defying extreme polarisation of pedagogic discourse as either completely child centric or teacher centric.
Recontextualising the ABL
The study was motivated to explore the contextual priorities and problems at the grassroot level constraining pedagogic change and the manner in which such constraints are influencing teacher’s beliefs about ABL. Our findings contribute to an understanding of teachers as critical policy actors, who pro-actively negotiate balance between official framework and street level enactment (Wilinski &
Vellanki, 2020) Empirically informed analysis of teacher’s reflexive understanding of relevance of ABL remains very critical in shaping future policy discourse in India (Sriprakash, 2009). Barrett (2007), argues that in the context of economic
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
scarcity, Tanzanian primary school teachers opine that performance modes of pedagogic control to be more effective in achieving quality improvements in learning outcomes. Johnson et al. (2000), argued that teacher’s prudence and sagaciousness are best judges in deciding the efficacy of a methods within a particular situation and cultural context. So, in order to equip their students with sufficient resources for sitting in a board examination and competing with private school kids, teachers might make their teaching more performance focused. ABL also doesn’t fit well into the scheme of parental expectations about good teaching.
For parents, good teaching is characterised by discipline, memorisation and reading
& writing based homework. Parents expect their kids to perform well in the State level board of school examinations. Such performance is depends largely upon the ability to memorise a lot of information, therefore, performance modes of teaching is encouraged by parents from very elementary level (Sripraksh, 2012: 2). Many unfavourable conditions, such as poor parental support, lack of effective school management and small teacher student ratio continuously push teachers to organise teaching based on performance modes. Besides some locally emergent challenges (Carney 2008), educational backwardness of children, private school competition and performance focused examination systems also act as pulling forces towards application of performance modes of teaching. If these conditions are effectively mitigated, practice of ABL will become more feasible. Teacher’s believed that attainment of basic literacy and numeracy skills is an essential requirement for experimenting with competence based pedagogies. Therefore, teachers negotiated a balance between by mixing old and new forms of teaching while engaging themselves with LEAP corners. However, teachers opined that competence modes of teaching are more favourable as they enrich democratic values within the classroom and enable students to best of their abilities.
In the interview data above, we have tried to develop a counter narrative to the dominant regime of pedagogic ‘best practice’-ABL. We highlight the feelings of incertitude and dubitation experienced by some teachers engaged in LEAP schools with regards to the aptness of ABL in dealing effectively with the growing demand for outcomes implicated due to different reasons. This ambivalence has shaped
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
teachers beliefs about ABL as ‘pedagogy for its own sake’, disparaging its utility in helping teachers to cope up with the imperative of being relevant in immediate context. The feeling of ABL as ‘Pedagogy for its own sake’ reflects the micro-level appropriation of pedagogic change and the manner in which LEAP policy comes to be construed by teachers in the context of their daily work. This study highlights the fact that a ridged polarisation of ‘pedagogic controls’ as child entered and teacher centred may abnegate the value of repertoire of knowledge and experience possessed by teachers working within a particular context (Sriprakash, 2010;
Vavrus, 2009; Johnson et al., 2000). Employing invisible pedagogic control pre- supposes a certain degree of pre-school learning, the situation of learning lag encourages teachers to focus more on teaching of basic learning requirements. This in turn, though unwittingly, highlights the pre-occupation of teachers with the idea that teaching must be a productive enactment yielding tangible results. As a counterstroke to such pre-occupation ABL comes with perplexing pedagogic framework, baffling teachers about the uncertain corollaries and contentment zones. These construed problems with the practice of ABL are used to justify visible controls over pedagogic transactions. Construction of ABL as ‘pedagogy for its own sake’ acts as a regulative discourse at the bottom most tier of curricular enactment.
CONCLUSION
There are three underlying points made in this discussion. Firstly, it is argued that performativity doesn’t always follow from neoliberal educational regimes, such as accountability and testing regimes. As illustrated, teaching for outcomes was enacted in rural conditions in order enhance basic literacy and numeracy skills of children, as such skills are highly valued in rural setup.
Secondly, policies are not implemented uncritically by teachers, as “street level bureaucrats”, rural teachers in the periphery engage in proactive ‘pick and choose’
practice to appropriate policies of pedagogic change in immediate context (Wu, 2018). Anthropologically, policy implementation involves a complex interplay of
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
human agency and cultural context. The disjunction between official LEAP framework and its realistic enactment points to a critical consideration of the different forces shaping how teachers enact policy. Policies should not takes away from teachers, freedom and opportunity to adopt desired practices in a given situation (Batra, 2005).
Thirdly, trying to reconceptualise various progressive ideas of pedagogy into Indian educational realities, we have suffered due a very endemic problem of Indian academia, which is, adopting concepts and theories from west and applying them in Indian context without looking at the complexities of the ground level. Indian school education conditions are characterised by a mindboggling diversities in terms of culture and locally specific systemic problems (Bawane, 2019). In order to be genuinely effective, we need to pick up challenges faced by teachers at the grass root level and recalibrate them with developments in pedagogic theory in national and international academic discourses (Niesz & Ryan, 2018). Recognising critical narratives about ABL could result into a more realistic comprehension of pedagogic transformations needed in Indian government schools (Sriprakash, 2011). Devaluing teachers’ experiences and most testified methods of teaching, the idea of ABL seems to have turned into an ‘uncritical critical pedagogy’, just another increment to the series of ‘impositions from above’ (author, 2020). The process of inadequately borrowing of ABL pedagogy as a ‘one-size-fits-all’, decontextualized
‘best practice’ turns into an unexpected alienation to teacher folk and impeding them from dealing with real time and locally relevant challenges (Brinkmann, 2015).
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Quality Assurance in Education
REFERENCES
ASER, (2016). Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2016. Retrieved from:
http://img.asercentre.org/docs/Publications/ASER%20Reports/ASER%202016/aser_2016.pdf ASER, (2017). Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2017.
http://img.asercentre.org/docs/ASER%202018/Release%20Material/schoolreportcardenglish.pdf Author & Author (2018). (Details removed for peer review).
Author, (2021). details removed for peer review]
Barrett, A. M. (2007). Beyond the polarization of pedagogy: Models of classroom practice in Tanzanian primary schools. Comparative education, 43(2), 273-294.
Batra, P. (2005). Voice and Agency of Teachers: Missing Link in National Curriculum Framework 2005. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(40), 4347-4356.S
Batra, P. (2014). Problematising teacher education practice in India: Developing a research agenda. Education as change, 18(sup1), S5-S18.
Batra, P. (2017). Quality of education and the poor: Constraints on learning. In A companion to research in teacher education (pp. 417-433). Springer, Singapore.
Bawane, J. (2019). Paradoxes in Teacher Education: Voices from the Indian Context. In Teaching and Teacher Education (pp. 49-70). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Bernstein, B. (1975). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity (revised edition). Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity: Theory, research, critique (Vol. 5).
Rowman & Littlefield.
Braun, A. & Maguire, M. (2018): Doing without believing – enacting policy in the English primary school. Critical Studies in Education, 61(4), 433-447.
Brinkmann, S. (2015). Learner-centred education reforms in India: The missing piece of teachers’
beliefs. Policy Futures in Education 13(3): 342–359.
Brodie, K., Lelliott, A. & Davis, H. (2002). Forms and substance in learner-centred teaching:
teachers’ take-up from an in-service programme in South Africa. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(5), 541–559.
Brooks, J. S., Hughes, R. M., & Brooks, M. C. (2008). Fear and trembling in the American high school: Educational reform and teacher alienation. Educational Policy, 22(1), 45-62.
Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Ball, S. (2015). ‘Where you stand depends on where you sit’: The social construction of policy enactments in the (English) secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of education, 36(4), 485-499.
Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., Braun, A., & Hoskins, K. (2011). Policy actors: Doing policy work in schools. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 32(4), 625-639.
Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods. Oxford university press.
Carney, S. (2008). Learner-centred pedagogy in Tibet: International education reform in a local context. Comparative Education, 44 (1), 39–55.
Crozier, G., & Davies, J. (2007). Hard to reach parents or hard to reach schools? A discussion of home—school relations, with particular reference to Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents. British educational research journal, 33(3), 295-313.
Department of Education, Anantnag. (2010). Vision Document, Department of Education, District Anantnag (2010-2020). Srinagar: Department of Education, Anantnag.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2248653
Di Biase, R. (2019). Active Learning Reform in the Maldives: What Works for Whom under What Circumstances. In Teaching and Teacher Education (pp. 175-197). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Froerer, P. (2015). Adivasi young people and the risk of education in rural Chhattisgarh. South Asian History and Culture, 6(3), 365-379.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
