It’s very easy to congratulate oneself on what a sterling job one is doing, much harder to honestly see where you are failing to meet commitments and responsibilities. Yesterday Ash and I had a pretty long conversation on the phone, Ash taking the lead on being very clear exactly where we are failing the students and community of Hunar Ghar. It’s not necessary to say we are failing in ourselves, there are certain things that make it difficult do what we want to. The important thing is to be able to look at the situation with objective, scrutinising eyes, identify problems and short-comings, then plan and execute action that will lead to improvement.
One such area is getting basic things right. It was the first day of Hunar Ghar yesterday, after a 6 week holiday, and it was only on Ash’s impetus that new stationary was bought, the rooms cleaned and tidied, new plates and materials purchased for the new students and registers made of children’s names, ages, parents etc. These things that are so so simple to do, but just weren’t done, are not acceptable.
In the early days of Hunar Ghar there was a lot less clarity about what we wanted, we didn’t know how we wanted an ‘informal school’ to be, we probably didn’t know what an informal school was. It was a lot more feeling and theory. Nonetheless, we started on the journey of simultaneously finding out and doing it. Now Ash and I are much clearer about what we want and how to get it, but I think other members of the team still wander in the early, clouded days, mistaking disorganisation for natural democracy and ineptitude for flexibility, too often calling a cock-up a learning opportunity (yes, it is, but still there are certain mistakes that just Should.Not.Happen.) I think it is a common found in other self-professed ‘informal’ institutions, but we want it out.
In retrospect I too have been guilty of it, hoping that by giving people room and support they would grow into their roles. In many ways this has been true, in others it has been the opposite. I am now really stepping up my organisational game to make sure things are as they should be, as Ash and I see them, and establish stronger democratic processes in the management. As it is now, Deepak is the dictator. What he thinks and says, the teachers will do. As he is also the gate keeper to a lot of our resources and exposure trips, again learning and teaching processes are dependent on him. In turn Deepak looks to Ash and I. He will do what he thinks is best until we say something, and then most likely will do that instead. In developing more democratic processes we can work more in a more collaborative sense and have less of the ranking. We don’t want the ranking, but it is there and now we are going to get rid of it.
We also want to sharply improve the quality of the teaching the children get. A shortage of resources and poorly educated teachers means that we aren’t meeting the quality standards that we want. It is an incredibly difficult situation. Even people like Deepak and other so-called educated people, that is, people with Masters’, have severely limited knowledge in certain basic areas, and even greater limitations in being able to appropriately apply and untilise that knowledge. The situation is further complicated by us hoping to have the school function with people from the local area. This may not be a feasible reality though.
What, then, to do? We’ve just hired two Bachelor of Education teachers. It’s not going to fix a lot of things, but hopefully they will have a greater capacity for meeting the basic knowledge requirements of the students, as use this as one of multiple grounding from which we can develop a better learning environment. We are also boosting our library and our resources. Learning, in every experience of it, should stem from two places – action and reality. If our reality is resource scarce, less can stem from reality.
We have spoken many times about the village being resource rich, and indeed it is. But until the time that we can communicate that clearly and the teachers understand it, we will have to go with methods that are more familiar and established with them. Certain things also can only be taught from certain resources – written language is required to read and develop a love of reading – so also in this respect it is important to diversify our resources.
Along with this Ina is going to start taking strong steps to improve our teacher training schedule and exposures. This year we will have 7 classes and 10 teachers, meaning breathing room for proper teacher training. I’ve glimpsed the future of Hunar Ghar, and it is a lot lot better than it is today.
