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I was recently on a train from Urumqi to Shanghai when I met Teddy, a young architect, in the restaurant car. We fellow Europeans ignored each other for the first day or so, neither wanting to just gravitate to the familiar ‘other backpacker’ when all around there were people and culture to discover. But on a two day train journey, one can meet a lot of people, and time came up for us to chat with one another.

Teddy was very interested in Hunar Ghar and thought he might come out and help us, which I thought a splendid idea. But lots of people think it is a fun idea to come out to India as they live a happy fantasy of challenge and adventure. Teddy however seems to be a man who converts his ideas into reality, because he continued to email me about the idea, eventually say that, if it was ok with us, he would come in March. And so he is coming in March to help build two new classrooms.

I’ve not fully developed his brief yet, but a central idea will be the creation of ‘developed’ classrooms from local materials. This is not a simple challenge. The idea is that the completed classrooms should be of as high a quality as can be achieved using modern materials and equipment, but using the simpler tools that we have to hand. It is a great misconception of developmental thinking that it must use materials such as concrete and steel. These are both expensive, high energy, polluting materials that cannot be maintained as effectively as more local materials.

The challenge is to use materials such as stone, mud and wood to the effect that is required, strong, secure buildings of ergonomically effective design that people can be proud of. And there in lies the problems; poverty, as it were, is not always objective. There are many houses in the UK made from wood, wattle and daub that are strong, secure and highly desirable but in India among certain societies it may be seen that it is the materials used that defines a house as modern and developed, rather than the house itself. In this same manner, it may be more desirable to have a poorly designed building, because that is what other people have and it is desirous to fit in, rather than have that which is actually better.

This situation is not all too dissimilar to the PT which Ash talked about in the previous post. Wrong or right isn’t a concern – what other people are doing is.

Ash has asked me to put a post up, as he can’t connect to the internet just at the moment.

I spoke to him in India yesterday for quite a while, or rather he spoke to me. He was so excited about all the great stuff that was going on that
he had an awful lot to say!

As I touched upon in my previous post, the teachers are really starting to shine. Ash described to me what we used to dream of creating in a school, a school where the children and teachers work together as equals, where everyone finds their work fulfilling and finds it its own source of motivation, where people get together and have useful, sensible discussions about what is going on at the school, which parts need attention and how they can make it better. A place where people are always looking for ways to further improve what is happening there, a place they feel proud of, can feel proud of themselves and feel like when they are working harder for the school, they are actually working harder for themselves. It seems that we are now a long, long way down the road to Hunar Ghar being like that, and we’re really very very happy about that indeed!

Ash and I set out 4 years ago to design a charity that is always redesigning itself, which can act as a space for all people concerned to
develop their greater potential and in doing so create space for people around them to do the same. Running the charity itself is one way it has allowed Ash and I to use more of our potentials, we can definitely see it in the children and the teachers too, but now the teachers are really seeing that increase in their potential too, and are working to expand upon that which is tremendous.

Hunar Ghar is not in a special village and it doesn’t have special people (ok, they are special to us, but you know what I mean ). Everyone involved are just regular people. These are the people that are described as primitive and backward, they are the poor and destitute masses, the poverty stricken third-world that apparently has no hope in life unless helped by the developed people. Yes, we have helped them, but we haven’t done it all for them as aid and development charities typically do. We’ve created a space for them to do things in and trusted in them as decent responsible people who know better what they need for themselves than we as outsiders do. We’ve helped them try again when it has gotten hard, and supported them through the process as people that we care about and that matter. Now that process is underway it will become more and more self-fulfilling and the importance of us will be come less and less, which is the key to sustainability. All the times when it’s looked too difficult and too dire, and we maybe slipped into doubting ourselves momentarily, are now long in the distance as the people of Hunar Ghar have show to us what they are capable of.

And this is what everyone is capable of and it is what schools normally deny them through forcing them to become dependent on teachers, and teaching all the wrong work ethic values, teaching and development that is focused around the ends and completely neglecting the means. It’s what development agencies take away from people by managing everything for them, making all the decisions and controlling everything. Schools and charities typically take space away from people by dictating to them how to behave and what to learn, but supported space is exactly what people need to find their own boundaries and find their own sense of responsibility. Just as it has been incredibly important for the development of Hunar Ghar that Ash and I have been away from there for long periods, as well as there, so in schools, and work, and society people need the opportunity to learn-self control, self-ability in a forgiving environment.

This last week has been good for me and my idealism. I find it pretty hard to ease up on things that I believe in sometimes, and believe no-one should have to compromise on something important which they know to be correct. This manner I really value in its generation of passion and self-determination, but I am also aware it can be alienating when it comes to actually achieving the ideal.

This week I’ve come to better understand how I can temper my idealism into constructive compromises. It was the illustrious Buddha who advocated the middle path and I’m starting to (conditionally) agree with him(!). Taking our community as an example, unless we create conditions that are value to them, whether rightly or wrongly in my opinion, it makes the position an artificial one (not to mention ethically inappropriate) and any progress from that point harder; we’ll be wanting to carry Hunar Ghar one way towards our ideal and they the other back to the condition they consider to be of value.

This week the issue has revolved around the three R’s and examination. This is what government schools offer, that is the only type of education the community has been exposed to and therefore it is the definition of education to them, and by inference what it means to be educated, and thus is what they demand. We don’t neglect the three R’s – many of our children read and write better than children from the local government school (it’s a very crude comparison, and shouldn’t be use as a measure of relative worth between the two schools or types of teaching) – and I also value them for what opportunities they give to the children as much as the community does, but we don’t do it in the way government schools do it, so we can say that the way things are perceived is important irrespective of the outcome, and we haven’t yet provided exams for the children. This the community are unhappy about.

The three R’s

The three R’s are most important skills. As skills in themselves they enable such things as participation in democratic processes, access to information concerning the develop in a community, access to the evaluation of that information, the capability to earn higher wages, and reduce exploitation through ignorance, such as a doctor giving a glucose injection instead of a proper drug, or overcharging happening in the market place. For them to cause a genuine net increase in a person’s capabilities, such is the aim of education, they must not compromise those pre-existing in a person and the process of their acquisition must not damage those capabilities and skills, or the person’s ability to gain new ones beyond those prescribed by the syllabus. Unfortunately this is what the government style education tends to do in rural areas, which is why it is so important for us to enable the community to gain insight into this perspective, so we can better serve them, and they can demand more of the education system.

Examination

I am against examinations; it sets the wrong tone for what learning should be about, narrows the focus of the process to things children will be examined on, creates competition between the intellects of the children and creates a situation where children have either passed or failed in their learning process – both of which are impossible in true learning. We are in a position to write our own evaluation/examination process up to children of Class 5 standard. Ash and I had a long discussion about providing 5th grade certification to parents. I was against it, and still am, even if we make the evaluation an on-going background process where the children don’t know they are being examined and include in the evaluation things other than the usual, such as confidence, ability to talk, listen, share etc. I don’t think it is right to quantify such characteristics, and I am afraid of the need to reach a certain level by a certain time (the time factor will be imposed from the community and teachers because of the expectations set by government and private schools) in a certain area may distort a more natural and favourable learning process. I do see the value of having a clear understanding of how each of our children are getting on in their learning and identifying where they may require additional support in certain areas to make them better able to enhance their learning, such as being able to read well enough to see new ideas and information from books. As well as this, clear marker points of progress for the teachers will help them feel more comfortable and that they are achieving, and the community demands it of us.

A school like Hunar Ghar requires education of the entire community to reassess their judgement of quality and necessity in learning in order for it to function as it is designed to do – learning is a conversation between learners, facilitators, and the community and to neglect one aspect would be to undermine the entire process. The process we are going through is a constant one of nudging the teaching/learning in Hunar Ghar in the direction of our ideal while simultaneously nudging the community perception of that process so it can exist in an environment that is conducive to its propagation, so it can again be nudged up a notch and so forth. I really consider the precedence that certain actions can set, which is why I am against having any kind of certification provision at Hunar Ghar; it may regress the perception of what Hunar Ghar is and so stunt its growth. On the other hand it sends a really clear message to the community that we have listened and are responding to their concerns. With the support that creates we’d be in a better position of trust and understanding to keep pushing how Hunar Ghar operates and moving towards the ideal. That we can create our own evaluative process is a great bonus meaning the compromise towards the unwanted need not be quite so far back as it would otherwise have been.

So long as it is kept in mind that the middle road is only the middle road while the old opinion exists, so that we keep cutting new trails ever closer to the ideal, a compromise – as a step forwards rather than a set situation – can be a very good thing. To wit, not compromising my ideals could be to critically, if not terminally, compromise them.

The assembly of Hunar Ghar concept has involved a lot of looking outward for inspiration and in order to learn from the successes and failures of others, but the last few days have offered the opportunity to go back to Bakhel and get back to what it’s really all about- working with the villagers and the children and I’ve got to say it feels great!

On Friday the children of 2nd class went off into the village to collect the leaves of different trees that grow in the area and then told me all about how each tree is used, be it for firewood, building a home, fruit, feeding animals, medicine, flower decoration, shade etc…..I’m not sure who enjoyed themselves more, me or them!

On Saturday we had our first training day regarding the new concept of Hunar Ghar and our learning initiators already seem to have grasped the basics of the concept and the potential benefits it offers. They even came up with a set of projects around health as the first projects to be undertaken by the children- there will be 4 groups who will explore and learn about different aspects of health, undertake practical activities and then have a fair at the end to show the villagers about the things they’ve learnt and done. The 4 group’s projects still need a lot of thinking about but roughly:

Group 1- Clean water for health- this group will go to 2 or 3 homes and wells and work to create a model environment for demonstrating principles and techniques for keeping water clean and drinkable.

Group 2- Local medicine- these children will look into simple home based activities that can be performed when someone is ill before taking them to the doctor. They will also look into and grow a herbal medicine garden based around local knowledge and plants.

Groups 3 and 4 will be around animal and crop health respectively and again may involve practical demonstrations of techniques in model homes, or the creation of a play to express what they’ve learnt etc….

It’s all very exciting and I can’t wait to get going with the projects and see the potential of the community unfold!

After all the exciting goings on while Ed was out here, the past few weeks have been a time to step back and really look at our vision, what it is we’re hoping to do with this project and how we can translate theory into reality.

From this period of contemplation is born Hunar Ghar- the home of deep knowledge and skill- roughly.

The idea is simple, small groups of mixed age group children who gather with a facilitator and engage in projects set around village life and resources. Half their time is spent on ongoing projects such as community gardening and helping with solar cooking, while the other half is spent on short term projects- creating a local play, making their own books etc…

Through these projects they discover their own unique talents, while also learning about the world around them, providing service to their community and also picking up language and numeracy skills.

Over time it’s hoped that more and more of the community get involved in these projects- not just children, creating a village learning environment, in which everyone is happy to share knowledge and celebrate the skills that they have.

The plan for how we plan on how this can be done is still in its early stages and inevitably a lot will have to do with adjusting to reality on the ground, but a rough idea of the concept and how we plan on making it happen can be found in the document attached.

Happy reading, and as always, ideas and suggestions would be much appreciated!