related paper - Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Mainstreaming the Practices of Innovative
Teachers
Vijaya Sherry Chand
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 5

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
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Mainstreaming the Practices of Innovative Teachers
Managing Decentralized Professional Development in Public Schooling
Vijaya Sherry Chand, Indian Institute of Management, India
Abstract: The formal state-run (public) schooling system in developing countries depends on a centrally-driven approach
to the professional development of its teacher workforce. The culture which underpins this approach is defined by hierarchy,
centralized control of training delivery, an ethos which facilitates a downward ‘cascading’ transmission of expertise by
knowledgeable authorities, and an assumed uniformity of training needs. This culture hinders the abstraction and processing
of relevant and effective practices from the grassroots, resulting in the system’s inability to learn from the strengths within.
An alternative culture that values peer-learning, sharing of experiences, validation of outstanding practices and development
of learning material for use by decentralized professional forums will promote key principles like self-learning, applying
external practices to one’s own problems and monitoring self-development. This paper has outlined an “educational innovation
bank” (EI Bank) initiative, drawing on processual theories of innovation that identify specific types of networks for
the three “episodes” of innovation: design and development, diffusion and implementation, and the related knowledge
transformation that is called for. The establishment of the EI Bank combines the social construction of knowledge by decentralized
networks with knowledge objectification in the diffusion episode, through a process of screening and validating innovations
and converting them into user-friendly products like case studies, a curriculum module and an open-access,
searchable database of teachers’ practices. The use of the EI Bank calls for a return to local user-networks to adapt the
objectified ideas in new contexts. Such an alternative approach demands that educational administrators perform three
tasks—develop a learner-focused perspective, convert validated local knowledge into ‘products’ through appropriate networks,
and undertake “policy entrepreneurship”—if they are to develop a culture of decentralized professional development.
Keywords: Culture of Decentralization, Professional Development, Educational Innovations
THE FORMAL STATE-RUN (public)
schooling system in developing countries
depends on a centrally-driven approach to
the professional development of its teacher
workforce. The culture which underpins this approach
is defined by hierarchy, centralized control
of training delivery, an ethos which facilitates a
downward ‘cascading’ transmission of expertise by
knowledgeable authorities, and an assumed uniformity
of training needs. This culture hinders the abstraction
and processing of relevant and effective practices
from the grassroots, resulting in the system’s inability
to learn from the strengths within. An alternative
culture that values peer-learning, sharing of experiences,
validation of outstanding practices and development
of learning material for use by decentralized
professional forums will promote key principles like
self-learning, applying external practices to one’s
own problems and monitoring self-development.
This paper has outlined an “educational innovation
bank” (EI Bank) initiative, drawing on processual
theories of innovation that identify specific types of
networks for the three “episodes” of innovation:
design and development, diffusion and implementation,
and the related knowledge transformation that
is called for. The establishment of the EI Bank
combines the social construction of knowledge by
decentralized networks with knowledge objectification
in the diffusion episode, through a process of
screening and validating innovations and converting
them into user-friendly products like case studies, a
curriculum module and an open-access, searchable
database of teachers’ practices. The use of the EI
Bank calls for a return to local user-networks to adapt
the objectified ideas in new contexts. Such an alternative
approach demands that educational administrators
perform three tasks—develop a learner-focused
perspective, convert validated local knowledge into
‘products’ through appropriate networks, and undertake
“policy entrepreneurship”—if they are to develop
a culture of decentralized professional development.
The context for this paper is the professional development
of teachers working in large formal staterun
(public) schooling systems in developing countries
like India. The approach to in-service teacher
development in such systems has usually relied on
top-down hierarchical delivery of training inputs in
a ‘cascade’ mode. Some key assumptions made by
such an approach are an assumed uniformity of
training needs and a ‘deficit’ reduction model of development
which does not recognize the knowledge
and practices of the teachers themselves. The cascade
model—in spite of its limitations (Shaeffer 1993),
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6, NUMBER 5, 2006
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18
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
and its well known drawbacks like ‘transmission
loss’ and distortion of the message as it filters down
to successively lower levels in the hierarchy of
training—is popular on account of the reach it
provides (Chand and Amin-Choudhury 2004: 49-
50). However, the culture that underpins this model
does not encourage the abstraction of relevant and
effective practices from the grassroots, ultimately
resulting in the system’s inability to develop a
learning culture within itself. Alternatives that value
peer-learning, sharing of experiences, validation of
outstanding practices and development of learning
material for use by teachers themselves, may be
placed at the other end of the spectrum of teacher
development approaches. But if public systems are
to develop a learning culture that builds on these
elements, they need to develop competence in combining
top-down approaches with participatory
learning methodologies (ibid.: 25-28) and learn to
promote a “network space for teacher development”
(Chand and Amin-Choudhury 2005: 286-288). This
paper is concerned with the latter imperative. We
first describe the concept of an “educational innovation
bank” (EI Bank)—a clearing house for the work
of outstanding primary school teachers in the public
schooling system—and its implementation over a
two and a half year period (2003-06). 1 We then apply
theories that link innovation, knowledge and networking,
to draw implications for the use of the model by
administrators in the public system.
A Clearinghouse for Educational
Innovations
The clearinghouse concept is built on an alternative
teacher development philosophy that seeks to draw
on the best practices among teachers working in
state-run and funded primary schools. It was conceptualized
as a network of (a) outstanding teachers who
have implemented innovations with their own resources
in order to overcome specific problems
primarily concerned with classroom instructional
quality, out-of-school learning among children, retaining
children in school, enabling access to
schooling for all children; (b) users most likely to
benefit from these innovations (teachers working in
state rural schools, teacher training institutions and
educational administrators); (c) other interested
stakeholders like policy makers.
The development of the EI Bank involves scouting
out, and validation, of educational innovations
evolved by outstanding teachers, and making them
available in usable forms to other stakeholders. The
EI Bank thus aims at offering an alternative solutionaugmenting
teacher development approach, which
can be spread and implemented by policy implementers
and teacher training institutions in their own
contexts. For the purposes of developing this EI
Bank, an innovation was defined as an educational
practice (method, learning tool or aid, or set of actions)
which has actually been tried in practice and
has achieved certain educational goals that the
teacher set in his or her specific socio-economic
context. That is, an innovation should have had the
following characteristics: a novel and/or unique response
to a problem or need; a stage of initial development
by the teacher, followed by a stage of trial
and monitoring (implementation); an evaluation,
followed by continuation or modification; and finally,
a set of results. ‘Effectiveness’ is understood to mean
that the innovation has resulted in identifiable positive
improvement in line with the educational objectives
of the teacher. The specific criteria that have
been used to characterize innovations for purposes
of screening or rating have been: the novelty and
uniqueness dimensions, the context in which the
activity was undertaken (community/school background),
the scope of any single activity in terms of
number of educational aspects affected/ number of
children who benefited, and the spread-effect of the
innovation. This understanding of educational innovation
conforms to the general understanding of innovation
in literature (for instance, Rogers 1995;
Carayannis et al. 2003).
Preliminary Search for Innovations
This crucial first step involved the following: the
drafting of an announcement and its dissemination
through official channels; contacting teacher associations,
non-governmental organizations and departmental
functionaries for nominations; and the polling
of colleges of education and teacher training institutions.
The announcement described the purpose of
the exercise, the conditions that teachers should have
fulfilled (innovated on their own, developed their
own ideas, problem solving, and achievement of
educational goals), the guidelines/ format for writing
up one’s work, and the procedures for screening.
‘Partners’—interested individuals, teacher trainers
or bureaucrats—were also involved at this stage so
that the initial rudimentary networks that emerged
had some non-teacher participation as well.
Screening of Innovations
This time-consuming step involved the study of the
teachers’ written accounts for academic value and
1 The EI Bank initiative, over the period 2003-06, has dealt with about 2400 innovative teachers. The work of 120 of these teachers has
been converted into case studies, available in printed form as well on CDs. Summaries of the work of these teachers, and other short-listed
teachers, are being organized in the form of a searchable electronic database.

VIJAYA SHERRY CHAND
19
teacher training potential. This was undertaken with
the help of teacher experts/ outstanding teachers. The
process of validation which followed used two approaches:
teacher workshops during which peerquestioning
helped a teacher refine and finalize her
work, and visits by partners or outstanding teachers
to the teacher sites for verification and further discussions.
The validation process ended with seeking the
written ‘prior informed consent’ of the innovative
teacher for further dissemination of the innovation,
and the agreement of the teacher to participate in the
EI Bank. This ensured that the innovation was identified
as the intellectual property of the teacher and
that the ethical credibility of the project was assured,
from the point of view of use of the project’s outputs
by external stakeholders.
Processing of Identified Innovations
This step involved the conversion of the results of
the screening into teacher and trainer usable
“products”—outputs like printed case studies or webdocuments
that can be searched for solutions to particular
problems. The initial focus has been on the
printed form since the infrastructure needed for the
multi-media format has still to be developed in many
parts of the country. A searchable database is under
development and has been used on a trial basis by
teacher administrators. The key lesson indicated by
the feedback (as of April 2006) is that administrators
have realized that there are powerful and alternative
modes of learning from teachers. (The sample database
is available at www.sristi.org/rjmc. Two examples
are summarised in an appendix to this paper
to give readers an idea of the nature of the innovations.)
Dissemination of the Products to
Stakeholders and Monitoring the
Development of the ‘Network’
This involves the sharing of the products and the
monitoring of their use. Apart from the series of case
studies—some of which have been serialized in
teacher newsletters—the work of 120 teachers has
been compiled into two yearbooks. The first was
brought out in 2005; the second volume will be released
in mid-2006. A parallel initiative has been the
development of a “curriculum module” for educational
administrators on how local knowledge can be
networked and spread through the approach outlined
above. This module was used for the first time in
March 2006; the feedback highlights the importance
of using easily understandable terms like “bank” to
anchor the concept of networking local knowledge
and to develop ‘user-friendly products’ which are
easy to apply in one’s own context.
Honouring Teachers: The Idea of a
Fellowship
One way of honouring the most outstanding teachers
(about 60 every year) is through a conference where
they get a chance to present their work and learn
from other teachers. The first two such meets were
held in December 2004 and December 2005. A
second mechanism has been a modest fellowship or
grant to help teachers complete incomplete innovative
work.
We now turn to a discussion of the experience of
this project’s implementation from the perspective
of developing a network space for teacher development
at the cutting edge of educational delivery, and
linking it with the role that educational administrators
and policy makers higher up in the hierarchy, can
play in moving towards a more ‘bottom-up’ culture
of professional development in a public system.
Discussion
A model of teacher-driven capacity building mechanisms
was outlined in Chand, Shukla and Solanki
(1998: 24-25). This model is supportive of the conceptualization
of the EI Bank described above, moves
away from a focus on the psychological attributes
of good and successful teachers, and builds on the
“local knowledge” such teachers have generated.
This paper does not deal with the initial stages
through which the teacher-contributors to the EI
Bank have passed while developing their innovations.
During this period, the role of tacit knowledge (Polanyi
1983) is crucial, especially when teachers have
had to struggle with their socio-economically and
educationally disadvantaged contexts. Tacit knowledge
comes to the fore when a firm’s personnel—in
this case, teachers—face some problem (Nonaka and
Takeuchi 1995). Using this to develop ‘solution
knowledge’ (Saemundsson 2004), is a crucial initial
achievement. Saemundsson, in the context of ‘technical
knowledge’, identifies three domains in which
such knowledge operates: knowledge of human goals
and aspirations (since artefacts are logically related
to these), the interaction between the natural world
and the artefacts, and methods to “use the artificial
world”. Knowledge in all three domains can be explicit
or tacit. He identifies knowledge in the first
domain as “problem knowledge” and knowledge in
the other two as “solution knowledge”. The knowledge
that teachers develop in response to their concrete
contexts may be equated with technical knowledge;
(see Chand, Amin-Choudhury, and Joshi 2005
for a range of solutions, including teaching-learning
material artefacts and the technical interventions,
developed by the teachers). More specifically, the
‘solution knowledge’ thus developed has resulted in
the teachers’ adopting a variety of new roles—roles

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
for which their pre-service training does not usually
prepare them.
These roles, which focus on extra-school and
community-related activities, constitute a “socioeducational
entrepreneurial” identity which the
teachers create for themselves. Chand and Amin-
Choudhury (2006, forthcoming) examine how this
process of redefining a formal professional role to
include extra-school roles and behaviours takes
place. 2 Such identity formation is accompanied by
the development of local, teacher-initiated, community
networks. These in turn communicate community
expectations to the teachers, who usually respond
by working out a broader vision of educational
development. The teachers then command the respect
of the local community and develop a certain ‘moral
authority’ which helps them improve educational
performance.
What has been noted above summarizes the personal
development process that the teachers who are
contributors to the EI Bank have gone through. The
contributors to the EI Bank should be termed “expert”
teachers, who may or may not be “experienced”
(Day 1999). Day’s distinction between expertise and
experience is relevant because some users of the EI
Bank may have reached an advanced stage in their
careers and may benefit from reflecting on the fit
between what they have experienced themselves and
practices learned from elsewhere. Thus, the innovations
of the selected teachers should highlight the
interplay between the teachers’ life histories, their
own development, their classroom settings and the
broader social and political contexts in which they
work—leading to an understanding of how such
teachers have constructed their personal and professional
identities in order to develop educational
knowledge. The teacher users of the products of the
EI Bank have highlighted this dimension as helpful
in promoting their own reflective practice.
The process of bringing together teachers who
have used their ‘solution knowledge’ for problem
solving is itself critical, from the point of view of
integrating the three forms of teacher learning—natural/evolutionary,
opportunistic, and planned or accelerated—recommended
by Day (1999). This integration
is possible only when a “learner-focused perspective”
(in contrast to a training-focused perspective)
is adopted. In other words, teachers learn from
their own educational experiences (when their life
histories evolve) and by solving problems through
a trial-and-error process (opportunistic learning).
These experiences are of value when a community
of teachers is forced to accelerate its learning. The
valorisation of teachers’ knowledge and reflective
learning implied by this perspective also supports
recent emphasis on self-driven, lifelong learning
approaches to teacher development. The first task
for educational administrators is, therefore, developing
an appreciation of this perspective of ‘learning
from the grassroots’, so that they are able to promote
a more bottom-up culture in their training bureaucracies.
An associated impact of ‘organizing’ teachers who
have used their ‘solution knowledge’ has been the
extension of local teacher-driven networks into a
broader network that includes fellow professionals.
Chand and Amin-Choudhury (2005) discuss how
individual innovation has been usually confined to
the “closed individual cycle” of teacher development,
with the knowledge that the teachers have gained
remaining “embodied” (Huberman 2001: 144) in the
individual. Extending this to the “open collective
cycle” identified by Huberman (2001: 149-156) as
an alternative teacher development network, is especially
important in a societal culture that does not
provide teachers with enough opportunity to share
their successes, failures and approaches, or their
struggles at work in geographical isolation, as the
case has been with almost all the contributors to the
EI Bank. Many of them had already moved into the
“open individual cycle” (in which the teacher reaches
outside the classroom) by the time they were identified.
But it is essential to build on this rudimentary
networking experience to shift into the closed collective
cycle (in which the search for solutions is “closer
to a collective enterprise, but one without resources
from outside the group”), and then to the open collective
cycle that relies on networking with more
fluid borders (with the participation of outsider experts),
for the diffusion of local innovations. Participation
of other network stakeholders—non-governmental
actors perhaps—in this open cycle helps legitimise
teacher experiences in a network space
(Goodson 2000). The main facilitators of the shift
(Huberman 2001) are: conceptual inputs, experience
sharing, didactic leads provided by outsiders, pedagogical
analysis, and exchanges. The EI Bank shortens
the cycle by condensing the stage of generating inputs
and experience sharing, and facilitating exchanges
and analysis through workshops and through
the participation of outside experts.
The extension of the knowledge and innovations
of teachers into the “open collective cycle”, as illustrated
by the processing and dissemination stages of
the EI Bank approach described earlier, is the second
key task for administrators. Innovation as a reason
for developing network forms, and the role of networks
in promoting innovations, are well known.
2 Analogous to these behaviours is organizational citizenship performance by individuals (Organ et al. 2006; Van Dyne et al. 1995), through
which individuals exhibit behaviours that are not likely to be formally rewarded or forced upon them, but which ultimately benefit a collective—in
this case, the rural communities which the teachers serve.

VIJAYA SHERRY CHAND
21
Here we specifically use the theoretical model linking
innovation, knowledge and networks, developed by
Swan et al. (2003), to examine how the EI Bank can
be adopted and implemented by educational administrators
working at a regional or national level. Swan
et al. conceptualize innovation as a set of “episodic”
processes, which cover the three stages of design
and development or the “invention episode”, the
spread or the “diffusion episode” and the adoption
of new ideas by others, the “implementation episode”.
These three episodes are not structured linearly
or sequentially; rather, they are to be seen as iterative
and recursive processes. The key insight that Swan
et al. provide is that specific types of networks and
network activities are required during particular
episodes. Innovation, thus, is “reciprocally and systematically
intertwined” with the creation and
maintenance of networks. Such a processual view
of networks sees innovation as flows and combinations
of knowledge and information, which are open
to reshaping. Networking involves “the active search
and development of ideas, knowledge and information
through the creation and articulation of informal
relationships within a context of more formal intraand
inter-organizational structural arrangements”
(ibid.: 681). Thus, networking processes can span
different structures (hierarchies as well as more
loosely-structured units). In summary, roles of networks
vary across episodes; knowledge transformation
(construction, communication and exchange) is
one of the roles of such networks; the processual dimensions
of networks should not be ignored; personal
sense-making and trust-building change as networks
evolve; and different kinds of knowledge have
different implications for the specific roles of networks.
From more local and intra-organizational networking
during the invention episode, the focus shifts to
wider networks for knowledge objectification in the
diffusion episode and then returns to more local
networks in new contexts so that knowledge appropriation
or implementation becomes possible in these
new contexts. During the invention episode, social
construction of knowledge, free and extensive exchange
of ideas interpersonally, and loose interpersonal
structures which crystallize ideas, are important.
Rogers (1995) also stresses the importance of
the “communicated experience” of the immediate
peer circle; the implication is that teachers who are
networked in an invention episode will have more
faith in their partners who have generated the idea.
In the EI Bank initiative, the early stages of teacher
identification and networking, subjecting innovations
to peer scrutiny and the screening procedures used,
served the purpose of the social construction of
‘solution knowledge’. The conferences and fellowships
that were built into the project also helped in
the creation of loose interpersonal structures—evidence
is provided by some of the teachers using the
fellowships they received to try out things their peers
in the face-to-face network had evolved.
In the diffusion episode, commoditization—making
tacit knowledge explicit—is more important.
Diffusion ceases to be dependent on the tacit knowledge
of its creators. The network’s role is thus legitimation
and communication of objectified and
“commodified” knowledge using best practice
methodologies. Networks that communicate also
validate or legitimate. Boundary spanning individuals
or “honest brokers” play an important role at this
stage, and there is a reliance on surrogate indices of
the validity of the knowledge being diffused. This
is the rationale for processing the practices into
printed cases, yearbooks of innovations, and a
searchable database, so that other stakeholders can
access such knowledge through “user-friendly”
formats. The prior informed consents of the teachers
and the role of outside experts in validation also
served to legitimize the knowledge that was converted
into products. Such “network communications”
screen the identified innovations on the basis of
merit and “actors of poor character and judgment,
as well as poorly conceived ideas, are quickly identified
and discredited” (Mintrom and Vergari 1998:
128).
The implementation episode deals with the appropriation
of objectified ideas and adaptation of these
to new local contexts in which the implementation
happens—in other words, the objectified ideas need
to be blended with the tacit knowledge that exists in
the new contexts. The networking processes at this
stage are purposeful and intentional, and the focus
is on exchange of information and resources. The
nature of knowledge transformation at this stage is
best characterized as unpacking knowledge and recombining
it with the local knowledge that exists in
new contexts.
This third episode needs to be visualized carefully
since local knowledge evolved in contexts of socioeducational
deprivation by the creator-teachers has
to be “unpacked” and re-contextualized in new contexts,
and blended with the tacit knowledge that userteachers
in the new contexts possess. The network
relevant to this episode includes a wider cross-section
of stakeholders, including administrators who are
hopefully sensitized to the value of an approach that
‘builds on the strengths within’. Though the EI Bank
has tried out a curriculum module and demonstration
of model to educational administrators, as mechanisms
to communicate this third episode, it may be
more useful, during this episode, to stress the concept
of “policy entrepreneurs”.
Educational administrators usually visualize innovation
in terms of the two broad strategies of educa-

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
tional innovation identified by Westera (2004: 508-
510): substitution and transformation. The substitution
strategy is an incremental approach whereas the
transformational strategy proposes a “dramatic
jump”. Each would ascribe different roles to the way
in which technology-induced innovation has to be
understood. Westera overcomes this simplistic dichotomy
by applying Borgmann’s devices paradigm
(making apparent the relationship between a commodity
and its machinery, for instance, in any device
or educational aid) and the concept of “focal practices”—activities
that call for intrinsic involvement
and strengthen the existential relationship of humans
with the world (Borgmann 1984). He lists four principles
that technology-based educational innovation
can use: ensuring transparent and interactive devices;
stressing products as carriers of meaning; going
beyond efficiency; and paying attention to political
meaning—“life demands a mixed mode of developing
new ideas and preserving former achievements”
(Westera 2004: 516). It is these principles, especially
the last one, that provide the rationale for building
on what the grassroots teacher-craftsmen know, by
using alternative modes of communication in the
diffusion and implementation episodic stages. An
understanding of these principles would also help
administrators integrate teacher workshops with
multiple modes of diffusion—printed matter and
website-based communication, for instance.
Key administrators also need to be involved in all
three episodes since, as Ramesh (2005) points out,
while discussing innovation in bureaucratic systems,
the genesis phase of innovation has not received as
much attention as the implementation phase among
bureaucrats working in public systems. He identifies
‘framing’ an issue (what will be focused on) as important
in understanding innovation in public systems,
and suggests that the innovation should reach
“a wider circle at the genesis or conceptual stage itself
to gain acceptability” (ibid.: 47). Thus, the involvement
of as many administrators as possible at
the invention episode stage would help them frame
the issue of valorising local innovations and knowledge
in the context of wider diffusion and implementation.
It would also help administrators move into
the role of “policy entrepreneurs” (Mintrom and
Vergari 1998), who as actors embedded in policy
networks, will be able to direct the diffusion of innovations
through their “direct and indirect contact
with one another” (ibid.: 128). Playing this role is
essential if bureaucrats committed to change are to
develop a teacher network space and a culture supportive
of decentralized professional development
within their own departments.
This paper has focused on developing a culture
that values a “learner-focused perspective” (in contrast
to a training-focused perspective) and promotes
a “network space for teacher development” in public
educational systems responsible for professional
growth. The “Educational Innovation Bank” (EI
Bank) described here builds on the concept of a
clearinghouse and links the knowledge and innovations
of outstanding teachers with networks that draw
into them potential users of the Bank and other
stakeholders. The implied valorisation of teachers’
knowledge and innovations means that educational
administrators have to learn to ‘learn from the
grassroots’. The paper has drawn on processual theories
of innovation which identify specific types of
networks for the three “episodes” of design and development,
diffusion and implementation, to illustrate
the kinds of knowledge transformation called for.
The establishment of the EI Bank combines the social
construction of knowledge among loose decentralized
networks with knowledge objectification in the diffusion
episode, through a process of screening and
validating innovations, and converting them into
user-friendly products. A second task for administrators
is to link the innovations through broader networks
that involve fellow professionals and nonteacher
experts, so that the design and diffusion
episodes take root. The use of the EI Bank calls for
a return to local networks, but networks of users, in
order to appropriate the legitimised knowledge and
objectified ideas in new contexts. Educational administrators
have to play the role of policy entrepreneurs
during these episodes of extended diffusion and implementation.
These three tasks—developing an appreciation
of a learner-focused perspective, converting
validated local knowledge into ‘products’ through
appropriate networks, and undertaking “policy entrepreneurship”—are
crucial if administrators are to
develop a culture of decentralized professional development.
Acknowledgements
The project on which this paper draws upon was
funded by a grant from the Sir Ratan Tata Trust,
Mumbai, India. The author thanks Ms. Geeta Amin-
Choudhury for coordinating the identification of
teachers and validation of their work.
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Appendix
Ramanlal Soni’s experiment in teaching numbers 1 to 100: While teaching grade one children in the 1970s,
I found they made simple mistakes in writing double-digit numbers. Very often, the order of the numbers was
reversed. For instance, when asked to write 26, the children wrote 62. This problem is peculiar to Indian languages
like Hindi and Gujarati. After reflecting on such mistakes I identified the source of the problem in the attempt
of the children to imitate the spoken form of the number. For instance the number 26, in Gujarati, was called
out six-twenty, implying six and twenty. Since the six was spoken first, the children wrote the six first and then
added the two, to represent the twenty. I changed my pedagogy of teaching numbers. First I taught the children
the tens—10, 20, 30, and so on, up to a hundred. Then I started teaching the units series. I also developed a
system of calling out numbers in Gujarati which followed the pattern of the English language. For instance, 26
would be pronounced twenty and six. By this method I could teach young children to write and read numbers
correctly, in words and figures, in just a 15-day period.
Thakarshi Kunbar’s Birthday Greetings idea: Many of my students were from deprived families engaged
in production of salt. It was difficult for the parents to enrol them in school. I first printed greeting cards. I then
collected the dates of birth of all the children, and sent them greeting cards on their birthdays. Receiving such
a card became an important occasion for the parents, since most of them did not keep track of the birthdays of
their children. The first 500 cards were gifted by the village. Later on, well-off parents supplied the cards to the
school. This practice continues and has served to maintain the good relations between parents and the school.
More importantly, parents of children who are yet to reach school-going age are reminded regularly that “so

24
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME 6
many years are left for enrolment”. This creates a moral pressure on the parents to acknowledge the teacher’s
interest.
About the Author
Dr. Vijaya Sherry Chand
Areas of interest include performance in basic education, management of decentralization in public educational
systems and innovations of teachers.

THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE, CULTURE AND
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
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