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Version 20 Oct 08, edited finallabour was viewed by teachers as an important professional goal (Patni, 2006). Asimilar spirit was evident during the heyday of the KSSP movement in Kerala. Theteachers believed that they had a role to play in the propagation of scientific temperand in encouraging science education among children. This also happened inMadhya Pradesh when Eklavya and the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme(HSTP) got the opportunity to work with government school teachers. Sustainedinteraction with Eklavya staff and engagement with science education created anenvironment where teachers were able to identify with the goals of scienceeducation.There are also several instances that demonstrate that when a group of thoughtfuland committed persons are given the opportunity to interact with teachers, workwith them and provide academic support, teachers begin to set their own goals. Thisis evident from the work of a number of organisations.Among the earliest groups to work with teachers was the Homi Bhabha Centre forScience Education (HBCSE), Mumbai. This centre (that grew out of the Tata Instituteof Fundamental Research) began working with the Government of Maharashtra inthe mid-1970s on issues related to teacher-training and curriculum development forscience subjects at both primary and secondary levels. Over a span of 25 years, thesetalented scientists worked on projects in different districts of the state, includingsome of the most remote regions with no facilities. HBCSE’s hands-on, experientialapproach to science education gave teachers the opportunity to understand concepts,teach children and observe their colleagues teach, come together and reflect on whathappened in the classroom. Over a period of time the teachers not only becamesensitive to learning processes but their subject knowledge also improved. This inturn enhanced their self-esteem and confidence. Teachers learnt a lot from each otherand respected each other as professionals (interview with Dr. K. Subramaniam,Mumbai, February 2008).Box 2.5: HBCSE: What we do and how we do it 3⇒ Always start with needs assessment—hands-on and in schools, with teachers.Understand the working conditions of teachers, their subject knowledge andtheir confidence to handle experiments…⇒ Undertake a small project and work through it in order to develop a specificstrategy and plan—this is the key to reflective thinking among trainers andteachers;⇒ Do with teachers what you expect them to do with children—engage them indialogue, enhance confidence, treat them as equals and partners in learning,familiarise them with technical language before you use it and link it witheveryday life;⇒ Organise enrichment sessions so that teachers can link what they do, not onlywith textbooks but with everyday phenomenon—kindle an interest in science;⇒ Use technology like video to enable teachers to view their own teaching andlearn from it; and⇒ Training is just the first step—follow-up with regular interactions in the school,with teachers as a group and encourage them to reach out whenever they wantto. Ensure you introduce systems for affirmation and for support.3 These lessons are distilled from a review of HBCSE documents and discussions with faculty duringMarch and April 2008.26
Version 20 Oct 08, edited finalThe Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme (HSTP) in Madhya Pradesh wasstarted by Kishore Bharati and Friends Rural Centre in 1972 with 16 schools inHoshangabad district and was extended to all middle schools in MP in 1978. Eklavyawas set up in 1982 and it took up a science-teaching programme in 1,000 schools; theprogramme continued for 20 years until the government shut it down in 2002. As theprogramme started taking root it became evident that it could not succeed unless theteachers themselves were convinced about the need for change. This was indeed atall order because school teachers are isolated from the world of knowledge, theworld of enquiry and the world of science. The first challenge faced by HSTP was toencourage teachers to open up, speak out and be uninhibited and natural even in thepresence of their administrative superiors. Teachers’ self-perception as governmentfunctionaries at the bottom of the education ladder coupled with very little exposureto science and mathematics was a big barrier. As in the HBCSE experience, once theprocess was underway and teachers began engaging with the learning process, theirself-esteem and confidence grew and their self-perception changed dramatically(Mukherjee 2007; Science Today December 1977).Box 2.6: What HSTP was confronted with in 1972The HSTP initiative was a response to the challenge posed by the conditions thenprevalent in government schools and which unfortunately continue to be true in largemeasure even today. These may be summarised as:⇒ A school, in a rural area or non-privileged area in towns and cities, is characterisedby the fact that its building is poorly constructed, that it has no library, nolaboratories, no equipment and no facilities. The teaching of science is usually donewithout performing any experiments and comprises a body of received knowledgebeing transmitted to children, validated by the authority of the textbook and of theteacher, who brooks no questioning.⇒ Teachers are often untrained in science. They have no resources and enjoy nosupport from the system. They make no inputs to the curriculum and yet areexpected to be the repositories and source of all knowledge. It is not surprising thenthat they adopt authoritarian modes of teaching.⇒ Children are docile and submissive. This is almost a cultural imperative, one thatdictates that elders have to be respected and their authority is never to bequestioned. There are no rewards for showing initiative and independent enquiryby children is suppressed in the name of maintaining discipline in the class.(Source: Dr. Vijay S. Varma, available at: http://www.icrindia.org/?page_id=52).Subir Shukla, who has been closely associated with teacher developmentprogrammes of the government in DPEP and later with some state governments saidthat a bitter lesson that they learnt in the DPEP days was that there is an attitudinalhierarchy of learning. ‘When we work with teachers, the first attitude that changes isabout himself/herself. When they are able to break out of the low self-image, theyrealise that children are capable of learning. They realise poor children can alsolearn, children from deprived social groups can learn and they also come to believethat girls can learn. Teachers do not always have the emotional security to learn,therefore at each stage we have to give them the inner strength to move to the nextstage. Self-image is critical, it is an issue of identity and when we tell them they donot know teaching they switch off’ (interview with Subir Shukla, July 2008).27
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