Evolution Not Design

I was recently having a long conversation with one of my friends who is also teaching and is generally interested in education and related issues. We talked about Gandhi's Hind Swaraj and it that context he was wondering if by educating the children the way it is now, are we doing more damage. I was desperately trying to convince him that it is not so, that unlike Gandhi that I was fully embracing modernity (though I have to say I have not read Hind Swaraj but I have read a review of it by T.S.Ananthu). I was later wondering about why the essential messages to structure society has always failed throughout history. Messages from Sangam Literature like Purananooru (400 songs about how to live life with regards to the society) or Tirukkural, messages from Plato, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad or later from Marx or Gandhi all seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I find it not surprising.

My thesis, is simple. Human society, like life, has evolved and has not been designed (well, if you are one of those crazies who subscribe to Intelligent Design you would not be reading this post in any case!). It would continue to evolve and cannot be designed. By that I mean that it will take small steps that would be advantageous to it in the short-term. Evolution does not know about the long-term. All these folks tried to prescribe a design and not surprisingly it has not been adopted. On the other hand, if you look at free-market capitalism, it is by nature evolutionary where choices of individual agents make a system. There is no overall design as such. You can see now why it has been readily adopted so widely!

Our cultural evolution has brought us to a stage where we actually employ some design to organize our societies. This might sound contradictory but if you think carefully we could have just blundered into constitutional democracy and found it beneficial. So the contemporary human society finds itself equipped with some possibilities for design.

That said, what are we to do now? Those who are interested in pushing the society in a specific direction can and should do it only in small steps. Evolution has never made radical changes and our societies would also never accept radical changes. Rather than having grand (grandiose?) goals of an utopia let us take small steps to make each individual a thinking and tolerant member of the society.

Coming to education, the focus on education should remain on the individual. If we have a grand design of a society and we build an education system to create such a society, it is bound to fail due to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. So, focus on the individual and hope for the best...

P.S. - I was actually tempted to keep the title as “It is not teleological” but my wife somehow hates that word, especially when I use it....

Wait is over!

The arch is standing! Here is the evidence

Murthy, standing proudly under the Arch he helped build. Guna is getting busy to start on the next one. We actually use only mud and bricks, no cement at all. All construction in Puvidham uses very little cement. Mainly at the foundation level to prevent termites crawling up. Otherwise it is mostly mud. Here you can see Mani and Selva mixing mud with their feet..



Turning to more mundane facts, I spent two blissful hours yesterday evening programming! Yes, now I do programming as a relaxing aside from my stressful day job of teaching. I created a small relational schema to hold information about my students assessments. I can now prepare report card for each student and get them signed from their parents! I used Open Office for this with their HSQL and the forms and reports! Yeah, I can hear some mumble that this ain't no programming... I know I should have used RubyOnRails but with Reliance Wireless Connect as my connectivity to Internet I don't have the bandwidth to download it!

So far this school year i have conducted 9 tests for the 8th class students (poor things!). I showed them the grim outcome today. Only 2 have cleared (35%) all the tests. hmm.... reflects poorly on the teacher, doesn't it?

Now to the real stuff

The class 8th students of Puvidham are now building real arches in their hostel building. I did not know it was so goddamn difficult to build a wall straight. We had to bring down the walls 3 times before we got it right. It is really a lot of skilled work. In any case there was slow progress (5 days) and we now are at the stage of building arches. Thrilling, I must say. But wait till we remove the scaffolding! The process
- Build side walls
- Use bricks as scaffolding
- Use string with radius length like a compass and create scaffolding with mud
- Arrange bricks on top of this platform with mud filling the gaps
- Those who have faith pray and others like me just worry and wait....


Murthy admiring his handiwork....

Ravi and Mani finish their first arch... you can see the scaffolding for the second one next to Ravi..

Arch

Was thrilled with my class in particular and education in general! The class 8th students built an arch with just bricks and stones. No mortar, not even mud!

It was a wholesome educational experience. Meenaksi, our school principal wanted the children to participate in the construction work that is going on for the hostel building. We thought they can build an arch for one of the verandahs, since it is a structurally interesting concept. I downloaded some reading material from wikipedia so that they were aware of the concepts like compression, tension and keystone. Last Saturday we did the initial work in the hostel, laying the founding with rocks and mud. The placing of the rocks to form the basement is a skilled work and it was done by Sabari (who is in class XI now in a government school but is an ex-Puvidham student). We less skilled folks helped in mixing mud, shifting stones and bricks and providing him those materials. But our students also observed how he placed the rocks and jammed them together. We have finished the basement.

I thought may be we should experiment building a small arch before getting to the real thing. I do not know enough about structures and was not sure if we could build one with just bricks. Meenakshi, who is an architect by training, said of course! So we embarked on building an arch. Actually I had no role to play other than explaining the wikipedia article to the children (and also suggesting we could use cycle tires for initial support). Most of them are construction workers children, unlike me who is a child of a college professor and a central government employee! So they knew more about that stuff than me and so I quietly let them do the job.

This arch is such a counter intuitive thing that almost all of them were quite sure that this whole thing will come tumbling down. But voila it didn't! All the students were absolutely thrilled and so was I. I thought I will share this joy with you all...(sorry about the picture quality, it was taken with Nokia 2500 phone camera!)

The amazing piece of architecture.. (the school dome which in itself is cool is in the background)..
And below are the proud architects (left to right Selva, Murthy, Ramesh, Mani, Prashanth, Kalimuthu, sitting under the arch Ravi)

Teacher Man

I am reading this very interesting book Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes). It is autobiographical about his teaching career. I am now in the section where he teaches English to teenagers in a "vocational and technical school" in New York City. The students from this school are working class children and are never meant to go to college. McCourt is hauled up by the guidance counsellor because he encouraged one of the girls to go to college. I quote the guidance counsellor from the book:

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, but you better make sure they have something to grasp. Don't create impossible dreams..."

I pondered about this quote and found it profound even though I am unsure whether I should agree with it. Should teachers be responsible for creating impossible dreams? Should we really make sure they have something to grasp? Who is responsible for possibility? Doesn't impossible dreams create possibility?

As I struggle with a bunch of 8th standard boys (this is their last year in this school and we are trying our best to prepare them for the "mainstream"), the above questions are not academic but existential.

Your thoughts?
I posted this on my M.A.Education forum and one wise man replied to it..I am quoting his reply here
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, the quote is profound. It reminds one of Tsar Nicholas stating that no man should be educated beyond his station or even of Manu when he puts a ban on shudras studying veda, though is couched in more humanitarian terms.

Education is about creating dreams and ability to make those dreams real. This business of creating dreams and requisite abilities is not always very neat, it is mostly messy--dreams running away alone or abilities remaining dormant, etc. Teachers should refrain from playing God and controllers of destiny. They should definitely try to fire imagination and have faith in the basic rationality of the students to create the balance between dreams and capabilities.

While writing all this I am aware the problems unrealisable dreams could cause in terms of the emotional upheavals and happiness of the student. But, we should remember that humans are much more than we can ever estimate them in their abilities and the world is much more unpredictable then we think it is. Therefore, to determine which dreams are realisable and which are not may not be possible for the teachers.

Also, even making "sure that they have something to grasp" involves dreams.

Tightening of screws

It has been more than a month since the new school year started and I am teaching 8th standard (the last class in our school). We in the school have decided this class is going to be the preparatory class for the children to get into 'mainstream' education and I have been given the hatchet job of executing it! This means more academic focus, homework and tests! Not so surprisingly it has been very unpopular at least with some kids (Though, strangely, several of them like competitive tests and are working distinctly harder to get better scores. Nothing so far has motivated them to work on their subjects as effectively as tests!). One kid though seems distinctly unhappy with this change. He was (almost) my star kid last year. His photo appears in an earlier post in my blog. Ravi, the smart(ass) one. He has not been coming since last Friday and I had really thought he was sick. Today I hear news floating around in the campus that he is actually quite ok. So I take my bike and head off to his village (around 3 kms from our school)....

Ravi was in the hostel last year. Both his mother and father were working in Bangalore. Before he was in the hostel, for one year, he used to cook for himself and his younger sister before coming to school. He was impressive last year. He is bright, no doubt and he used to put in reasonable effort. This year he insisted on staying back at home because he and his sister did not like the hostel food. So his mother is now forced to stay with him. Since then he has been very irreregular with his work. Last week at the beginning I had sat down with him to find out why this change. He said he was attending RSS shakas and that was taking up most of his time. I tried dissuading him from attending those shakas and enquired what transpired in them. Not surprisingly the kids were given some 'nippat and pori' (munchies) to eat and were also fed some anti-muslim rhetoric along with it. We had a discussion about how there are no differences between people as such and they are only good and bad (mostly bad :)) etc and he agreed he would not go to the shakas again. I was pleased then, but wondered when he vanished for few days...

I went to his house (a small but pucca house) in the village and the door was partially closed. I peeped inside and here was Ravi spread on a cot and watching TV (colour) at a distance of 2 feet. There was another old woman sitting on the floor watching it too. She was not his mother, who had gone off to work. He came out looking sheepish and when I asked him why he did not come to school, he said he had fallen down from the cycle on Thursday evening and so could not cycle on Friday (it is a tough 3 km ride with ups and downs). Since his friends had Saturdays off, he loafed around on Saturday and since he did not come for two days and could not get a leave letter he did not come on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. When I asked when he planned to actually come to the school, he had no answer.
His mother was back from work by then and she started bawling that how hard she is working so that he goes to school and here he was watching TV. She said that the only way he could get out of her situation is to continue his education. "I am in this state because I did not go to school" (how true this causal analysis is, is not clear). By this time there was a small crowd of old women outside the house (curious about the dapper looking outsider in jeans and t-shirt) and giving their bit to this hapless young fellow. Feeling sorry for him I took him away for a walk and asked him that if he is really interested in coming to school he should come, if not I will not trouble him like this again and let him be. He said he would come tomorrow.
I am hoping he would!

What am I digging at?

“...
Run rabbit run,
Dig that hole
Get the sun
When at last
Your work is done
Don't sit down
Its time to dig another one
...” - Roger Waters



I went with the 8th standard kids to dig mud from a nearby tank bed. We have clay activity in the school where children make things out of clay and we needed mud for that. Our school correspondent drove the tractor and we all sat in the trailor. The aim was to get one load of the trailor. It was back-breaking work and after almost 2 hours of work we decided what we had loaded was enough. While we were digging an old man (in his fifties) came with a bullock cart to fill it with mud. He was digging for a family of potters who live in Adhiyamankottai. When we chatted with him he said he would get 200 Rs a load. I couldn't help wonder, may be it would be better for me to work in Infosys and pay this guy his 200 Rs for the load. By doing his work am I denying him a livelihood opportunity? Since I am trained and capable (hopefully) of doing IT work, should I be doing that instead of digging holes? I was not terribly happy doing IT and I am not terribly happy digging holes? May be I should just twiddle my toes...

An Appeal

I guess most of the readers of this blog know that I have been working as a teacher in Puvidham. This year there has been a sudden surge in the number of children who want to be in the hostel. Last year two girls from a nearby village joined our hostel, and from this village now there are almost 20 kids who want to join too. The parents from this village go to Karnataka to work in stone quarries where there are no schools or facilities to take care of their children while they work. When they heard about a hostel which provides a good environment for their children they have flocked enmasse! We had foreseen this and had already planned to build a new hostel building, but now the needs are immediate. Puvidham has already started constructing the building without any funds! But without money to pay for labor the work has made slow progress, the teachers provide their physical labor whenever time permits. So your assistance would help Puvidham get the hostel constructed. If you are interested in donating for the construction of this building please send me an e-mail (ramchandar.k@gmail.com). I have included the proposal below.

Surabhi

A home for children studying in Puvidham Learning Center

Proposal
– Construction of 3200 sq. ft. of living space for 80 children.

Why a new block ?

• The current space of around 600 sq. ft. is proving to be very inadequate for the 43 children. In the school year 2008-09 there has been an addition of 30 children to the hostel. Due to the collapse of agriculture in this area, parents are migrating to Bangalore in search of work and want to leave behind their children in the hostel. The hostel needs to accommodate totally 80 children and we need additional space for them.

• Currently there is no facility for a study space, place for indoor activities and a facility to wash and dry clothes.

• Since the children sleep in one big room together, there is a need for a separate sick room to prevent infections spreading from one room to another.

• The boys and girls are growing up fast and it is appropriate to have separate buildings for girls and boys.
  Other needs

• Fuel expenditure on firewood for cooking and hot water has been more than 2000 Rs. per month. A long-term sustainable option would be to use the biogas generated from the toilets.

• For hot water a solar heater would be a good alternative solution.

• The electricity supply is erratic. An alternative power supply based on solar energy would be appropriate.

• Open well water is used for drinking purposes. A bore well is more hygienic.

The plan

• A new hostel block with 3200 square feet plinth area. This would give each child 20 sq. ft. of floor space.

• Convert the existing two rooms into a library and a carpentry and toy-making unit. The toy-making unit is currently operating in a makeshift space in the school.

• Fix a biogas digester that would digest the night soil from the toilets and generate fuel for cooking purposes.

• Equip the hostel with a solar water heater that would heat around 500 liters of water.

• Setup electric wiring and fittings that would run on solar power. Solar panels are being donated to Puvidham trust.

• Dig a bore-well and equip it with a hand-pump for pumping drinking water.

The Budget

1. Building Construction (3200 sq. ft @ Rs. 300 per sq ft) - 9,60,000
2. Biogas Digester - 60,000
3. Solar Water Heater (500 litres) - 20,000
4. Bore-well and hand-pump - 40,000
5. Solar Electricity (We have panels, need batteries and fittings) - 20,000

Total - Rs. 11,00,000

Food Crisis!

What should we do?
1. Protest against the farming subsidies provided to the farmers in the first world. Yes this would increase the prices in the interim but would eventually make the markets efficient.
2. Transfer these subsidies to food programs across the poor world especially in Africa.
3. In India, stop subsidising fuel and transfer that savings to poor directly to compensate for the price increase. Food stamps may be?
3. Ethanol, hybrid, electric, hydrogen - nonsense. Just ditch it! Public transport it is. Suburbia out, congested cities in. Higher density, better public transport. Get friendly and use less deodorant.
4. Eat less meat! A vegetarian diet consumes less energy.
5. Ah, finally, stop having children. You will not just have a smaller footprint but would avert a stampede altogether!

Puvidham Photos

Here are some photos of the place where I have been spending time the last few months..

This is the house where I live

This is the school where I work

Settling into a rural rhythm

It has been extremely difficult to do any kind of writing. I have fallen way behind my assignment schedules for my M.A. course and you all know that I have done no blogging. Something to this rural phenomenon that I feel knocked out by 8:30 at night. To keep at least an arms distance from the zillion bugs that have made my home their home too I sleep inside a tent inside my bedroom! It actually makes sense. Mosquito nets are too cumbersome to put on and take off. The tent has netting and it is very easy to handle. Getting back to the sleeping early situation, yes I do wake up early in the morning at around 5. I look around and I see no sun in all its full glory and I pull the sheet tightly over my eyes and sleep for another hour and a half. My beauty sleep is now 10 hours and the effects are showing. Bollywood beckons.

I made some soap with the 7^th standard boys. It is rather simple. You can 200 ml of sodium bicarbonate and mix it with 100 ml of Aloe/Neem extract (grind the neem leaves into a juice and filter it). Soak this mixture for a day and the next day you add 100 gms of gram flour and some fragrance and mix it well into a paste and then shape it into soap bars and let it dry. After a month the soap is ready to use. This would give you around 10 soaps. The children have made almost 70 soaps and they are eager to sell it in the school’s annual fair at 5 Rs per soap. Ready to buy?

What do you do with students who go far beyond the teacher? There is this Ravi (hmm.. I can hear some in the audience sniggering that it is all in the name) who solves puzzles in 10 minutes that took me more than 12 hours and I still could not solve. All teachers except Meenakshi, who has excellent visual sense (she is a trained architect after all), could not solve the puzzles. Ravi is in 7^th and is good in almost all subjects except English. Even English, in a single year he has picked up the entire decoding aspect (making the correct sounds out of the print) but cannot comprehend. He did no schooling for couple of years moving with his family in Bangalore on construction work. He is now in the hostel. We have around 10 to 12 puzzles that we are planning to display as a challenge in our fair. The customers pay Re. 1 for trying it and get back 2 if they solve it. For the difficult ones they get Rs. 20 if they solve in 30 minutes! Ravi is manning that booth.

Ravi - Yes, this is how they come to school everyday!

Lost?

This is a ping post not to let the cynics conclude that all who wonder do get lost. I have shifted locale and am now teaching in a lovely school (www.puvidham.net) in the Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. It is about 150 kms from Bangalore. I live in a house that is 500m from the school and I teach Math, English, Science and Football (which I enjoy the most). I have 1 student in the 10th standard, 6 students in 7th and 3 in 8th. It is a small school and I have now built personal relationships with each one of my students which is nice.
The place has no real internet access, I use a Reliance wireless connection but it is lousy there. I am now sitting in the downtown Dharmapuri, waiting for a bus to Chennai, in an internet center. Between the school, the house and my MA course (which i have duly neglected) I am more busy than I have ever been! So much so for retiring after a gruelling (ha) career in IT industry. The IT folks are truly blessed, getting paid truckloads for warming their seats!
So folks if you are in the vicinity of the great place which one of the 7 great Tamil patrons (Adhiyaman) ruled, please do drop by. I will ask you to help me in my cleaning...