Education Sector
Govern-ED: Towards Quality Education for All Chennai (March 2023)
In collaboration with AID-India
In March 2023, Barefoot Academy was invited to conduct a 3-day residential workshop for more than 40 senior Program Managers in AID-India. Designed to be a run-up to a more intense year-long program, themes concerning the purpose of education, the current status of education for socially marginalised groups, and the notion of Constitutional Morality were explored.
The workshop started with an icebreaker in the form of a match-making game. After a few rounds, participants shared how despite knowing each other for over a decade, they were pleasantly surprised about how little they knew about each other’s childhood, hobbies, aspirations, and so on. Participants then collectively reflected on the purpose of modern education: whether it is for producing conformists for the market or nurturing citizens for society. This exercise was subsequently expanded to analyse the education system in the context of the larger historical, cultural, and political economy of India. On day-2, participants remarked about the role of ‘Caste’ and how it continues to limit if not deny access to quality education for crores of children in India. Thereafter, they could readily identify what quality education could mean for the diverse needs and aspirations of various socially marginalised groups.
On day-3, the participants were introduced to a creative storyboarding exercise that was fun to play and served the dual purpose of bringing out individual notions of Constitutional Morality as well as helping stitch them into a collective vision for Education and Rights in the next 50 years.
BHTC: Bringing Home the Constitution Tiruvannamalai and Sittilingi (April 2022 to February 2023)
In collaboration with Thulir, Payir Trust, Vaanavil and Marudham school
BHTC is Barefoot Academy’s longest and most intensive social sensitisation program, spread across four thematic workshops over the span of a year. The program catered to participants from alternative schools/non-profits across different parts of rural Tamil Nadu viz.- Vanavil, Payir Trust, Thulir, Marudham, and a couple of government school teachers from Pondicherry.
The goal for the participants was to re-imagine education in the context of the Constitution and its values, nurturing the holistic development of people into informed, concerned, and critical citizenry who participate in everyday life and work towards social change. The workshops were designed in an iterative manner, with every subsequent workshop building off the previous one. Over time, this resulted in participants becoming co-creators in the design process as they identified critical issues together with the facilitators, and took charge of their own learning.
From locating their own identity viz a viz different intersections of caste, class, religion, gender, etc to identifying the educational needs and aspirations of each group, participants went through a continuous process of reflection and self-discovery. Anchored in the context of each respective school/organisation, participants explored notions of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity and Justice through experiential games that they later took back to their respective classrooms. The workshops included a larger theoretical discourse on the modern education system and how it produces employable and productive subjects with little self-awareness and a sense of belonging to their surroundings. This helped participants identify how structures of power in society are maintained through educational policies that homogenise and schools that control free speech and expression. Finally, the program ended with a challenge to re-imagine an education that empowers and liberates, particularly in the context of how the framers of our Constitution dared to dream an impossible dream, and believe in the people to achieve it, despite the worst of odds. Participants left with a renewed idealism and sense of duty in not just educating children, but building and nurturing a future nation.
Dream for Telangana: Master-trainers workshop for Community Mobilisation Hyderabad (January 2023) and (February 2023)
In collaboration with Bharat Dekho, UNICEF, and the Govt. of Telangana
Within a span of a month, Barefoot Academy conducted two 3-day train-the-trainer workshops for more than 100 senior district resource persons (DRPs) or master trainers across 27 districts in Telangana. The workshops were organised by a non-profit called Bharat Dekho as part of a UNICEF-funded state-wide program on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in collaboration with the SCERT and the state education department of Telangana.
Participants engaged in a playful yet emotional activity to connect with each other as they recollected their childhood role models and shared how each one had a teacher play a pivotal role in helping them overcome adversity and become teachers themselves. The DRPs then engaged in an intense discussion about the learning crisis in Telangana. Despite being hesitant and defensive at first, they gradually accepted the fact that unless a problem is acknowledged in its entirety, an intervention that solves it effectively cannot emerge. Post this, the DRPs imagined themselves in the shoes of different socially marginalised groups and tried to look at the learning crisis from their perspectives. Each of them unanimously confessed to having lost touch with their stakeholders after being in the system for so long. Thus, with a renewed sense of urgency, they pledged to engage more deeply with caste and communal issues whenever implementing a new scheme or policy in their respective districts. Finally, the DRPs were taken through the Preamble to our Constitution and were challenged to ‘dream the impossible dream’ for their children, in the same way, our Constitution-makers had done 75 years back. The DRPs took up the challenge and, came out with a bold, tangible, and inspiring dream for the children of Telangana, from the perspective of teachers, parents, and children. The workshop ended on a positive note with discussions around organising a state-wide Dream-Conference with state officials, parents, teachers, and other non-profit partners by May.
GovernED: Education, Democracy and Citizenship Bangalore (April 2022) and Chennai (November 2022)
In collaboration with Teach for India (Bangalore) and Bala Vidya Mandir school (Chennai)
In April 2022, Barefoot Academy conducted a 3-day workshop for the graduating cohort of ‘Teach for India’ Bangalore. The workshop explored themes of ‘Pride’, ‘Identity’, and ‘Purpose’ in the context of the development sector.
Participants recalled influential and cherished teachers from their childhood who helped shape them into who they are today, and reflected on qualities that made those teachers great. Then they imagined themselves in the shoes of different socially marginalised groups and tried to empathise with the needs and aspirations of each group. After the activity, participants shared how little they knew about the educational needs of children hailing from such groups, despite working closely with them in various classroom/community settings. Finally, participants explored what democracy and citizenship meant to each of them, both in terms of their classroom practices as well as how the current education system implements policies. By the end of the workshop, everybody realised the importance of education in safeguarding and advocating for rights; and left the space with a renewed sense of hope and idealism in their work, as educators and policy-makers. After the workshop, an online study group on Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was formed voluntarily amongst the participants and went on for 20-plus sessions.
A similar workshop was repeated in November 2022 with a group of teachers, lawyers, and educational activists from various private schools and grassroots organisations across Chennai. The organisations involved were Agaram Foundation, Bala Vidya Mandir school, Rewards Trust Foundation, Pudhiyador, Teach For India, Madhi Foundation, and Mugavari. As a follow-up, an online study group on the National Education Policy 2020 was formed amongst participants to critically examine it alongside the values enshrined in our Constitution.