A classroom without power differences….to empower!

In a recent job interview, I was asked which has been the favorite course at IIM-A till now and I have tried to capture the essence of that discussion, which included views about education, in this article.

Imagine a classroom.

Let us try to employ our senses in this imagination.

I am guessing the image would have desks with students uniformly dressed on one side of the room set up in rows and columns with the teacher on the other side. The sounds one would hear would largely be the voice of the teacher with sporadic (if any!) interventions of students- one might even be pardoned to believe that many of the students cannot speak. In some cases, it is possible to smell the fear of the students, taste the boredom and get goosebumps when a teacher scolds a student. 

I am sure this all of this is easy to imagine- from kindergarten to college, the image has been largely the same with only a few exceptions. 

Now imagine seeing four walls without any desks or chairs. There are people, let us call them students and professors, sitting in a circle. Imagine you hear many sounds, none of them raised, and rarely belonging to the individual we call professor or to a select set of individuals. In these sounds, there is music, there is laughter, there is chatter, there is no purpose to either the vision or the sounds than what each individual makes. 

I wonder if many people will call this a classroom? 

I will get to this question again later.

The question of language

Language is extremely powerful and I have found that studying the roots of the words helps understand the world around us better- it “educates” us. This brings me to the etymological roots of the word education which comes from the Latin word “educate” which means to bring forth or to extract out (the best in a person).

This idea has made me uncomfortable for about 5 years now since I first got to know the root.

The reason was simply this that education till now did not feel like it was a process of extracting something out of me but rather “loading me” with something, it began with knowledge but soon it was expectations as well, especially if your marks are good. Thus, the evaluation system also posed another obfuscation to the term. 

Reflecting on all my formal “education”, I characterize it by the word “waiting” even more than “learning”, because while I learned a lot (for which I am thankful!), there was a constant wait to think independently and to challenge myself intellectually (not in terms of tougher problems per se but innovative ways of engaging with the problem) more than I got a chance to in our system of education. After talking to some of my peers, I realize I am not alone in this.

The question of power

While there are deeper structural issues about the industrial revolution basis of our education (which requires a book to discuss), there is a fundamental stratification system within a classroom that shifts focus from learning to rote learning, from application to waiting. 

To me, this stratification is problematic because it hides (in plain sight!) an inherent power difference. Thus, the idea of education which is to extract the best, to empower individuals is in itself enmeshed in a power dynamic from which it has to free itself before it becomes meaningful. 

There are three power setups which I have observed-

1. Teacher-Student power difference: A process in which there is a specific source and specific sink of knowledge without the possibility of co-creation. There is an inherent assumption that the sink, i.e. the student, is always insufficient but one day will be sufficient. This assumption militates against the belief that learning is a life-long process and if that is to be believed, the learning and waiting cannot be allowed to go hand in hand. 
2. Front benchers-Back benchers: In some schools (and colleges) this is a physical difference with students segregated by teachers or by their own interests but in many instances, it is a mental difference where opinions of one set of students are privileged over the others. This is deeply problematic from an “education” standpoint because instead of extracting the best from students, one set of students is made to feel inferior, far cry from best.
3. Someone great is always correct: A constant indoctrination that those with degrees or high positions are more often than not correct which quashes questioning attitude of students, perhaps forever and then lifelong there is a mental association that power or position is correct.

This is how I have perceived the world (others could read more differences) and have never really believed that education could be different. (I would like to add here that many teachers/professors, especially in IITD, AshokaU and IIMA, institutions I have experienced firsthand, do shatter this power difference very significantly)

Circling back to what is a classroom? 

If (and that is a big IF) education is about extracting the best, then it cannot be shrouded in a sense of fear or power asymmetry. If education has to be different then perhaps the start has to be the setting of education in itself.

This is what I learned recently at a recent course in IIM Ahmedabad, “Participatory Theatre for Development”- every word of the course being important, especially “participatory!”

There were no desks, no power hierarchies, everyone in a circle including the “professors”, no (or at least limited!) judgment of each other’s views, no voice was privileged over the other except the sound of exciting introspection, singing, and laughter.

It was a theatre, but for once it felt we were not “pretending” to learn, and we were not waiting- we participated in our own development and understanding the paradigm of development.

I do not propose that this model should necessarily (or can!) any time replace the other method of teaching from which I have definitely and significantly benefitted (from Kindergarten to MBA) but the fact that IIM Ahmedabad had this course makes me love this place more and makes me pensive as well, leaving me with a question- Was it possible for me to learn more in a different pedagogy?.

A professor (a different one) had once said the role of a leader is to be a possibility thinker- the course does just that and for that, it is a must to do for any student in this campus.

It is a small but significant step for our own empowerment, for opening up the possibility that there is a “best” in us, for being educated.

Views are personal and based on general discussions with people who have studied at various institutes. It is a reflection piece and in that spirit, does not cover models that exist which take care of these concerns.