Innovation in Education

My Milieu

At the moment, my situation is the situation of teacher education in India. This is the milieu. By and large, education is board and chalk and focused on examinations. To put the pressure to shift even a little from that evokes anxiety among the educators. “Conditions for learning refersto the factors that can enhance or diminish a student’s ability to learn”. This is a space where learning to grow into global mind-set is very difficult as the examination expects mostly rote learning alone.

Outliers

In this milieu, however, there are several outliers. These are progressive schools that have broken away from being chained to examination and are focused on developing a human being. 3 of which are mentioned in my discussion, which are “…adopters breaking the mold of industrial ageschools…”.

·       There is a school called ‘keystone’ (https://keystoneeducation.in/), based on Project Based Learning. “Instead of working on a single project in a math class, project-based learning combines multiple disciplines in one project. It promotes active and deeper learning”, (Missouri, 2018).

·       There is ‘riverside’ (https://www.schoolriverside.com/)  that is focused design thinking in education. This is a “Fundamental redesign means adopting drastically different designs for learning”, (Lars, 2017)

·       There is Shibumi (https://www.shibumi.org.in/), that is a learning centre for young as well as adults. They have gone in for “Creation means implementing a new design in a totally new schoolor program”.

These schools have a core team of leaders that have broken away from conventional thought process and set up something radically new. They were discontented enough from the conventional education to break out from the system. They had a clear vision, capacity to mentor others and the resilience to face the obstacles.

Innovation

● Looks like…Disruptive. Shibumi has moved beyond all models of education, and focuses only creating self-awareness among young and adult. This is a modern day version of schools in the ancient civilization where the purpose of existence was finding of the self.

● Feels like…Vulnerable. “…the willingness to dosomething where there are no guarantees ...”, exposes all our fears and puts us in the space where we feel vulnerable to failure or ridicule. Innovation brings us to such a space. Keystone takes students to IGCSE exam. To be in the space where students are being prepared for examination, yet hold on to the vision of having a life skill integrated project based learning is a vulnerable space.

● Sounds like…Radical. Riverside thought the impossible. They focus on building humane individuals within the bounds of structure. They brought in principles of design thinking into designing the curriculum and planning. This is a parent initiative, turned to an education paradigm.

Conclusion

The presence of these schools, 3 among so many, give me faith in the social structure. I believe that we will approach innovation in the society fully albeit progressively. These spaces are an inspiration.

Monica Kochar

www,humanemaths.blogspot.com