My Experiment with Koodam: Abhijit Biswas and the Democracy Project in Hyderabad Schools

Abhijit Biswas is one of the participants of the Governance Reform course we run with TISS where has highly impacted by the creative possibilities offered by the “Koodam” idea to creatively energise the community of teachers, parents and school students in government schools run for the urban poor in the walled city of Hyderabad, Telangana State. Though the experiment was later broadbased amongst numerous schools in the walled city, the following report recounts the experience in one school.

We conducted an experiment to establish Koodam as a working principle among teachers of Ushodaya School. The school is located in suburbs of old city Hyderabad. It is a low-income budget private school. Most of the students and the teacher’s are from the nearby locality. Majority of them are migrants from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

After 5 months of Koodam engagement and dialogue with the teachers we have witnessed a wide shift in their mindset and perspective towards themselves and others and the context they are working with. This shift bought a change in their day to day working culture. The document will highlight the major changes.

We started the experiment on 15^th October 2019 and completed the first phase on 7^th March 2020. In the beginning of the experiment when all the 19 teacher’s were asked to identify the biggest hurdle in giving quality education to students, 90% of them reported that parents of those children are the biggest problem and 90% of them agreed that it is impossible to change the mindset of the parents.

By the end of phase 1 (March, 2020) the same set of 19 teacher’s were able to work closely and collaboratively with 102 parents using the same principles of Koodam. By then, they had started seeing parents as a partner in quality education and not a bottleneck. 100% of them believe that change in mindset and culture is possible. It was not an easy process; but once people started to experience a new sense of solidarity, camaraderie and shared concerns, they couldn’t be held back. It was an infectious change process.

We outline below how the `Koodam Principles’ that helped us to change cynicism to hope and move people from indifference to willingness to experiment.

1. Mindset/Attitude Shift

Negotiation

“I am afraid to ask questions”, “I am afraid to meet our Principal”, “I am afraid to speak in groups”. All the teachers showcased some kind of fear to negotiate or engage over a dialogue with someone away from their comfort zones. Today after 5 months of experiment all of them are leading community meetings. Sakku Bai was able to convince her family members to give her permission to attend Saturday Koodam meets in school, after school hours. She said I always wanted to tell them that I want to go for higher study but never got the courage and now I am able to speak to them freely.

Professional Awareness

Within the group of 19 teachers there were 3 major groups. One, pre-primary teachers; second, primary teachers and third the upper-primary teachers. An unarticulated vertical hierarchy and vertical dignity existed. The higher in the hierarchy, the greater the sense of status, power and authority. All along, this created dissonance among the group of teachers and further affected their work. This divide bought in an unhealthy competitive spirit. One of the key foci of our experiment was aimed at critically examining barriers to relating and working on measures to equalise relationships in the school. We observed that once teachers, irrespective of which grade they teach, started learning to respect each other and respect the dignity of the other person, it led to generating a common sense of identity, purpose and dignity. Previously all of them used to sit separately, in groups, during lunch hours. After around a month or so, this changed: as on date, for over 3 months they all sit together and eat

Different Learning Abilities

After the experiment when asked, “How many naughty children are there in your classroom?” Teachers replied with some numbers for respective grades but when asked, “How many children are there who can’t learn?” the teachers replied 0! This was a big shift. Because before the experiment teachers were used to grade children as smart, middle grade and slow learners and the sad part was children were aware of it. These grading has a negative effects on consciousness of the child and her / his self – image. Which later affected the child’s learning. One of the biggest achievements of the experiment was to make everyone understand that we are all lifelong learners with different learning abilities and what matters is to learn together and work collectively.

2. Perspective Shift

Punishment is not the key

One of the most commonly found perspectives amongst both teachers and also parents was that giving punishment for not performing in academia will help the child to perform. Through multiple dialogues in our Koodam circles we gained a collective perspective that punishment may have some short-term results but psychologically, it affects the child’s consciousness. It creates an aura of fear in them. At the end of Phase 1, around 80% of teacher’s reported that they do not use sticks or any form of punishment with the children.

Education beyond Syllabus

“Completion of syllabus is the most important task.” It’s was a common understanding among the teacher’s – parents and the school management. However in completing the syllabus how often we reflect on the quality of what is completed was a critical question. During our experiment teacher’s understood the importance of quality learning and was conscious about the balance they need to bring between time and quality.

Understanding Teacher-Student reations

The biggest achievement was being able to discuss teacher – student dichotomy and contradictions. Who is a teacher and who isn’t? Who is a student and who isn’t? When does a teacher move from being a teacher to becoming a student? Today, all the teacher’s will identify themselves to be both a teacher and a student; and that often times, there is also much to learn from students.

This shift in perspective bought in a positive change in relationship among everyone in the classroom – teachers and students, and outside with parents too.

3. Cultural Shift

Responsibility

Punctuality: Being On time: As reported by the school administration all teachers are on time since we started Koodam circles . The unplanned leaves dropped drastically and many of them did not take their approved leaves too. When asked they said, “We enjoy coming to school”. This was big change among all of them. Underneath their willingness to attend the school we could see a deeper sense of shared responsibility which bonded them all together!

Study Hours – for teachers too!!

All 100% of the teachers who were part of this experiment volunteered to spend 45 minutes every day in school after school hours to spend on self study. They mostly engaged with news from across the country and engaged in dialogue and discussion with one another. This also helped them to gain certain understanding of multidisciplinary subjects and it’s interconnectivity.

Uma Ma’am who has spent 2 decades as teacher said, “I have never thought how important language is to shape our behaviour; I never understood that until I was part of this discussions.”

Extra Mile

Today all the teacher’s of Ushodaya School have started a mission know as Jan Shiksha Sabha through which they want to engage all the parents-students and community member and create a collective vision for education. They have already been able to empower 102 mothers from the community and bring them on-board with this idea and thus expanding the circles of solidarity through Koodam.

The experiment needs more time to grow, expand and cover new areas to transform the school as the space for learning, a site for experimentation and a school for democracy! Corona virus has put a temporary stop to the change process. But the teachers still keep in touch expressing their eagerness and commitment to go into the new academic year with a new sense of hope and purpose.

References to Reports on the Koodam Experiments in Hyderabad Schools