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<v Lalitha> my recent organization that I work for, for the past five years has been very exciting, very challenging and there's lot to learn and I'm called the academic coordinator if that's important to know and basically, with my team, I prepare content for or enrich content for both in Science and Social Studies from grade 4 to grade 10.

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<v Lalitha> So it's been very, very exciting and every day is very interesting for me, even during COVID times.

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<v Lalitha> So whatever I say is pre COVID because all my experiences will be pre COVID, right?

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Lalitha> For the past nine months, we have not been actively going out to students and working and so I want to say that first.

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<v Gayithri> Sure.

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<v Gayithri> So does it mean that you have actually not been engaging with the teachers even online or any like over phone?

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<v Lalitha> Yeah.

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<v Lalitha> Online, you definitely is.

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<v Lalitha> There have been lot of different groups of teachers I've been engaged with actually not necessarily the group I work with in the government schools.

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<v Lalitha> But these teachers are also from government schools but from different areas, different parts of India actually, because they wanted to hold, having webinar and this was a time they thought they would expose the teachers to different kinds of thinking.

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<v Lalitha> What [ILP] thought about teaching of Science and teaching of Social Science and what is the specialty about the content that we prepare.

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<v Lalitha> There's a lot of webinars that I have been speaking to.

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<v Lalitha> I mean through that, I've been speaking to a lot of teachers and received very good feedback, actually.

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<v Gayithri> Nice.

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<v Gayithri> And you mentioned ILP, would you want to expand a little on what that is?

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<v Lalitha> Oh, ILP is India Literacy Project.

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<v Lalitha> Though it's started by NRIs in the US, in California Bay Area but it has lot of trustees who are based in India and the project I work through ILP is called Multi Dimension Learning Space in a place called [Gubbi Taluk] . I live in Tumkur, which is a district in Karnataka and the district is divided into Taluks and so I work in a Taluk called Gubbi, which is some 20 kilometers away and it has 184 primary schools and 54 high schools.

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<v Lalitha> High schools is Grade 8 to Grade 10 and ILP has been working in many states actually.

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<v Lalitha> That is how I get to go to Jharkhand and I get to go to Hyderabad, so those are the places and we mostly interact with government school teachers.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> And I know you've told that you have actually been working in ILP for like over five years, but would you want to just expand on maybe how you got here?

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<v Gayithri> What has been your experience before being a part of ILP?

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<v Gayithri> Just briefly, I'm sure that we will get back to more details as we go along.

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<v Lalitha> Yeah.

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<v Lalitha> They are jumping to the other questions because I was just had jotted on points based on the, this one you had sent.

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<v Lalitha> So my journey...

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<v Lalitha> Okay, in fact, I can go on and on and on.

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<v Lalitha> It opens a Pandora's box when I talk about my experiences, but I try to be very, very brief.

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<v Lalitha> I started working only at the age of 30 in my neighborhood school, which was very, very progressive in nature because we had a couple of friends who had...

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<v Lalitha> One of my friend had opened the school.

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<v Lalitha> Her father was also a school teacher and so they wanted to start a school for their own granddaughter and it was just around the corner of my house and I joined the school and from there, it was no turning back at all.

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<v Lalitha> And I worked there for...

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<v Lalitha> What is so special about this school was it had no fixed curriculum and in fact it did not have any uniform for children and that was something very, very rare in India where everything is so colonial.

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<v Lalitha> What do you mean by colonial standards?

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<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

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<v Lalitha> The standard of the school depends on whether the child wears shoes, tie and everything, but I think the school broke everything some say 1987, 30 years ago, perhaps and it was remarkable that we as friends worked in the school and we [discussed] ourselves as learners and educators at the same time.

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<v Lalitha> It was a very, very good experience and I owe to that school, a lot of what I am today.

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<v Lalitha> And then I moved on to a corporate school where I worked with lot of resources and that is where I was a TVS group and this is where I was exposed to the theory of my practices, because still this time I did not know who Carl Rogers was.

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<v Lalitha> I did not know who was Maria Montessori.

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<v Lalitha> I did not even have a bachelor's of education degree.

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<v Lalitha> So all these names, but when we started reading, because the TVS offered a lot of in-house training and discussions every fortnight where we could reflect on our practice and see how we could better ourselves, the teaching, engaging children and our own growth as professional teachers.

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<v Lalitha> So that was a very big boost for me and the resources I meant, not only in the web, the one of library books and everything, but it also involved music, art and theater.

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<v Lalitha> That is how I...

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<v Lalitha> It was a very interesting experience of including all those in my own teaching practices and creating and expanding the content to fit into theater, music, art, and so on.

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<v Lalitha> I would also like to say when I was working in Maruthi Vidya Kendra, the first school which I said, it was...

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<v Lalitha> Though, it did not have any resources, I feel proud that I used to record the [BBC] documentaries and play them in my own home where I had a VCR and a DVD player.

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<v Lalitha> So these are all certain, I feel proud when I look back to see how I offered my home allowed me to include my [inaudible] students in my house to give this experience and all.

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<v Lalitha> In TVS I was for 10 years and in 2000, I think for the first time I took off and I went to Ladakh for six months along the LOC of India, Pakistan and it was a very remarkable experience of teaching to children of the Himalayan region who did not know what a monkey was.

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<v Lalitha> So the examples I had to give to them in the classes was very different.

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<v Lalitha> It had to be very local and now I can write pages and pages on that, on my experience actually, how can be...

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<v Lalitha> What it...

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<v Lalitha> Though I taught very small classes, till grade 3, but the experience was very, very enriching and from there I moved on to Nepal through VSO.

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<v Lalitha> We have Voluntary Service Overseas.

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<v Lalitha> So I went as an educator to a district.

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<v Lalitha> So there I had to more as a trainer, I went more as a trainer and a mentor to teachers there that is where my work starting...

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<v Lalitha> I was no more a classroom teacher, no.

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<v Lalitha> So, though I missed classes and so I had to interact with the teachers and observe the classes and see what best could be done.

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<v Lalitha> Nepal was going through a very bad phase in those days in 2008 to 2011, I was there.

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<v Lalitha> And what was interesting there was that is where I met teachers from across the world, Europe, from Africa and USA, and that I could blend with them and feel at par with all those teachers, even from England English speaking.

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<v Lalitha> So, the great myths that none of those people with these people are wonders they do very different things, was all broken for me actually.

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<v Lalitha> They looked up to me for ideas and this one, I feel very nice about myself and my own upbringing and my experiences as a teacher, classroom teacher in India.

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<v Lalitha> And after my Nepal thing, I went to Uganda for six months.

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<v Lalitha> So, Uganda was another real experience where I moved to a class where there were hundreds of children in grade 1 and grade 2 with half of them did not have any learning materials.

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<v Lalitha> Half of them were really literally naked with no slates, pencils, everything.

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<v Lalitha> So what could I do there?

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<v Lalitha> I mean, though, I was attached to the teacher's college where I was supposed to interact with the teachers of the primary schooling training center, PTC which is called, but still I visited schools to know what was the actual condition of the schools there and what did it mean to be a teacher in that setup?

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<v Lalitha> Actually one of the teacher was...

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<v Lalitha> The teachers...

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<v Lalitha> Yeah, they were very poorly paid and their houses were, they did not have electricity and one of the teachers told me that the education goals of the UNICEF that everybody had to be in school had done that great damage because suddenly all the children were in the class, in the schools with nothing, no materials or no support for the teachers.

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<v Lalitha> So, the teacher's morale was really, really, really very low.

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<v Lalitha> What could a teacher with 80 students, aged six and seven do in a class?

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<v Lalitha> I found the conditions of the teachers very, very poor, but there was a lot of sincerity in them, that is what I saw.

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<v Lalitha> But I mean, anybody can do very little in such setups, but so it was another eye opener and why I left that setup was because of the lot of corruption.

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<v Lalitha> I couldn't stand the corruption there and so I returned prematurely actually.

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<v Lalitha> Though I was to stay there for two years, I came back within seven months.

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<v Lalitha> And after coming back from there, then I joined ILP the organization where I'm working with and so now I'm just like, [Alchemy] says background.

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<v Lalitha> So I'm working in my own backyard now trying to find whatever searching for, or the reality in my own backyard.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> Fantastic.

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<v Gayithri> So that was a great, like it was really illuminating because I, myself didn't know those many details about your professional journey so thanks for sharing.

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<v Gayithri> So I'm glad that we are now back to ILP like, hopefully we will get it back into some of those pieces from what you just mentioned, but now coming back to what the work you do in ILP.

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<v Gayithri> So how do you describe a typical day in your work life?

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<v Gayithri> Like the community with which you work, the context in which you work, the kind of work that you do?

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<v 14> 55

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<v Lalitha> Yeah.

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<v Lalitha> Let me give you some background of the government schools.

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<v Lalitha> So the public school says they're called in other countries.

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<v Lalitha> The government schools in India, a larger number, only yesterday there was some article which spoke about the number of schools are great, but the number of children attending government schools is less than 50%.

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<v Lalitha> That means the private education, there's a lot of children who go into private schools, but the number of government schools are more.

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<v Lalitha> 60%..though the number of private schools are less, the number of children in private schools are more and so the public government schools in India, it's very different in different regions.

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<v Lalitha> So let me talk only about my own, Gubbi Taluk where I work, because it is very different in different areas.

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<v Lalitha> I cannot compare what government school in Delhi would be or corporation, because I know there's so much change there.

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<v Lalitha> A typical school will have classes for school from grade 1 to grade 7 and in some 8 and the children from grade 1 to grade 7 might be between 200 to 300.

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<v Lalitha> Believe it or not some schools have less than 50 children.

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<v Lalitha> So the number of children in each class is definitely manageable my role here is to visit schools.

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<v Lalitha> A typical day would be to visit two or three schools in day without any information and then since ILP provides them with the digital support that is with the computer and with the projector and the screen and everything and the content.

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<v Lalitha> So I just go there to visit, to see more than whether they're using the content.

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<v Lalitha> I just sit in the class, to see how the learning process takes place in the classes, identify the gaps that are there and give them some suggestions, hold some exemplar classes myself, or the teacher together, hold the classes together and see, not to intimidate the teachers and the students also that somebody else is working in.

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<v 17> 18

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<v Lalitha> So the first few days it was like that, but now I visited those schools many times and so the teachers and the students are also familiar with me.

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<v Lalitha> So familiarization, it took a long time to get into such a thing not as an expert, I don't go as an expert at all.

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<v Lalitha> So this is my, and we have a young team of 11 graduates who also do the same thing.

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<v Lalitha> They visit the school every day.

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<v Lalitha> Each one has been assigned some 30 to 40 schools where they see follow up of the user for materials or the challenges that they have, the technical support they have to give, or if they have any and we also conduct science Melas[fairs] and social science Melas[fairs] and in those days, give them support to conduct those Melas and everything.

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<v Lalitha> So, every Saturday we meet in the office to take stock of what has happened and what hasn't happened and what should happen.

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<v Lalitha> So this is for a week, actually, so my day will be very different from each other.

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<v Lalitha> And one important thing is I always take the local transport.

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<v Lalitha> I don't zoom in a car.

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<v Lalitha> I walk, hike or hitch a ride.

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<v Lalitha> I do all sorts of things which a normal teachers would do.

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<v Lalitha> I have the school children at lunchtime, which is provided the midday meal that is provided by the government.

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<v Lalitha> Yeah.

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<v Gayithri> And is this a conscious choice that you have made and oh, why so?

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<v Lalitha> Conscious choice of?

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<v Gayithri> Trying to take public transportation or having [crosstalk]

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<v Gayithri> .
<v  Lalitha> It is a choice

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<v Gayithri> And anything that's like backing the choice, or the rationale behind the choice?

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<v Lalitha> There's nothing big-

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<v Gayithri> Why would you do that?

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<v Gayithri> Like what made you make the choice?

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<v Gayithri> Maybe rational was to big a word or too scientific word.

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<v Gayithri> So.

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<v Lalitha> No, no, no.

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<v Lalitha> I want to feel, I just want to feel how a teacher travels and what kinds of buses do they travel and what are the real challenges they face when they travel, when they miss the bus and they have to take an auto, they have to pay more, all these things matter and they reach late and sometimes the bus don't come on time.

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<v Lalitha> So these are all of the real challenges of a school teacher and unfortunately though the government prescribes, they have to stay in the place where the school is.

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<v Lalitha> Most of them travel 30, 40, 50 kilometers, I mean from the nearest town.

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<v Lalitha> So these are all, I think this is very sensitive to be, this is a part of sensitivity.

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<v Lalitha> Since you're asking, I can say it is part, very sensitivity to be in the shoes of a teacher.

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<v Gayithri> So that is precisely what's driving you.

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<v Lalitha> Yeah.

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<v Lalitha> And it's very normal.

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<v Lalitha> I don't attach lot [inaudible] to that.

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<v Gayithri> Got it.

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<v Gayithri> No, but I think it's important.

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<v Gayithri> I'm glad that you shared.

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<v Gayithri> And did you tell all of these, like the schools that you visit are in Gubbi

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<v Gayithri> ?
<v  Lalitha> Yeah, Gubbi has the radius of say all the schools are distributed in the radius of say 25 kilometers from Gubbi.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Lalitha> 25 to 30 kilometers.

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<v Lalitha> So I've seen all the north end, south end, east end and the west end of Gubbi Taluk.

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<v Gayithri> Oh, okay.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Lalitha> Yeah, the border, the whole district, the whole Taluk, I have covered.

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<v Lalitha> I think the radius is 50 kilometers actually not 25-30.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> Okay.

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<v Gayithri> Interesting.

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<v Gayithri> So now maybe we can get like more broader across like your profession, the one that you just gave me a glimpse of last time.

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<v Gayithri> So now maybe it's the time to delve with little deeper.

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<v Gayithri> I know you mentioned the different places that you have worked in the past but I don't think we got a chance to go a little deeper and what did each of these places offer for you professionally?

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<v Gayithri> What did you take away from working with those particular populations?

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<v Gayithri> So, if you would want to talk a little about that, I think that would be great.

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<v Lalitha> The first school, I mean, you want to talk about the schools or the later years when I went to Nepal and Uganda, do you want me to start even-

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<v Gayithri> Everything.

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<v Gayithri> Everything.

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<v Gayithri> Everything.

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<v Gayithri> Yeah.

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<v Gayithri> Like what place was it?

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<v Gayithri> What population did you work with?

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<v Gayithri> What did you get from like...

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<v Lalitha> Okay.

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<v Lalitha> Most of the time it is either the marginalized section of society or the middle group I can say.

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<v Lalitha> It's only when I worked in TVS school for 10 years.

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<v Lalitha> I think it was the elite of the town that came to the school.

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<v Lalitha> I mean, to say that most of the parents were professionals like the doctors or engineers and lecturers themselves like that.

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<v Lalitha> Not that there were no people from the rural side, they were, but still, since it was an expensive school.

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<v Lalitha> So to that extent, when I say the word elite, it doesn't mean if academic or anything.

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<v Lalitha> It just means it is an economically viable.

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<v Lalitha> The parents economically had that wherewithal they would put the children into TVS and it was supposed to be the one of the most expensive school those days.

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<v Lalitha> So otherwise I've always worked with children who came from marginalized section of society, and somewhere in the middle.

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<v Lalitha> Auto driver’s children and school teachers are not very rich, so school teachers or clerks or something like that.

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<v Lalitha> So, I have mostly that.

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<v Gayithri> Throughout?

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<v Gayithri> Like from the first school that you worked with and then?

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<v Lalitha> Yes, yes, yeah.

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<v Lalitha> Uganda, Nepal and now ILP is all that.

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<v Lalitha> A lot of children that now in India, the people who go to government schools are the poorest of the poor.

00:22:23.125 --> 00:22:25.891
<v Lalitha> I use the word marginalized section.

00:22:27.015 --> 00:22:27.035
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:22:27.495 --> 00:22:33.645
<v Gayithri> Any other forms of marginalization that you see across the population that you worked?

00:22:33.985 --> 00:22:38.555
<v Gayithri> Or like something very specific to some population, but not across?

00:22:41.675 --> 00:22:44.165
<v Lalitha> When you say marginalized in India, it means different things.

00:22:44.625 --> 00:22:52.575
<v Lalitha> It depends upon the caste, the religion they come from, the caste they come from and the economic background they come from.

00:22:52.575 --> 00:23:10.635
<v Lalitha> So it includes everything but the same thing with the Nepal also, and that is what I mean when I say it is marginalized societies, marginalized communities.

00:23:10.645 --> 00:23:19.105
<v Lalitha> That's what I mean, of course, in Nepal, the women schools, tribal schools, when you go to the hilly areas far away from the town.

00:23:19.135 --> 00:23:25.979
<v Lalitha> So this is where tribal will be children also that way.

00:23:25.979 --> 00:23:31.805
<v Lalitha> And in Gubbi areas and all, there are sections of societies, but there are no actually tribal schools.

00:23:32.845 --> 00:23:36.645
<v Lalitha> There's no large tribal population in these areas.

00:23:36.765 --> 00:23:39.075
<v Lalitha> They're all farming family or whatever, what to say there.

00:23:39.325 --> 00:23:41.435
<v Lalitha> Most of these children come from farming communities.

00:23:41.435 --> 00:23:55.285
<v Lalitha> So agriculture is important occupation, and most of them are agriculture laborers and very small landholders, less than an acre and they may have cattle, the milk production maybe poultry or having small...

00:23:55.895 --> 00:23:57.355
<v Lalitha> Poultry is not a big industry.

00:23:57.375 --> 00:23:59.365
<v Lalitha> Having some chickens and milk dairy could be a profession that is also...

00:23:59.365 --> 00:24:00.405
<v Lalitha> That is what the community, the geographical area work with.

00:24:00.405 --> 00:24:09.255
<v Lalitha> Very, very, very, very agricultural based.

00:24:09.255 --> 00:24:14.545
<v Lalitha> And that makes, what happens that has a bearing on children.

00:24:14.875 --> 00:24:32.215
<v Lalitha> Now, when I talk about ILPs, because during harvest time and during harvest of the Arecanut, most of the children disappear from the school because they give a, lend a hand to the parents in peeling that Areca, so these are all certain of challenges.

00:24:34.785 --> 00:24:34.805
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:24:35.185 --> 00:24:35.845
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:24:36.295 --> 00:24:50.625
<v Gayithri> Anything along like caste or gender or any other aspect that you would want to comment on?

00:24:50.625 --> 00:24:54.065
<v Lalitha> I wanted to...

00:24:58.205 --> 00:25:08.645
<v Lalitha> Children come to school and I don't see, what they say the boy child is preferred and the girl child...

00:25:09.875 --> 00:25:18.115
<v Lalitha> I don't understand that much of that because children come to school and because it is mandatory the children have to come to school and in some classes, there are more children, boys actually.

00:25:26.895 --> 00:25:36.025
<v Lalitha> [inaudible] please, I see if I start talking about Uganda, Nepal and all it is a lot more varied and a lot of stories to tell about that.

00:25:36.705 --> 00:25:43.445
<v Lalitha> So when you talk about gender relations, gender relations are there between the teachers and themselves.

00:25:43.445 --> 00:26:00.145
<v Lalitha> I mean, female teachers and male teachers, and the power of the male teachers exhibit is very, very clearly seen, is very clearly seen and the authority of the teacher over the students is also seen very clearly seen.

00:26:00.805 --> 00:26:14.395
<v Lalitha> And the school is the place where I think the child experiences, what power authority is.

00:26:14.395 --> 00:26:16.045
<v Lalitha> Of course, home is one place.

00:26:16.595 --> 00:26:25.365
<v Lalitha> Publicly in a public place who has the authority, the role of a teacher, the authority of a teacher, the authority of the headmaster is much more than...

00:26:25.525 --> 00:26:29.635
<v Lalitha> The authority of the official of the education department, who is visiting is much more.

00:26:29.675 --> 00:26:41.155
<v Lalitha> So the children get this hierarchy of this power that the teacher is the lowest in the order is what the child get exposed very early.

00:26:41.165 --> 00:26:44.325
<v Gayithri> Could you want to give an example, Akka?

00:26:45.855 --> 00:26:46.015
<v Lalitha> No.

00:26:46.015 --> 00:26:46.315
<v Lalitha> No.

00:26:49.465 --> 00:26:59.695
<v Lalitha> Because, see whenever a decision has to be taken and all this is spoken in front of children, there is nothing private and public in a school when you go and...

00:26:59.695 --> 00:26:59.697
<v Lalitha> ...front of children.

00:26:59.697 --> 00:27:00.887
<v Lalitha> The children, there is nothing private and public in a school when you go enter.

00:27:00.887 --> 00:27:07.045
<v Lalitha> A departmental official, he can bang the headmaster right in front of the children, or you can bash the teacher right in front of the teacher.

00:27:07.645 --> 00:27:20.485
<v Lalitha> I mean, even a small comment that is made, the children get to know that there is a power hierarchy, however efficient or inefficient the official who is coming there could be.

00:27:20.495 --> 00:27:28.815
<v Lalitha> How does the headmaster, the teacher responds to them also brings out their integrity and sincerity.

00:27:29.085 --> 00:27:45.735
<v Lalitha> So the child gets exposed to the nuances of how she should get along in a public space by telling lies, by not telling lies, trying to be truthful is something very, very, this is the most important hidden curriculum of government schools, or even private schools.

00:27:49.075 --> 00:27:50.055
<v Lalitha> So where does it all come from?

00:27:50.055 --> 00:27:50.525
<v Lalitha> "I see.

00:27:51.175 --> 00:27:52.195
<v Lalitha> Oh, it's okay.

00:27:52.195 --> 00:27:52.535
<v Lalitha> It's okay.

00:27:52.535 --> 00:27:54.275
<v Lalitha> Oh, this is how I can answer.

00:27:54.285 --> 00:27:54.645
<v Lalitha> Is it?

00:27:54.725 --> 00:27:55.045
<v Lalitha> Okay."

00:27:55.425 --> 00:28:04.175
<v Lalitha> So I think this has a lot of bearing on how, why adults behave the way they behave as they grow with so much of preaching that is happening.

00:28:04.515 --> 00:28:09.295
<v Lalitha> But can you imagine this is what the child sees, how the headmaster, teachers and the official interacting.

00:28:09.555 --> 00:28:20.095
<v Lalitha> But when it comes to a classroom setting, then you see the teachers standing on a pedestal as a guru, and then preaching, preaching, preaching about morality and integrity and sincerity.

00:28:20.235 --> 00:28:24.285
<v Lalitha> What do you think a child will absorb or catch?

00:28:24.285 --> 00:28:24.293
<v Gayithri> Mm.

00:28:24.293 --> 00:28:24.416
<v Lalitha> So, what you say is very different and what you do is very different.

00:28:24.425 --> 00:28:24.595
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

00:28:41.235 --> 00:28:41.745
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:28:41.755 --> 00:28:45.495
<v Gayithri> And you see this across, is what you said, at least the schools that you-

00:28:45.495 --> 00:28:45.645
<v Lalitha> Across.

00:28:45.645 --> 00:28:46.505
<v Lalitha> Across schools.

00:28:48.535 --> 00:28:49.135
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:28:49.915 --> 00:28:56.515
<v Gayithri> And have you tried to talk like, is this like an aspect that you tried to attend to, or is it more like...

00:28:57.035 --> 00:28:57.345
<v Lalitha> No, no, no.

00:28:57.345 --> 00:28:58.815
<v Lalitha> I have always questioned this power.

00:28:58.815 --> 00:29:01.975
<v Lalitha> So let me quote an incident here.

00:29:04.505 --> 00:29:10.935
<v Lalitha> I was asked to speak as a teacher representative by an organization.

00:29:10.935 --> 00:29:18.040
<v Lalitha> I don't know what the organization name is, but the people who were present there was, I need not name them.

00:29:18.040 --> 00:29:18.090
<v Lalitha> The principal, science advisor to prime minister of India.

00:29:18.090 --> 00:29:18.150
<v Lalitha> And it was held in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, actually.

00:29:18.150 --> 00:29:18.205
<v Lalitha> And the group that had come were people of Finland.

00:29:18.205 --> 00:29:18.442
<v Lalitha> Educators from Finland had come, and there was some meeting between the government and the Finnish educators, because it is thought that the Finish people have, the Scandinavian people and the Finnish people have the best education and they're the most egalitarian society.

00:29:18.442 --> 00:29:18.525
<v Lalitha> So they wanted to bring that curriculum and what that curriculum is about and all.

00:29:18.525 --> 00:29:18.574
<v Lalitha> So I was supposed to give them teachers perspective.

00:29:18.574 --> 00:29:18.635
<v Lalitha> So when my turn came, I had prepared a small presentation.

00:29:18.635 --> 00:30:07.135
<v Lalitha> And then what happened during that time was, the Principal scientific advisor was also sitting.

00:30:07.505 --> 00:30:10.305
<v Lalitha> In India, you know there's a hierarchy of power.

00:30:10.305 --> 00:30:16.285
<v Lalitha> And there was some screen which was trying to disturb.

00:30:16.675 --> 00:30:17.925
<v Lalitha> That screen could not be seen.

00:30:17.925 --> 00:30:30.665
<v Lalitha> So suddenly this principal secretary to the government of India, he gets up and he walks to the window and he closes, he push the curtain, right?

00:30:30.845 --> 00:30:32.325
<v Lalitha> I saw this, everybody saw this.

00:30:32.675 --> 00:30:35.285
<v Lalitha> But in my presentation, this is what I spoke about.

00:30:37.865 --> 00:30:42.265
<v Lalitha> Normally, in a school, what is a child is exposed?

00:30:43.335 --> 00:30:45.655
<v Lalitha> A child is exposed to listening to orders for any small thing.

00:30:46.545 --> 00:30:49.545
<v Lalitha> People order others, "Okay, pull that chair, get a chair."

00:30:49.915 --> 00:30:55.325
<v Lalitha> But here I have the principal scientific advisor himself getting up.

00:30:55.325 --> 00:31:03.625
<v Lalitha> He's the topmost guy in that group of 200, 300 people who have assembled, but he walks and he...

00:31:03.655 --> 00:31:19.565
<v Lalitha> And I quoted this and said, I wish everybody behaved like this in public to show that it is no great or no lesser value for the dignitary on the dais of the day to get up and move the screen which was disturbing somebody's presentation.

00:31:20.575 --> 00:31:31.465
<v Lalitha> And the same thing I spoke, I asked them, I said, so I question, "Okay, Finnish people, you are coming to India and your educators you're coming to India.

00:31:31.525 --> 00:31:37.645
<v Lalitha> But the fundamental question I want to ask is, what is a child in Finland and what is a child in India?"

00:31:41.045 --> 00:31:48.875
<v Lalitha> If you think by just bringing Finnish curriculum to your schools, you can build an egalitarian society, I think you have to think twice.

00:31:50.905 --> 00:31:51.105
<v Lalitha> What is a child?

00:31:51.105 --> 00:31:56.175
<v Lalitha> Believe it or not there was applause in the auditorium.

00:31:57.065 --> 00:32:14.605
<v Lalitha> And there was a Finnish educator who stood up and said, "Yes, this is one of the fundamental differences between Finnish and in India, where there are a lot of cultural differences between how, what is a child?

00:32:14.715 --> 00:32:15.155
<v Lalitha> How do we treat a child?

00:32:15.155 --> 00:32:15.785
<v Lalitha> How do we look at a child?

00:32:15.785 --> 00:32:19.865
<v Lalitha> Is it an individual or is it somebody who can do certain chores?"

00:32:19.895 --> 00:32:22.135
<v Lalitha> Yes, I love, I care, I do everything.

00:32:23.235 --> 00:32:25.555
<v Lalitha> But is it an equal partner in learning?

00:32:25.555 --> 00:32:30.125
<v Lalitha> Is it an equal partner in a family, or what is it?

00:32:32.445 --> 00:32:38.384
<v Lalitha> And there again, I said, and I also said this, "Please, out of context," in India, and I asked, most of them were Indian educators also, "What would you do?

00:32:38.384 --> 00:32:38.395
<v Lalitha> All your children attend."

00:32:38.395 --> 00:32:46.445
<v Lalitha> They were all people from the elite this one.

00:32:46.915 --> 00:32:58.455
<v Lalitha> So what would you feel if your schools, if your child's teacher asked your child to wash her box or plate after eating?

00:33:00.565 --> 00:33:03.075
<v Lalitha> Because this is what is happening in Indian schools.

00:33:05.775 --> 00:33:13.575
<v Lalitha> A child, that too a girl child, picks up the plates of the teachers because the midday meal is given and the men folk don't even have the...

00:33:14.415 --> 00:33:16.115
<v Lalitha> They are so shameless.

00:33:16.115 --> 00:33:21.935
<v Lalitha> They wash their hands in the plate itself and leave the plate for the child to pick up and wash.

00:33:21.935 --> 00:33:30.605
<v Lalitha> And if this is what India is, do you think bringing Finnish curriculum will bring equity?

00:33:34.075 --> 00:33:47.105
<v Lalitha> And when I raised this question in a local forum in Gubbi somewhere, there was a 45, 50 year old teacher standing up and said, "I don't want to listen to this madam, because what she's talking is against our culture."

00:33:53.435 --> 00:33:54.269
<v Gayithri> And when did this happen, Akka?

00:33:54.269 --> 00:34:02.535
<v Lalitha> This happened just before, I think last September, October.

00:34:04.845 --> 00:34:07.615
<v Gayithri> That is you presenting this-

00:34:07.615 --> 00:34:08.420
<v Lalitha> Conference happened in May, April, I think.

00:34:08.565 --> 00:34:09.185
<v Lalitha> May, April.

00:34:09.365 --> 00:34:23.145
<v Lalitha> But if I find the forum of teachers where I meet certain times where we are called to address forum of teachers in different setting, then I raise these issues also sometimes.

00:34:24.995 --> 00:34:29.357
<v Lalitha> But what happened there was, there was a BEO, education officer who was of that district.

00:34:29.535 --> 00:34:31.235
<v Lalitha> I had gone to a different taluk actually.

00:34:31.515 --> 00:34:33.635
<v Lalitha> And he said, "What this Madam missed?"

00:34:33.965 --> 00:34:35.725
<v Lalitha> And he tried to pacify them.

00:34:36.485 --> 00:34:43.685
<v Lalitha> Everybody became so agitated because they were made to reflect on their own practices which they thought was very cruel.

00:34:43.865 --> 00:34:55.155
<v Lalitha> Now, I exposed the thing that making a child wash the plate of a teacher, not a democratic way.

00:34:55.155 --> 00:34:57.485
<v Lalitha> It is not a democratic way of treating a child.

00:34:57.725 --> 00:34:57.755
<v Lalitha> Right?

00:34:57.765 --> 00:34:59.245
<v Lalitha> All they have to, when the children have a...

00:34:59.245 --> 00:35:04.645
<v Lalitha> When the school has water and when the school has a tap, all that, I expect the teacher also to go and wash their plate there.

00:35:06.405 --> 00:35:07.415
<v Lalitha> Why should a child do that?

00:35:10.895 --> 00:35:12.325
<v Lalitha> Don't understand.

00:35:13.315 --> 00:35:18.735
<v Lalitha> If this is respect, so this is what I begin to question.

00:35:19.155 --> 00:35:29.965
<v Lalitha> When you treat a child as somebody, are you asking the child to wash the plate because you cannot do it, or this is obedience?

00:35:30.045 --> 00:35:32.213
<v Lalitha> I'm sorry, I don't want to take it.

00:35:32.213 --> 00:35:42.335
<v Lalitha> It is not obedience to wash somebody's plate unless there is something wrong or the teacher cannot do it for some reason or anything.

00:35:43.755 --> 00:35:48.701
<v Lalitha> I will as well understand those situations when we ask certain children to do certain small, "Please, can you get.

00:35:48.975 --> 00:35:49.805
<v Lalitha> Please, can you do this plate?"

00:35:50.135 --> 00:35:57.125
<v Lalitha> But here it is all done in a way as if the authority, the power of the teacher is accepted.

00:35:57.535 --> 00:35:58.595
<v Lalitha> And the children have to wash the plates of the teachers.

00:36:02.265 --> 00:36:02.515
<v Lalitha> Why?

00:36:06.555 --> 00:36:07.005
<v Gayithri> Very [crosstalk]

00:36:07.005 --> 00:36:11.515
<v Gayithri> .
<v  Lalitha> Because washing somebody else's plate has a very derogatory thing in India.

00:36:11.655 --> 00:36:18.145
<v  Lalitha> When you go to restaurants, we know how we treat those people who pick up the plates after we have eaten them.

00:36:19.575 --> 00:36:24.498
<v  Lalitha> And no teacher there who is working there would want her daughter to play that role anywhere.

00:36:24.498 --> 00:36:24.845
<v  Lalitha> Isn't it?

00:36:27.445 --> 00:36:30.270
<v Gayithri> And you said it's mostly the girls in the class who actually take this up.

00:36:30.270 --> 00:36:36.490
<v Lalitha> It's only the girls in the class.

00:36:36.490 --> 00:36:39.455
<v Gayithri> And are there like certain girls, or is it like more broadly like any girl?

00:36:39.455 --> 00:36:39.456
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:36:39.456 --> 00:36:39.457
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:36:39.457 --> 00:36:47.965
<v Lalitha> Sometimes I think it could be certain girls only, who do this job.

00:36:48.745 --> 00:36:55.575
<v Lalitha> So you can understand how, why maintaining toilets and all in Indian schools is so very tough because nobody likes to do that job.

00:36:59.415 --> 00:36:59.795
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:37:02.305 --> 00:37:04.470
<v Gayithri> I hope that kids are not dragged into that also.

00:37:04.470 --> 00:37:08.095
<v Lalitha> No, there are no toilets.

00:37:08.305 --> 00:37:13.090
<v Lalitha> I don't know how they're kept clean now that there's [inaudible] and every school has toilets and everything.

00:37:13.090 --> 00:37:14.645
<v Lalitha> I don't know how that is [inaudible]

00:37:14.935 --> 00:37:15.565
<v Lalitha> .
<v  Gayithri> Managed.

00:37:15.895 --> 00:37:18.692
<v Lalitha> See, the point is, as a contrast I will give in Uganda what happened.

00:37:18.692 --> 00:37:28.265
<v Lalitha> When I went to Uganda, when I went on school supervising, the supervisor who came with me was the vice principal of the PTC or the teacher's training college.

00:37:28.265 --> 00:37:29.175
<v Lalitha> You know what?

00:37:29.175 --> 00:37:36.035
<v Lalitha> When he inspected everything, he also went into the toilet to inspect, which I think no Indian official will do, unless it is necessary.

00:37:36.705 --> 00:37:37.176
<v Lalitha> Go to the toilet and inspect the toilet.

00:37:37.176 --> 00:37:51.355
<v Lalitha> And there, what happens, there is a culture of, it's still an open toilet and since Ugandan schools have huge ground and they grow a lot of vegetables, the dried this one is used as manure in the schools.

00:37:51.775 --> 00:37:52.255
<v Gayithri> Mm.

00:37:52.805 --> 00:37:54.115
<v Lalitha> So you see the...

00:37:54.175 --> 00:38:01.035
<v Lalitha> And it was all very normal for the vice principal to go and see it.

00:38:01.235 --> 00:38:10.205
<v Lalitha> And it's very normal for children to pick up that dung, human dung and put it aside for drying so that it could be used as manure.

00:38:10.545 --> 00:38:17.810
<v Lalitha> So how you do things, inclusively you do things is very, very important.

00:38:17.810 --> 00:38:21.865
<v Gayithri> And what those actions mean maybe in that context matters a lot.

00:38:21.865 --> 00:38:22.095
<v Lalitha> Yes.

00:38:22.545 --> 00:38:23.935
<v Lalitha> Or what is so...

00:38:26.315 --> 00:38:27.995
<v Lalitha> I had to mend my ways.

00:38:28.375 --> 00:38:28.725
<v Lalitha> Okay.

00:38:28.755 --> 00:38:33.555
<v Lalitha> I should also now follow the vice principal into the toilet to see how it is maintained.

00:38:33.555 --> 00:38:50.535
<v Lalitha> See, this may all look very trivial, but this is how the power, what jobs are more important, what tasks are more important?

00:38:50.825 --> 00:38:58.535
<v Lalitha> Signing a register or signing the letter of a headmaster is very important or should you also see to that his premise is very clean and neat?

00:39:01.095 --> 00:39:02.015
<v Gayithri> Mm.

00:39:03.205 --> 00:39:03.495
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

00:39:05.755 --> 00:39:13.555
<v Lalitha> So lots, these ideas get built in the child's mind in India very easily.

00:39:15.025 --> 00:39:17.825
<v Lalitha> So you talk about dignity of labor.

00:39:17.835 --> 00:39:21.595
<v Lalitha> You may lecture, they may get a hundred out of hundred marks, no problem.

00:39:21.595 --> 00:39:28.775
<v Lalitha> The toppers, but do they really mean respect or dignity of all the kinds of jobs?

00:39:29.715 --> 00:39:30.235
<v Lalitha> I'm sorry.

00:39:32.795 --> 00:39:36.165
<v Gayithri> Because what they're getting to see is what they mostly learn from.

00:39:37.045 --> 00:39:37.345
<v Lalitha> Yes.

00:39:39.995 --> 00:39:40.315
<v Gayithri> Sure.

00:39:42.435 --> 00:39:45.885
<v Gayithri> So this is very interesting.

00:39:46.525 --> 00:39:51.925
<v Gayithri> And I know these are also, it's hard to categorize them as easy or tricky.

00:39:52.015 --> 00:39:55.405
<v Gayithri> Oh, this is easy to do in this context, or this is tricky to do.

00:39:56.005 --> 00:40:15.645
<v Gayithri> But given we are trying to get a broader understanding of the work that you do, what would you consider as some of easy aspects or natural or intuitive aspects of your work as your, especially in your recent work with the government school teachers?

00:40:15.705 --> 00:40:16.125
<v 41> 20

00:40:16.445 --> 00:40:16.735
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:40:17.205 --> 00:40:28.905
<v Lalitha> What is easy is, perhaps because of my experience and, I've learned a lot, of course, every experience has taught a lot of things.

00:40:28.905 --> 00:40:45.185
<v Lalitha> So it is very easy for me to get into your classroom and see what's happening or what exactly to, it's not exactly rating the teacher or the learning program, learning process that is happening, but intuitively I can just understand what's happening.

00:40:45.655 --> 00:40:47.240
<v Lalitha> And how is the class?

00:40:47.555 --> 00:40:56.045
<v Lalitha> How is the school as a whole, is there a team work here or is there lot of hierarchy, are the children really...

00:40:56.965 --> 00:40:58.395
<v Lalitha> Most children are happy to come to school.

00:40:58.395 --> 00:40:59.805
<v Lalitha> It's not that they're sad or anything.

00:41:00.135 --> 00:41:12.385
<v Lalitha> But do they really look forward to the classes of the teachers and everything is something very, I can easily get through and this, so I become, I have a lot of intuition.

00:41:13.045 --> 00:41:28.461
<v Lalitha> Intuitively I get to know how the school as a whole is doing in the setup that it is because I can see through teachers when they talk, because my experience has taught a lot.

00:41:28.545 --> 00:41:33.575
<v Lalitha> Some people may talk a lot, but there is nothing to do, but there are some teachers who are very quiet, but there are a lot of things happening.

00:41:33.825 --> 00:41:41.895
<v Lalitha> So the one or two poking, simple, yeah, that is the most easiest thing for me.

00:41:42.605 --> 00:41:45.005
<v Lalitha> Finding the gaps is very, there are lot of gaps.

00:41:45.445 --> 00:41:52.595
<v Lalitha> So I don't go looking for gaps, but why do these gaps exist?

00:41:53.765 --> 00:42:04.165
<v Lalitha> And unfortunately, there are certain challenges, the schools face, which I cannot fill in it, actually.

00:42:04.365 --> 00:42:16.865
<v Lalitha> As I told, the absentee of children during certain periods of local festivals and celebrations, they're out, and the follow-up becomes very difficult.

00:42:17.915 --> 00:42:24.927
<v Lalitha> And what is more challenging is, in fact, I have not recorded this actually, but this would be a very interesting thing to do.

00:42:24.935 --> 00:42:46.635
<v Lalitha> But my only guess is Indian schools, my Gubbi schools, I think out of the 200 or 220 working days, for schools, 220 working days, I think hardly there will be 100 days in which all the teachers will be present and all the students will be present.

00:42:49.155 --> 00:42:49.308
<v Lalitha> Only 100 days.

00:42:49.365 --> 00:42:52.155
<v Gayithri> What do you think the rest of the days are going for?

00:42:53.785 --> 00:42:53.885
<v Lalitha> No.

00:42:53.885 --> 00:42:57.025
<v Lalitha> No, because each teacher has a lot of casual leave.

00:42:57.025 --> 00:42:59.875
<v Lalitha> So if you have four teachers, so 60 days are gone.

00:42:59.935 --> 00:43:00.925
<v Lalitha> At least one teacher will be gone, right?

00:43:03.345 --> 00:43:04.385
<v Gayithri> Mm.

00:43:06.285 --> 00:43:10.275
<v Lalitha> And take away festivals and everything, and the child will be lost for so many days.

00:43:11.355 --> 00:43:12.935
<v Lalitha> Child itself will be absent for so many days.

00:43:13.185 --> 00:43:19.755
<v Lalitha> So 100 full, the school is full for only 100 days in a year.

00:43:19.755 --> 00:43:23.435
<v Lalitha> These schools are made for 100 days or 220 days?

00:43:24.335 --> 00:43:24.945
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:43:27.955 --> 00:43:36.715
<v Lalitha> And I mean, there's a lot of loss of learning time in schools.

00:43:41.145 --> 00:43:41.865
<v Gayithri> What do you think?

00:43:41.865 --> 00:43:42.685
<v Gayithri> What do you see?

00:43:42.725 --> 00:43:48.375
<v Gayithri> I know you mentioned that it's absenteeism either from the teacher's end or from the student.

00:43:49.325 --> 00:43:50.299
<v Lalitha> Even within the 100 days-

00:43:50.299 --> 00:43:51.005
<v Gayithri> Even within the 100 days.

00:43:51.005 --> 00:43:54.235
<v Lalitha> There's a lot of loss of learning time.

00:43:56.775 --> 00:43:59.775
<v Gayithri> What do you see as some of the reasons for that?

00:44:01.525 --> 00:44:02.765
<v Lalitha> They all look very legitimate.

00:44:02.765 --> 00:44:18.805
<v Lalitha> They all look very legitimate, but to me who has worked in a private school where every teacher is there in class and it goes, there is accountability for every class that you attend to, here, they need not be.

00:44:19.745 --> 00:44:21.555
<v Lalitha> They're presenting the school, that is enough.

00:44:22.715 --> 00:44:24.135
<v Lalitha> They're coming to school, that is enough.

00:44:24.815 --> 00:44:28.315
<v Lalitha> That they're engaging the children the whole time is not guaranteed.

00:44:28.425 --> 00:44:31.755
<v Lalitha> Is not part of their accountability.

00:44:32.295 --> 00:44:33.215
<v Gayithri> Mm.

00:44:33.725 --> 00:44:41.835
<v Lalitha> Most important issue that anybody has to grapple when they come to work in such setup.

00:44:45.795 --> 00:44:46.435
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:44:46.925 --> 00:44:47.535
<v Gayithri> Any other-

00:44:48.975 --> 00:44:58.645
<v Lalitha> When ASER brings in report every year saying that fifth standard cannot read second standard book or a fifth standard child cannot add or subtract, I'm not surprised.

00:45:00.445 --> 00:45:00.545
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:45:06.915 --> 00:45:07.665
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:45:07.665 --> 00:45:14.755
<v Lalitha> There is so much of loss, and there are certain activity, which is not very, which are highly ritualistic.

00:45:16.915 --> 00:45:18.325
<v Gayithri> Would you want to mention an example?

00:45:18.655 --> 00:45:19.865
<v Lalitha> Colonial way of school.

00:45:20.225 --> 00:45:21.895
<v Lalitha> Coming in school, standing in line.

00:45:21.905 --> 00:45:21.935
<v Lalitha> Okay.

00:45:23.145 --> 00:45:24.405
<v Lalitha> Prayer and everything fine.

00:45:24.405 --> 00:45:25.085
<v Lalitha> And reading.

00:45:26.225 --> 00:45:30.045
<v Lalitha> There is no follow-up of any activity.

00:45:30.045 --> 00:45:31.215
<v Lalitha> There is no follow-up.

00:45:31.815 --> 00:45:33.625
<v Lalitha> What is the children's day supposed to be?

00:45:35.705 --> 00:45:36.215
<v Lalitha> Okay.

00:45:37.705 --> 00:45:43.125
<v Lalitha> There are so many great men that have come and gone in India and it increases by time.

00:45:43.605 --> 00:45:43.675
<v Lalitha> Right?

00:45:43.675 --> 00:45:45.165
<v Lalitha> And those jayanthis are celebrated.

00:45:45.185 --> 00:45:45.995
<v Lalitha> How are they celebrated?

00:45:46.005 --> 00:45:46.925
<v Lalitha> Half a day goes.

00:45:47.495 --> 00:45:50.625
<v Lalitha> It is a working day, but half a day you have to celebrate that.

00:45:50.915 --> 00:45:56.175
<v Lalitha> So they all sit and headmaster or some teachers talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about that person.

00:45:58.145 --> 00:46:08.575
<v Lalitha> What does it mean?

00:46:13.485 --> 00:46:14.205
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:46:14.205 --> 00:46:14.255
<v Gayithri> And you-

00:46:14.255 --> 00:46:14.615
<v Lalitha> There's a lot of ritualistic.

00:46:14.615 --> 00:46:15.825
<v Lalitha> Everything is ritual.

00:46:20.455 --> 00:46:22.115
<v Gayithri> And you were also calling this colonial.

00:46:23.025 --> 00:46:25.675
<v Gayithri> Would you want to expand a little on that akka?

00:46:26.095 --> 00:46:26.845
<v Gayithri> Like the...

00:46:29.665 --> 00:46:35.375
<v Lalitha> No, somewhere I think, at least people who are living today.

00:46:35.445 --> 00:46:35.955
<v Lalitha> I don't know.

00:46:36.355 --> 00:46:53.500
<v Lalitha> See, when you talked about colonial, in the days when, say go back 50, 70 years ago, my father himself was a teacher and he used to talk about his teachers in the same private, I mean, the Gubbi taluk I'm talking about, and how good those teachers were.

00:46:53.665 --> 00:46:56.441
<v Lalitha> They were great scholars and children from all sections of society came.

00:46:56.441 --> 00:47:02.185
<v Lalitha> It's not that, maybe the girls were very little, or I don't know whether he had any girls in his class.

00:47:02.635 --> 00:47:13.621
<v Lalitha> I don't recall that, but they were highly motivated.

00:47:14.355 --> 00:47:27.649
<v Lalitha> But somehow what happened was, later, this colonial practice of what do you mean by being a sarkari worker, government worker meant that you have to be in time and you have to be present, that is all.

00:47:27.649 --> 00:47:32.695
<v Lalitha> What you do after you come, there is no accountability.

00:47:32.695 --> 00:47:41.985
<v Lalitha> How did this erosion of asking accountability from people vanished or get reduced over a period of time is amazing.

00:47:50.135 --> 00:47:50.595
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:47:50.805 --> 00:47:53.390
<v Lalitha> And this is true of, I think even government offices also.

00:47:53.390 --> 00:47:55.992
<v Lalitha> Though I may not have any experiences, though.

00:47:55.992 --> 00:47:57.944
<v Lalitha> When I visit, I know that.

00:47:57.944 --> 00:48:01.635
<v Lalitha> But this may be true of why government...

00:48:04.305 --> 00:48:24.265
<v Lalitha> Then why do even a parent in a rural area with little affordability send a child to a private school where he thinks the child will learn more and he can have some aspiration to go for further studies.

00:48:24.265 --> 00:48:28.175
<v Lalitha> Because I think the teacher, more than, they see a lot of accountability in those schools.

00:48:28.175 --> 00:48:39.575
<v Lalitha> Whatever may be that, but that is still, but the sense of accountability that they being there, that they have to be there, they come there and they may not have any training.

00:48:39.585 --> 00:48:42.845
<v Lalitha> Private schools, of course, not all private schools.

00:48:43.865 --> 00:48:49.285
<v Lalitha> Even private school children fair very poorly in, specially from rural areas.

00:48:49.645 --> 00:49:01.575
<v Lalitha> But still they see that as, it's not only English medium, they also see the teachers there work hard and they make the children accountable is what.

00:49:01.575 --> 00:49:04.565
<v Lalitha> They themselves are accountable, a little more accountable than the teachers at the government schools and make the children accountable.

00:49:06.295 --> 00:49:06.825
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:49:07.155 --> 00:49:08.475
<v Gayithri> That's what you see is happening.

00:49:09.515 --> 00:49:19.135
<v Lalitha> That is one of the, that is also why parents move the children from government schools to private schools.

00:49:19.135 --> 00:49:20.015
<v Gayithri> Got it.

00:49:20.015 --> 00:49:21.335
<v Lalitha> In rural setup.

00:49:21.335 --> 00:49:23.095
<v Lalitha> Here it's all private.

00:49:23.095 --> 00:49:26.025
<v Lalitha> So there is no question about.

00:49:28.035 --> 00:49:28.125
<v Gayithri> Interesting.

00:49:28.695 --> 00:49:34.115
<v Gayithri> So according to you, what would be one most important aspect of your work?

00:49:34.735 --> 00:49:41.171
<v Gayithri> What are you specifically looking at accomplishing in your work as you're interacting with degree teachers?

00:49:41.225 --> 00:49:45.645
<v Gayithri> I'm sorry.

00:49:49.615 --> 00:49:50.465
<v Lalitha> Hmm.

00:49:51.725 --> 00:49:56.025
<v Lalitha> I started as a teacher, even without having any degrees or anything.

00:49:56.275 --> 00:49:56.505
<v Lalitha> Right.

00:49:58.725 --> 00:50:00.225
<v Lalitha> I think it is possible.

00:50:01.185 --> 00:50:03.088
<v Lalitha> And not all my children score 90 out of 90.

00:50:03.088 --> 00:50:03.279
<v Lalitha> I never was in 90, 90 or a 100 over 90 student at all.

00:50:03.279 --> 00:50:37.015
<v Lalitha> And so, my own experience teaches me that it is possible for a person who enters the teaching profession as a facilitator or a teacher can definitely build up their, her or his capacities to be a learner along with the children.

00:50:38.645 --> 00:50:41.665
<v Lalitha> And that is what I want to see.

00:50:46.105 --> 00:50:50.255
<v Lalitha> And that is what I want the people to enjoy in this profession.

00:50:50.595 --> 00:50:52.955
<v Lalitha> This is what the profession is meant for.

00:50:52.955 --> 00:50:56.785
<v Lalitha> To be a learner always along with your students.

00:50:56.785 --> 00:50:58.586
<v Lalitha> And you need not be a master of the content at all, especially in government schools and all.

00:50:58.586 --> 00:51:07.115
<v Lalitha> It's only to bring in hope, sense of equity, sense of sensitivity.

00:51:07.185 --> 00:51:20.235
<v Lalitha> However, wretched the world outside, the background the child may come from, but still, I think we have a lot of responsibility to bring in hope to the child that things could become better.

00:51:20.235 --> 00:51:22.915
<v Lalitha> And for that we have to strive is very, very important.

00:51:24.365 --> 00:51:26.225
<v Lalitha> Nobody will offer it on a platter.

00:51:26.505 --> 00:51:29.465
<v Lalitha> Yeah, you may get something on a platter, but that will not be very legal also.

00:51:29.465 --> 00:51:33.235
<v Gayithri> Got it.

00:51:34.955 --> 00:51:35.245
<v Gayithri> Sure.

00:51:36.095 --> 00:51:42.555
<v Lalitha> You cannot transfer the consequences of your actions to others.

00:51:42.565 --> 00:51:49.285
<v Lalitha> Good or bad, it is you who is responsible for that.

00:51:50.615 --> 00:51:55.055
<v Lalitha> There is nothing called as a perfect teacher at all.

00:51:55.995 --> 00:52:09.405
<v Lalitha> A lot of instance where my students taught me, my colleagues picked upon me to brush my own emotional or sensitivity, insensitivity certain times.

00:52:10.735 --> 00:52:14.285
<v Lalitha> Polished me from, for what I am today and still I'm getting polished.

00:52:14.955 --> 00:52:14.975
<v Gayithri> Yeah,

00:52:19.095 --> 00:52:21.955
<v Lalitha> No, it is hard.

00:52:22.685 --> 00:52:30.615
<v Lalitha> That hard work brings a lot of satisfaction, contentment that what Indian culture talks about.

00:52:30.615 --> 00:52:46.464
<v Lalitha> I think if we, what India boasts now of its grand civilization and especially, I don't want use the word guru, but still I'm using the word guru, but I'm very sorry.

00:52:46.464 --> 00:52:47.385
<v Lalitha> It is the most important.

00:52:47.725 --> 00:52:49.995
<v Lalitha> It is a misnomer these days.

00:52:50.895 --> 00:52:59.011
<v Lalitha> And it is sad that many in the teaching profession do not stand up to it at all, but still want to enjoy all the privileges just because they're a teacher.

00:52:59.011 --> 00:52:59.118
<v Lalitha> The whole, they've got the job and very sorry to see.

00:52:59.118 --> 00:52:59.395
<v Lalitha> The greatest dichotomy and the tragedy that's happening in India.

00:53:05.005 --> 00:53:24.535
<v Gayithri> So if you were to pick one or two things that you wish or hope it would change, as you work in this direction, what would they be?

00:53:31.125 --> 00:53:31.745
<v Lalitha> Change?

00:53:31.835 --> 00:53:33.575
<v Lalitha> What are the changes that I would like to see?

00:53:33.575 --> 00:53:34.505
<v Lalitha> Or what change I can...

00:53:34.505 --> 00:53:37.530
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:53:40.555 --> 00:53:40.915
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

00:53:41.025 --> 00:53:43.135
<v Lalitha> I saw this question somewhere.

00:53:43.135 --> 00:53:47.225
<v Lalitha> What change I would like to see?

00:53:47.225 --> 00:53:47.708
<v Gayithri> Uh-huh [affirmative].

00:53:47.708 --> 00:53:48.433
<v Lalitha> No, just accountability.

00:53:48.433 --> 00:53:49.158
<v Lalitha> That is all.

00:53:49.158 --> 00:53:52.217
<v Lalitha> The teachers have to be more reflective and accountable.

00:53:52.217 --> 00:53:54.742
<v Lalitha> That is all.

00:53:54.742 --> 00:54:08.012
<v Lalitha> To see that her profession, what she thinks of integrity and sincerity in her everyday life has to be reflected in her professional life.

00:54:08.012 --> 00:54:17.555
<v Lalitha> What she thinks of devotion to God or anything, because, I think I was talking to you about the other day, the paapa[sin] and punya[virtue].

00:54:17.555 --> 00:54:32.995
<v Lalitha> So I really want to say that when, why don't people in India, when they talk about committing a sin, yeah, a teacher may say, "No, I come on time.

00:54:33.765 --> 00:54:35.515
<v Lalitha> I don't take leave at all.

00:54:38.175 --> 00:54:38.835
<v Lalitha> I'm always in school."

00:54:41.395 --> 00:54:42.660
<v Lalitha> But what do you do in school is very, very important.

00:54:42.660 --> 00:54:42.837
<v Lalitha> So, that is punya.

00:54:42.837 --> 00:54:44.175
<v Lalitha> What you do, the work that you do.

00:54:47.495 --> 00:54:50.105
<v Lalitha> Why don't you believe that the work you do leads to salvation?

00:54:50.105 --> 00:54:51.131
<v Gayithri> Hmm.

00:54:51.131 --> 00:54:56.845
<v Lalitha> It is not just being ritualistic, right?

00:54:57.175 --> 00:54:59.931
<v Lalitha> Coming to school in time and being there.

00:54:59.931 --> 00:54:59.957
<v Lalitha> Right.

00:54:59.957 --> 00:55:00.635
<v Lalitha> Coming to school in time and being there in the class.

00:55:00.665 --> 00:55:01.665
<v Lalitha> That is ritualism.

00:55:03.995 --> 00:55:08.980
<v Lalitha> Beyond that, something that is asked for, how do you engage the children?

00:55:09.195 --> 00:55:16.435
<v Lalitha> What is your prime job or work that you're supposed to do as a teacher?

00:55:16.435 --> 00:55:18.015
<v Lalitha> It is not coming in time.

00:55:18.175 --> 00:55:19.395
<v Lalitha> You need not come in time.

00:55:19.425 --> 00:55:21.285
<v Lalitha> You may not be present in the school everyday.

00:55:21.285 --> 00:55:25.325
<v Lalitha> But the day you are present, what is it that you are doing is very important.

00:55:27.705 --> 00:55:33.375
<v Lalitha> Every day lost, something, so many children lose.

00:55:35.005 --> 00:55:42.005
<v Lalitha> It's a loss to the child, to the parent, to the community, to the country and to the world at large.

00:55:42.005 --> 00:55:43.588
<v Lalitha> Do you see that consequences of your action and inaction?

00:55:43.588 --> 00:55:43.843
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

00:55:43.843 --> 00:55:53.545
<v Lalitha> What you do has a lot of bearing.

00:55:53.545 --> 00:56:04.275
<v Lalitha> What we do and we don't do has a lot of bearing.

00:56:05.145 --> 00:56:05.705
<v Lalitha> Individually, yes.

00:56:08.735 --> 00:56:10.965
<v Gayithri> Yeah, for sure.

00:56:12.445 --> 00:56:25.835
<v Gayithri> Maybe now we can think more across your work maybe even going back to the time you made some of these choices, to be a teacher or to actually work with teachers.

00:56:27.155 --> 00:56:29.975
<v Gayithri> What motivated you to pick this line of work?

00:56:32.395 --> 00:56:37.145
<v Gayithri> Maybe to be a teacher and particularly to work with marginalized communities?

00:56:42.295 --> 00:56:47.725
<v Lalitha> I became a teacher just by choice because I tried to be...

00:56:50.265 --> 00:56:54.990
<v Lalitha> I joined as a clerk in the post office in the beginning because I thought I had to earn money after my graduation.

00:56:54.990 --> 00:56:55.069
<v Lalitha> But, I did not fit it to the job at all.

00:56:55.069 --> 00:56:55.105
<v Lalitha> So, I left a job.

00:56:55.105 --> 00:56:55.140
<v Lalitha> It was something very boring.

00:56:55.140 --> 00:56:55.205
<v Lalitha> I always thought I was a people oriented person.

00:56:55.205 --> 00:57:16.075
<v Lalitha> So, at the age of 30, when somebody in the neighborhood asked me, "Can you come and join the school?"

00:57:16.125 --> 00:57:16.505
<v Lalitha> I joined.

00:57:18.165 --> 00:57:24.285
<v Lalitha> I discovered myself that I could take the risk of being learner.

00:57:24.285 --> 00:57:26.009
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

00:57:26.009 --> 00:57:26.048
<v Lalitha> I think one of the most important things...

00:57:26.048 --> 00:57:26.201
<v Lalitha> Because, when you stand as an adult, as a teacher before the students, before the young minds, I think it requires a lot of courage, you have to be true to yourself.

00:57:26.201 --> 00:57:26.220
<v Lalitha> If you are already...

00:57:26.225 --> 00:57:43.805
<v Lalitha> Yeah, all of us...

00:57:48.025 --> 00:57:49.525
<v Lalitha> I started being an authoritarian in itself.

00:57:49.705 --> 00:57:53.015
<v Lalitha> I even carried a stick also, in the classroom.

00:57:53.345 --> 00:57:54.195
<v Lalitha> I began...

00:57:56.745 --> 00:58:05.605
<v Lalitha> Until one day, one of my students asked me this question, "No teacher, you were very rude to that boy yesterday."

00:58:05.605 --> 00:58:10.025
<v Lalitha> That was the last time when I had the stick in my hand.

00:58:10.365 --> 00:58:24.555
<v Lalitha> Even from the first stage of my career, I gave this leverage to children to talk to me very freely, question me, question my actions.

00:58:24.565 --> 00:58:31.215
<v Lalitha> That, I learned very quickly in my profession.

00:58:31.615 --> 00:58:34.275
<v Lalitha> So, I was not at all afraid of being exposed at all.

00:58:35.045 --> 00:58:40.655
<v Lalitha> Exposed of my emotions, of my bitterness, of my anger.

00:58:42.375 --> 00:58:43.005
<v Lalitha> And you know what?

00:58:43.015 --> 00:58:44.365
<v Lalitha> All this I found...

00:58:44.975 --> 00:58:55.075
<v Lalitha> That is what a person has to be in the humanist theory of Paulo Freire when he says that a teacher need not wear any mask, when he stands before a group of children.

00:58:55.075 --> 00:58:58.135
<v Lalitha> He has to be very authentic.

00:58:58.435 --> 00:59:02.205
<v Lalitha> I wanted to show children that I was as human as they were.

00:59:06.025 --> 00:59:06.625
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

00:59:08.065 --> 00:59:17.425
<v Lalitha> This got ingrained in me and there was no turning back at all.

00:59:18.535 --> 00:59:32.125
<v Lalitha> When I said I went to VSO and all these experiences, and when some of my English friends said, "How can you speak such good English, Lalitha?

00:59:34.025 --> 00:59:36.505
<v Lalitha> I took that question as a very silly question actually.

00:59:40.335 --> 00:59:41.925
<v Lalitha> Because, their world view was so small.

00:59:42.175 --> 00:59:42.335
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

00:59:42.335 --> 00:59:50.687
<v Gayithri> It is a good thing that we were colonized.

00:59:51.615 --> 01:00:00.095
<v Lalitha> So, all these experiences of, the way they looked at me, the way they, I responded to them, also...

01:00:01.105 --> 01:00:03.875
<v Lalitha> Oh yeah, my egalitarian principles became more and more...

01:00:04.095 --> 01:00:12.845
<v Lalitha> When I went to Nepal actually, when I worked with European teachers, especially both Dutch and English, they were very close to me actually.

01:00:12.845 --> 01:00:22.755
<v Lalitha> The way they looked at Nepali society, when I was working along with them, how they looked at certain things and they said, "Okay, how come I did not see this at all?"

01:00:25.065 --> 01:00:32.815
<v Lalitha> How do you look at things as different, but not being judgemental, was something which I learned, when I went to Ladakh for the first time.

01:00:36.505 --> 01:00:45.815
<v Lalitha> Not that it was not there, but the point is, in your own setup, when you're with your own group of people, with the same conditioning, there is always this ego clash that happens.

01:00:45.815 --> 01:00:49.595
<v Lalitha> That is ego to say, you don't want to give up amongst your own people.

01:00:50.565 --> 01:01:08.515
<v Lalitha> But I think, that was very interesting and in Nepal, there was a headmaster who scolded his female staff as buffaloes in front of me one day.

01:01:09.005 --> 01:01:15.085
<v Lalitha> I just walked out of the office room that day.

01:01:16.015 --> 01:01:22.335
<v Lalitha> There was this student one day, he knocked at my door, and he said, "Madam, I'm here."

01:01:22.835 --> 01:01:23.795
<v Lalitha> "Oh, come Siddharth.

01:01:24.055 --> 01:01:25.835
<v Lalitha> It's nice to see you after so many years."

01:01:26.295 --> 01:01:28.035
<v Gayithri> Where was this, akka?

01:01:28.035 --> 01:01:30.160
<v Lalitha> In my home, actually.

01:01:30.405 --> 01:01:41.885
<v Lalitha> The boy says, "You scolded me when I was in class seven and eight saying that I was not good for anything that I wouldn't be graduate, that I won't study, that I won't reach anywhere.

01:01:42.175 --> 01:01:45.625
<v Lalitha> Here I am standing before you as an engineer."

01:01:45.625 --> 01:01:47.825
<v Lalitha> And I said, "Okay Siddharth, congratulations.

01:01:49.135 --> 01:01:50.635
<v Lalitha> You have become an engineer, but I have not gained anything out of it.

01:01:50.635 --> 01:01:59.140
<v Lalitha> I personally did not gain anything out of it, you became an engineer.

01:01:59.285 --> 01:02:01.155
<v Lalitha> But you have gained something, becoming an engineer.

01:02:01.165 --> 01:02:01.465
<v Lalitha> Right?

01:02:03.825 --> 01:02:04.955
<v Lalitha> So, what I said that day?

01:02:04.955 --> 01:02:09.335
<v Lalitha> That you have to be accountable for your everyday work, is important, isn't it?

01:02:11.555 --> 01:02:15.925
<v Lalitha> You may have felt bitter this why Lalitha akka is demanding so much hard work.

01:02:16.025 --> 01:02:17.335
<v Lalitha> But, don't you enjoy your hard work.

01:02:17.365 --> 01:02:19.095
<v Lalitha> Did you not enjoy engineering studies?"

01:02:21.895 --> 01:02:27.135
<v Lalitha> He still comes to my house.

01:02:29.645 --> 01:02:29.975
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:02:30.895 --> 01:02:45.015
<v Gayithri> I think one question that I wanted to ask is what actually motivated you to go and work in even Ladakh or Nepal or Uganda, or even like choosing to work with

01:02:46.385 --> 01:02:46.755
<v Gayithri> ...
<v  Lalitha> Yes.

01:02:47.095 --> 01:02:49.451
<v  Lalitha> One thing is the privilege at home because I have a twin sister.

01:02:49.675 --> 01:02:50.885
<v  Lalitha> So, I can just leave home and go.

01:02:51.535 --> 01:02:55.095
<v  Lalitha> I have the privilege because we had my father.

01:02:55.095 --> 01:02:57.705
<v  Lalitha> And so, I joined school only after my mother's death.

01:02:57.705 --> 01:03:00.535
<v  Lalitha> I had my father, who was equally busy.

01:03:00.975 --> 01:03:01.905
<v  Lalitha> He was also a teacher till the age of 80.

01:03:01.905 --> 01:03:03.945
<v  Lalitha> And so, it's not that you have to take care of something.

01:03:03.945 --> 01:03:04.565
<v  Lalitha> He knew how to take care.

01:03:04.565 --> 01:03:07.335
<v  Lalitha> And he was physically fit, till he died, he passed away quite recently.

01:03:07.705 --> 01:03:11.585
<v  Lalitha> So, there was no pressure on me to stay home.

01:03:12.195 --> 01:03:17.235
<v  Lalitha> And as I became more and more involved in learning, I always felt suffocated.

01:03:17.255 --> 01:03:21.805
<v  Lalitha> That's why I moved from Maruti, my first school to TVS where I wanted to expand my horizon.

01:03:21.855 --> 01:03:31.405
<v  Lalitha> When I thought that I was falling into a comfort zone where I was finding that there was no team that was there with me to get along.

01:03:31.755 --> 01:03:37.145
<v  Lalitha> That I was seen as an expert there, I leave the space and go.

01:03:37.145 --> 01:03:39.205
<v  Lalitha> That is how I went to TVS.

01:03:39.205 --> 01:03:47.885
<v  Lalitha> And there again, in TVS again, very soon, within five years, it became very suffocating for me with all the resources and everything.

01:03:47.965 --> 01:03:53.065
<v  Lalitha> Still, I said, "There is something that I want to go beyond."

01:03:53.485 --> 01:03:54.745
<v  Lalitha> That is when I went to Ladakh.

01:03:54.775 --> 01:04:10.025
<v  Lalitha> And then after coming back, I again went back to TVS and again, I went to Nepal to see what I would be in places away from my comfort zone of my home.

01:04:10.775 --> 01:04:19.785
<v  Lalitha> The first time when I left in 2000 Tumkur and everybody in the family and friends said, "How can you leave your twin sister and go?"

01:04:22.575 --> 01:04:26.192
<v  Lalitha> And when I went to Ladakh, not one day did I miss her.

01:04:26.375 --> 01:04:29.355
<v  Lalitha> I wrote her a letter also saying, "Sorry, Lata, I'm not missing you at all."

01:04:29.355 --> 01:04:35.905
<v  Lalitha> So, all these concepts of, we miss something dot dot dot.

01:04:35.905 --> 01:04:37.005
<v  Lalitha> It all fell apart.

01:04:37.175 --> 01:04:37.765
<v  Lalitha> Everything.

01:04:38.175 --> 01:04:39.045
<v  Lalitha> Many of our own...

01:04:40.135 --> 01:04:44.935
<v  Lalitha> The myths that we carry in our everyday layer of relationship, about relationship and everything.

01:04:45.645 --> 01:04:46.665
<v  Lalitha> I think the conditioning...

01:04:46.975 --> 01:04:49.955
<v  Lalitha> You can can say conditioning.

01:04:50.385 --> 01:05:02.565
<v  Lalitha> Yeah, I gave myself a lot of experiences, took a lot of risk to de-condition myself, actually.

01:05:02.565 --> 01:05:08.365
<v Gayithri> Any particular any comment that you want to make for, how you chose to work with marginalized groups?

01:05:12.805 --> 01:05:13.079
<v Lalitha> Here, I want to say something.

01:05:13.079 --> 01:05:22.780
<v Lalitha> The kind of dialogue that they have with children will happen with every child.

01:05:24.515 --> 01:05:28.175
<v Lalitha> It is not only child with the elite background or the economically...

01:05:28.525 --> 01:05:42.095
<v Lalitha> Every child needs that learning space, that learning ambience, where it can feel trusted and feel worthy about itself of whatever it is.

01:05:44.865 --> 01:05:51.625
<v Lalitha> So for me, that I worked in TVS and this one, now I see.

01:05:52.325 --> 01:05:57.655
<v Lalitha> But the only difference could be in, how do you engage the child?

01:05:58.055 --> 01:06:00.855
<v Lalitha> And, what are the consequences of that engaging?

01:06:02.095 --> 01:06:05.385
<v Lalitha> When you go to the private school, you find that the parents are educated.

01:06:05.385 --> 01:06:08.195
<v Lalitha> So, they'll send the child to tuition.

01:06:08.195 --> 01:06:09.375
<v Lalitha> So, they get marks and everything.

01:06:09.965 --> 01:06:13.485
<v Lalitha> But here, what happens is, because the child does not have any...

01:06:14.715 --> 01:06:20.275
<v Lalitha> The parents are not in a position to help the child with its academics in it, at home.

01:06:22.255 --> 01:06:26.205
<v Lalitha> You may not get that support from the community.

01:06:26.445 --> 01:06:28.755
<v Lalitha> That is the only difference.

01:06:28.775 --> 01:06:36.135
<v Lalitha> But to me, I think the engaging a child's mind should be the same everywhere, whatever maybe the marks.

01:06:36.175 --> 01:06:38.475
<v Lalitha> Because, I never taught for marks or anything at all.

01:06:38.475 --> 01:06:46.015
<v Lalitha> It was only for trying to engage with children with a topic or with a situation, with an event or anything.

01:06:47.005 --> 01:06:50.215
<v Lalitha> Because whatever it wants to be, it is all right.

01:06:50.215 --> 01:06:50.451
<v Lalitha> It all happens.

01:06:50.555 --> 01:06:58.335
<v Lalitha> But, these are all the fundamentals I think, should be built in school, in the earliest stages of a child's life.

01:07:00.915 --> 01:07:01.055
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:07:01.065 --> 01:07:04.465
<v Lalitha> And the more openly it happens, I think it's better.

01:07:05.155 --> 01:07:15.905
<v Lalitha> Where India being a fledgling democracy, I think these children should have the capacity to question later the injustices that happened to them.

01:07:15.915 --> 01:07:24.265
<v Lalitha> Without succumbing to them, or take risks to question their authority or anything, in a more civilized manner.

01:07:26.135 --> 01:07:26.405
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:07:27.095 --> 01:07:30.175
<v Lalitha> Not throwing stones or shouting slogans.

01:07:31.055 --> 01:07:31.235
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:07:33.795 --> 01:07:37.125
<v Lalitha> So, that's how I became what is called as an activist teacher.

01:07:38.385 --> 01:07:38.715
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:07:38.735 --> 01:07:39.281
<v Gayithri> You call yourself an activist teacher?

01:07:39.281 --> 01:07:39.965
<v Lalitha> Teacher as an activist.

01:07:41.345 --> 01:07:41.665
<v Lalitha> Yes.

01:07:42.005 --> 01:07:43.145
<v Lalitha> And there was a book that was...

01:07:43.155 --> 01:07:44.745
<v Lalitha> I'm sorry, I forget the name.

01:07:44.755 --> 01:07:50.965
<v Lalitha> The teacher had written such a wonderful book and it almost echoed many of my own experiences.

01:07:55.675 --> 01:07:56.380
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:07:56.865 --> 01:07:58.575
<v Gayithri> That brings us to a perfect point.

01:07:58.575 --> 01:08:10.865
<v Gayithri> Would you want to think with me about these different thinkers, philosophers, role models who might have influenced you, in the way you've been thinking and working?

01:08:20.275 --> 01:08:22.865
<v Gayithri> Even any schools of thoughts that you would want to mention?

01:08:25.285 --> 01:08:25.465
<v 1> 09:27

01:08:25.505 --> 01:08:31.155
<v Lalitha> I told I entered school, this career without having a degree of...

01:08:31.175 --> 01:08:34.257
<v Lalitha> Without knowing who PRJ was, Carl Rogers was, Maria Montessori was, Paulo Freire was.

01:08:34.345 --> 01:08:40.245
<v Lalitha> I did not even know that Gandhi had his own vision of Naitalim.

01:08:43.825 --> 01:08:51.930
<v Lalitha> My first 10 years of schooling itself, my own reflective along with the group of teachers I worked, that is very important.

01:08:51.985 --> 01:08:58.758
<v Lalitha> The ambience that the school gives, the workplace gives you in the beginning and definitely gives you a very big confident start.

01:08:58.758 --> 01:08:59.345
<v Lalitha> And that I did my BA degree after that, made a lot of sense.

01:08:59.345 --> 01:09:27.335
<v Lalitha> I would go through the curriculum of BA with lot of courage and confidence and even critique some of the passages there, questions given there, which I thought was very, again, ritualistic in Indian conditions.

01:09:27.445 --> 01:09:28.415
<v Lalitha> Because, they're not very highly...

01:09:28.655 --> 01:09:35.925
<v Lalitha> They are just ritualistic degrees, that is all.

01:09:36.175 --> 01:09:47.285
<v Lalitha> They don't demand much from a person, who's going to be a teacher and a reflective teacher or an activist teacher as the world demands the teachers to be.

01:09:48.945 --> 01:09:52.195
<v Lalitha> But, they're also...

01:09:52.935 --> 01:09:53.365
<v Lalitha> I don't know.

01:09:53.365 --> 01:09:53.882
<v Lalitha> I have a feeling.

01:09:54.015 --> 01:09:55.452
<v Lalitha> But, there are a lot of people who I have met, who have a lot of...

01:09:55.452 --> 01:10:06.525
<v Lalitha> Most unconditioned people, women and men of all sorts.

01:10:07.105 --> 01:10:12.565
<v Lalitha> TVS helped me.

01:10:14.195 --> 01:10:20.435
<v Lalitha> My second school, where I worked helped me to look into all these theories, education theories.

01:10:21.015 --> 01:10:33.965
<v Lalitha> One thing I liked more about was called Kohlberg's moral development theories, where this question bothers me again.

01:10:33.995 --> 01:10:42.850
<v Lalitha> I was telling you about why teachers don't think the job they're doing in the class in front of the children is very important.

01:10:44.765 --> 01:10:57.125
<v Lalitha> Why is it, in any office, a person that comes to you, when you are in the service sector, when somebody comes to you, why don't you think that you are supposed to the job and that you don't do it?

01:10:57.125 --> 01:10:57.565
<v Lalitha> Why?

01:11:01.825 --> 01:11:05.795
<v Lalitha> What is it that makes you not do that job?

01:11:07.015 --> 01:11:09.015
<v Lalitha> For example, I tell this to children.

01:11:09.015 --> 01:11:10.955
<v Lalitha> For example, when I go to school, this is what I...

01:11:15.505 --> 01:11:17.815
<v Lalitha> When I travel by public buses, this it happens.

01:11:20.605 --> 01:11:25.355
<v Lalitha> The conductor may not give you the change properly back, or I have to ask him to give me the change back.

01:11:25.815 --> 01:11:39.155
<v Lalitha> So, I go and talk about these to the children, to say, why it is important that the conductors should behave as a conductor and has to be true to his profession by giving the exact change or make certain amends of it, trying to more sensitive.

01:11:39.165 --> 01:11:41.005
<v Lalitha> Because, that is the government that I see.

01:11:43.545 --> 01:11:56.355
<v Lalitha> So, the child very early, gets to know what a government is through the conductor or through the policemen or through any subordinate officer that the child meets, or the BEO officer that comes, or the education official that comes.

01:11:58.055 --> 01:12:40.255
<v Lalitha> So, all these are learning experiences to me.

01:12:40.255 --> 01:12:40.256
<v Lalitha> Merely reading the books and everything, I don't think...

01:12:40.256 --> 01:12:40.257
<v Lalitha> Child psychology, it may help in certain ways to...

01:12:40.257 --> 01:12:40.258
<v Lalitha> I'm not a researcher.

01:12:40.258 --> 01:12:40.259
<v Lalitha> I just want to be a classroom teacher.

01:12:40.259 --> 01:12:40.261
<v Lalitha> What skills are important for a classroom teacher?

01:12:40.261 --> 01:12:40.263
<v Lalitha> I was a teacher without knowing PRJ.

01:12:40.263 --> 01:12:40.265
<v Lalitha> I was a teacher without knowing Kohlberg.

01:12:40.265 --> 01:12:40.267
<v Lalitha> I was a teacher.

01:12:40.267 --> 01:12:40.275
<v Lalitha> I knew something about moral development without knowing this one.

01:12:40.275 --> 01:12:41.365
<v Lalitha> All these are very new theories.

01:12:42.605 --> 01:12:50.465
<v Lalitha> But, fundamentally what is old is, trying to be sensitive to the person that is before you.

01:12:50.485 --> 01:12:51.155
<v Lalitha> That is all.

01:12:51.555 --> 01:12:52.427
<v Lalitha> And true to the person that's standing before you.

01:12:52.427 --> 01:12:52.628
<v Lalitha> That is all.

01:12:52.695 --> 01:12:55.215
<v Lalitha> This is an age-old.

01:12:55.255 --> 01:12:58.905
<v Lalitha> Since humans evolved that has been the demand.

01:13:00.925 --> 01:13:01.817
<v Lalitha> Otherwise, there is a problem.

01:13:02.005 --> 01:13:03.735
<v Lalitha> Any other behavior is called violent.

01:13:06.095 --> 01:13:07.216
<v Lalitha> So, this I see as a form of violence.

01:13:07.216 --> 01:13:07.228
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

01:13:07.228 --> 01:13:43.895
<v Lalitha> My experience is that, when I met with all these people, people who write such great books are really as human as I am.

01:13:43.895 --> 01:13:46.765
<v Lalitha> That is why I feel proud about myself.

01:13:46.775 --> 01:13:48.365
<v Lalitha> That is all.

01:13:49.145 --> 01:13:53.565
<v Lalitha> They may have the skill to write it, to quote it, to write in the way that it is published or whatever it is.

01:13:53.985 --> 01:13:55.085
<v Lalitha> No offense meant to them.

01:13:55.105 --> 01:13:59.285
<v Lalitha> But, I think they don't intimidate me at all.

01:14:01.155 --> 01:14:01.415
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:14:01.425 --> 01:14:01.705
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:14:03.425 --> 01:14:03.805
<v Gayithri> Totally.

01:14:05.475 --> 01:14:14.025
<v Gayithri> I know you mentioned that there was a book by a teacher that you read that really resonated with what you have been thinking.

01:14:14.045 --> 01:14:23.085
<v Gayithri> But maybe, you're not able to re recollect like the book at this point, but I would definitely love to know what book.

01:14:23.235 --> 01:14:23.255
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

01:14:23.255 --> 01:14:26.735
<v Lalitha> When I was jotting down the points to answer you, I thought I would, but I did not have time.

01:14:26.735 --> 01:14:28.615
<v Gayithri> That's fine akka.

01:14:28.625 --> 01:14:32.445
<v Gayithri> Even if we can get it at some point later, we can add it too, like a reading list.

01:14:35.285 --> 01:14:38.539
<v Lalitha> I remember that book very clearly.

01:14:38.539 --> 01:14:39.455
<v Gayithri> Was it by an Indian teacher?

01:14:39.455 --> 01:14:40.465
<v Gayithri> Or was it...

01:14:40.675 --> 01:14:42.695
<v Lalitha> No, it was not by any...

01:14:44.255 --> 01:14:46.248
<v Lalitha> Margaret is one more teacher who I met.

01:14:46.525 --> 01:14:47.895
<v Lalitha> I met a lot of people, actually.

01:14:47.895 --> 01:14:49.405
<v Lalitha> There is also one more important thing.

01:14:49.405 --> 01:14:56.788
<v Lalitha> Because, when you talk about marginalized schools, I forgot to tell you to tell you that I was also connected with these alternative schools in India, which people have started.

01:14:56.995 --> 01:15:09.795
<v Lalitha> People had started way back in 1970s or something, alternate schools, where they wanted to...

01:15:09.795 --> 01:15:16.085
<v Lalitha> Where they did not want to stick to your curriculum and make it a more holistic approach to schools, to learning and everything.

01:15:19.405 --> 01:15:24.415
<v Lalitha> I met a lot of teachers from schools, which are supposed to be very elite.

01:15:24.545 --> 01:15:30.885
<v Lalitha> For example, J Krishnamurti school, JK schools, Krishnamurti schools as they're called.

01:15:31.685 --> 01:15:36.438
<v Lalitha> And of course, when I went to Germany, it was very interesting for me to go to Waldorf schools also.

01:15:36.715 --> 01:15:40.635
<v Lalitha> Because when I went to Europe, my point was to visit some of these schools.

01:15:41.185 --> 01:15:45.825
<v Lalitha> It was interesting that I stayed with a family where the children went to Waldorf school and what it meant to be.

01:15:46.365 --> 01:15:50.435
<v Lalitha> What was this, about Waldorf?

01:15:50.465 --> 01:15:51.805
<v Lalitha> That's what, when I went to the Waldorf school, you know what happened?

01:15:51.855 --> 01:15:59.725
<v Lalitha> There was a person who was tending the plants, he was just loosening the soil and he happened to be the vice principal of the school.

01:16:00.955 --> 01:16:12.085
<v Lalitha> I don't see any principal of Indian school doing the job, why?

01:16:13.185 --> 01:16:13.372
<v Lalitha> You have a maali[gardener].

01:16:13.372 --> 01:16:16.075
<v Lalitha> That's why I come back to the same thing that you want to break this hierarchy.

01:16:16.075 --> 01:16:21.705
<v Lalitha> You want to bring in this dignity of labor, but you don't see people with power doing such job.

01:16:22.105 --> 01:16:25.365
<v Lalitha> Because, it's always delegated.

01:16:25.365 --> 01:16:26.655
<v Lalitha> Of course, everyone has a role to play.

01:16:26.755 --> 01:16:34.945
<v Lalitha> Everyone has a role to play, I understand, but within this understanding also, do children get an occasion to see that the principal can also do this job.

01:16:35.245 --> 01:16:36.415
<v Lalitha> The teacher can also do this job.

01:16:36.565 --> 01:16:43.755
<v Lalitha> It's a job worth doing, worth knowing.

01:16:47.285 --> 01:16:47.645
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:16:55.705 --> 01:17:01.445
<v Gayithri> You were talking about alternative schools that you...

01:17:01.445 --> 01:17:01.655
<v Lalitha> That is what.

01:17:01.655 --> 01:17:03.305
<v Lalitha> These alternative schools where everybody practiced everything.

01:17:05.795 --> 01:17:08.475
<v Lalitha> More egalitarian view, the child could think that no job was small or big.

01:17:11.275 --> 01:17:14.395
<v Lalitha> Everybody called each other by name and there was no hierarchy.

01:17:14.925 --> 01:17:22.835
<v Lalitha> So, these are alternative schools where the classroom strength is very small and you can do a lot of experiments with your theater, art, and music and everything.

01:17:24.665 --> 01:17:27.215
<v Lalitha> And this caters to a very small population of the society.

01:17:27.695 --> 01:17:31.405
<v Lalitha> But when I went to J Krishnamurti school, there also, I found that...

01:17:33.905 --> 01:17:42.545
<v Lalitha> But finally, again, depends upon the kind of teachers and parents who come to the school to maintain the vision of the schools that they began with.

01:17:43.205 --> 01:17:45.305
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:17:45.535 --> 01:18:05.105
<v Lalitha> So it is very important that the philosophy of the school, if it is really progressing, the parents carry it and not try to bring down the philosophy of the school, to what the market philosophy of schooling education in India is now.

01:18:05.355 --> 01:18:13.635
<v Lalitha> That you have to get marks 99 out of 100 and 99.99, and nothing else.

01:18:14.245 --> 01:18:19.305
<v Lalitha> Yeah, I want my child to do art music and everything.

01:18:19.305 --> 01:18:25.601
<v Lalitha> But in physics, I want my child to get 99.9, and in maths, perhaps 100 out of 100.

01:18:26.575 --> 01:18:26.595
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:18:30.395 --> 01:18:31.975
<v Gayithri> Any other projects that you're excited about?

01:18:32.105 --> 01:18:33.715
<v Lalitha> Yeah, I went to Shikshantar.

01:18:35.705 --> 01:18:36.755
<v Lalitha> One more interesting place...

01:18:37.315 --> 01:18:45.505
<v Lalitha> I have always, since the time I took off from my home, I have always taken off now and then visiting people and places, people, connecting with events.

01:18:45.555 --> 01:18:49.395
<v Lalitha> Once, I took off to somewhere in Mussoorie.

01:18:49.395 --> 01:18:52.505
<v Lalitha> I went for a theater workshop there and I met very interesting people and participated in theater there.

01:19:00.045 --> 01:19:03.665
<v Lalitha> In fact, those two people are very well known now in education sectors, actually.

01:19:04.455 --> 01:19:19.415
<v Lalitha> And there, I got introduced to what is now many people now, or many youngsters now read about is about the Dharmapal, who has written books on India, on Indian culture, what India was before the colonial times.

01:19:20.165 --> 01:19:21.251
<v Lalitha> I did not know the name of the person, till I visited that place.

01:19:21.251 --> 01:19:21.805
<v Lalitha> The organization is called SIDH.

01:19:21.805 --> 01:19:32.707
<v Lalitha> It was very interesting for me to...

01:19:32.707 --> 01:19:34.665
<v Gayithri> Is it SIND or SIDH, akka?

01:19:34.725 --> 01:19:35.505
<v Gayithri> S-I-D-H?

01:19:35.575 --> 01:19:37.275
<v Lalitha> SIDH, Sidh.

01:19:37.275 --> 01:19:41.325
<v Lalitha> I met Vinish Gupta there.

01:19:41.415 --> 01:19:42.295
<v Lalitha> I'm still in touch with him.

01:19:42.295 --> 01:19:45.861
<v Lalitha> Vipul Rikhi, who sings songs of Kabir.

01:19:46.295 --> 01:19:52.325
<v Lalitha> I met some interesting people and of course I've been going to retreat doing Navadarshanam, which is a progressive organic farming thing.

01:19:52.325 --> 01:19:54.335
<v Lalitha> Because I'm basically a farmer.

01:19:54.335 --> 01:19:55.435
<v Lalitha> So, I'm interested in farming also.

01:19:56.215 --> 01:20:06.655
<v Lalitha> And then, I went to Shikshantar, which is run by Manish Jain.

01:20:06.655 --> 01:20:07.855
<v Lalitha> I went to Shikshantar, Udaipur also.

01:20:10.105 --> 01:20:13.745
<v Lalitha> I went there four times in a year, two for an education course.

01:20:13.745 --> 01:20:16.565
<v Lalitha> I met some wonderful people from all over India there.

01:20:18.465 --> 01:20:20.035
<v Lalitha> I met this philosopher.

01:20:20.085 --> 01:20:25.065
<v Lalitha> He is in Azim Premji University, now.

01:20:25.515 --> 01:20:26.355
<v Lalitha> What is his name?

01:20:28.725 --> 01:20:29.135
<v Lalitha> I forget his name.

01:20:29.135 --> 01:20:29.379
<v Lalitha> Why do I forget names?

01:20:29.435 --> 01:20:30.025
<v Lalitha> Okay, fine.

01:20:30.025 --> 01:20:34.415
<v Lalitha> But, I met a lot of people among them sociologists.

01:20:34.755 --> 01:20:42.881
<v Lalitha> I interacted with a lot of university professors in that education course, which I took, which was very interesting.

01:20:43.235 --> 01:20:46.935
<v Lalitha> Then, I went to Eklavya which has done some tremendous job.

01:20:46.935 --> 01:20:53.275
<v Lalitha> Eklavya, I think, is one of the most interesting organizations in India, which has done a lot in education

01:20:53.805 --> 01:20:56.865
<v Gayithri> In what way, akka?

01:20:56.865 --> 01:20:59.435
<v Lalitha> Not mainstream, but it was among...

01:20:59.435 --> 01:21:03.773
<v Lalitha> Their textbooks were used in Madhya Pradesh, but later, politics outlawed its way.

01:21:03.773 --> 01:21:08.725
<v Lalitha> But many of the books in Andhra and Telengana, they're all based on this Eklavya model.

01:21:08.865 --> 01:21:13.295
<v Lalitha> Especially, social sciences and science, working by hands and they're doing by hands and everything.

01:21:14.555 --> 01:21:16.121
<v Lalitha> I met those peoples Subhu and Rashmi.

01:21:16.265 --> 01:21:22.175
<v Lalitha> They are very interesting people and University of Shikshantar.

01:21:24.145 --> 01:21:29.065
<v Lalitha> I keep meeting people and I always make it a point to meet people and attempt...

01:21:29.385 --> 01:21:36.915
<v Lalitha> During this COVID time, what has happened is, I listened to a lot of webinars, participated in webinars as a tool for the teachers.

01:21:36.915 --> 01:21:40.315
<v Lalitha> But I listen to a lot of webinars on history, on science and everything.

01:21:41.265 --> 01:21:52.937
<v Lalitha> There is so much interesting things happening that, and now my, this one is, to reach these, my learning or these sites to the teachers, with whom I'm working with.

01:21:52.937 --> 01:22:08.645
<v Lalitha> It's very important, where there's so much, tremendous of learning material that is there for teachers who learn on, to pick up and enrich themselves and be more and more confident in engaging the children with exciting thoughts.

01:22:11.895 --> 01:22:15.435
<v Gayithri> Would you want to mention one or two of those webinars?

01:22:16.105 --> 01:22:16.125
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

01:22:16.465 --> 01:22:22.435
<v Lalitha> One webinar was from the Bangalore International Center and there is a phytopia, something on plants.

01:22:22.975 --> 01:22:24.565
<v Lalitha> My goodness.

01:22:25.345 --> 01:22:27.885
<v Lalitha> I think it was an international thing that had come to Bangalore.

01:22:27.885 --> 01:22:32.025
<v Lalitha> It was an exhibition.

01:22:32.785 --> 01:22:34.615
<v Lalitha> People were not allowed because it was all online.

01:22:36.885 --> 01:22:37.415
<v Lalitha> There were lectures.

01:22:37.415 --> 01:22:38.785
<v Lalitha> You could sign up.

01:22:38.895 --> 01:22:42.015
<v Lalitha> Everything was free and it was about plants.

01:22:43.005 --> 01:22:46.005
<v Lalitha> Amazing lectures.

01:22:47.225 --> 01:22:52.395
<v Lalitha> One lecture was about...

01:22:52.455 --> 01:22:57.518
<v Lalitha> When you go to the British Museum, Natural History Museum, what would you expect to see?

01:22:57.518 --> 01:22:57.535
<v Lalitha> What do you expect?

01:22:57.535 --> 01:22:58.095
<v Lalitha> What would you expect to see?

01:22:59.385 --> 01:23:00.035
<v Lalitha> What do you expect?

01:23:01.305 --> 01:23:09.455
<v Lalitha> Natural History museum means what comes to your mind?

01:23:09.455 --> 01:23:09.589
<v Gayithri> Evolution.

01:23:09.589 --> 01:23:09.992
<v Lalitha> Blah blah blah….

01:23:09.992 --> 01:23:10.489
<v Lalitha> But nowhere are there any plants.

01:23:10.489 --> 01:23:10.491
<v Lalitha> [crosstalk]

01:23:10.491 --> 01:23:21.605
<v Lalitha> .
<v  Gayithri> Hmmm really that’s what I am trying to recollect, but I've never been able to go through [crosstalk] once.

01:23:22.315 --> 01:23:26.245
<v Lalitha> All these lectures are available online in VIC the website.

01:23:26.245 --> 01:23:41.675
<v Lalitha> This lady spoke about tiles on the roof of the museum, which has description, paintings of plants, amazing lecture on plants.

01:23:42.125 --> 01:23:43.645
<v Lalitha> She talked about each tile there.

01:23:46.145 --> 01:23:46.635
<v Lalitha> What is it?

01:23:46.715 --> 01:23:47.997
<v Lalitha> And why the plants were there?

01:23:47.997 --> 01:23:49.435
<v Lalitha> And what is the meaning?

01:23:49.445 --> 01:23:51.095
<v Lalitha> Why did the plant come there?

01:23:52.135 --> 01:23:55.605
<v Lalitha> And there was something on osmosis.

01:23:55.625 --> 01:24:14.685
<v Lalitha> I mean, very, very interesting [inaudible] and coming down to history and where I want to talk about history, there was one lecture about how kingdoms came into being in South India by a professor from IIT Manali, I think, from somewhere in North India, Mandi North India.

01:24:14.875 --> 01:24:31.465
<v Lalitha> There is another group which started Ruthumana, in Bangalore based, which held a lot of......There was this person who was Australian professor, professor was talking about how the Mysore Kings.....

01:24:31.465 --> 01:24:43.665
<v Lalitha> How did they come to become the devotee of Chamundi?

01:24:44.145 --> 01:24:58.265
<v Lalitha> And also insight into Hampi, one of the lectures where I got to know the prostitution was taxed in Hampi during Vijayanagara times.

01:25:00.835 --> 01:25:12.655
<v Lalitha> The profession was so important and it was so much in practice that the king thought it had to be taxed.

01:25:14.945 --> 01:25:18.665
<v Gayithri> And it was legalized, so it was a recognized profession.

01:25:18.815 --> 01:25:22.236
<v Lalitha> Yes recognized, which people in the 20th century are trying to grow up with it.

01:25:22.236 --> 01:25:22.245
<v Lalitha> Should we recognize it or what?

01:25:22.245 --> 01:25:39.425
<v Lalitha> Because there was one professor in Bangalore University who was trying to say that this has to be recognized as a profession so that it gives some legal status with people if you want to see it as dignity to that......if it is a kind of profession that you want, people, women choose to follow.

01:25:40.105 --> 01:25:40.345
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:25:42.495 --> 01:25:43.745
<v Lalitha> So amazing.

01:25:43.745 --> 01:25:52.089
<v Lalitha> And in the same big thing, there was something called as RUI one more lecture on the desert landscape that is created in Jaipur.

01:25:52.089 --> 01:25:56.914
<v Lalitha> Designer, who has created this urban desert.

01:25:56.914 --> 01:25:57.022
<v Lalitha> It was nice to know that such [inaudible] happen in India.

01:25:57.022 --> 01:25:57.207
<v Lalitha> And I want teachers and people in the education field to be at least a part of these lectures.

01:25:57.207 --> 01:25:59.270
<v Lalitha> Of course, there are plenty, but at least listening to one such lectures once a week or a fortnight, I think will make the teachers very, very competent and that is what I expect, nothing more.

01:25:59.270 --> 01:25:59.342
<v Gayithri> Nice.

01:25:59.342 --> 01:26:47.095
<v Gayithri> So moving forward, what maybe one or two things that you would like to see more of?

01:26:47.305 --> 01:26:48.550
<v Lalitha> NEP is coming into being right?

01:26:48.745 --> 01:26:59.835
<v Lalitha> The new education policy in 2020 is coming, so [inaudible] in to see how this translates, how the curriculum gets changed, how there will be some change in the curriculum.

01:27:00.305 --> 01:27:14.645
<v Lalitha> And there is already this more to bring in art and theater to government schools, which so far there is art, but not in primary schools and there is no link between curriculum, between disciplines.

01:27:15.365 --> 01:27:22.465
<v Lalitha> That means the art teacher is an art teacher and history teacher is....There is no link between the history of art, history of science or anything or theater.

01:27:22.695 --> 01:27:34.575
<v Lalitha> How can theater be used in literary, enriching literary work of the children or the history lessons.

01:27:34.855 --> 01:27:39.965
<v Lalitha> So if that space is created, I think we will have much more to do.

01:27:39.965 --> 01:27:48.595
<v Lalitha> And I'll be happy to contribute my own experiences in that area and because that is one.....

01:27:48.625 --> 01:27:55.775
<v Lalitha> Yeah, you can bring in the curriculum, you can bring in the policy, but how do you translate that into action is very, very important.

01:27:56.605 --> 01:28:09.839
<v Lalitha> So I think I will have a big role to play there, to see how [inaudible] can be integrated, we are working on that actually.

01:28:09.839 --> 01:28:18.225
<v Lalitha> So in my new social science lessons, I've tried to bring in science and social aspects of this one in science also, which is very....

01:28:18.225 --> 01:28:37.348
<v Lalitha> I [inaudible] recently held for some 200 teachers by Rotary Bangalore and the best compliment I received was one of the maths teacher, she said, "Madam, if we had really known this is what social science is all about, I wouldn't have been a maths teacher."

01:28:37.415 --> 01:28:39.490
<v Gayithri> And what exactly was this workshop about Akka?

01:28:39.635 --> 01:28:41.805
<v Gayithri> Like if you would want to quickly-

01:28:43.425 --> 01:28:47.005
<v Lalitha> This was something about how do you bring in, what is social science?

01:28:47.625 --> 01:28:48.025
<v Gayithri> Mm.

01:28:50.335 --> 01:28:54.555
<v Lalitha> So what is social science all about?

01:28:55.085 --> 01:28:56.915
<v Lalitha> What are the activities that you can do with children?

01:29:02.565 --> 01:29:04.185
<v Lalitha> What are the questions?

01:29:04.185 --> 01:29:16.595
<v Lalitha> How do you engage children with social science, because history, geography are subjects and sociology are subjects, which are treated very, very poorly in schools and colleges, even in universities sometimes.

01:29:17.335 --> 01:29:33.035
<v Lalitha> When you talk about societal, when you talk about accountability, when you talk about equity, when you talk about marginalized groups, it is very, very important that the children who become toppers do something about.

01:29:33.425 --> 01:29:34.941
<v Lalitha> Only when they know the society, they can contribute, right?

01:29:34.941 --> 01:29:44.185
<v Lalitha> [crosstalk] What are the problems that it has, and how do I use my own learning or my skills to better the society that I live in.

01:29:45.125 --> 01:29:54.635
<v Lalitha> So all this should go hand in hand.

01:29:54.635 --> 01:29:54.665
<v Gayithri> True.

01:29:54.745 --> 01:30:01.890
<v Lalitha> They liked it approach very much actually and somewhere in Tamil Nadu when I was talking to school teachers in Tamil Nadu, there was one more group talking teachers of Tamil Nadu about the Chola Empire.

01:30:02.835 --> 01:30:07.255
<v Lalitha> It was appalling to know that one of the teachers did not know that Chola was a big maritime empire.

01:30:15.265 --> 01:30:21.665
<v Lalitha> They may all be very good people, but being good is not enough, right?

01:30:21.845 --> 01:30:22.365
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:30:22.875 --> 01:30:24.345
<v Lalitha> I don't tell lies, I don't kill people, I don't eat beef.

01:30:24.345 --> 01:30:24.360
<v Lalitha> That is not being good.

01:30:24.360 --> 01:30:26.649
<v Lalitha> I'm sorry to use the word beef because people think, no, I don't eat beef, so I'm good.

01:30:26.649 --> 01:30:26.740
<v Gayithri> That's the more recent discourse about what's [crosstalk]

01:30:26.740 --> 01:30:26.786
<v Gayithri> .
<v  Lalitha> Most discourse is happening.

01:30:26.786 --> 01:30:51.875
<v  Lalitha> So when you reduce everything to what you wear and what you eat, this is very unparalleled, I think in the history of India, when people talk like this.

01:30:56.605 --> 01:31:01.425
<v  Lalitha> This is all very new and which is all very dangerous actually.

01:31:02.815 --> 01:31:05.935
<v Gayithri> Why do you say so Akka?

01:31:06.635 --> 01:31:08.157
<v Lalitha> Because it becomes very exclusive, right?

01:31:08.157 --> 01:31:14.015
<v Lalitha> When you want to build a world of inclusivity, then you want to become more and more exclusive, is it?

01:31:19.685 --> 01:31:26.577
<v Lalitha> I don't eat beef is an exclusivity, I don't eat meat, I don't fish, I'm a vegan, I'm exclusive.

01:31:26.577 --> 01:31:34.565
<v Lalitha> I'm married within my community, I don't allow my child to marry somebody from the other community is being exclusive.

01:31:36.405 --> 01:31:37.525
<v Lalitha> Love Jihad that is happening.

01:31:37.695 --> 01:31:41.465
<v Lalitha> The new strain that is happening, thing that is spoken in India.

01:31:42.775 --> 01:31:49.525
<v Lalitha> Oh, one more thing, what moral right do Indian gurus have to speak about the curriculum of the textbooks?

01:31:51.865 --> 01:31:55.875
<v Lalitha> Why do you think people in power have the right to speak about everything and anything?

01:31:57.855 --> 01:32:12.565
<v Lalitha> Then I go back to the times when has India ever freed itself from the clutches of this so-called religion, people in power, spiritual need is....

01:32:12.835 --> 01:32:25.945
<v Lalitha> When I think of a guru or somebody, a clad in saffron or white or whatever it even they claim to be in the realm of spirituality, I want them to cater to the need of that human need only.

01:32:27.155 --> 01:32:28.815
<v Lalitha> Can they dictate a history curriculum?

01:32:28.815 --> 01:32:30.835
<v Lalitha> Can they dictate a science curriculum?

01:32:30.845 --> 01:32:36.265
<v Lalitha> It has happened recently in Karnataka.

01:32:40.035 --> 01:32:40.525
<v Gayithri> Where-

01:32:42.095 --> 01:32:46.735
<v Lalitha> When I speak to teachers, I speak about these also.

01:32:49.275 --> 01:32:52.955
<v Lalitha> That's why some teachers said, "Oh Madam, you have lot of courage, so you can say all this."

01:32:53.035 --> 01:32:54.125
<v Lalitha> I said, who am I?

01:32:54.315 --> 01:32:54.890
<v Lalitha> I'm a teacher like you, that is all.

01:32:54.890 --> 01:32:55.035
<v Lalitha> I have a master's degree.

01:32:55.035 --> 01:32:55.267
<v Lalitha> I don't need degrees to speak my mind.

01:32:55.267 --> 01:33:44.315
<v Lalitha> So these are all the dangerous trends in India, which I don't know how to.....It is becoming more and more, and it has to be dealt very sensitively because I work in the government setup, I have to work with government school teachers because something said could carry meaning.

01:33:44.925 --> 01:33:47.325
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative] sure.

01:33:47.825 --> 01:33:50.025
<v Lalitha> You could put it in a way that I did not mean it to be.

01:33:50.675 --> 01:33:50.865
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:33:55.485 --> 01:34:10.375
<v Lalitha> So I think it is going to be, it's unfortunately more tough to create a society of inclusivity.

01:34:10.375 --> 01:34:12.315
<v Gayithri> Is what you're seeing as a pattern, as a trend?

01:34:12.365 --> 01:34:12.925
<v Lalitha> Yes.

01:34:12.925 --> 01:34:16.705
<v Lalitha> Because it's very easy, right?

01:34:20.325 --> 01:34:36.995
<v Lalitha> So I see this one to hard work, when you say hard work, it is not only that, it is trying to expand your belonging, expand your identity, not restricted to the language you speak, the food you eat or anything.

01:34:38.485 --> 01:34:42.871
<v Lalitha> I need not eat beef to be inclusive.

01:34:44.075 --> 01:34:58.265
<v Lalitha> I need not eat beef to be inclusive, but I can include a beef eating person into my psyche, into my thoughts.

01:34:58.265 --> 01:35:07.705
<v Lalitha> So how do you distinguish between people who are very different from you?

01:35:09.195 --> 01:35:11.185
<v Lalitha> How do you include them in your life?

01:35:13.385 --> 01:35:15.262
<v Lalitha> What is a parameter that you choose to include a person in your life, in your community?

01:35:15.275 --> 01:35:21.545
<v Lalitha> India is so diverse.

01:35:23.135 --> 01:35:23.435
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:35:25.405 --> 01:35:27.695
<v Lalitha> And I have grown in that diverse community.

01:35:28.975 --> 01:35:31.335
<v Lalitha> I don't want to be stifled now at this age.

01:35:33.195 --> 01:35:35.745
<v Lalitha> And I don't think we'll see this as progress at all.

01:35:48.525 --> 01:35:48.545
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:35:48.545 --> 01:35:59.135
<v Gayithri> Well, all we can do is hope at this point and still see if there is like some light shining somewhere to take us forward.

01:36:00.965 --> 01:36:01.215
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

01:36:02.935 --> 01:36:21.695
<v Lalitha> The thing is you have to keep talking about these things, taking some amount of risks with the people in very small doses so that they start to think.

01:36:22.165 --> 01:36:23.485
<v Gayithri> Yeah, for sure.

01:36:24.925 --> 01:36:29.165
<v Lalitha> I cannot give revolutionary talks like zindabad and all, I cannot do all that.

01:36:29.185 --> 01:36:30.465
<v Lalitha> That is not the way at all.

01:36:31.065 --> 01:36:31.315
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:36:33.945 --> 01:36:44.405
<v Lalitha> So finally, the end of the day, when you talk about humans, then you have to understand that all these divisions, hierarchies, everything is created is all human created.

01:36:45.215 --> 01:36:49.455
<v Lalitha> And fortunately, I deal with the subject of social science where I introduce all these.

01:36:49.895 --> 01:36:56.005
<v Lalitha> I find it very easy to introduce in very small doses within the curriculum itself.

01:36:56.035 --> 01:36:58.005
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative] exactly, yeah.

01:37:00.885 --> 01:37:04.215
<v Lalitha> Be it science, the myth of science or anything for that matter, nothing is sacred.

01:37:04.835 --> 01:37:08.285
<v Lalitha> Nothing is written in gold or on stone.

01:37:08.815 --> 01:37:09.615
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative] yeah.

01:37:11.515 --> 01:37:29.475
<v Lalitha> So finally, end of the day, you don't think of gravity, you don't think of your religion also, what you think of is your own comfort level of what you feel in your mind, which neither gravity can give you, not your religion can give you.

01:37:29.475 --> 01:37:31.403
<v Lalitha> And what is that?

01:37:31.885 --> 01:37:34.405
<v Lalitha> And that is you.

01:37:34.475 --> 01:37:34.755
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:37:35.505 --> 01:37:38.955
<v Gayithri> Is there anything that we didn't touch upon or talk about?

01:37:39.965 --> 01:37:42.215
<v Gayithri> Because I'm also really mindful of your time.

01:37:42.245 --> 01:37:44.205
<v Gayithri> I know you are yet to have your dinner.

01:37:45.635 --> 01:37:46.245
<v Lalitha> No, no, no.

01:37:48.205 --> 01:37:48.645
<v Lalitha> I think....

01:37:50.345 --> 01:37:53.881
<v Gayithri> And of course, is it possible for you to share your notes with me Akka?

01:37:53.881 --> 01:38:07.595
<v Gayithri> Like even if it's handwritten, if you can just take a picture, I think it'll be very helpful, only if you don't mind.

01:38:09.185 --> 01:38:31.205
<v Lalitha> In Indian context, if I want to talk, when you said what you want to look forward to, then I want the child to feel as a global citizen, without being apologetic about your past, be ashamed of what had happened in the past and how people rate what India is.

01:38:31.635 --> 01:38:35.895
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:38:37.135 --> 01:38:44.185
<v Lalitha> I think India is becoming more and more or the situation is created in such a way, people are becoming more and more anti-West.

01:38:45.415 --> 01:38:47.495
<v Lalitha> I don't know whether I called the anti-West or something.

01:38:48.105 --> 01:39:03.335
<v Lalitha> See, they don't mind using phones and everything [inaudible] what do you call [crosstalk] they're not bothered about it, but beef eating, okay.

01:39:04.465 --> 01:39:05.745
<v Lalitha> Why should it trouble them?

01:39:05.745 --> 01:39:21.745
<v Lalitha> So when India does not export beef to its neighboring state, Karnataka does not export, the kind of section of people don't have that food, which is their staple diet.

01:39:26.965 --> 01:39:27.245
<v Gayithri> Yeah.

01:39:30.185 --> 01:39:42.735
<v Lalitha> And emotionally thinking of India as a country, which has done nothing wrong, no wrong has happened in the past.

01:39:43.585 --> 01:40:00.215
<v Lalitha> And projecting India as something which has always been a country of nonviolence, everything, I think it is something very wrong.

01:40:00.215 --> 01:40:05.403
<v Lalitha> What is happening today is very, very important.

01:40:05.403 --> 01:40:19.705
<v Lalitha> If you don't respond to the present and keep glorifying the past, it'll not take us anywhere.

01:40:20.135 --> 01:40:20.485
<v Gayithri> True.

01:40:27.915 --> 01:40:33.185
<v Lalitha> I don't think there was anything else that we missed on tak tak tak….

01:40:33.185 --> 01:40:38.385
<v Gayithri> It'll be nice to have a copy of those notes as well Akka.

01:40:38.395 --> 01:40:38.415
<v Lalitha> Yeah.

01:40:38.445 --> 01:40:47.879
<v Lalitha> If I send you the notes to you, you'll not even read one word of it, because it is how my jottings will be.

01:40:47.915 --> 01:40:52.125
<v Gayithri> I think that's true with most of our handwritings, but at least we can give it a try I thought.

01:40:54.675 --> 01:41:06.625
<v Lalitha> No, I can send certain jottings of mine for you [inaudible] . I don't know whether you've read two of my articles, which is appeared in Teacher Plus, have I ever shared it with you?

01:41:07.105 --> 01:41:07.355
<v Gayithri> No.

01:41:09.405 --> 01:41:10.013
<v Lalitha> I used to write that article.

01:41:10.013 --> 01:41:14.105
<v Lalitha> I used to write with that magazine actually, and some [crosstalk]

01:41:14.105 --> 01:41:17.685
<v Lalitha> .
<v  Gayithri> It would be great if you can share them, I'll try to search by myself.

01:41:17.725 --> 01:41:23.285
<v  Gayithri> But if I don't land there, it'll be great if you can share, especially if you already have a copy of it Akka.

01:41:23.285 --> 01:41:37.461
<v Lalitha> No, I can get a copy of that very easily and send you the soft copies actually, soft copy of that and I can also send you my CV in which I've written of my experiences of what I did as [crosstalk]

01:41:37.461 --> 01:41:37.463
<v Lalitha> .
<v  Gayithri> Fantastic.

01:41:37.463 --> 01:41:37.471
<v Lalitha> Till I joined.....

01:41:37.471 --> 01:41:37.475
<v Gayithri> ILP?

01:41:37.685 --> 01:41:38.425
<v Lalitha> ILP.

01:41:38.425 --> 01:41:38.455
<v Gayithri> Sure.

01:41:38.455 --> 01:41:54.465
<v Lalitha> So that could give you an insight of what I did and what I did not do also.

01:41:54.465 --> 01:41:55.255
<v Lalitha> What I did and what I did not do.

01:41:58.795 --> 01:42:00.285
<v Gayithri> And where you're coming from, yeah.

01:42:01.555 --> 01:42:21.418
<v Lalitha> And recently I've been working on the social science curriculum again, and I've incorporated two of my friends into it who are not teachers, but they can read and write and critically they're voracious readers.

01:42:21.418 --> 01:42:21.481
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative].

01:42:21.481 --> 01:42:31.277
<v Lalitha> So they can look into my material and they're giving me some fantastic suggestions.

01:42:31.277 --> 01:42:40.445
<v Lalitha> Unfortunately, all that cannot be incorporated because opening up teachers to such kind of discourse has to be continuous.

01:42:40.945 --> 01:42:43.265
<v Gayithri> Mm-hmm [affirmative] it cannot be a one time-

01:42:43.335 --> 01:42:46.045
<v Lalitha> Unless it does not become their own thoughts.

01:42:46.645 --> 01:42:46.855
<v Gayithri> Yeah.