|
In
my four years as a college lecturer, I probably learnt a great
deal more than my students. One of the many things I learnt was
that it was as important to think about the act of teaching and
learning as it was to reflect on one's own discipline. Needless to
say teaching is a crucial interventionist activity: it can open up
a space for creative
conversation between the teacher and the learner about a variety
of ideas and experiences. It has the potential to bless both the
giver and the receiver and therefore occupies a position of
symbolic privilege in our social lives.
This issue looks at some of the new evolving concepts related to
this act of teaching and learning: it tries to understand and
examine the various transforming bases, structures and processes
of pedagogy both in theory and practice. It also looks at the ways
in which pedagogues have negotiated and participated in the act of
initiating newer methods of enquiry and exploration. Many of the
articles assembled here discuss creative pedagogic exercises and
the various levels at which they have worked and not worked, the
ideas underpinning them and the insights that can be gleaned from
them. This issue therefore can well be seen as putting forward a
wish list of possible agendas for radical pedagogic practices.
Madhusree Dutta profiles Majlis’ initiatives of getting students
spiritedly involved in its endeavour of combating communalism.
Sameera Khan discusses concerns of identity and location as a
pedagogue involved in teaching Muslim women a course in
journalism.
Geetanjali Misra, Radhika Chandiramani and Deeksha Vasundhra
profile a residential institute that has for the first time in
India structured a conceptually rigorous and contextually relevant
course that interrogates the diverse operational modes of
contemporary sexuality. Nandita Gandhi explores the exciting
intersection of women’s studies, web-technology and online
distance learning.
Given the importance of different forms of mass media in our lives
and times, it is not surprising that many articles dwell on the
various ways in which diverse media forms and media technologies
are being related critically to changing pedagogic practices. Amit
Rai’s essay explores some of the pedagogic challenges faced in a
racially mixed New York classroom where questions of
representation, identity and ethnicity become more and more
relevant especially as the global political climate becomes
progressively more fraught with tension and threat. He candidly
assesses the success of his course on Bollywood’s Colonialism
where analyses of the images and narratives of Bollywood and
Diaspora films lead to open-ended discussions around
multiculturalism, nativism and neo-colonialism among several other
issues. Bishakha Datta, Neela Kapadia and Vasudha Ambiye’s essay
describes an important pedagogic experiment, where twelve
teenagers learnt to use the camera and turned its gaze on their
own everyday worlds providing outsiders with a unique insight into
life in Dharavi: Fantastic Land. Shekhar Krishnan discusses
the pedagogic strategies assembled around documentational
practices, some of which involve new media technologies. My own
article argues the need for the inclusion of gender-based
programmes that can be integrated within the larger curricular
framework in the context of school classrooms.
From the perspective of developmental pediatrics, we have Vibha
Krishnamurthy pointing out that every classroom shows a great deal
of variation in children’s manifested abilities. She argues that
these differences should not be used to reject differently-abled
children but should instead become part of a more enriching
pedagogic process that contributes to the sensitising of all the
children in the classroom.
In a reflective piece, Eunice de Souza talks about teaching
Literature for the past three decades and argues for the
inculcation of an openness to change on the part of the teacher.
This special issue provides an opportunity for all of us to
participate in an extended discussion about the new ways in which
we can make teaching and learning a more useful and engaging
exercise (for both teachers and students). We hope that many of
the pedagogical initiatives that have been explored in the course
of this issue will in some substantial measure, contribute to the
fostering of a more robust culture of intellectual enquiry,
innovation and excitement in the days to come.
|
