10 THINGS PARENTS SHOULD DO TO ENSURE THAT THEIR SCHOOL IS SAFE FOR THEIR CHILD

The brutal murder of a 7-year-old in a Gurgaon school and the rape of a 5-year-old in a Delhi school has once again reminded us of how unsafe schools can be for its Children. It brings back memories of the twin drowning cases last year — one in a Delhi school (which is part of the same chain in which the 7-year-old was murdered) and in another government run public school. These tragedies in school campuses aren’t just limited to schools in India but also occur in some of the developed countries as well. The central government on its part has passed laws (Like the POCSO act) and many state and city governments have issued school safety guidelines. Yet, the efficacy of such laws are very poor given the state’s poor capacity for implementation of such laws and guidelines. Having robust state mandated laws and protocols are a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition to protect our Children in school. For example, while every state government mandates police verification for school teaching staff, very few police departments have a robust and a timely police verification system. While schools may find ways to get the police to complete the verification of its staff, it doesn’t entirely eliminate the possibility of a criminal sneaking into the school’s payrolls. Another example is the recommended use of CCTVs by various governments. While CCTVs are important, they are often used retrospectively to analyse an offence rather than proactively to prevent one.

Having robust state mandated laws and protocols are a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition to protect our Children in schools.

But there are a few things Parents can and should do to ensure that their school is safe for their Children — from sexual offences, bullying, corporal punishment, physical safety, natural calamities and medical emergencies. I’m sharing a few best practices what some safe schools follow around the world:

1. Safe schools often have a matured and an independent safety committee with representations from parents, teachers and expert consultants. This committee has a mandate to work with the school on developing metrics for safety audits, process and policy design and creating buy-in from the parent community on safety issues. But the primary responsibility of this committee is to help the school balance the safety concerns against curriculum requirements. Theoretically, the safest school is the one that locks its kids and teachers in a single room with no movement outside in corridors or playground! But that was not what schools are built for. Many good schools have totally abandoned any experiential and outdoor learning in favour of traditional classroom teaching because they are not confident of their safety procedures. A good parent safety committee must provide this support and comfort to schools by encouraging parents to volunteer as tour marshals.
   
2. Much of a school’s safety is incidental upon its environmental design and its architecture. A school should have no dead zones — areas nobody has a visibility over. For example, there should be no doors that can be locked (except for individual bathroom units), no doors without transparent/glass panels, no rooms within rooms in the entire campus. Much of the crimes in schools can be prevented over the principle of ‘See and be Seen’. Corridors and classrooms that encourage natural surveillance provide the best deterrence. CCTV cameras should cover all the common areas especially remote or less populated areas. Unfortunately, most CCTVs are rendered useless due to their poor positioning and poor quality of images. Also, CCTVs are effective only when there are pairs of eyes scanning the live video feed. As parents, talk about its environmental design to your school.
   
3. A proven method to build safe schools around the world is to have a culture of Teachers ‘walking around’ during breaks, transition times, assembly time and dispersals at the end of the school. Research across schools in many geographies have time and again proven that schools that have dedicated teacher patrol routines during break and transition time drastically reduce bullying, physical accidents etc. Teacher patrols also builds a large culture of care in the school community. Every student knows that someone is always watching out for us. Unfortunately, Indian schools unlike their counterparts in the west, do not focus on this protocol. Many of the state’s safety guidelines are silent on teacher patrols. As a Parent, work with your school to ensure that there are caring adults walking around the campus, especially in areas where offences could happen — bathrooms, gym room, labs, deserted areas behind the school building etc.
   
4. Safety doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through disciplined and consistent practice. Safe schools are diligent about their scheduled and unscheduled safety drills and training. Everyone in the community takes these drills seriously. Safe schools also are serious about sharing the lessons of the safety drills and tweaks its processes. Parents should check the track record and findings of such drills in their schools.
   
5. Often, Indian schools relegate the management of its blue collared staff to third party contractors building very little engagement and ownership among them. As much as a rigorous recruitment process, safe schools ensure continued engagement and training of its blue collared workers. Training not only includes protocols and procedure training, but also training on Yoga, meditation and spirituality. As a parent know that safety is more about culture than it is about processes. Ask your school — how do they ensure engagement and ownership among its blue collared workers?
   
6. Teachers who can teach their subject well need not necessarily be good at handling child safety issues. Does your school constantly invest in training and sensitising Teachers? Are all the teachers able to identify a child in distress? Do they have the maturity to sensitively handle issues and protect the child as per law and child rights guidelines? As a parent, ask your school on the training the school has invested in. Talk to the teachers to get a sense if the school has well articulated emergency procedures that are well understood by all. Is safety and child rights a discussion point in teacher meetings?
   
7. Does your school have a ‘no touch’ policy? As crude it may sound, most safe schools will have a no touch policy. No teacher or staff, irrespective of genders are allowed to touch any child for any reason whatsoever. While it may sound very conservative, it does, for a school system as a whole, ensure safety of the child (and the teacher too in cases of false/wrong accusations). Parents should have a dialogue with the school on what their policy on student teacher touch is.
   
8. Safe schools do a good job of enforcing access controls in different parts of the school. No access zones areas are clearly demarcated — like zero access for bus drivers/conductors to children’s restrooms. Dead zones are adequately barricaded and rights of access are articulated visually. As a parent, notice if you are experiencing these controls when you visit the school.

The school may do everything in letter and spirit to substantially decrease the probability of an accident, but it may never be able to totally eliminate the possibility of an accident.

9. While all Indian schools take student attendance in the morning, most schools do not have a robust mechanism to track students between class periods. No wonder many of the recent accidents or abuses in Indian schools happened in-between classes. Some of the good practices include attendance in every class, corridor passes for stepping out of classes etc. Such a tracking system not only makes the individual teacher accountable for each child in the class, but it also makes students accountable for their movement during class time.
   
10. Lastly, no School, like anything else in life, can guarantee absolute safety. While the school may do everything in letter and spirit to substantially decrease the probability of an accident, it may not be able to totally eliminate the possibility of an accident. Safety is everybody’s business — not just the school’s or the government’s. Parents should not delude themselves by abdicating or outsourcing their child’s safety to the school. As a parent, ensure that your children are empowered to deal with any situation. Invest time in teaching them how to keep themselves safe. Take efforts to build your own understanding of various issued faced by children of today. Know that over 99.5% of offences or accidents happens at home environments and not at schools. Are you, as a parent prepared to protect and empower your child?
    

By Vishnu Karthik,
CEO Xperiential Learning Systems and Director,
The Heritage Group of Schools

WHY PULLING CHILDREN OUT OF E-CLASSES MAY CAUSE IRREVERSIBLE LOSS

The coronavirus pandemic is indeed disrupting nearly every aspect of children’s lives – their health, development, learning, behaviour, their families’ economic security and their mental health.

Education has been hit particularly hard with 1.53 billion learners out of school and 184 country-wide school closures, impacting 87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners.

It is now clearly emerging that the COVID-19-induced disruption to schooling will have learning gaps in children and for most children this gap will persist through their lifetimes.

A tiny minority of children are fortunate to continue their learning experience through online learning. While online learning may not be a perfect substitute for physical classrooms, it is still the optimum solution in these unprecedented times.

One of the pertinent questions that emerges from parents is on the impact of screen time. Some parents, especially of primary school children, are skeptical of online learning and want to discontinue online education, and thus are considering taking a gap year.

Learning Break More Detrimental Than Imagined

Irrespective of the quality of learning through online medium, discontinuing school for a year may not be a solution. The Brookings Institute had done some interesting study on learning levels after long summer vacations.

Broadly, for every 8 weeks of school shutdowns, children, especially in primary schools, stand to lose up to 4 weeks of learning. Often, this 4 week of learning is not bridged when the school reopens.

A longer shutdown of schools during COVID has graver impact. One UNICEF study has indicated that children with no learning support during the coronavirus pandemic would experience upto a year of learning loss.

Thus, letting students not attend online classes is not an option our children can afford. Research has indicated that even a simple weekly text message to parents on reading texts has reduced the loss of reading levels in children.
Thus, a well-curated online programme can do wonders in these challenging times.

The field of Neuroscience also throws several indicators on the need for continuing learning support for young children. We know that 90% of our brains is developed by age 6 and our brain is racing against a biological clock.

The Early Years

Our brains have to receive consistent learning stimuli before the window of ‘critical period’ closes. Language, for example, is best developed before age 6. After which, it gets perennially difficult to learn a language leading to
compromised academic and workforce skills.

Another fundamental capacity our children’s brains is the capacity to stick to a day routine and discipline. Children grow up to be confident learners if they experience day order and predictability.

Lastly, children need to interact socially, not just to develop social neurons and emotional quotient (which again is best developed before age 6) but also to keep their cortisol (stress hormone) levels under check.

A well-curated online programme would ensure the above for our children. It could just be the only stable experience in an otherwise unpredictable and chaotic time.

Screening Screen Time

A legitimate fear is the fear of screen time and its impact on children’s mental and physical health. Much of the literature on screen time emerged during the television era where screen time was passive one-way consumption; unlike a multimodal way of interactive consumption in the internet era.

Thus, much of this fear is just phobia with very little science to back it. Pediatricians and cognitive neuroscientists today concur that there is a need to differentiate between good screen time and bad screen time.

Dr Michael Rich from Harvard Medical School says that it is not the screen time that matters but the content that is consumed and the context of it that affects one’s well-being. Therefore, it is imperative to make a distinction between good and bad screen time.

Screen times that are passive (like watching YouTube Cartoons or binge-watching a Netflix series) are harmful when done for long hours. Also, screen times that are fast-paced with bright moving parts, as seen in many video or mobile games, are harmful to children.

But more than the impact of the screen time, it is the content consumed through the screen that has an impact on children. Movies or games that promote aggression, violence or any socially unethical behaviours may normalise such behaviour in children.

But screen times that are interactive, sets a learning goal and are purposefully slow are not just effective but also necessary.

A productive screen time would allow personalised learning, self-directed, and group interaction as against media for just passive consumption or for soothing. Multiple pieces of research suggest that screen time when paired with high-quality instructional practices and carefully planned lessons is good for students.

The World Health Organization and American Academy of pediatricians have provided guidelines on the quantum of screen time every day. The consensus seems to be that 1 to 1.5 hours for primary school, 2 to 3 hours for middle school and 3 to 4 hours for high school is alright for children if this screen time is interspersed with peer interaction, self-study and short breaks for the eye.

The most effective models of virtual school have a carefully considered healthy and balanced amount of offline and online learning time. This use of learning time will include some synchronous learning with real-time conferencing with teachers and classmates. It will also include and be balanced with significant blocks of asynchronous learning and opportunities to work offline and unplugged.

By Vishnu Karthik,
CEO Xperiential Learning Systems and Director,
The Heritage Group of Schools

The contents of this e-book were originally published in
https://www.thequint.com

Preparing students for 2029

Over the last century, the definition of jobs that kids aspire to has changed dramatically – from steam engine driver to may be an astronaut. In just another decade, the jobs that will be most sought after are likely to those that are as yet unheard of.

What would you like to do when you grow up?

This is a question that most of us have been asked at some point in our lives. It is also the question that deeply concerns students about to come out of school and their parents. Over the last century, the definition of jobs that kids aspire to has changed dramatically – from steam engine driver to may be an astronaut.

According to Forbes magazine, the most popular jobs of college graduates in 2016 were account manager, software engineer, customer service representative and administrative assistant.

In just another decade, the jobs that will be most sought after are likely to those that are as yet unheard of. Experts suggest that the top jobs in 2029 are likely to be:

• Virtual Habitat Designer
• Ethical Technology Advocate
• Digital Cultural Commentator
• Freelance Biohacker
• Internet of Things Data Creative

Is it possible that the world we live in will change so fundamentally and dramatically that students who come out of school in 2029 will make careers in fields that we have no idea about at present? In his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, says that we are at the starting point of the fourth industrial revolution which, unlike the industrial revolutions that have gone before it, will completely transform the way we live, work and interact with our social and economic environments. According to him, “This Fourth Industrial Revolution is, however, fundamentally different. It is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.”

The signs of changing times are already here. Technology is making many things possible that belonged to the realm of science fiction some years ago. For instance, automation of jobs that are repetitive – a store cashier is a good example. Liver transplants using 3D printing is almost a reality. We are living in a world where a sharing economy or collaborative consumption is becoming popular – Airbnb, Blah Blah Cars, Blockchain, Bitcoins are a few examples. Disruptive technologies are becoming commonplace. These are all signs that our world, as we know it, is transforming rapidly and exponentially.

So how do we, as educators, prepare our students for this new future?

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the jobs of the future will be interdisciplinary in nature. The top five jobs of 2029 will require the following skills:

• Virtual Habitat Designer: architectural design, editing, psychology
• Ethical Technology Advocate: communications, philosophy, ethics
• Digital Cultural Commentator: art history, business studies, PR and marketing
• Freelance Biohacker: biosciences, medical methodology, data analytics
• IoT Data Creative: engineering, problem solving, communications and entrepreneurship

It is also evident that the new jobs will require a high degree of awareness of the self, social and creative intelligence, and the ability to constantly learn and change.

It is therefore imperative, more than ever before, to ensure that our students embrace the importance of understanding Swabhav and Swadharm, and develop a deep level of awareness and a sense of purpose.

We need to provide space for children to be themselves, to be curious, to discover that there is no on right answer. We need to create authentic learning opportunities and develop students’ ability to dialogue and reflect. We need to create high engagement levels.

We must instill values that encourage students to move away from identities, loyalties and fear and move towards strengthening the core by being self-aware. We require students to build trust and engage with the community. We need to curate life lessons and values from ancient wisdom to strengthen the sense of being.

We need to inculcate skills that focus on critical thinking, problem solving, solution mindedness, original thinking, collaboration, engagement in multiple perspectives and ability to discern.

Only then can we hope to create citizens of tomorrow. And only then can we ensure that our students will take advantage of the enormous opportunities that the future holds for them.

Language Policy in Indian Schools: A Point of View

This blog illustrates a point of view on the recommended language policy for urban and semi-rural schools in India, with inputs from research findings from the fields of cognitive neuroscience, early childhood psychology, bilingualism, language learning. An attempt has also been made to marry this research with policy and socio-economic realities in India.

Current Language Policy in Indian Schools

Thanks to India’s rich cultural diversity, the country does not have a national language but has 22 ‘official languages’ (including English). Since the states were formed on linguistic lines, each of the 28 states has its native language(s) as the official language(s). English, due to its ‘lingua franca’ status, is an aspiration language for most Indians – for learning English is viewed as a ticket to economic prosperity and social status. Thus almost all private schools in India are English medium. Many public schools, due to political compulsions, have the state’s official languages as the primary school language. English is introduced as a second language from grade 5 onwards. Some states also mandate learning of a non-native third language from grade 6. This lack of priority to the lingua franca in public schools is one of the major reasons for high enrolment ratios in private schools (44 per cent in rural areas and 65 per cent in urban areas). An overwhelming number of urban and rural parents aspire to ensure that their children master the lingua franca along with their native language.

Current Practices of English Medium Schools

Proficiency in English is often correlated with higher educational and social standing. Given the parents’ preference for English, many private schools (including low socio-economic status (SES) schools) aggressively focus on building English-speaking skills among children right from nursery grades. Many of these schools adopt a ‘total English pedagogy’ in which all of formal and informal school interaction is in English right from nursery grades. Many schools also discourage the use of native language by completely banning any conversation in the native language – even among peers and friends.

Many urban schools encourage parents to converse in English even at home. An unintended consequence of this practice is that children have a negative attribute towards their native languages. On the other hand, government-run public schools focus purely on native languages. English is introduced as a second language from grade 5, thus presenting a clear competitive disadvantage to students of public schools.

The current practices at the private or public schools are largely driven by economic compulsions, market demands or political compulsions, not scientific research. This policy of focus of only one language may not be in the best interest of the child, especially in light of recent research on bilingualism.

How We Learn Languages

Speech is natural to humans. We are born with an innate capacity to learn any language and more than one language. Children are born with an ability to perceive the phonology of any language. Before six months of age, they start to recognise the vowels and consonants (in this order) of their mother tongue or the language(s) they are exposed to. At this stage, they slowly start to lose the ability to identify the prosody or phonology of other languages which they are not exposed to. By nine months, they start to babble in languages they are exposed to. By their first birthday, they start to say words or sentences. Although they are grammatically incorrect, they however speak like a native speaker.

Neuroscience research does indicate that there is a ‘sensitive period’ in our brains to learn language(s). Although we are prepared to learn any language, in time, we tend to specialise in languages we are exposed to and we start losing our ability to recognise some aspects of other languages as we grow older. Research has indicated that our ability to learn accents, grammar, and phonology is much higher if children learn the language before five to seven years of age. These aspects of language become difficult (not impossible) to learn as children enter adolescence and adulthood.

Behavioural studies have also indicated that if children are exposed to two languages by age seven, they gain proficiency in both the languages. And if they are exposed to two or more languages by age five, they use overlapping innate brain areas for language processing lateralised in the left hemisphere. But any learning of language after five to seven years of age often results in recruiting other ‘cognitive’ neural networks of the brain, more bilateral and distributed across the two hemispheres of our brains. More effort is required in neural processing when exposure to another language happens after five years of age. As later bilingual exposure results in different patterns of neural organisation for language processing, the most efficient use of neural resources occurs when language learning happens early. Simply put, language is ‘naturally acquired’ if exposure occurs before schooling years. And language is ‘consciously learnt’ through exposure during or after schooling years. Thus learning a second or third language is most easy when done before schooling years.

But Why Learn more than One Language?

There is scientific evidence beyond economic or socio-political reasons to support learning of more than one language. Bilingual ability has tremendous cognitive benefits across life spans. Several longitudinal studies have indicated that bilingual children have better cognitive benefits over monolingual children especially on non-verbal tasks, conflict resolution, cognitive flexibility and other cognitive control tasks. Interestingly, the cognitive and attention advantage of bilinguals over monolinguals actually increases with age. Older bilinguals have superior cognitive control than older monolinguals. Bilingual brains tend to show higher white matter integrity (meaning there is data loss between neurons), better structural and functional connectivity across the brain and a better “brain reserve” than monolingual brains. There is also a substantial delay of the onset of Alzheimer or dementia for bilinguals as compared to monolinguals.

There is also a linguistic cost bilinguals pay for their mastery of more than one language. Bilinguals across life spans tend to divide their linguistic competence across two languages and hence have a marginally compromised lexical strength and lexical recall. But it is important to know that there is no variation among mono- and bi-lingual speakers on the school vocabulary (vocabulary used for academic purposes). The variation is only for the home vocabulary. Since vocabulary size is a strong predictor of academic success, bilinguals do not have an academic or literacy disadvantage. Bilinguals also would have more “tip of the tongue” episodes than monolinguals. There are some preliminary findings that indicate that bilinguals have the advantage of working memory but a disadvantage of semantic memory. There is also anecdotal evidence that the onset of speech for bilingual children is marginally later than for monolingual children, although this time lag is inconsequential, as bilinguals tend to catch up quickly.

It is important to remember that bilinguals develop languages the same way as monolinguals do. By 14 months of age, bilingual children have a clear demarcation of phonological representations for both languages. So bilingual infants develop the phonological awareness for both languages on roughly the same schedule as monolingual children do for their language. Thus, despite some linguistic costs paid by bilinguals, they have far greater cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Thus, bilingualism should be encouraged in early childhood policy not just for economic reasons or political compulsions but for cognitive benefits – so that children have a competitive advantage to fully realise their potential in this competitive and a globalised world.

What Schools Should Do?

Howard Gardner says that just like a GPS works with the coordination of three satellites, children should know at least three languages. Since language learning is effective when begun early, schools should encourage ‘every day’ use of at least two languages right from kindergarten. The current practice of starting second language in primary school may not be the best strategy. Schools should strike a balance between phonology and ‘whole language’ immersion. Schools should keep in mind that development of a child’s brain happens in stages and, many a times, a child’s brain may not be fully develop to perceive or produce language skills. Thus, children should be given the freedom to express their language understanding in the way they want and not necessarily be restricted to writing and speaking.

Schools should actively encourage parents to speak English and their native languages right from the birth of the child. Given the extraordinary focus on English in the schooling system, parents would be well advised to speak in their native language extensively.

By the time students reach middle years, schools can have students converse more in formally in English in corridors and classrooms. While parents would do well to develop mother tongues at home, middle schools, on the other hand, must encourage formal communication in English in school to develop the skills of spoken and formal English.

Vishnu Karthik
CEO of Xperiential Learning Systems and Associate Director of The Heritage Group of Schools, a group of K-12 experiential learning schools.

Moving beyond Traditional Modes of Teaching

Can school education be made more interactive than the traditional teaching mode?
Is Indian education hampering curiosity and critical thinking in a child?
Is teacher training getting the attention it deserves?

Since joining Heritage Xperiential Learning School in Gurugram, India on July 9, 2018, after over 20 years of leadership of public schools in the United States, I have been grateful to be a part of a school in India that is working passionately and diligently to create true experiential learning across its entire school which engages students in active learning and exploring deeply through authentic projects. This type of learning is centred on active student involvement, where students are engaged in investigating and researching real world problems and issues, and working collaboratively in groups to develop solutions to these problems or to develop products that have a purpose beyond their classroom and school walls. These products can range from developing information booklets to be used and displayed by local non-governmental organisation (NGOs) to developing new technologies and games to help people live healthier lives.

This work takes careful, interdisciplinary planning by teachers of experiential projects that ensure students’ mastery of essential skills and content while they also stimulate and develop students’ key 21st century skills, such as curiosity, innovative problem-solving, collaboration skills, persuasive communication, and deep thinking. When this is done well by teachers, students become passionate about creating quality work and persevering over any obstacles to complete their project because they care about the impact their work will have on the larger world.

Another critical component in instruction to maximise student learning is to design lessons and curricula that require active student participation. Gone are the days of classrooms where students raise their hands and teachers call on them one by one while others simply wait or daydream, since they know the chance of them being called on is very low. Effective schools design lessons and classrooms where all students are actively involved in answering and reflecting on each question either individually with whiteboards, in pairs or in small groups. The teacher masterfully using instructional techniques and activities that require this participation of all in whole group mini-lessons or in small groups as the teacher circulates and coaches the students’ work.

Effective teacher education is critical to making this shift in classroom instruction to active engagement and experiential learning. Teacher preparation needs include extended internships in classrooms, where teachers-in-training can plan and try out lessons with an experienced mentor teacher working side-by-side with them to guide them and provide them with the time for thoughtful reflection, feedback, revision of their practice, and the opportunity to try a lesson again and demonstrate their own growth as a teacher. It is my understanding that most teacher training and education programmes in India do not provide this kind of sustained support of learning, practicing, and then refining the skills of effective instruction. This is critical to the overall improvement of the Indian education system.

It is clear to me that, in India, there are an increasing number of educators and visionaries who are leading the way in shifting Indian education away from simple rote memorisation of information to higher order thinking skills and the social and creative intelligence skills our young people will need in the jobs of the future. For our young people’s futures, as we move into an increasingly automated and digital world, we must create schools where students are supported in developing the creative intelligence skills of problem-solving, collaboration, deep thinking and analysis, and effective communication, as well as the social intelligence skills of empathy, sharing, caring, assisting, and service-mindedness. Through the equal emphasis on all of these skills, we will develop future citizens of India who understand and know themselves, are able to create enduring relationships with others, and are committed to being positive contributing citizens of our local and global world and, thus, actively striving to make their own community and our entire world a better place for all.

Amy K. Marx
Head of International Primary Programme, Heritage Xperiential Learning School, Gurugram

Why Project-Based Learning is the Best Pedagogy to Thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Over the last 20 years, there has been increasing reform and activism against the current models of mainstream schooling around the world. Mainstream schools are criticised primarily for their dependence on rote learning, teacher-led authoritative pedagogy, confinement to classroom and preference for standardisation over personalisation of learning and assessment. Mainstream schooling is also seen as the primary culprit in making the schooling experience irrelevant and distant to real life – alienating millions of children from a learning experience. Many alternative education reform movements view such schooling models as didactic, ineffective in building deeper understanding and, more importantly, building relevance to real life.

Mainstream schooling was a product of the times which needed a large-scale education process to create workforce for the industrial revolution. This resulted in preference of certain subjects over others (math and science over arts) and certain forms of intelligence (deductive, logical, reasoning over empathy, social, design, aesthetics, etc.) resulting in alienation or exclusion of many students who lacked ‘academic skills’ such as memorisation, written reproduction, attention, etc. But the loudest criticism of mainstream schooling has been its inability to build pertinent skills and capacities in children from the 21st century. And the intensity of this criticism has recently been driven by the onset of some fundamental societal shifts such as artificial intelligence, automation, et al. The impact of these Fourth Industrial Revolution developments is still to be understood fully.

The industrial form of schooling is based on the ethos of an industrialized age such as standardisation, uniformity and linear thinking and does not reflect the ethos of the globalisation age like collaboration, empathy and divergent thinking. It largely acts as a funnel for ‘university excellence’ rather than ‘real life excellence’ (Robinson, 2009).

As a response to these criticisms, several alternative schooling pedagogies based on Project-Based Learning (PBL) or experiential learning have mushroomed around the world. These schools have been built on progressive human centric (as against content/curriculum centric) philosophies and include the Waldorf schools, Reggio Emilia schools, Montessori schools, Gandhi’s Nai Talim Schools, Aurobindo schools of human excellence, etc. Reforms in public education in many countries have also been advocating a full or a hybrid form of experiential learning (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, UK (1999); National Curriculum Framework, India (2005)). Many mainstream schools are now embracing some form of PBL. The past few years have witnessed the rise of a number of social organisations, donors and funding agencies to expand the cause of PBL. Unfortunately, in India, policy makers, parents and even many popular schools still don’t grasp the criticality and impact of PBL.

PBL is an approach where students learn critical competencies and skills through comprehensively crafted real-life projects, which are linked laterally to various domains or subjects. Instead of books and blackboards, students learn from the design, research, implementation and production of these projects. The focus is on building relevant skills and capacities (such as design thinking, collaboration, creativity, etc.) and not just remembering facts. Often these projects are implemented in groups with active mentoring and coaching by teachers, mentors and, more importantly, community members and subject matter experts. Projects are also crafted to accommodate multiple modes of learning and multiple ways of expressing understanding.

There is a sea of evidence across several disciplines that supports the effectiveness of PBL, the latest being from the exciting world of brain research. New research in the emerging fields of cognitive neuroscience has thrown interesting insights into how our brain functions and how best it learns. We now know that our brain processes, stores and retrieves learning by connecting new information with existing neural ‘networks’. Thus for learning to stick, it has to be always contextual and interrelated. Projects, unlike traditional subjects, are integrated and interrelated, helping our brains to naturally follow their pattern of learning. We also know that the brain processes and hard wires learning only when it is emotionally engaged. A well-designed project often builds agency and relevance for the learner thus creating a strong emotional connect to the learning process. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans have also established that no two brains (not even in the case of identical twins) are wired the same and thus each brain has its unique learning fingerprint. Unlike ‘one size fits all’ traditional classrooms, a more individualised learning approach such as PBL honours the learning styles of multiple learnings in a classroom. Research from the fields of cognitive and educational psychology also supports the belief that learning happens effectively when learners construct, cooperate and are engaged to learn. In many ways, this is an antithesis of the industrial model of education.

But the biggest advantage of PBL is in its inherent capacity to build citizenship among students. In a country like India with poor civic engagement from the educated middle class, projects designed to solve real-life community issues build tremendous capacity for civic leadership among the young generation.

While PBL has the potential to transform education in our country, its implementation limitations of PBL also need to be kept in mind. The biggest challenge of PBL is in its complexity to deliver. Only schools and teachers that have a certain sophistication and maturity in understanding the complexity and chaos of a PBL curriculum can do justice to the power of this pedagogue. It takes many years of professional development, collaborative planning and a culture of learning community to be a good PBL school. Parents may want to probe more into a school’s practices around training, collaboration and culture when a school claims to be a PBL school on its website or brochure. The government must invest in institutional capacity to train and develop our teachers to sustain such a curriculum. Many countries have embarked on this journey and our children shouldn’t be left behind.