POSTSCRIPT

PEDAGOGY

Doing It Right
As far as teacher training in higher education is concerned, the University Grants Commission
seems to have got it all wrong.
Ashwin Kumar A P

but none bothered about its actual effects like the linguistic
his summer I ruined my holidays: I attended what is a
divide which hurts more than half the student population in
compulsory orientation course for newly appointed
India. No one asked the participants if they had devised some
university and college teachers at a UGC (University
strategies and thumb rules to deal with specific learning chalGrants Commission) Human Resource Development Centre
lenges. Trading in generalities, almost all resource persons
(HRDC) in one of the state universities in Karnataka. I had been
quoted two writersAlvin Toffler (of the now-forgotten Future
amply forewarned, because hordes of my friends and colleagues
Shock fame) to say why we should learn, unlearn and relearn,
in the teaching profession had undergone this mind-numbing
and A P J Abdul Kalam, about why we should dream, big, that is.
ordeal several times over in their many years of service.
While it is true that competence in a subject and competence
The cause behind this sense of waste and ruin is not the
to teach it are logically distinct, considering them as concerned
usual lament. Neither right intention nor preparatory work was
with two different processes is faulty. It is not that a good
lacking. The UGC believes, rightly, that to make one a good
teacher knows his thermodynamics well and then attempts
teacher mere subject competence would not suffice; he or she
to deliver it using tools and aids that can be appended to his
needs to be trained to teach. Accordingly, hundreds of teachers
knowledge of thermodynamics. As the British philosopher
are made to undergo such month-long training programmes
Gilbert Ryle would have put it, a good teacher is not executing
in scores of HRDCs (until recently, Academic Staff Training
Colleges) all through the year. The people at the
Training teachers is two mental operations in sequence, in two sepaHRDC where I did my orientation course were very
more about honing rate locations of his brain. It is that he is executing a
conscientious, punctual, accommodating and effi- a sense of judgment single task with an appropriate sense of judgment.
cient. The resource personsall senior-level profes- in them rather than He knows his thermodynamics not merely as canonical statements but as sequences of distinctions,
sors from various institutions and disciplinary backteaching them a
questions, puzzles, methods, allowances and disgroundscame on time, took classes with great
methodology
allowances of specific lines of argument. A crucial
passion and impeccable PowerPoint presentations,
implication is to say that the paradigmatic instance of knowdesigning classroom games and involving us in conversations.
ledge is a sense of judgment within a specific domain of actions.
Facilities for outstation participants were very decent and
Imparting it is impossible without engaging the student in the
whats more, not just the resource persons, but also all
relevant actions and distinctions of a domain. Capacity for such
participants were paid travel and dearness allowances for
sense of judgment is acquired through handling objects in
attending this course. It could not get better than this.
heedful and relevant ways in a domain and speaking about such
But all these right intentions and earnest work could not
objects and ways of handling them in a way that is appropriate.
save the course. If the UGC does not take notice and do someThis has a direct implication on the way we think about
thing about it, generations of young teachers will leave these
pedagogy. Take, for example, what has now become trite: maksessions disoriented and irritated with the higher education
ing a distinction between information and knowledge. Every
system they are part of and supposed to contribute to. What
teacher trainer we encountered in the programme bandied this
ails the training programmes?
distinction with much aplomb. However, there seemed to be
Basically, it is a random assortment of lectures by people
precious little understanding about the implications of making
selected from a routine lot. To illustrate, while there were ample
this distinction. It is impossible to classify a propositional item as
resource persons who emphasised the importance of informafalling within information or knowledge. A proposition appears
tion and communication technology (ICT) in education, not one
the same whether it is the one or the other. The distinction,
designed an exercise for, say, using Wikipedia as an assessment
therefore, is useless when imparted as an abstract item. The
tool, or Moodle or similar platforms for coursework developpoint of making it is to focus on learning how a proposition
ment or using animating statistical tools like Gapminder. All
is to be handled. A distinction between information and
spoke about an interdisciplinary focus in curriculum developknowledge will not help someone handle things appropriately,
ment but there was not a single exercise to take curricular
even while handling things appropriately is what is entailed
units and design a competence descriptor for that curriculum.
by the distinction between information and knowledge.
All spoke about research methodology but not one came up
So, the essential challenge for a teacher is how to teach
with an exercise for evaluating the relevance of a piece of data to
someone to recognise and handle objects in a domain. Training
prove a hypothesis. All talked about social justice and equality
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

september 26, 2015

vol l no 39

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POSTSCRIPT
PEDAGOGY | SPORTS

teachers is to make them reflect on such a process. Clearly, one

cannot learn reflection in the abstract outside the objects and
means which populate a domain. One of the signal failures of
most teacher-training programmes in this country is their
misplaced emphasis on teaching as communicative skill to the
detriment of engagement with the actual content. As English
philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott put it evocatively: Education does not begin in ignorance but in error.
Training teachers is more about honing a sense of judgment
in them rather than teaching them a methodology. Judgment
is sharpened in the process of handling objects and talking
about the difficulties in handling them. Such a process works
necessarily through example. Abstracting out of specific examples to constitute a learning is different from abstracting
out of an example to constitute a theory. While the latter
probes for regularities and explanations, the former is sensitive to the aspect of expertise in executing an action: the flick
of the wrist in a fine glance, a dash of pepper in the pasta, the
rarely used quarter note in a raga.
Ashwin Kumar A P (ashwinkumar.ap@gmail.com) is Assistant Professor, Department of
Studies and Research in English, Tumkur University, Tumakuru, Karnataka.

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september 26, 2015

vol l no 39

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly