When I rummage through my early memories for good in-class learning experiences, very few shine out. Even those are dull. The better ones have been outside of the classroom, including outside of other classes that I was enrolled into like Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. I have been a ‘default’ student for almost all the non-school classes that were started in our newly-minted HAL residential community. All the tutors were home-grown; hand-picked and buoyed up by an enthusiastic group of young and energetic men, including my own father. But they replicated the rigidity of the classroom, offered very little engaged learning, were strictly instructed and only served the purpose they were intended for...public performances to fill up our new community’s cultural entertainment space. My best memories of a sustained and engaged learning process is always just one. This one had no teachers, no instructions or no classes! They were the moments of pure joy, complete absorption and creative satisfaction. I do not recall exactly when I started to draw. But as far back as I can remember I used to furiously sketch away through my childhood, well into my young adult years. Every piece of paper in my house, from my father’s diaries and college notebooks, my school notebooks to discarded papers, magazines, comics to wall calendars all were quickly filled with my characters. My sketches, serendipitously, became a document of our vibrant community life. All that I observed— around me and within me—were brought alive through my sketches. Comics and magazines taught me anatomy, postures and composition. The pluralistic nature of my family’s social interactions gave me anecdotes. It was also the best learning experience I was receiving. Until all that manic activity began to slowly peter out. This was when my love for reading began to dominate and my writing skills got fluent. I began to develop deep conversational friendships and focus shifted to teenage ‘issues’. Sketching became just another activity, influenced by peers and Archie comics. Mostly an imagining of my aspirations. But was that the only reason I slowed down my sketching? Not really, my engagement with drawing started to wane just around the time that I started to lose my agency over it, the greater autonomy I had enjoyed for a fairly long period of my childhood. I remember being sent in as a ‘default’ participant for a drawing competition when I was around 8 years old. I won a prize. Overnight a very private activity became one for adult scrutiny and appraisal. That’s when I started to lose the ‘learner’s autonomy’ I had over my own art making. There was no dearth of teachers and opinions now, from the well-meaning ‘uncles’ to regimental art-teachers. Everyone knew how to do better art. The teaching methodologies were suspect, mediocre and the school art classes were now demoralising. My self-devised learning programme was at cross-purposes with the well-intended ‘poor instructions’! What made these enthusiastic adults ‘colonised’ in their ways of teaching? Why had many of them forgotten their own joys of learning? There is a burden that some of us coming from a generation of small town schools in India carry, of a set of hand-me-down, colonial-style instructions. And it takes a great amount of unlearning to re-orient ourselves to healthier pedagogical practices. But if we intend to teach better, nothing can stop us. Books and online materials provide us access to sound educational philosophies, refined pedagogical methods and tools. And there is no dearth of good teachers and their great experiences to mine from. The silver lining is that teachers themselves are taking up this battle. I know, for sure, some very wonderful seasoned ones who are reaching out to the next generation with their own learnings. Modern technology and apps are also making it possible to reach a larger number of teachers.. For example, the app from Ontum Education (where I work) showcases nearly 5000 lessons that help teachers all over India engage creatively with their students, besides multiple other offerings. World-class pedagogies and superlative ‘in-classroom’ learning experiences are now not just the privilege of a few. Government school teachers in India can aspire to teach the way their peers in International schools do, without being constrained by the lack of sophisticated equipment. Because ultimately sophistication is in how they teach, not in what they use to teach. How willing they are to break away from didactic processes to more engaging ones. The ‘What’, the ‘How’ and the ‘Why’ of a pedagogical exchange is receiving its due place under the sun. Teachers in not only urban schools but also in village and small town schools of India are demonstrating the change they want to make. I have seen quite a few turn their classrooms into vibrant spaces for learning. Teacher training does not end at the training institutes. They continue to grow and thrive in the classrooms everyday. There is much hope for a whole new generation of ‘inspired’ teaching. Coming back to my own story of ‘learning to draw’, there is a happy ending to it. I never really went back to drawing like I did in my growing up years. I sketch when the mood strikes. Mostly now I relive those years vicariously through my son, watching him sketch away furiously, oblivious and fully consumed by the process. And he does so with complete autonomy, negotiating his way through peer and media influences. Popular icons have started to influence his sketches as also those from his fascination for ancient and medieval figures. His flourishes become more sure and confident by the day and his detailing highly sophisticated. He is, in his own way, documenting all that he takes pleasure from. His drawings represent the new age and his own aspirations, sometimes the boundaries between machines and humans blur. But the engagement in those moments is complete, immersive and unmediated. Perhaps what helped, when he started his journey into art, was our decision to stay away from well-intentioned ‘poor instructions’ and let him be the master of his own learning process. Classroom pressures were kept at bay by home-schooling. With time at his hand and access to materials, he chose to be his own teacher. But that’s a story for another time.
