Page 99 - DEDU501_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EDUCATION_SYSTEM_ENGLISH

Unit 10: National Curriculum Framework (2005)

around them, exploring, responding, inventing and working things out, and making meaning. Notes
Childhood is a period of growth and change, involving developing one’s physical and mental
capacities to the fullest. It involves being socialised into adult society, into acquiring and
creating knowledge of the world and oneself in relation to others in order to understand, to act,
and to transform. Each new generation inherits the storehouse of culture and knowledge in
society by integrating it into one’s own web of activities and understanding, and realising its
‘fruitfulness’ in creating afresh.
10.2.1 Primacy of the Active Learner
Informal learning in society builds on the learners’ natural ability to draw upon and construct
their own knowledge, to develop their capacities, in relating to the environment around them,
both physical and social, and to the task at hand. For this to happen, opportunities to try out,
manipulate, make mistakes and correct oneself are essential. This is as true of learning language
as it is of a craft skill or a discipline. Schools as institutions provide new opportunities for all
learners to learn about themselves, others, and society, to access their inheritance and engage
with it irrespective of and outside the access provided by one’s birth into a family and a
community. The formal processes of learning that school makes possible can open up new
possibilities of understanding and relating to the world. Our current concern in curriculum
development and reform is to make it an inclusive and meaningful experience for children,
alongwith the effort to move away from a textbook culture. This requires a fundamental change
in how we think of learners and the process of learning. Hence the need to engage in detail
with the underpinnings and implications of ‘childcentred’ education.
‘Child-centred’ pedagogy means giving primacy to children’s experiences, their voices, and
their active participation. This kind of pedagogy requires us to plan learning in keeping with
children’s psychological development and interests. The learning plans therefore must respond
to physical, cultural and social preferences within the wide diversity of characteristics and
needs. Our school pedagogic practices, learning tasks, and the texts we create for learners tend
to focus on the socialisation of children and on the ‘receptive’ features of children’s learning.
Instead, we need to nurture and build on their active and creative capabilities—their inherent
interest in making meaning, in relating to the world in ‘real’ ways through acting on it and
creating, and in relating to other humans. Learning is active and social in its character.
Frequently, the notions of ‘good student’ that are promoted emphasise obedience to the teacher,
moral character, and acceptance of the teacher’s words as ‘authoritative’ knowledge.

10.2.2 Learners in Contest
Children’s voices and experiences do not find expression in the classroom. Often the only voice
heard is that of the teacher. When children speak, they are usually only answering the teacher’s
questions or repeating the teacher’s words. They rarely do things, nor do they have opportunities
to take initiative. The curriculum must enable children to find their voices, nurture their
curiosity—to do things, to ask questions and to pursue investigations, sharing and integrating
their experiences with school knowledge—rather than their ability to reproduce textual
knowledge. Reorienting the curriculum to this end must be among our highest priorities,
informing the preparation of teachers, the annual plans of schools, the design of textbooks,
Common sources of physical discomfort
• Long walks to school.
• Heavy school bags.
• Lack of basic infrastructure, including support books for reading and writing.
• Badly designed furniture that gives children inadequate back support and cramps their
legs and knees.
• Time tables that do not give young children enough breaks to stretch, move and play, and
that deprive olderchildrenofplay/sportstime, and encourage girls to opt out.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 93