Migrant labor schools

I was not able to go to the Migrant labor school(s), but I did spend 2 weeks during my field work there.

I am revisiting my analysis of the class, caste and gender ideologies operating in the migrant labor school here.

Most of the children are first-generation learners. The parents work as unskilled labor in construction sites. Up rootedness and exploitation are themes that run through their lives. Their economic, social and cultural capital is minimal. Parents at the Epsilon site work in construction or in the garment industry or as housemaids. The dads were mostly not seen when we went to the homes to call the children to school one morning- we only saw some mothers leaving for work, or grandmothers, or the children on their own. The parents earn about Rs. 10,000 per month jointly, and many live in temporary structures(not made of concrete). Some drink and gamble, and others are like Gundamma’s family which has some savings and have moved into a rented house.

The homes at the Windmills site are provided by the builder and in better shape. The builder also provides electricity, water, security and toilets. However, the wages are lower since the workers interact directly with the company. At the Epsilon site the workers are routed through a contractor.

I interviewed a set of parents at the Windmills school one afternoon. Most are from an agricultural background from villages in Raichur in North Karnataka. They have fields which are hit by water problems, and have parents, siblings, house back in the village. They complained about their wages (ranges between Rs. 100 – 150 a day) for work from 8:30 a.m.– 5:00 p.m., (O.T. extra) saying that the money was not enough in a city like Bangalore. They said they got no advance, no id except village voter cards, no pension, no bonus, no sweets or extras- they simply get their wages once every 20 days or monthly. The wages are lower for the women and the men. When asked why there was a difference , the women claim they do the same work , and yet are paid lesser, while one of the men claimed that the work the men do is tougher, hence the difference. We see that they are subject to the disadvantages of belonging to the lower class, minority group or gender and do not have much choice in terms of the wages they are paid.

The school encourages the children to study, and takes pains to construct a meaningful curriculum for the children. The parents are aware that the school is a good one, and are appreciative of the school's efforts. But there are prevailing ideologies about women, that prevent them from leveraging on the school's encouragement. As per Ravi, the school coordinator, parents may nod their heads in agreement when teachers try to convince them about the need for education. But, they go back to their village and marry off the girls before they turn seventeen or eighteen. They are afraid that having an unmarried girl around at home, while they are away at work, will cause loose tongues to wag, and ruin her name.

I talked to some of the women - when asked about why girls were married off early - one mother said,  “bojh kam ho jayega” (our burden will be reduced) and “padkhar kya karegee”(what is the use of being educated). The mother was bold enough to convey her unhappiness with the curriculum. She does not see it as translating into useful skills for the children. 

I met Reshma and Hussainabanu who have been with the school for about 2 years, were mainstreamed and are now 14/15 years old. They have stopped going to school. They go to work from 8:30 a.m.- 6:30 p.m. sweeping and cleaning an apartment, and will soon be married off. Ravi told us that they are already engaged to be married.

Reshma’s sisters Rukshana and Sania also study in the school. Reshma says she will ensure Rukshana will study further, even though her parents have not allowed her to study further. She says she likes studying – Hussainabanu says she likes coming to school because she likes talking to the teachers (even if I ask her whether she comes to school because of her friends, she says no- it is because of the teachers). Both mention that Sharanamma, another student at the school, wants to become a doctor but they are certain it won’t happen. They say that at the most, Sharanamma will make it to the 10^th standard, but not beyond, because her parents will put an end to her education at the end of 10^th grade.

The school is the only microsystem that encourages the children’s desire to study. That the kids are aware of this fact is clear from a questionnaire that Samir from our group gave to the children of the mainstream government school. When asked, “who will help you achieve your dreams”, most of the children hesitated and then perhaps pinned down parents’ names. However, the two girls from this school had no hesitation in writing “teacher” for their answer.

In short, we see that the kids are subject to the constraints of belonging to a class, caste, minority group or gender that is at the lowest rung in society and where survival is the key problem. We also see that some do buy into the belief that education is useful, while others look at the reality – that sending the children out into the workforce quickly is more ‘useful’ than continuing with an education system that does not guarantee marketable skills.

Valley visit

The Valley school visit was a long one. The campus is set amidst nature, with lots of trees and a lake and rough trails. The children are all dressed in play-ready clothes, and the school has a tranquil ashram-like quality about it.

One advantage of having play areas and space is that I see that the girls are very active. There is a long gym rope in one playground, and I see a girl swing on the rope with great dexterity – it gives me great pleasure to see a girl who is not half-hearted in her movements – she has not bought into the discourse that says that women must be self-conscious. The dance class we see conducted outdoors in a hut-like structure has male participants and they are again not half-hearted.  The gender micro-level messages from Valley are quite heartening.

The literature class in 6^th grade was also interesting in that I noticed that the whole class participated whole-heartedly in the discussion. There were quite a few of us in the class, but the class was lost in the discussion. The dynamics of the class were such that neither the girls nor the boys dominated the discussion, though the teacher called on girls only to read the texts, not sure if this was coincidence or not.  In the sixth grade, the children were aware of words like oxymoron, and quite receptive to picking out interesting phrases or thinking about where the story was proceeding.

Canedriya Vidyalaya

The visit to K.V. was quite traumatic. The school was quite like a jail, with the principal acting as head jailer or ringmaster. In fact, while we waited outside the principal's office, we watched a conversation between security folks and the principal, about truant boys who were jumping into school over the school walls because they were late. The principal was admonishing the security guard for not catching them promptly. The security guards were hefty men,and the principal a petite woman, but owing to the principal's superior social position, the men were quite obsequious and afraid of her temper.

I got ticked off by a principal's flunky, for sitting with one leg over another, which apparently was disrespectful of the principal. The teacher who ticked me off possibly had some expectations on what constitutes the right body posture in front of the principal. I was quite in shock,
 since I do not view my identity as that of a student only. However, I do not think the teacher was looking at me as a student. In those premises, the principal was king, and everyone who entered the portals had to portray a "proper" demeanor. In the teacher's eyes, I was guilty of interactional vandalism, I guess.

After this inauspicious beginning, we were allowed to sit in 3 classes. Each class had teachers who seemed to be in the same mould, as that of someone who was conscious of being in a position of authority. Smiles seemed  alien to this school atmosphere- I waited and waited to see if one teacher ever smiled, but that just did not happen. Classes were ruled by the textbook and the teacher. However, the children seemed to be used to the atmosphere of the school, and continued to be cheerful and animated, even in the harsh atmosphere of the  school. Students were regularly punished, and many classes had at least one student standing, or kneeling, or weeping outside the class.

We talked to one teacher outside the class, and asked her about her identity as a teacher versus her identity at home. She mentioned that after several years of teaching, her social identity and personal identity had merged. We were not able to clarify this idea for ourselves, since there was little time.

To me, the identities that the teachers had would correspond to the post-reform identity, where the
they had bought into the idea of technical proficiency, and were more worried about the student's performance in an exam, as opposed to any ideas of humanism. For example, even the class on language was about writing an essay corresponding to the expectations of the board,and the expected   format.

Visit to Govt. school , C Nagar

I visited C.N. Government School for my Practicum. Finding the  place was a small adventure by itself, since the auto rickshaw driver had never heard of Chandra Nagar. However, I located the school by asking local folks.

I sat in the Nalli Kalli room, where a teacher called Padmaja was running the show. I found the class full of energy. There were at least 40 children, but they were all very engaged. Some were studying in small groups, some were helped by the teacher, some were running around, but the cheer level in the class was very high. Padmaja mentioned that the children were in class 1-3, and that they studied in student-led groups or with the help of the teacher. The lessons were divided into distinct milestones, and the children moved from one milestone to another. There were no formal assessments for the class, and the milestones served as assessment levels. Padmaja herself seemed very engaged with the children, and was visibly excited showing the competence levels of the children, showing that even grade 1 and 2 children could read long passages of Kannada. She also got the children to sing and perform and participated in the songs herself with full enthusiasm. Her style varied from being authoritarian to friendly to entertaining, and the children were fully with her. Her style seemed like that of a strict parent, where the children knew that the parent was strict but also loving.

The other classes seemed a little like any other class in "normal" schools. The higher class was very quietly doing their work in notebooks. There was no teacher in the class and I heard the same report from other students who went to the government school on other days - there was no teacher even on those days.

International school visit

Our next visit was to I.International. At the end of a long drive on Sarjapur Road, and a 2.5 km detour, you suddenly come upon some white buildings in a landscaped setting. The white buildings have a colonial feel about them, it's as if you suddenly have stepped into Rashtrapati Bhavan with its manicured lawns.

We were shown around the campus, which resembled a university, by 2 fourth grade and 2 fifth grade kids. The children were very self possessed, especially one of the girls. She waved her hands and presented quite like an MBA student.

Our visit to 6th grade was at the end of a history class. The teacher was quite animated, and tried her best to draw the children into the discussion. The discussion was on the caste system, and she asked good questions, like "what in the political scenario acted as an impetus to the rise of Buddhism"? Some of the children raised their hands, and joined in, echoing her enthusiasm, but there were enough number of kids who did not participate at all, and in spite of the teacher's encouragement, refused to be drawn in.

The teachers' in the campus seemed to have slightly mixed styles- they did encourage the children to have a voice in the class, at the same time, the style of addressing the children's misbehavior made the teachers revert to an authoritarian and dictating style. I think that when you have a school which mimics the impersonal nature of a corporate campus, to have a culture where everyone comes with the exact same philosophy and ideas is difficult, and having the atmosphere of a school is even more difficult.

We walked into a 4-year old class, which was quite delightful due to the lively Spanish teacher, who used several strategies to engage and manage her energetic children. It made me realize that preschool teaching is a tough job, and I could only watch with admiration and pleasure at the teacher's patience and liveliness.

Pondering the idea of  students' view of relevant and valid knowledge, I can draw some conclusions based on observations rather than interviews. In the 4 year old's class, there was one child who had not  bought into the idea of sitting still, and following the teacher. He ran all over the class, and inserted himself between an easel board to hide from the teacher, and refused to follow instructions to color within the boxes, using his crayons instead to color quickly and vigorously. Similarly, there were children who had been using language in class that was not considered appropriate, or had been using cellphones in class, and their phones had been confiscated.

We interviewed the coordinator, who told us about the problems of having children from famileies whose parents were high-ranked CEOs or businessmen. The slightest problem resulted in tehe parents sending emails, or pulling their weight in the parent-teacher association. It seemed to me that the teachers had their authority diluted in this school, as opposed to a school from a lower class, and resistances from the students/students' parents had a greater voice in the school.

The question of culture, which I used to pooh-pooh prior to my entry into APU, as some wishy-washy concept is beginning to show up as such an important one, that I laugh at my earlier naivete. "Creating global leaders" is the motto at Indus, and I don't know whether the school realizes the price the children might pay in terms of being uprooted regularly and displaced all over the planet, with the feeling of never belonging anywhere.

At the end of the day, I did not feel that the children received any better instruction than a well-run government school, like through the Nalli-Kalli program I saw earlier in one well-run government school,  in  spite of all the fancy infrastructure. We asked one of the girls whether they got to do any science, and she talked about taking a seed home, but said "the gardener ruined it by pouring too much water into the seedling"....alas for the poor little rich girl, she cannot even do an experiment without being molly-coddled out of it.