Opportunities for reflection leads to self -efficacy and emotional wellbeing!

The background 
Let us consider the letter from a class four student to her friend, whom she would like to invite to attend the annual function of her school. Let us reproduce the letter (identity changed to ensure privacy): 
प्रिय स्नेहिल 
तुम कैसी हो? मैं अच्छी हूँi आशा करती हूँ कि घर में सब अच्छे होंगे. 
हमारे विद्यालय में  वार्षिक समारोह होने बाला है. उसमे अपने -अपने परिवार को बुलाना है. पर मेरे माता -पिता व्यस्त हैं. इसलिए मैं तुम्हें आमंत्रित करना चाहती हूँ. आशा करती हूँ कि तुम आयोगी!
तुम्हारी मित्र 
माधवी 

To me, the letter is the first available opportunity for Madhavi to express her anguish and pain caused by the loneliness owing to the parental business and their non-availability for an occasion where she would like them to be. Madhvai might have experienced this neglect earlier as well and her letter could be based on series of  sad memories. Madhvai is not alone -there are others suffering such loneliness, neglect, lack of appreciation and opportunity to express and ventilate. The situation is important to understand our children and the world around them.    
Cramming within the four walls- between the dotted lines of their text books- children, today, seem to be undergoing diverse challenges similar to the ones evident from the letter above. Hazed aspirations, crafted and set by the parents, teachers, peers and neighbors are driving the children in multiple and often opposing  directions too difficult to negotiate reach any destination. The instrumentalities, jealously designed for them, are proving inadequate and often inappropriate to navigate the challenges and  reach the desired goals they have never ever set for themselves-no body ever asked them-they are seldom taken into confidence. Bewildered as they might feel they need to understand their challenges and concerns and seek empathetic counsels and caring directions. Most often they don’t’.  They have searching questions –‘why I do something I don’t understand and value and why they want me to implement their  wishes’? Societal conversations don’t allow them a voice-and often have a cryptic reminder –‘you don’t understand,  this is not your age to understand’, are some of the often quoted reminders!  
 Joining the schools brings another set of disillusionments. Classroom transactions are increasingly unidirectional, demanding attention to whatever is said and delivered. The prescribed framework and syllabus are sacrosanct to be strictly adhered to. Minute by minute adherence to the bell time is what would make the school ideal. People would always observe –‘such and such   school is so disciplined and their protocols so strict and non-negotiable- children cannot deviate without consequences-they always act and behave as prescribed ’-this is what makes a school a good place to groom and build a competitive childhood and future ready citizenry-they would often insist! Great applaud and thumps up for being strict and disciplined may often be heard! Academic evaluation is against reproduction and conformity-independence and autonomy to explain ones independent views and perspectives, on the subject,  is not usually encouraged and often sarcastically commented upon. Against this background there is no opportunity for reflection and questioning -the situation is best characterized by being conformists and mechanical. This mechanical mode resonates assembly line production system where ‘one size fit all’ scenario is the order. 
MBIS is child centric and collaborative 
Against the above context Manava Bharati International School (MBIS-www.mbispatna.com) practices a child centric approach and collaborative perspective. This means focus is on the children-their needs, aspirations and potentials which manifest through invitation to and collaboration with them in all that happens at the school. The narrative is not ‘for them’ (the children) but ‘with them’. The school appreciates and values their participation and contribution and offers enabling environment and freedom to express and act. The freedom is not without risk and there are risk elements which may influence children’s behavior -sometimes unseemly. But rather than shutting the door for the children to express and explain, efforts are made to understand each behavior, on case-by-case basis, and reach a rational understanding and resolution. This approach is working well and helping develop constructive collaboration in all spheres. Enjoying freedom and invitation, the children are feeling engaged and respected.  These  manifest through freedom to choose and express and creative pursuits, leading to developing self-efficacy and creativity. Parents have started appreciating and would ,on occasions,  observe -‘our children are becoming more free and confident-this would help them being stress free and self-efficacious! In one of the discussions one of the parents lamented –‘… unfortunately the parents consider  children as ATMs-Automated Teller Machines-expecting to deliver what the parents and the teachers might wish-this is fallacious and in the long run may prove emotionally fractious!    

Making collaboration work
Collaboration, in simple terms, is joining together to realize certain goals.  In the context of a school, which is a diverse social community, joining together of different members ( specifically the teachers and the students) is aimed at  realizing  the goal of educating the students.  Collaboration, however,  is a paradigm shift in the context of a school where the focus is on educating  the students with the teachers becoming the custodians of the knowledge . Erroneously, the teachers are considered as the sole repertory of knowledge and wisdom to be transferred to the students in a way that the teacher wishes to.  The tension originates from the assumption that the teachers have all the knowledge and can help the children from their unlimited knowledge endowment. In reality the students are endowed with unique potentials which the teachers must acknowledge and consider to use the same to sharpen and expand them further in the direction the students show inclination for.  Denial of students’ potentials and imposing ones preference  creates tension and struggle -an implicit and explicit struggle of acknowledgement and denial between the teachers and the students which is what the issue is all about. Collaboration involves mutual acknowledgement of each one’s endowment which helps expand and diversify the total knowledge quotient. The power relationships, among the members of the community, often show and manifest through different ways. The relationship between the teacher and the students and the parents work through a pre-defined pattern. A teacher and her wisdom need to be respected and valued. The students, on the other hand, are expected to be necessarily compliant and obedient. This power struggle and resulted ambivalence is crucial to understand. Proactively managing the same can make collaboration real and functional. 
Collaboration does not necessarily amount to shedding off one’s salience of power or ignoring others for his /her values and contributions. Collaboration is to commit to the possibility of producing an outcome greater than one that can be developed alone or in silo. This is more than just completing a project with different people. This means building and nurturing relationships and creating a work environment where everybody feels included and respected. This, however, is easily said than done as people suffer insecurities of various kinds, have unknown fears and unverifiable sense of losing one’s share of authority and material and psychological benefits and credits. Dealing with these complex dynamics is quite demanding. This is where we worked and had some visible changes in the perceived as well as real power relationship. Playing around this power struggle needs to be carefully navigated as a slight miss can complicate the issues. One would need to demonstrate that collaboration is mutually beneficial and is, often, a win-win stance. 
Steps and processes in collaboration
In the following section we intend to demonstrate how we navigated the process of collaboration and how we could weave out an environment for a win-win stance.  
You are important: Others are important too- Showing by examples: Facilitating a collaborative process is quite sensitive. The powerful (read teachers/other authorities), usually, feel threatened/disturbed by the slightest idea of being challenged and participation of an unequal partner. An entry point intervention needs to carefully designed in a way that does not convey /send a threatening note-it should sound innocuous. An example:      
The mountains are blue! 

Before embarking on an exposure trip to the mountains the students and teachers are asked to imagine and paint how the mountains would look like? They sat through their imagination and painted visuals depicting the hills, mountains and forests. Having completed their paintings they stood face to face displaying each other’s visuals. 

On examination one can see near perfect similarity, among the visuals, conveying a clear message about how students matched their teachers in their imagination. The exposure visit that followed is a story of acknowledging and confirming similarity between the teachers and the students. 

This event proved an important mile stone in pursuing collaborative perspective! 

Our participation does not erode your authority -the two can create better and richer outcome: In a school setting participation of teachers and students are decided around distinct acts-the teachers have to teach (dispense knowledge) and the students need to receive and absorb. Active participation of students (in reality) is neither encouraged nor tolerated. Participation should happen within a limit-permissible levels of  questions/ tolerance to acceptance of answers and no arguments. It is argued that crossing the boundaries tantamount to crossing the domain of the educator and ultimately eroding their domain. This is considered to be promoting indiscipline and anomie. The authority system must be maintained with little violation. Inherent in this is a threat perception –‘if the students prove us  wrong then what’? One must be careful in conveying a message that participation of students would not erode or dent the authority system. To proactively deal with this we began with events which created little power clashes. 
Let us work on syllabus and question sets!

Defining minimum learning levels (MLL) and evaluation are necessarily the domain of the teachers and the students have to accept them as given-a student  cannot question them and must accept and submit. Students may find some of the course structures and syllabi out of place and irrelevant and questions complicated. Acquiring knowledge and validating it would depend upon how the syllabi are structured and questions framed. But students have no role to play. 

We invited the students in working on a syllabi and question sets together with the teachers not only from  MBIS but also from other sister schools. The response of the teachers was luke warm who agreed to accept the students with some hesitation. As the day long workshop progressed, they started discovering the sparks the students were showing. The students were not challenging them but were evolving with the process offering insights and direction. In the end the students and the teachers appreciated each other for their insights and understanding. 

Students’ presence, in the important event, proved non-threatening and enriching. Conversation changed from ‘they-their’ to ‘we-us’ showing a sense of acceptance, reciprocation and collaboration. This was an important milestone where collaboration found its way within the culture of the school. The evolving punch line was –‘together we can be more creative and productive’!

Subsequent activities and events witnessed/ witnessing cordial collaboration between the teachers and students. The students are leading academic and semi-academic activities like publication of journals and magazines(Out and About), occasional bulletins; organization of outreach programs, annual day events and so far. Deciding on the theme and concepts, structure and process witnesses happy collaboration among the teachers, students, parents and the management. 

The process witnesses, debates and questions, critiques, modification and agreements on the evolving issues.   

Catalyzing collaboration through existing hierarchy 
In a hierarchical society building collaboration does not follow a straight and liner path. Our understanding is that catalyzing collaboration can best be attempted through the existing hierarchy within the school. This would, inevitably, mean that the school, as an institution, must subscribe to and trust the ethos of collaboration. The school leadership (formal or ascribed) can facilitate the process using its authority which is, usually, not questioned at least in a private school space. The leadership needs to be clear about the implications and long-term consequences and outcome. In case of MBIS this has been the defining perspective. The school is established following the ethos of freedom and coexistence as enunciated and practiced by Guru Rabindra Nath Tagore and  Dr. D.P. Pandey who continues to be inspirations. 
Consolidating and celebrating collaboration 
The culture and practice of collaboration is finding its ways through curricular and co-curricula activities of the school. Group based reading sessions, Community Engagement Program jointly undertaken by the teachers and the students, collaborative reviews of learning outcome where the parents, the students and the teachers develop and pursue constructive conversation to look at progress and bottlenecks, discussion fora to take up social and technical issues etc. 
The outcome
The outcome of the collaborative perspective has been mixed with the students celebrating and enjoying collaboration, mostly with the teachers and the management, fairness and transparency in all spheres of its functioning and absolute freedom to question and deliberate. This seems to have created an environment of reciprocation and the resulted happiness coming out of participation and opportunity to prove what one wishes to. The opportunity to perform and prove often lead them to exclaim –‘yes, I/we can’ characterizing self-efficacy and well- being. It helps develop a winner’s instinct!    
The hierarchy is still playing sometimes silently sometimes openly. The hierarchical authority system, often, experiences sense of discomfort while being questioned or institutional gaps brought out in public view. A teacher, often, would attribute any shortcoming of the students to the freedom. One may often come across such narratives – ‘freedom has spoiled or is spoiling the students’. We are often reminded of such statements – ‘give us a day and  we can set the students right, after all they are students and sparing the rod is proving harmful’! To such complaints we would prefer to say- ‘the hierarchy is so strongly embedded in the psycho-cultural ethos it can not go away easily and soon. The writings on the walls, however, are reflected in the natural smiles, self-efficacy, well- being and evolving creativity of the children.            
 

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