To create interactive avenues across hierarchical systems

THE DAY school is as complex in its functioning as any organisation. A large number of people assemble together everyday and work and play in a tightly scheduled environment. Tasks need to be performed, budgets to be balanced and reports to be submitted like in any organisation. Yet there are some essential distinctions from business organisations. First, profit is not the motive for existence. Second, growth of human beings is the primary task and not an ancillary one. With these two fundamental differences at heart, the school system in the industrial society struggles for styles reflecting its purpose.

Schools are quite similar in their structure, curriculum, boards of exams, time structure, subjects taught and so on. It seems only natural that the managing styles are therefore largely similar. The dominant styles of management that exist seem to be businesslike. However, unlike business organisations, schools often abandon the business-like functioning to tide over seemingly `practical' and `necessary' issues.The school is a strongly hierarchic entity, with one head and many teachers. Sometimes one sees intermediate destinations - a wide based pyramid. Such a structure makes for top-down instruction and feedback. Participation in the vision is nearly impossible. Thus the holder of the vision is separate from the executor of the vision. This is one reason for the difficulties in a school's functioning. This is easier said that done. The devices available for bringing to light the philosophy of the institutions are seemingly few - discourses, reading and discussion. Except for the last, the others are top down directions and suffer from the limitations of hierarchic functioning. Discussion, thought not structurally so, also end up being strongly dominated by hierarchic thinking and feelings. Then one may say the structure and its limitations cast a blanket of immobility on the school system. To break free, first the teachers/head of institution needs to see the limitations of hierarchic functioning that it will yield task results but would never be able to encourage a wider holding of questions. Human beings in our society are very strongly conditioned by feelings of submissiveness and anger against authority figures. It is pertinent to see the significance of finding an alternative basis for adult relationships in school. This search will need to be explorative and find expression in the functioning of the school.

There appear two facets of adult enquiry which are actually not separate - the philosophical and the organisational. There is such a lot of ``doing'' in a school that the organisational functioning dominates institutional functioning.

Human beings from the hunter- gatherer days have been able to collaborate around an idea. We can collaborate to build a dam, to grow food, to make profit etc. We would also find a large number of people who would agree on the idea that all mankind is one. To ask however, `how does one live if one truly understands that all mankind is one,' demands a different quality of collaboration. It is easier to agree on the idea than to be able to collaborate in exploring the depths of a question such as this. Therefore it is much easier for schools, or any other institution, to function participatively and in a sharing mode over organisational areas. The philosophical area, which is an ongoing live enquiry, remains held in cliches or is ritualised. It is often held as something too sacred to be touched upon or something that needs so much time that it is impractical. Without an active exploration of the philosophy, a lack of enthusiasm or apathy dogs the human content in an institution. Alternatively the directions will be set by whatever energy that is available - this may or may not be in consonance with the original intentions.

Probably this is the reason that all institutions have very similar appearances. It does not matter what the considered beginnings were. With time, except for certain rituals which distinguish one institution from another, there is little to show for the passion and the thinking which was there at the beginning. There is of course the other reason also - human beings are rather similar and there is a tone of the times. This has a greater bearing on how things are done, what things are done than any philosophy. For example, it is administratively and educationally easy for a school to decide to include environmental studies or computer studies as a subject in the curriculum. It is not however easy to link this with the broad perspectives of the school's founders. One may then have to enquire if the study of computer sciences will really enhance (say) the character of a student. If the answer is yes or may be, one has to proceed further and ask if the study of a language or mathematics has indeed enhanced character. After all, this has been going on for years. Here the answer cannot be definite and one encounters the divide between the philosophy and the practice. No one will deny that language or history or science must form a part of the curriculum. But to be able to see these as vehicles of the intention of building sound character is neither apparent nor easy.

There are many doors of enquiry that obviously open up. What do schools wish for their students? What is the vision with which a school functions? A vision is not in terms of the activities but something larger which includes the teacher, society and the earth. This brings us to a sensitive issue- the gap between vision and actuality. What occurs at this interface is crucial. Schools for too long have learned.

a) To sustain a vision very far removed from practice.

b) To accept without protest all criticisms about themselves.

If a school, one means here the group of adults who hold the ground, decides that they would like to find out what the vision means actually, then we would have school as a place where an enquiry would be going on. It is not a mass manufacturing product place but a context where there is a dynamic exploration into questions like the following.

a) Can learning go hand in hand with fear?

b) What do young people need for the future?

c) What is the school's responsibility and the teachers' role?

d) What is the meaning of success?

e) Is comparison and measurement necessary in life?

f) What is our relationship to religions and knowledge?

g) How does one live in a changing world?

h) Why are we teaching what we are teaching?

But who is to raise and hold such questions? The owners/trustees of the schools, the teachers or the students? If one bears in mind that the adults hold the ground of the school for the children to learn from, the urgency will be at once apparent. The search for alternative models of functioning has been persistent through the ages and yet been strangely evasive except, probably, in tribal societies. It is most important that teachers learn to sustain a discussion. Inherent in this are matters like listening, suspending judgment, sharing etc., since discussions can neither be conclusive nor complete, they offer a context for exchanges of views and reflection. It is only out of a dynamic sharing of vision that a vibrant movement can emerge. For schools, one may broadly suggest:

Since school is the ground where models of success are reinforced, it is worthwhile for staff to engage in and sustain a live discussion on this issue, its implications and action options. Who is a successful teacher? Who is a successful student?

Authority on functional matters and decision making are inescapable. How can authority be held without losing a sense of participation from colleagues is the art most crucial for the head of an institution. This is neither natural nor easy.

Teachers tend to become isolated in the islands of their classrooms. How will avenues for learning and meaningful feedback be created among colleagues in a school?

School teachers in every school find new and interesting ways of doing things. The importance of supporting these initiatives cannot be over stressed. Most initiatives pass leaving no mark. It is important that the school community questions and examines the underlying principles. In each school various elements hang together as an amalgam or a mixture or a compound, (to borrow an analogy from chemistry). How will a school initiate processes by which an understanding of the whole can be articulated/attempted? This is a very important question. Sum of the parts do not make the whole. How will an institution attempt to understand what it is?

Last but not the least, the school should be valuable in the teachers' consciousness as a place where one can explore deeper questions with friends, learn about being a teacher and a student, and feel that one has a dignified place among peers and students. It is vitally important that teachers experience, not just think of, a sense of hope and movement. How this is to be brought about is a worthwhile question for those in charge of institutions to ponder over.

G. GAUTAMA

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