Challenges in teaching at a juxtaposed space: Pupil and their performances

I have taught in a college in the heart of the industrial land within a port city to find some of the finest (in my experience) students having a rainbow of capabilities. I have seen students being absent for long to harvest their crops and then again resuming classes. With a few extra aids many of them have excelled in academic career. One of them went to join IIT to do a Phd.

When i had joined my first College at the port city some of my colleagues from upwardly mobile classes having high-end educational background were already demotivated with a bunch of 'underclass' first generation learners.

The ranting of same words to describe students in the teacher's hostel were enough to make any new comer feel hopeless and cynical. Meanwhile I also encountered my fellow colleagues who have given their best to 'come down' to a certain level and make them shine. Yes, i can proudly say there are students from the first generation learners pursuing PhD, working in multinational companies or have become small entrepreneurs.

Then came a day when I had to pack my bag and come to the newly built city of New Town kolkata to serve at  'A-Zone' college. The glassy building surrounded by three shopping malls and high-end apartments this college represents a potential to become one of the best in the town.

However, there are equally frustrated teachers with first generation learners coming from a little distant villages surrounding the built-in city of New Town. A major difference that I find here is the lack of interest to learn among a large section of the students. While in the port city college there were students lacking ability to comprehend things here there are students who has the ability to comprehend but are disinterested. I have used movie clips, told them stories, gave links to movies and my blogs to make them feel interested. None of these could hold interest for long. Whatever spur created lasted for the class time only. Then most of them went back to the juxtaposed space to be lost. I have seen students changing how they embody their selves rapidly after they started coming to the college. Many of them keep on taking selfies infront of the glassy staircase of the college building overlooking the baclyard of a shopping mall. Many of them I am sure somehow lost in the space. The juxtaposed space.


What makes this difference possible? Of course there is a role of unlimited high-speed internet revolution which is taking away a considerable amount of time of the students. But that is not the sole reason. Let me explain how a juxtaposed space might be playing a role.

Below are some of the photos of the road conditions that one of my students from the department of sociology has to avail to reach college everyday.

Road conditions near Bhangar (PC. Sahajahan Mollah)

Now see the glassy building of the college positioned at the heart of the built in city of new town kolkata surrounded by three shopping malls, well maintained metalled roads and all amenities that most of students can see from a distance but can rarely have access to.

One of the shopping malls adjacent to the college

The glassy architecture of the college building

The roads in front of the college

 At one side of the college property lies high-end apartments.

Neighbourhood of the college

People here only travel in their own air conditioned cars buy foods and vegetables from supermarkets. The entire space represents a late capital postmodern reality. Even plants on the boulevard are unfamiliar ones. Moreover, many of our students have heard stories of land acquisition and related violence that many of their parents relatives and neighbours have suffered from.  The space, therefore, tells the stories of violence and does symbolic violence over the common psyche with a) portraying  massive class difference, b) alienating the marginalised 'others' (students )through process of everyday encounter of significant others (including the space and also the actors).

Teachers, they similarly misrecognise to belong to the space that takes a small moment to isolate them. No matter how hard many of them try many of the students remain at the margins as they see teachers in the same spatial context, embodying same cultural capital which is attractive but 'impossible' to reach.

The pathway to reach there is not visible or are yet to become visible. Meanwhile, the exchange of knowledge continues with a dream 'imagine all the people sharing all the world equally!'

Acknowledgements: I am indebted to Dr. Sreejith K and Pranabesh Bhattacharyya for lively discussion on these issues over drinks.

See also: Interpretations and Experimentation on Knowledge Transfusions by following this: http://sumanparole.blogspot.in/2012/09/interpretations-and-experimentation-on.html

Interpretations and Experimentation on Knowledge Transfusion

Last few years Kaleidoscope keeps on working for transmitting his hodgepodge knowledge to his disciples. It has to be done in a concrete and meaningful way, so he has taken several resolutions with consequences:

First phase resolutions:

a) Make a list of items to be delivered.
b) Make a list of books to be referred to.
c) Make a list of handouts for them to ease their endeavour.
d) Deliver lectures with an attempt of making them understand what otherwise seems difficult.

Result of the first phase:

Kaleidoscope did not get any return of this endeavour. His disciples were reluctant to study those handouts written in English. They did not care for the list of books, or materials made available to them. The cheaper way was to seek private tuition from outside where pretty bad study materials on Bengali is made available.

Several seasonal birds called Kaleidoscope hours before examination, because they did not have study materials.

Second phase resolutions:
a) Make the study materials available online, hence www.sumananthromaterials.blogspot.com was formed.
b) Write on board whatever you are planning to present so that disciples can write them on their class note books and feel "ok this is important!"

c) Their weakness of English language has to have some solutions. Therefore, Kaleidoscope starts taking extra care and asked them to use dictionary and translate the words by themselves. Whatever seems difficult must be discussed in the class room.

Result of the second phase:

The blog has more viewer from United States than India.

Students rarely visit the blog posts. After a quick look at the class notes Kaleidoscope is awestruck. They are filled with incomplete sentences, frequent spelling mistakes, and often with sequential mistakes, i.e. diagrams meant for Evolutionsim falls under the heading of Diffusionism! None of the earlier disciples using Bengali as their medium of representations have changed, they kept representing cheap and often mistake filled private tuition notes in the examinations. Not much interactive sessions are evident.

Third phase resolutions:
Kaleidoscope increasingly understands two things, first, the impossibility of pulling out the entire bunch of disciples from their idiocracy. Some of his colleagues find Kaleidoscope as living in a idiocratic life as he can even think of doing that. The second thing, is that he is trying to transmit knowledge regarding the social - cultural world which is always taken for granted. Therefore, Kaleidoscope has to take some radical steps:
a) Make a list of movies, and movie clippings to be shown during the classes, which required preparation of the clippings.
b) Identify better performers and give them more material inputs. Hence, Kaleidoscope has to prepare a general handout for everybody, and then make photocopies of book chapters, books and ebooks available to them. So, along with the immense help from the HoD, the department now has a dedicated computer for students to use ebooks.
c) Kaleidoscope has to buy a USB speaker to show the movie clippings.

Result of the third phase:

Kaleidoscope wishes to mention two incidents:

Incident - I: e-mail from a student (improvement of language)

Sir,
I mate (read: meet) Nandini. She told me to mate (meet) her NGO workers so that I can initiate my intercourse (read: interaction) with the actual beneficiaries. Please help!

Warm regards,
XXXX

Incident - II: discussion with other teachers regarding "Gods Must be Crazy" (improvement of perceptions)

When one of Kaleidoscope's colleagues asked whether they have watched the movie "Gods Must be Crazy" or not. They replied "yes sir! SN sir showed us, the jeep which could not be stopped... the girl who was dropped to the water by the hero... the half naked group of people who were laughing meaninglessly!" None of them mentions about the originally intended comparison between Band (Gods Must be Crazy), Tribe (Apokalypto, hunting and ritual scenene), and urban life (Pursuit of Happyness).

The ray of hope:
A few disciples have started interacting, preparing list of unknown words and sentences. They are demanding more time and attention. Kaleidoscope, once again crosses his fingers.

See, if you are interested:

Carey, B. (May 12, 2011). Less talk, more action: Improving science learning. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/science/13teach.html

Hanford, E. (Jan. 1, 2012). Physicists seek to lose the lecture as a teaching tool. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/144550920/physicists-seek-to-lose-the-lecture-as-teaching-tool

Moltz, D. (Nov. 18, 2009). 'The College Fear Factor'. Inside HigherEd.http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/18/fearfactor

Stearns, D. C. (2011). A teaching-centered career for the aspiring intellectual. In Bubb, R., Stowell, J., & Buskist, W. (Eds.). (2011). The Teaching of Psychology in Autobiography: Perspectives from Exemplary Psychology Teachers (Vol. 4). E-book on the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (APA Division 2) website. Retrieved fromhttp://teachpsych.org/ebooks/tia2011/index.php