With the examinations putting pressure on our schedule, with parents obsessed with marks, with all the extra duties imposed on a teacher, how can we even think of creative teaching, different methods of evaluation, exiting field trips?

Ever tried experimenting with an alternative? Ever tried pushing the school for support? Parents also need to be taken into confidence. We must be able to share with them the excitement, the pleasure and value behind exploring local histories, family histories. When we do so, parents get drawn in quick and fast. They then help us make the field trips become possible like the one we organised to Agripada or Mominpura or Haji Ali or Kumbharwada.

The visit to a Dalit basti can be not just an eye–opener but a conscience –jerker. The look at a construction site where men and women work but women are paid less despite having to mind the children gives us an insight on how the toiling classes are still treated and paid by us.

Our urban streets are lined by migrant communities, often from drought-struck regions. We offer them meagre and selfish welcome but an insight into their life styles could provide an abiding understanding of the development priorities of our country and where these are taking us.

Bit by bit, chip by chip, the resistance of the teacher eases away even as more and more questions come up. As I work more and more with the teaching community, speaking, sharing, imploring and asserting, a bland unconcern and apathy gives way to a some interest, a slow glow shines in the eyes of the teacher.

If we are persistent, not impatient, prepared to dig the heels in at the cost of expansionism, the slow but steadfast, glow of interest gives way to enthusiastic participation and ownership. But not before or until many questions are answered, many confidences shared and much territory covered once and then covered again and again.

The process seems long and arduous but so it will be when there has been a serious erosion of faith. The faith of the teacher, our teacher in what she is teaching has been lost. Gone for some decades, and needs to be sowed and reaped on again.

Mediocre texts – of late, sullied with the brush of rank hatred – and an education policy and syllabus that places no confidence, no faith in our teacher. Historians and academics may preach and make worthy noises but their voices do not descend to the last woman, the carrier of hope, of joy, inquiry and emotion for our children – their teacher.

To effect a change, an alternative in education is firstly a question of genuinely recovering this faith. In herself, in what she is teaching, in how she may teach it.

Ideas abound within each teacher, awaiting such confidence–building exercises and then, literally the sky becomes the limit. All of a sudden, the space is teeming with a boundless, limitless supply of ideas.

How so we teach history? How do we make it interesting? What about methods of evaluation? Have we made any difference to our children?

All these are critical questions and will soon find their answers.

What amazes me most however is the candour and cameraderie experienced in the shared space when we discuss these questions. ‘What kind of teacher are you?’ ‘Which Shivaji do you take to the classroom?’

The brutal honesty with which we are able to share the misconceptions within us, that affect our approaches, influences our language and outputs with our children. In the midst of teacher orientation sessions, tales of rank discrimination often unfold.

It was July 1999 in Ahmedabad. The Kargil war at our borders had spilt into anti–Muslim violence and the Pak–India cricket World cup match was another extenuating factor.

A teacher began recounting the tale of an incident and her reaction to it that she still felt uncomfortable about. (We were sharing accounts of our handling of any incident(s) that left serious question marks of conscience thereafter.)

A young boy of about 8 or 9 years was being thrashed, roundly, by two others in the quadrangle of the school where she taught. The teacher passing by in the corridor saw this happening, and summoned them all up. The boy was hurt, mouth bleeding, shirt torn. On inquiry, the two assailants explained the crime. The victim had been rooting for Pakistan’s victory in the never–to–be played match between the countries and outraged by this ‘anti–national’ rhetoric the other two had taught him his place.

What did the teacher do? She gave a gentle reprimand to the erring victim and explained to him the ills of namak-haraami (being unfaithful to the land that feeds you). The two aggressor–assailants listened to this litany.

It was ten days later that we were sharing confidences in a non–threatening atmosphere. An honest teacher uncomfortable with her response bared her soul to us. We listened. Gently afterwards we exchanged impressions, feelings, opinions. What struck me most was her ability to speak up and for the others to listen, unmockingly. It was only then that we spoke. Gently, but uncompromisingly.

The action of the teacher with which she was herself uncomfortable is being reflected around us every day. The action itself echoes the nuance and pitch of public discourse. Where the victims of violence are treated as aggressors in the minds and hearts of men and women, their ‘imagined crimes’ pinpointed and pre–conceived to justify ours. Ostensibly, as retaliation.

But there is hope. Hope lies in the nudge of doubt and conscience that not only the one teacher in Ahmedabad had in that July of 1999 but in many if not all of us who are similarly harassed, even torn apart and within by the rank projects of murder and hate that abound.

Until we speak up.

Teesta Setalvad, Khoj education for a plural India, [email protected]