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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Primary lessons in citizenship -Anup Sinha

Primary lessons in citizenship -Anup Sinha

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published Published on Sep 23, 2018   modified Modified on Sep 23, 2018
-The Telegraph

Given increasing government influence on primary education, we must ask who controls the substance of what children are taught.

Education is an important human capability that is considered essential for economic development. Education helps one to know about the world one lives in, think, discover new facts, and create new objects of use. It also helps one in making informed decisions and choices. Education is useful to an individual in seeking employment or pursuing a livelihood. Education is apparently about acquiring knowledge, skills and some sensibilities. It is also about social control and shaping an individual’s mind to be in conformity with prevalent social norms and mores. There is a fundamental contradiction here. The former aspect of education must necessarily provide a broad menu of subjects and branches of knowledge to choose from. The more diverse the curricular options the better. On the other hand, the latter aspect, namely social control, implies uniformity and conformity. The former aspect is well discussed and analysed in terms of curricula, costs and funding, pedagogy, teaching technologies, and learning aids. There is relatively less discussion about social control. Social control is important too. While it helps preserve order in society, it also creates lasting impressions about the world, affects belief systems, and stifles creativity and the ability to question the order of things.

Social control is exerted through two distinct means, especially at the primary school level. The first is in terms of the school’s rules and regulations, the emphasis on punctuality, discipline, obedience and respect for authority. The second means is more subtle. It is done through the content of primary education. Usually one thinks of primary education revolving around the teaching of the three Rs — reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are the real tools of education. Without knowing the alphabet, basic grammar, numbers and their operations, and reading of language, one cannot proceed much further. However, in the age group 5-12 much more is taught than the mere basic tools mentioned. A number of moral values are formed during this period, identities are discerned, many preferences are shaped, and basic ideas are created about the world one lives in — how one relates to other people, to other living beings, and to the wider natural environment. These years are formative and the young mind is impressionable.

The problems of content become evident when students get their first lessons in history, social studies, geography, literature and general science. Students are told where life came from; science might say humans evolved, moral science class might assert that a divine creator made human beings. History teaches what one’s national identity is, what one’s social identity is, how geography and the environment help one lead different lives from people living in other geographies and environments. Along with the understanding of identity, the understanding of difference also takes place. At this stage, arguments are avoided; what the teacher says, or what the textbook says, is taken to be absolutely correct and complete. The content of the syllabus does matter. The teacher is usually required to confine her lessons to the text. The text is approved by a wider body that lies beyond a particular school — usually a school board with regulatory oversight exercised by policymakers and government officials.

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The Telegraph, 21 September, 2018, https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/primary-lessons/cid/1669642?ref=comment_home-template


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