Dr Howard Davidson, who retired as Professor of Adult Education at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, is a friend of Talimi Haq School. He visits Kolkata every year, and since 2012 he has been teaching in the school during his time in the city. Here is a letter he wrote about Talimi Haq School:
After teaching public school for many
years, I found myself teaching adults confined to a psychiatric hospital, and
later prisoners in Canada and the United States. These experiences altered my
perspective on education as I witnessed schools functioning not to educate but
to keep confined adults occupied and out of trouble. My doctoral work at the
University of Toronto in the sociology of education and subsequent research has
focused on how education is adversely affected by the constraints of coercive
institutional settings, with particular attention to prison education. More
recently, I expanded the definition of coercive contexts to research the impact
of military occupation and the coercive forces of poverty and racism on
education. Currently, I am retired from the University of Manitoba, where I
retain the position of senior scholar.
I first met Mr. Ramaswamy in 2007 while
visiting in Kolkata, where I had developed a research relationship with faculty
in the Department of Sociology at Jadavpur University. We began talking about Talimi Haq School, which he established in 1998, and the vision of its role in relation to the condition of Muslim
communities in Kolkata/Howrah. I first visited the school in March 2012.
In my career I have observed schools in
North America and abroad, in prisons, mental hospitals, and under war-like
conditions. Never have I observed the unique relationship between students and
teachers that I witnessed at Talimi Haq School: a remarkable atmosphere of
caring and attention to the children’s wellbeing combined with much joyfulness.
There was discipline here, but a unique type of discipline that comes not from
fear of punishment but from mutual respect and the desire to learn and teach.
From speaking with Mr. Ramaswamy I
learned that one objective for the school is to be a catalyst for social
change. Education is often described as a means to achieve this objective.
Unfortunately, the dominance of neo-liberalism in our thinking about education
and development limits the notion of change to enabling individuals to get
better jobs instead of change that affects the community collectively. The
latter requires learning that enables the community to understand their genuine
interests and to develop the capacity to make changes collectively in pursuit
of those interests, what is sometimes called critical consciousness. Such
consciousness requires the ability to make decisions based not on fear of
retribution or short term gain but on what is in the best interest of the
community: collective as well as individual wellbeing. Education can teach us
to not be a slave to fear and individual gain. That is a unique form of
education; I believe that for those learning in the context of coercive forces
it is the education we must strive to foster. My experience at Talimi
Haq School suggests that this kind of education is trying to emerge at the
school, and as educators we are well advised to do what we can to support it.
I hope I have conveyed what I
believe to be a remarkable potential for Talimi Haq School. It is impossible to
visit the school and not recognize that one is in the midst of a precious
learning environment. This preciousness is the result of years of dedication
and a great deal of hard work. It is unfortunate, but true, that schooling in
the midst of poverty and other coercive forces often becomes a means to merely
occupy children’s time, keep them out of trouble, meet objectives determined by
others who don’t even care, and worse. This is not the case at Talimi Haq
School.
I want to emphasize this precious relationship between the children and their teachers. I think almost anything can be achieved in this environment if the school has the resources it needs to keep operating. The utmost importance must be given to creating a process whereby the school identifies the resources and supports that will optimize the precious relationship between teachers and children that currently exists.
Howard S. Davidson, Ed.D
Toronto, Canada
