Opinion India@75, Looking@100: The 2047 classroom
Where children learn with their hands, heart and head.
The classes in the school are multi-age and I first enter a hall which is the “classroom” for 10-12 year olds. The hall has a big alcove which looks like a mini-workshop. (Express File Photo) 
I imagine visiting, in 2047, a new phenomenon in education that has already spread to almost all the blocks in India — schools functioning in the spirit of Gandhi’s idea of uniting the hand, the heart and the head. The school I enter is located in a crowded area of the city and does not have a large compound, but I see that a small vegetable garden is also given space along with the playground. The school is for 8-12 year olds.
The teachers tell me that schools like theirs became possible because of a decade-long movement by educationists across the country who created such schools by living and working in them. They created common schools for all the children. It was a struggle in the beginning, but slowly the government policies changed.
Panchayats started supporting the movement, and teachers were facilitated to function as members of a professional community with the freedom to modify their lessons according to the class context, all the while working towards the larger goals.
The classes in the school are multi-age and I first enter a hall which is the “classroom” for 10-12 year olds. The hall has a big alcove which looks like a mini-workshop. A table on one side of the hall has some musical instruments and another side has a large computer screen. There are low tables and high tables and no bench-desk combinations, although some chairs and mats are stacked in a corner.
The class has 24 children and two teachers, one of whom has accompanied me to the class. Children are standing in groups around the tables in the alcove and I am told that each group is involved in making a working steam engine. The teacher explains that making the steam engine is a prelude to understanding the concept of energy. She speaks about the key historical role that the steam engine played in the development of thermodynamics, and explains that the concept of energy is crucial for appreciating the efforts being made to restore the health of our planet and even to understand how our own body functions.
She also explains how the advent of ChatGPT made people across the world slowly understand the difference between information, computing and conceptual knowledge. This also led to the understanding that conceptual knowledge develops in children only by the age of about 12, as had been already put forward by both Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, and that children need to have the opportunity to solve concrete problems before that.
Perhaps assuming that I might be thinking that the school was taking a technologically backward step, she smiles as she turns on the computer and says “electricity is more difficult to understand and we wanted to do the steam engine before starting in a big way with electricity. Some schools do it differently also. Our children also get involved with work involving electricity. Some six months ago older children from the nearby school block made a robot to solve a problem the municipality had with the terrace gardens and some of our children were also part of that team.”
Meanwhile, the computer begins playing a video of a steam engine-powered factory and the sound and images combined to give a real feeling of being in one of those early factories. The teacher adds, “we expose children to the historical aspects of the impact of the steam engine and also teach how the first industrial revolution changed the world both positively and negatively. They will also be looking at how child labour was introduced and how colonialism was also powered by the steam engine.”
As she switches off the computer, she adds, “but first we will be taking the students to the industrial museum in our town where we have two different types of steam engines.” She seems to be happy about their industrial museum. By now every district has a few industrial/artisanal museums that have working machines and tools from across the centuries.
As our conversation ends, the children emerge from their workshop and come forward to greet me. “Our steam engines are working! Shall we show you?” The glow on their faces makes me turn to the teacher and say, “India has changed.” She smiles and adds “Yes, and the world!”
The writer is Scientist-CSIR (retd) and the founder of Jodo Gyan. This article is part of an ongoing series, which began on August 15, 2022, by women who have made a mark, across sectors
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