My Top 5 from our 15th re-union

No. 5
Sports at D-18 lawns
When the mind think it's possible but the body declines. 10 overs a side cricket was ok because we were largely standing and waiting for the ball to come to us. But Frisbee showed our real state of fitness! We confidently asked Ambika to time a 7-minute half, but by the 4th minute, we were begging for half time. Stars who we did not unearth during Combos, showed what we had missed - DJ, Karthik, Goriya and Parag showed stamina and skill that we didn't know existed. But Ram, Phony, Havas and Boxer showed that for some of us, class is permanent! Overall, getting our hands dirty and breaking some sweat made Sports at D-18 lawns a worthy contender for No. 5 in my Top 5 list.

No. 4
Urbanization in Classroom 3 IMDC
When I realised what was still broken at our campus. Tearing apart Prof. Nanda's claim about the Top 3 at IIMA being at par with the Top 3 at Ivy League schools, the Prof. shared re-hashed slides from McKinsey, Isser Ahluwalia and Copenhagen under the guise of 'cutting-edge research'. Thanks to Whatsapp, BCG and Lodha Group providing moments of mirth, we dragged ourselves through the 70-minute torture. For me, it was a flashback to the umpteen boring lectures I attended at IIMA. At that time, I didn't realise it but a few years into the business world, I felt that what ails school education, also ails our so called institutes of excellence - lack of great teachers. Whether a chair solves the problem or not - this one aspect needs serious focus.

No. 3
After party 27th night, Room 917, Hotel Pride
When Mr. and Mrs. Havas showed that the after-party can be as entertaining as the Party.
Whether it was the intense discussion on 'whether men can fake it' or it was 'Modi and people's expectations', CP was of the highest order. Shagun, Ramya, Indrani brought personal experience into play, to defend their positions on faking. Between Nongi's detailed accounts of him applying 12 bottles of foundation on Shashank and Bhavtosh searching for Soma's sandals, Mani, DJ and Kuldeep gave us senti accounts of how IIMA changed their life. One thing was clear - our obsession with Top 5 continues unabated. Ramya and Nongi did a stellar job with the booze - so much so that after a while everyone had a glass half full with booze but no mixers! I have seldom seen 40 year old bald men trying to squeeze out the last drop of 7-up from a poor 330ml can!

No. 2
Party 26th night, Room 817, Hotel Pride
When we broke the ice and met as if we had never been away! A game of truth and dare which had Havas kissing Boxer and everyone revealing their Top 5 made, jumping over 15 years of not being in touch, a walk in the park. We quickly relapsed to a level of familiarity and warmth as if we had always stayed together, as if nothing had changed even though 15 years had passed! Pat and Havas made it an evening worth remembering. For me, it was a perfect precursor to the official reunion starting the next day.

No. 1
Shagun, Dholu on stage and a group of left footed dancers below. Party 27th night. Hotel Pride.
When Shagun and Dholu rolled back the years belting out number after number that got everyone on their feet. DJ, Ramya and Susu provided able support. Shiv Negi took it upon himself to pull everyone off his chair to join the dancing. At one point, he was seen pulling a waiter to the dance floor only to realise that the poor guy was just offering soup to him! Boxer drank too fast, passed out too soon and Ramya and Shweta had to call housekeeping to rescue the bottles stored in his room! The high quality of the music can be assessed from the fact that in a never-before-seen incident, Apte too, was seen shaking a leg! Not to forget the Batch of 2030 performing on stage with 'Let it go', 'I have a dream' and 'Apne Karam'. And not to forget Tunta's red trousers which threatened to set the night on fire!

No. 0
Cafe Coffee Day and Campus corridors - all 3 days.
In a departure from tradition, I'm introducing a No. Zero. Cafe Coffee Day next to Hotel Pride became our NR, Rambhai and D-14 coffee machine - all rolled into one. What groups couldn't possibly achieve - intimate conversations, phone no. exchanges, promises to drop-in or drop an email - it all happened in Cafe Coffee Day, Mirch Masala and Toran. For me, I got re-introduced to a lot of my batchmates - some of whom, I spoke to more in these 3 days than I had done in all 2 years on campus! I sensed the influence and energy this group of well-meaning people carries. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to contribute and connect for education and making a difference! For this and for rekindling old relationships and camaraderie, Cafe Coffee Day and the corridors on campus are my No. Zero.

Thank you everyone for creating the context for this list. Thanks to Kissan - without you this was beyond the realm of possibility!!

Look forward to seeing you all and more on our 20th re-union (Phoney will tell us when it's going to be). People in Singapore, HongKong, Dallas, Vietnam, Gurgaon, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai have extended warm invitations to everyone in the batch to drop in if they're passing through their town. I hope we'll take them up on their offer - whether to share a drink or an airport pick-up!

Stay Blessed and Love you all!
Senti.

Creating Great Teachers - 2

CGS 1 - Creating Great Teachers  - 2

As I read yesterday's DNA of education, I was disappointed by the lack of rigour from journalists and the 'experts' they quote. The issue of teacher effectiveness is a complex one with no silver bullet.

Any attempt to solve the problem necessitates a deep understanding and a step by step delayering of the apparent causes. Saying things like 'change the B.Ed curriculum' or 'increase the salaries' ignore the interlinkages involved in the issue.

Let's look at how did we get here.

In 1954, my father was in the merit list in Punjab state in the 10th grade. He was a topper in Intermediate and then graduation. He could have prepared for Civil Services but chose to be a teacher. And was he good! Over 36 years, he was instrumental in shaping the lives of thousand of students.

When he was graduating, teaching was a profession that was looked upon with respect. There was dignity and regard for teachers. People looked up to them. Most jobs were in Government or Government aided schools. Private schools were a small drop in the ocean. The income disparity between teachers and other professions existed but it wasn't as wide as it is today.

The general climate in the country was of idealism. People were fired up to do great work and change the world.

These are broad brush narratives but they illustrate the point. People choose their future to avoid what they did not like in their past and this choice gets created in a broader cultural context of what is admired and what is ridiculed. Social admiration is a very important currency.

The current reality is that economic prosperity is the shortest route to social admiration. And the teaching professions does not offer it.

The ideal situation is not for every 'bright young folk' to become a teacher once we fix the social admiration issue. Different people are intrinsically interested in different things (even without the distorting effects of social admiration). But can we create conditions where children who are intrinsically interested in the creative and inter-personal areas, pursue a career in teaching?

When the problem is articulated as above, the obvious solution is to increase teacher salaries. And this can, of course, be part of the solution. But executing it is tricky, as we'll see below.

Economic prosperity has no material limit. Greed often overtakes need and quite quickly. But as long as teachers are in the top tertile of the income bracket, I assume the profession would attract students who are intrinsically inclined and who want economic prosperity. It is my assertion that for teaching to be able to attract talent, the profession should offer the potential to earn 35,000 - 50,000 per month (indexed to cost of living of the place). 

This leads to the deeper question of - From where will the money for these salaries come? 

For Government schools, the government just does not have the money! Here's why:
India's GDP is $1.8 trillion. Our spend on education is 3.3% of GDP which translates to $61 billion or INR 3650 billion. Almost 60% of this spend goes on teacher salaries (rest goes on admin, teaching aids, activities etc) which means the money available for teacher salaries is INR 2190 billion. India needs close to 12 million teachers to service its 360 million school going population (a student: teacher ratio of 30:1 which is on the higher side. Good school systems have a ratio close to 20:1). This means we, as a country can afford only INR 15,000 per month as teacher salaries (2190 billion / 12 million /12 months). This includes all benefits, retirals etc. So unless, we increase our GDP ahead of population growth and increase our spend on education (6% of GDP instead of 3.3%), we do not have the money to make teaching an attractive destination for talent!

For private schools, teacher salaries are paid from the student fee. For teacher salaries to be at 35,000 - 50,000 level and the schools to make a decent 15% return, the fees would need to be at least in the range of INR 3000 - 3500 per month. How many parents afford this? No wonder, most private schools are offering education factories with 50 children in a classroom and teachers who are paid between INR 5000-8000 per month!

Net, the economic model underlying schools does not currently permit teacher salaries to be at a level where they are attractive to talent at scale. So the few parents who can pay get access to schools where teachers are paid well and the rest make do with poor private schools or worse, government schools.

The solution to this issue needs to be created in a broader framework where our school system needs to be re-imagined. But before we get there, let's get a couple of issues out of our way.

The above discourse rests on the assumption that if you attract talent to teaching (and you have the budget to pay all those teachers 35,000 - 50,000 per month!), learning for all students will automatically take place. That assumption is faulty.

Creating great teachers not only needs talent to come in, but also needs 2 more things to be firmly in place:
1. A great teacher education program that is continuous
2. A system of accountability that fosters performance

Will cover these in detail in my next post.


Post script:
Any solution to improve the social admiration attached to the teaching profession would be incomplete if it rests only on increasing the economic incentive from teaching. The solution needs to include social structures that celebrate teachers and teaching. In the list of Top 100 Indian celebrities why are there no teachers? Why are there no role model teachers who are national heroes? Why are educators, education and learning not sexy enough to occupy headline news and trending topics on social media? There needs to be a concerted effort to put teaching, learning and teachers back on a platform that captures public imagination. This will encourage youngsters to take up teaching by offering another way to get social admiration.

Creating Great Teachers

Teacher training does not make great teachers.

This comes from the last training I conducted for teachers. I recognised that while a lot of focus is on subject matter expertise, CCE, classroom management etc., it is like applying cold cream on cow dung.

Unless teachers become self-aware, they'll not become good teachers. Why do I say so?

Our beliefs and mindsets lie at the root of our actions. What we believe about the child, about learning and about assessing, shows up in how we deal with children.

Teachers who believe that they need to know everything, don't give themselves the option to admit they don't know. They would rather shut up a child asking an interesting higher order question, than admit that they don't know and will find out the answer later. 

Teachers who believe that children need to listen when the teacher is talking insist on pin drop silence. Their belief makes them create lectures where they become the fountainhead of knowledge and children the silent receptacles.

Teachers who believe that some children are born smart and some are not, focus on telling children whether they are smart or dumb, hard working or lazy and creative or not. Their belief focuses them on results and scores and makes them categorise the classrooms into haves and have nots.

Bear in mind, that most teachers mean well. They are in this profession to do good. They want their students to succeed. But being prisoners of their beliefs and mindsets, they act in ways that run contrary to their intent.

So we have a swarm of teachers who intend well, but act bad. And no amount of Continuous and Comprehensive Examination or Classroom Management strategies will help. It is the beliefs that need to be pulled out from their sub-conscious level to the conscious level where they can examined. Until that happens, teachers continue to be driven by their beliefs without being aware of them!

One of the basic belief that needs altering is our belief about talent. Most teachers believe that talent is inborn. Their assessments are designed to find who are talented. Their reporting give each child a label of poor, fair, good, very good - categorising them into the talent have's and have not's.

Carol Dweck's pathbreaking work has proven that talent is not inborn. Interest is. Effort and practice is what builds talent. Once teachers adopt this belief, they focus on children's behaviour, not labels. And children in those classrooms, focus on what they have learnt and how much more they need to learn, not whether they are talented or not.

Another belief is about children as learners. Are they reluctant learners who need to be coerced or cajoled to learn, who continuously need to be told to pay attention, who need to be put in a classroom lest they get distracted? Or are they curious learners who want to know more and figure out things as long as it is interesting for them? Depending on which belief we adopt, our actions as teachers, alter.

There are a host of others beliefs that run teachers - about children, about learning, about school and about their role as teachers. As teachers become aware of their existing beliefs, they can see the actions that spring from these beliefs. And they can also see why their actions end up contrary to their intentions.

Teacher Education needs to start from examining their underlying beliefs and then creating a skill set for teaching. Else, we'll continue to have teachers who intend well but act bad.