RUPANTAR

Teacher Training in Tribal

 Dr Mahendra Kumar Mishra

State Tribal Education Coordinator,
Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority
Department of School and Mass Education, Orissa
 Why Rupantar ?

•About more than 60 % teachers

in tribal areas are non tribal
•They have a different view about
tribal people and culture
•Schools in tribal areas are
dominated by the non tribal
values
 Teachers attach their own cultural values
and attitude in the classroom
 Teachers are dominant and students
and parents live in culture of silence
 Many teachers have a little knowledge
about tribal culture and language
 With all these in mind teachers run the
schools.
Result:

 Mismatch of values, culture and language

 Gap and invisible conflict in the mind of the
teachers and the children
 Teachers superiority is established
 Children’s wisdom is neglected
 Learning is blocked
 Poor retention, poor achievement
 National goal is not achieved
 How
 We have to understand the school type
and classroom situation as a teacher

 Let us see the situation..

barrier
School for the child..

A child centered classroom is successful

when
 a child speak and understand in her
mother tongue, since the child see her world
in her language,
 experience of the child is reflected in the
learning and teaching.
Learning for the child..
 Space for children’s creativity through
learning activities
 Learning is interesting and meaningful,
 connected with the experience of the child,
exploring
 Children have the freedom to speak and
interact with out fear and hesitation
Culture and Language
 Scope for learning from the environment
and culture
 Most important for the child is language
of thought and language of speech
Two questions:
 In which language does the child see her
world and identify the objects, and express
her feelings?
 Is it similar or different from book
language?
As a teacher in tribal areas
we have to know :
 Does the state curriculum and text
books responsive to the educational
needs of tribal children?
 Does the teacher training module contain
tribal education as the special focus? How
many sessions is given for tribal
education
 Does it fulfill the training needs of tribal
area teachers?
 Can we put blame on the community if
they are not responsive to the school?
Asking the Self:
If I don’t know the language of the children,

• Am I really competent enough to teach them?

• Why the tribal children are non responsive, in spite
of my efforts?
• Is my classroom suitable to meet the need of tribal
children effective and responsive ?

• Knowingly or unknowingly, do my behaviour

and language hurts the children and discourage
them to come to school?
Attitude
 Attitude of teachers on tribal children:

 Tribal children lack intelligence

 Tribal language is inferior to the state
language
 Tribal girls are weak in mathematics
 Tribal children are docile
 Tribal children should not use their
language in the classroom
Training Need:
 Do the teachers have training on
importance of mother tongue in early
primary classes?
 Do the teachers have training on acquisition
of second language skill?
 Do our teacher- training Institutes have
adequate academic facilities to impart tribal
education below the district level?
What to do?
 We have to be responsible for the
children irrespective of tribal and non tribal
 we have to rethink on our established ideas
and thoughts on tribal people and children
and to change our mind set
 We have to prepare for a school where tribal
children can get better opportunity
Knowing the situation
What could be the training
Content ?
 Knowing the strength of tribal society,
culture and language
 Knowing the traditional knowledge system
 Knowing how the local knowledge can
be put in to the school curriculum
 Creating new knowledge from the
foundation of local knowledge
 Process of learning of tribal people
 Children’s folklore( oral tradition, games,
dance, music, art and craft etc.)
Teacher Training Content
 Content: Syllabus: NCF( 2005)
 Culturally appropriate curriculum
 Mother tongue as medium of instruction
 Method: Activity based/experiential
 Child Centered
 Participatory
Training Method
 Specific methodologies for language
training
 Discovering learning methods from the
tribal communities( counting system, units
of measures etc. language learning
process)
 Community process of learning( How do
they learn?)
 Learning from the elders ( process of story
telling,specific learning style of singing and
dancing, games, material culture)
 Tribal Pedagogy
 That starts from tribal culture; connected to life
experience
 Strengthening self esteem
 expanding the existing knowledge and skill
system
of the community/ learners
 Creating a community based pedagogy
Practical use of knowledge
 Devising an interactive and reflexive learning
teaching process by the teachers
Quality Tribal Education:
 Quality tribal education involves
competent and qualified teachers who are:
 Familiar with tribal culture and language as
well as the state/ national culture and
language
 Respect to tribal values and concepts
regarding education and who engage in an
interactive process with tribal communities
and teachers
Contd..
 Using and creating responsive and
experiential teaching methods and
learning materials in cooperation and
consultation with the tribal community

 Trained in mother tongue education/

multilingual teaching methods and
language training methodologies
Open to continuous assessment of their work and
teaching practices trained in teacher training
programmes and facilities organized in cooperation with
tribal people’s organization( jati mahasabha)

tribal teachers should take the initiative/leadership in

tribal education with state support, so that community
involvement will be effective. Linda King: 2005)
Now Let’s break our
myth..
Thank you
Orissa Teacher Training
programme on Tribal
Education:
 Why Rupantar ( Transformation)
 Concept:

Attitudinal Training makes the teachers

sensitive to issue concurring the
psychology of tribal children.
Analyse and reflect on their emotions
and actions, which could have affected
children psychologically.
Methodology:
 Indirect attempt to discover the inherent
values, beliefs, practices, assumptions,
biases and prejudices with a view to change
them.
Implications:
 Change in attitude.
 Moving beyond the boundaries of the
textbook and understanding the child.
 Linking the background of the child with the
textbooks teaching methods, thereby leading
to better teacher community interaction and
teacher- pupil and community interaction. `
Objectives:
 1.       Identification and sensitization of
teachers on attitudinal issues and to develop
training strategies ans training skill
 2.       To assess the attitude of teachers
towards tribal children as learners and also
as a cultural group. The attitude objects are
language, culture, children, and parents,
teaching methods.
Contd…
 1.       Identify the current social bias, which
stands against tribal education and its
reflection in the textbook and transactional
strategies.
 2.       Examine the beliefs, assumptions and
stereotypes of the teachers about tribal
children and their culture and make them
examine these beliefs and assumptions.
Contd.
 1.       To acknowledge that it is not the
tribal child, rather the school and the
class room transactions, which create
problem in the growth of the tribal
children and learning outcomes.
 2.       To make the teacher non-
judgmental, less ethnocentric and
dismissive.
 3.(a) To tune the school and the teacher
towards identifying the potentials of
tribal children so as to know how the
tribal children learn in their social
atmosphere.
 (b) To understand and make use of the
tribal language, culture, and customs in
the learning processes of the children.
Contd.
 1.      Identify strategies to link the language
resources of tribal children with the
medium of instruction at school and to
know the process in which a child learns
language.
 2.       Develop basic approaches towards
language, arithmetic, EVS, using the
knowledge base from the natural and
cultural environment of tribal children.
Contd.
 1.       To make use of tribal folklore in the
learning process to make the classroom
contextual (in language, EVS and
mathematic).
 Identify the concepts, skills, information’s,
attitudes required by the teachers to
understand and make the school suitable to
tribal children
Expected Outcomes:
 1.      To remove the ethnic stereotypes beliefs
and attitude embedded among the teachers
regarding tribal children, language & culture.
 2.       Sensitizing the teachers on each of the
attitudinal objects (language, children,
culture & customs) and analyse the
implications these have on teachers- pupil
interaction.
Contd
 1.       Listing out the attitudes which have
serious implications on transactional
strategies adopted by these teachers and
working backwards on the beliefs.
 2.       To discover the hidden potentials of
tribal knowledge, and link that up with the
textual materials and evaluation system.
Contd.
 1.       To develop the planning skills for
conducting attitudinal training programme
among the TRG
 To gather knowledge during the training on
how to prepare the learning- teaching
materials in tribal languages
Session Plan:
 Initial Attitudinal Assessment on language,
mathematics, tribal children, tribal society
 consolidation of the assessment of
individual teachers and discussion
 Discovering the training group and
accordingly devise training stretegies
Day I
 This is a four day Training programme:
 Day I: understanding tribal children from
tribal context( likes and dislikes,daily
life of a tribal child)
 Experience of the child in her
environment which bear enormous
learning potentialities
 To know the learning style of Tribal
Children in their socio- Cultural context.
Day 2
 knowing the teachers Quality
 : Remember your childhood and state any
one characteristic/ incident for which you still
remember your teacher?
 Remember and state one incident with your
teacher during primary school, which had
hurt you most?
Contd.
 Out Come: Teacher sensitization.
 -   Self-recognition of a good teacher.
 -Self-assessment by individual teachers.
 Developing introspection in teachers.
Day 3
 Understanding Local Knowledge
 learning of language from social context and
l;earning of language in classroom context:
gap and bridge
 Oral tradition and children;s folklore
( songs, tales, myths, legends, traditional
games, riddle, food preservation
process,forest, agriculture, family and
village, festivals, music etc)
Understanding the learning style in
tribal society
 Analyzing a tale, song, game, riddle and
discovering learning style
 Creating new knowledge from the culture for
classroom transaction
 Learning how to prepare a lesson from the
text drawn from the community
( tales, songs, pictures,etc)
Day 4
 Problems of tribal girls: teacher/
community perception on girls education
 Role specification for girls in home/ school
 Attitude and behaviour of teachers on girls
in classroom that affects the girls
 Parental attitude on girls schooling
Knowing the community:
 Analyzing the social strength of tribal
society
 Group solidarity
 Having a land and a language
 Cultural expressions
 Village as a large family
 Shared understanding of life
 Collective decision
 Sustained efforts