Have we grown out of our past...???

Last night heard Yasir Pirzada, Ansaar Abbasi and Syed Noor addressing the issues of "liberalism" "ideology" "religious perspectives" and what not...I do not want to comment on what they said except the last part of what Syed Noor the films' director mentioned. He said that if we  were more liberal  in 1960s or 70s that is  because we had the effect of British Colonialism and Hindu society on us, now we have grown out of it and we are ideologically stronger than before...my question is have we really grown out of colonialism??? or have we grown into more of neocolonialism???
For a moment lets think of a child who is not growing taller but is gaining weight, when the doctor tells the mother that your child needs to loose some weight as it might be causing to stop his growth, will you accept the mother's argument that my child is growing and it does not make a difference if he is gaining more weight than height...should a doctor accept gaining weight as a parameter of growth...
When we claim that we grew in past 68 years we should compare ourselves with the other nations growing in the same period of time...if we want to show our growth in the social norms then also please look at the crime rate, corruption indexes, rape, domestic violence, honor killing, property disputes, etc...have we grown out...I am sorry we are still fighting even to acknowledge the equality of skin color, we are still struggling with the cast system, we are still stuck with the feudalism and all I see is a confused state of theocracy, democracy and dictatorship, we are at war with terrorism that grew up from within us and I get irritated by the kind of fascists we have that we call "leaders" ...how can we even think of saying we grew up  or grew out...just look around what have others achieved and where do we stand...we are growing more and more into extremism  as we see the bipolar division in society..
Lets come  back to the debate of liberal and conservative debate...I am sorry to say that two terms are totally miss-understood and misinterpreted by most of the people in Pakistan, one is Liberalism and the other is Secularism...and usually when they are critiqued the arguments are not about liberalism or secularism rather these are about the debate of people of faith and atheists...will address this in detail later...
(please do not hesitate to comment for my learning...)

Policy reforms and teachers effectiveness...(My brief talk at ASER Policy Dialogue)

Let me first of all go through what we are doing with the prospective teachers...when we use the word teacher education we usually mean teacher preparation programs which included PTC, CT, B.Ed, B.S.Ed and M.Ed etc and now includes ADE an B.Ed Honors as well. What do we do for teacher preparation...first of all they have their own 10, 12 or 14 years of schooling and then we add one, two, three or four years teacher education to it. They already have the content knowledge to some extent and what we give them in these TE programs is three more sets of knowledge, 1- more content knowledge, 2. Pedagogical knowledge, and 3. Professional knowledge. - what i see missing here is the set of skills they need for becoming effective teachers...even in the new four year program most of the institutions have not been able to fill the gap between theory and practice, they have not been able to adopt the model of short term observations and practice teaching throughout the program, rather mostly there is a long term practice teaching at the end of two years or four years. I feel like we are making the same mistakes again n again, while planning the four year program we have not been able to think through and have developed a four year long version of old B.Ed and M.Ed scheme of studies...

once they complete their teacher preparation program then comes the step of teacher recruitment in which we usually test their knowledge and not skills...once they are there in classrooms they have knowledge of teaching and learning but they don't know how to bring it into practice....

Then we try to bring effectiveness through professional development interventions...can we take a quick look at how we have been trying to do this...if take Punjab's example we tried out CASCADE model at DSD and then we moved on to the CPD model which included the development of cluster centers and we are using the word "mentoring" but doing everything else and not mentoring...I have made this claim in my PhD Thesis and I stick to this claim that we only use jargon but don't really know the meanings hence we cannot interpret the concepts into practices. We only give labels and titles as we adopt it from elsewhere but over simplification of every process ruins it...CPD has the most important word i.e. Continuous but we are trying to do it in bits n pieces...

I shall give here one example from my own research where I was conducting interpretive analysis of the teacher education curriculum reform at institutional level, the reform claimed to remove the text book culture ...i asked the teachers what are they doing and in one semester they told me they searched online and used reference books to prepare their course readings but when i went back next year they showed me their folder from previous year and mentioned that for a few years they don't need to search for more materials as these are enough...so I conclude that the text book culture is still very much there all that happened was that teachers prepared a text book in the form of their folders...

Let me now come to the point where I find one reason why the reforms fail...to me the biggest issue is that we plan for teachers and never include teacher in this planning....policy makers look down at teachers just like the teachers look down at students with a belief that "we know and they don't"...if we really want to plan professional development and teacher education reforms then we need to include teachers voices in it...a top down approach will never bring the desired outcomes...we can include teachers if not through any other way then one possible way is to make the teachers unions and teachers associations realize their role and enable them to bring teachers' voices into policy reforms...and I have initiated a PhD research study in which one of our own EPM student will be working with the teachers unions in Punjab, I see this as a possible way of including teachers voices in Policy planning. 

What will Education Look Like in Thirty Years from now: (This blog is based upon my panel discussion at PIF conference:)

I believe in thirty years from now education in Pakistan like many other parts of the world will have the following main features:

1. Information delivery model will not exist anymore which will automatically change the role of teachers. Although in many parts of the world it has also changed to a large extent but in Pakistan this is the major role that teachers are playing. Thus in thirty years from now they will have to accept the change because information will be delivered to every individual through electronic resources in one way or the other.

2. Memorization in the current mode will not be needed as the information storage devices and access to the information will be at hand to every child. We shall not need to invest any more efforts and resources for memorization any more.

3. Higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, evaluation and creativity will get more focus. Right now our students at K-12 do not go beyond knowledge understanding, comprehension and application, but in the coming years when our focus will shift as mentioned above; it will result into more attention on higher order thinking skills. 

4. Teachers' authority is already fading and the current models of blended learning -especially "flipped classrooms" will take the authority away and change the classrooms completely. The lectures, or information will be available for learners to watch and listen to outside the schools while schools and classrooms will be more of workplaces where learners will be learning by doing in real meanings.

5. We are giving knowledge in one form or another, our general education only prepare them to be theorists but not practitioners and professionals. Education becoming more and closely knitted to work needs and job requirements will have to be more practice oriented 

6. K-12 education will be less influential and more beneficial. We have had the notion of teachers being role models and also that teachers make learners believe what they themselves believe. Now in the era of independent learning and critical thinking, the learners can challenge and question which was never a reality a few decades ago. In three decades from now this will be a reality for all. Learners will not accept the authority and will not be influenced by blind-followership.

7. Home schooling, open schooling and online education are three solutions to the current issues of out of school children and illiteracy. Instead of investing more and more buildings, and putting in efforts to bring children to schools, we will have to change the mode of education and move towards open schooling so that we bring education to their homes. Open schooling is a way towards educating the uneducated who missed the chance of schooling due to any reason, it even gives the illiterate parents to learn with their kids

The above seven points are my vision of coming thirty years....I would like to learn what everyone thinks of these. Do not forget to comment please or email me your comments.

I feel guilty...

The tragic incident of terrorists’ attack on Army Public School and College, Peshawar took me fifteen years back. It was my first full time job at APSAC Boys Wing, Rawalpindi. My mother was a teacher and she was my inspiration. I was trying to be just like her. On the one hand  I was a friend of my students and they could share their troubles with me; but on the other hand I was a strict teacher who does not compromise on quality of work and discipline. Discipline in my own brought up and in my classroom never meant, silence but it meant to speak and act in such a way that everyone may get equal opportunity. Army Public Schools have had a rich culture of academic and non-academic curricular activities. We had students week each year in which the boys showed such a remarkable performance in games, Qirrat, Naat khwani, debates, and quizzes. I was a housemistress as well and I cannot forget the way my innocent students used to look at me with their cups, trophies and certificates in hands.

APSACs are the institutions where children are transformed into responsible citizens. From primary school level to higher secondary each child is not just taught subject matter but prepared to be an active and conscientious part of the society. By the time they pass out from middle schools almost all of them have made up their minds about their future fields of study and work. These kids are growing up with a training of conscious decision making. I cannot forget my discussions with my students who were in middle school when I was teaching there. Those boys used to make me re-think my own philosophy of life. They were critical about what is happening in the society and they were ready to go out and bring a change.

I have many of my APSAC students and other students from different institutions on my facebook page “Leaders of Tomorrow”. I titled this page “Leaders of Tomorrow” because this is how Quaid e Azam used to address the students. I keep looking at the profiles of my students as they have now become early professionals and are proving their skills in different practical fields. Among all this enlightening experience of seeing my kids growing into active and effective members of society here comes a black day. Dec 16,2014 was day that makes mere-think of all that I have been doing and believing. I still believe the students in schools are the leaders of tomorrow but I painfully admit that we were unable to prepare a society outside these schools that may be able to nurture this leadership. Outside the schools we have let this belief develop that killing and brutality is justified. We have not been able to secure the students studying inside the schools from the barbarians still living among us. We have failed to save our future and we let them kill our “Leaders of Tomorrow”! (I feel guilty, I really do.)

Is this Democracy?

I have heard many institutional as well as national leaders claiming to be Democratic Leaders. It is then so interesting to hear how they describe democracy. What I heard most recently from an institutional leader was that "I am democratic as I always go with the majority". It was a point of critical and deeper analysis for me. Is that all what democracy and democratic leadership means...to go with majority??? Is it so? that a true democrat never thinks of a minority opinion even it is a wiser one? I think this definition of Democracy is very limited."I asked my friend google to give me a definition and it gave me a definition as following 
"a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."
I then started looking for institutional democracy and could not find anything that I could give here for ready reference. Ok I stop this blog  here and see what you all have to tell me regarding Democracy; Democratic Approach and Institutional Democracy. Just to give you a deeper thought I refer to what Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was saying to the British Govt. Wasn't it about including a minority into decision making or giving them the right to chose for themselves ... So was it not a democratic demand???
..please give your views in the comments. 

Hope makes us go on...

Once we realize that a tough time is only temporary, this realization makes it easier for us to go through most difficult phases of life. Helping my mother go through her toughest phase of paralysis has made me learn what hope means. She is sleeping in her room after taking breakfast and medicine. All she is striving for is her better tomorrow. She goes through pains and all the tough exercises only because she believes this is going to be over soon. She is hopeful and has a belief that Allah will grant her health. She wants to lead her life as independently as she always did.

I can see a hope in her eyes when she re-gains any of her lost abilities. she now sits without a support for 7-10 minutes and this sense of achievement makes her believe that she can do more. She now stands up on her feet with the help of two people but once she stepped her feet on the floor she looked at me and smiled as if saying "see i did it"...

When I see her fighting with her sickness and weakness I cannot believe my eyes a woman in her age of seventy who has had diabetes, hypertension, seasonal asthma, nervous tension and minor angina and already a left hip replaced ten years ago...is striving to live a healthy life again. All that makes her strive is her hope

Yes a ray of light at the end of the tunnel helps us walk through the darkness...!

A woman of values and will

She is nearly seventy. She had a stroke and is bed ridden for last three weeks. She looks around and tries to recognize the room. Her brain is working but she tends to forget little things like where is she, what time of day it is and why is she unable to sit up by herself.

She has had a life full of struggle. She has been a strong nerved woman. Her father died when she was doing her undergrad. She earned B.Ed and taught English in a Federal Government School and supported her family with other brothers n sisters too. She loved her work and was so professionally committed that once when she was sick her sister offered to mark examination papers for her; she replied "mujh se haram nahi khaya jata" (I cannot earn illegal money). She has been a woman of strong values and will.

She got married into a traditional family. Leaving her work for her home was her own decision that she made keeping in view family traditions of in-laws. She had three kids - two sons and a daughter (i.e.me).  She gave almost twenty years to her home and kids with such devotion that people gave examples of her household, upbringing of her kids and fabulous skills of managing a home in affluent as well as poor conditions. She was known for her marvelous cooking skills, her remarkable taste in literature, and above all her human friendly nature.  All my friends became her friends as soon as they met her. Females of the family looked up at her as a symbol of strength and dignity. Men around her respected her for her graceful personality. My paternal uncles used to call her "bhabhi" in such a loving tone as if they were talking to their own elder sister/mother.

She joined a semi-government school in Rawalpindi to teach once again, only when me the youngest child had finished secondary school. She worked like a workaholic. She was still managing home and never letting her personal and professional life get into conflict. She was known at school as a strict but loving teacher. We know her as a strict but loving mother. I have no idea how she has had such balanced approach developed.It was her who taught me how to be a woman of values and will. She transferred the best possible knowledge and values but she also kept telling me not to let anyone be a dictator in my life. She kept teaching me the best lessons of life. She groomed her kids in a way that all of us become strong but sensitive enough. She helped us face the world with confidence and courage. She clearly showed us the thresholds of negative and positive behaviors.

Today she is bed ridden. She cannot sit up, or mover herself. Whenever someone asks her how she is she says "Shukar Alhamdolillah" (Thanks to Almighty Allah). I ask her twice or thrice a day if she thinks we are taking good care of her. She keeps telling us we are doing fine. She keeps telling us that her sickness is a test for all of us and she keeps mentioning how good she is feeling seeing her children around, taking care of her. I know life has been hard, I know she has gone through many tough times, but this is the hardest time I think. I wish and pray that she may recover as soon as possible. I know she is a woman of values and will. I know she will fight back her sickness. InshaAllah