Blogging about

Indian School

In Transcendental Education there are radical approaches to child discipline and teaching. By Indian standards these are considered to be very liberal. Indian schools tend to be very orthodox and disciplined environments with strict hierarchies and structures. However, the radical approach seen in this episode does achieve some positive results.

The premise is that all the children are good and any discipline problems can be addressed by a spiritual approach based on faith, chanting and meditation. Indeed, the most effective method of calming children down is by use of breathing techniques.

I’d describe the children as boisterous, rather than ‘bad’ or completely undisciplined. It’d be interesting to see if the techniques would work with more challenging behaviour both in India and the UK.

Some of the methods are accepted good practice, including empowering the worst-behaved children to become prefects and giving them responsibility. There was a slight contradiction in approach: some teachers were disciplining children by taking things away (house points), rather than rewarding good behaviour.

Interestingly, the child who caused most issues at school seemed very disciplined at home and worked at his studies with his mother.

I enjoyed the drama played out by the head teacher when she was disciplining the unruly class. She dissolved into a fit of giggles at the end after the children had gone, as she knew the act she’d put on for the kids wasn’t where she was as a person or teacher. However, she made some very pertinent points about arrogance and the poverty of the majority of the people in the country.

About the author

Billy Khokhar is an assistant director with the Open University, and an expert on cultural awareness and diversity. Billy used to be a teacher, and is interested in how education in India compares and contrasts with the UK.