In the world order shaped by
colonialism, production, dissemination and application of knowledge have
obvious significance for decisions made in educational policy at all levels,
including the school classroom. Inquiry into these functions naturally seeks
concepts and methods from disciplines like psychology and sociology. The
history of these disciplines is rather short compared to the length of time
over which pedagogic traditions, entrenched in school culture, evolved. The
hope that these traditions can at least be readjusted, if not transformed,
in response to the expectations associated with modernity has met with
remarkably little success.
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF, 2005) rekindles this hope and asks
us to acknowledge with professional integrity the insights provided by
cognitive psychology with reference to the constructivist perspective on
knowledge and learning during childhood. Even as we respond to NCF as policy
and strategize its implementation, we need to recall the colonially shaped
relations we work under in the context of knowledge, its production and
dissemination. In the specific context of this conference, we can fruitfully
examine the implications of using a language which a rare few among those
who teach in schools can comprehend and use. If Piaget, Vygotsky or Bruner
were to be brought into Hindi and other Indian languages, we may have to
reflect on traditions of thought and practice wherein we might find the
vocabulary for sensible translation. Beyond translation, we also need to
construct appropriate concepts which might enable us to size up the
challenges that teacher training and school routines present for applying
the NCF perspective. Such concepts will need to acknowledge and depart from
the powerful imprints behaviourist theories of learning have made on a
colonized collective mind and institutional system. The power of this
imprint is scaffolded by child-rearing practices, gender relations and
institutional norms which have a much longer cultural history than
behaviourism has in the world of psychological scholarship and modern
teacher training.