Community Approaches - Timbaktu Collective

Introduction

Timbaktu Collective is a voluntary organization that began in 1990 in the remote villages of Anantapur district. Timbaktu Collective has several focus areas of work including the following – environmental and ecological sustainability, working with women and working with children. Working with children has come as a response to the highly burdensome and meaningless education in mainstream schools. Ten years ago the physical violence in schools in this area was also high. Timbaktu Collective works with extremely poor people near Chennakothapalli village in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. There are 4 schools of which one is a residential school – catering to needs of children who have difficult situations at home. These are children who have seen very difficult family conditions. 250 children study in the four schools. 

Educational Philosophy (Presentation by Subba)

Our work with children started as an experiment in 1992 in order to find spaces for children of disadvantaged families in nearby villages with the focus to enable the children to experience childhood. Our educational philosophy is still something that we are striving to achieve. First of all more than academics or anything else we want children to have a happy childhood. They should grow without losing their childhood. Secondly – most of (us) today live in fear of something. At-least in their childhood we want children to live without fear of adults, of failure or of exams. We would like children to grow up without fear. Another important aspect we want is for education to integrate with local cultures and traditions. We have seen that education alienates children from their surroundings. The moment we get educated we get away from our surroundings. In our area when a child reaches 10^th standard he does not like to associate himself with any of the activities his parents do – either in terms of livelihood or traditions. Children move away mentally. Education needs to address better integration. We would like children to acquire skills for living while they are at school. We would like them to get some orientation towards skills for living. We have tried to integrate good academics, nutrition, healthcare, local skills, skill training and cultural aspects in education wherever possible. These are the broad principles and objectives – happy childhood, learning to live without fear, integration with surroundings and gaining life skills.

When we first started we started with the goal of providing basic literacy since we believed illiteracy was the main problem. Our main focus was on academics. A lot of time was spent teaching – and how to teach Mathematics, Telugu or other subjects. After a while we reflected and found that we are not much different from main stream schools. We are not giving sufficient importance to crafts and living skills or even more important aspects of education. Over a period of time we are reaching a stage where this is reducing. The school is becoming like a community. The difference between the teacher and the taught is reducing. I’d like to quote a small anecdote – We were building a small house. The children were building this and I was with them. In the evening I asked them –“ I’ve been working on this all day – will you give me some money?” The children turned around and said – “Why should we give you? We have also been working all day. We are in the school and so are you. So why should you be paid?” The room they were building was to be a space for them to play school games or have a library. They were building a school within our school. I then asked them “I will come and teach in your school. Will you then pay me?” In response they said “No – why should we pay you? When you teach us you also learn a lot”. 

Teaching in the community way involves give and take. We think teaching should not be taken very seriously. The teacher and the children both can learn a lot together.  We have found a lot of problems with both mainstream and alternative education. A lot of time goes in just teaching and teaching. There is nothing to believe that all of us are working together and we all learn together. We think we should move away from this teaching intensive system. There should instead be activities all day where we all do things together and learn together. Activities which are joyful, meaningful, fun and productive. In the present economic system this is very difficult to achieve especially if one considers self reliance. In spite of this we think that in the learning process the teacher and taught should disappear.

One more aspect – recently we have started adding dairy farming, poultry, agriculture, building construction and other activities to our syllabus. We found that this created a different experience. Prior to this a child who excelled in academics was considered superior. Even if we did not encourage this the children themselves compare with each other. Academics was still a big thing. Once we got cows – a child who was most inferior suddenly became a hero – he could handle the cow very well. This has given us a direction that every aspect – academics, living skills, agriculture, everything should be treated on an equal footing. If this is done then one can genuinely bring about a variety of areas in which the children can discover their talents.

Working principles and Methodologies

A university professor went to a remote tribal village wanting to empower the rural poor. He saw a villager, sitting at the bank of a river and fishing with a small net. The villager would catch a fish once in a while. After observing him the whole day, the professor asked him “Why are you wasting time so much time to catch so few fishes?” The man replied, “I only need so much fish for my house.” The Professor asked him, “Why don’t you improve your technique to catch more fish.” The villager asked “But what will I do with the extra fish?”  “Sell it”.  “What do I do after selling it?” “You can get money”. “What do I do with the money?” and so the conversation went on.

The villager refused to change his living and the way he was doing things. He was content and happy.

This professor however was dissatisfied. He went back to his university thought for a while and then came back to the village with a bike. He came back to the village and taught some of the village youths how to ride the bike. They learnt bike riding.

Is this what we want education to achieve?

One aspect we have been looking at critically is over-emphasis of academics.  We feel this serves no purpose.  We have actually followed all the different systems – Rishi valley card system etc. We have academics only for half of the day. Math, sciences and other subjects are covered for half of the day and the time after lunch is devoted for arts and crafts, other hands-on activities and play. Children have time for singing, dancing, folk arts and dances, gardening, house-building activities etc. After two years of these activities, the children are much more confident in their villages, with their people. We have also tried to develop their reading and writing abilities by getting them to write about their agriculture, lives and traditions. We use different techniques to help including cards, audio-visual facilities, computers to know about agriculture etc. Their own systems are used to encourage and expand their language. Seven years ago, in our usual discussions with children - every child wanted to become lawyer, engineer or doctor. Now some children want to become good farmers. Earlier it used to sound like a rat race (though the winner in a rat race still remains a rat).  All their aspirations were not possible with everyone wanting to become the same thing. Now there are some who see that a meaningful life is possible by farming and other land related activities. Children can grow roots in their own setup and then grow from here mentally and physically. Having roots (physical and mental) is one of the biggest challenges in this education system.  Having variety of activities and free space for exploration is necessary for dealing with this challenge.

Attitudes amongst the children, between the teachers, and between teacher and children have changed with these activities. Initially, there was a lot of stress on academics. Children start assuming roles of who is bright based on only academics. When we started rearing cows, one of the boys Sairam became the hero, because he was the one who could deal with the cow. This has given us an insight that math, cattle rearing, agriculture, science all should be given equal importance.  We have started growing vegetables, using techniques in organic and natural farming and perma-culture. We learn agriculture in ecologically sustainable means. Every child is given a small plot of land and 30% of self sufficiency has been achieved in the school by growing and selling vegetables. The money is put in the child’s account. After finishing school, the children take back 3000-4000 rupees with them. This is increasing their confidence of staying in villages and leading meaningful lives. Other skills are also given to the children. We have started doing electronics and activities related to solar energy. Most of the solar lighting maintenance at Timbaktu is taken care of by the children 8 or 9 years old! Checking, fixing, and repairing of these solar panels, batteries etc is all taken care of by children 9 years old or so.   This gives them tremendous confidence.

Lot of importance is given to cultural aspects - learning folk songs and dances of the area. There is a popular kollatam(a traditional dance form) that was dying out, we are reviving it. We have many children’s festivals – national and local. We also encourage children to celebrate festivals in their own style.  This is one way in which they are able to grow.

How ever many interactive materials are developed, schools still tend to be teacher-centered. When the teacher is not there, there is not much of an environment for learning. Can learning be made more independent of the teacher? This may be possible if activities are done in really exploratory mode between children and teacher where both are learning. We’re trying to now design this. Social studies, language etc are being done in such a way that both teachers and students learn at the same time. A lot of free time is provided to the children with lots of accessible resources. Towards this we have created a children’s resource center that has a good library, computer facilities, workshop, laboratory and play material is available from early morning till late evening for all children. This resource center has card systems, CD-ROMS to help in learning, reading writing, analytical abilities.  This is a space for the children where the children are free to learn on their own.

Our experience is that a children’s resource center working outside the framework of the school plays a big role in learning. This has worked very well and perhaps many of you can explore creating this. Creating an atmosphere where all these resources are available to the children can help children with self-learning. Schools having all these resources should be encouraged to make them available to all children, once the school is over.  The children should be able to use most of these resources independent of the teacher, but some activities that are unsafe should be allowed only in the presence of teachers/elders.  

Ques: What about damage to the material?

Ans: Damage to material in such resource centers is allowed for. At the same time we also think of various ways to tackle this. We have discussions on collective responsibility, allowing other children to use these resources etc. But damage/theft should not stop us from making resources accessible to all the children, within the school and outside the school. When children from other schools want to use the resources, they are shown around and briefed about the materials they can use etc.  

We have now moved to a stage where the difference between the teacher and the taught is slowly disappearing. Teaching is more of a give and take approach. Lot of time in the mainstream schools goes in teaching. Instead we believe that both adults and children should learn together. Our goal is to slowly get away from teacher based teaching systems. Instead there should be activities where everyone is engaged in learning in a productive, joyful way. 

Contact Information

Timbaktu Collective
Chennakothapalli village
Anantapur District Andhra Pradesh 515 101
Tel: 8559 –40335/ 40149
Email: bablu: timbaktu@vsnl.com 
Website: http://www.ashanet.org/nycnj/projects/tim.html

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