Towards child-centred education

Teachers and students need more freedom to achieve a genuinely child-centric education, writes Aruna Sankaranarayanan.

Though technology has pervaded many aspects of our lives, including schooling, the practice of teaching hasn’t changed radically over the past half-century. Education is still largely adult-directed, with key decisions made using a top-down approach. The pressure to perform has only intensified with examination results still being seen as the end-all of education.

However, unlike earlier years, where a command-and-control approach was favoured, schools are more sensitive to the socio-emotional well-being of their students. Many schools advocate a “child-centred” philosophy and approach. What does this entail, and how is this vision enacted? Three experienced educators explain how they conceive of and implement a child-centred education. 

Nandini Ram Mohan, one of the Founders of Ohana, an alternative school in Bengaluru, emphasises that every child needs to be met at every stage. Some of these needs are developmental, while others are specific to certain children. Incorporating these needs into the teaching-learning process is at the heart of a child-centred approach.

Neelam Dixit, Leader and Founder of Aakaar, a project that supports inclusion at an independent learning centre in Bengaluru, echoes Ram Mohan’s sentiments of respecting individual needs and stresses the importance of factoring the interests of every student. Jagada Pisapati, Elementary Learning Support Faculty at International School of Hyderabad, believes that a child-centred education considers the child’s point of view and tries to cater to each child’s cognitive, socio-emotional and creative needs.

How is this needs-based view of education translated into practice? All three educators spoke about tweaking the curriculum to meet the divergent needs of various children. Neelam recommends project-based learning with many concrete and hands-on activities for children to connect to concepts.

A recent project at her school revolved around children making cosmetic products, like lip balm and moisturisers. This entailed researching how to make them, understanding the properties of materials like glycerin and coconut oil, procuring the ingredients, measuring and calculating quantities, packaging and exhibiting them at the school fair. By engaging in this exercise, students delved into science and math while honing their language skills. The project involved reading, writing, communicating, and collaborating with peers. 

Pisapati describes how a child-centred approach involves minor changes in classroom routines that can significantly impact how children perceive learning. At her school, children are given short breaks during a period and are allowed to move around. Further, students are given the option of choosing activities from different learning centres. When the class was doing a lesson on currency, some children preferred solving problems on a whiteboard. A few worked with fake currency notes to relate to the topic, while another group needed the concept to be gamified. 

At Ohana, they try to identify and incorporate children’s individual interests. While some may be itching to work with their fingers, others may prefer to use their whole bodies. Some may have a facility for words, while others may enjoy building things.

Children are encouraged to express themselves through play, movement, music, art, craft or words. Ram Mohan adds that giving children the space and time for exploration and experimentation is imperative, which she admits is easier in the younger grades. Every year, the school hosts a mela that revolves around a specific theme that can be interpreted and approached in diverse ways. One year, for a science mela, children were learning about shadows. By staging a puppet show using a screen and torchlight, they discerned the properties of shadows. 

While schools try to make learning more engaging and personally meaningful for children, they also have to work within a curricular framework mandated by a board that does not have a direct connection with individual children. Further, in higher grades, the unidimensional focus on marks constrains the types of activities given to children. Ram Mohan says that even in “alternative schools,” parents, teachers and students succumb to performance pressure in high school.

An outcome-obsessed educational system is antithetical to a child-centred approach that allows the child to set the rhythm of their learning. Moreover, in our quest to maintain standards, we underestimate children’s innate drive to seek optimal levels of challenge when given the freedom to choose activities in a stimulating and conducive environment. Teachers and students need more latitude than our current system provides to achieve a genuinely child-centric education.