Sudeshna Sinha, a senior teacher in a Kolkata school, was one of the two facilitators at the ‘Educating the Educator’ Workshop at Dasagram S S Siksha Sadan on 10 and 11 December. Dasagram is 135 kilometres from Kolkata. Sudeshna says that the whole experience has added a lot to her own understanding of the challenges faced by educators. More importantly, she says that the whole experience has been deeply enriching.
It was such an enriching and humbling experience to get to know educators like Mr Jugal Pradhan, Head Master, Dasagram S S Siksha Sadan and work with the likes of Piyali Basu, my co-facilitator at the workshop. She reflects an invisible leadership and for participants, it was quite easy to listen and learn. There are others like Pradyut Ghosh, Soumen Das, Sandip Jana and their colleagues at Kolaghat Thermal Power Plant who supported the workshop in so many ways. I hold them all in high regard because of their willingness and vision to work with ordinary teachers and thereby with children. They generously spare their time and resources to support education in unknown rural schools with no self interest. Finally, thanks to Kamal Thacker and Chirojoy Chatterjee (of KFI) as they always organised and planned everything ahead of time. So, for me, the workshop felt like nothing more than leisure, eating at the dining hall and learning.
For such workshops there is no correct measure of how successful we were. I hope the flow continues…..from two drops now to a small flow of water, to a river and so on. It does not matter whether I am there or not; this beautiful work must go on. We should experiment with different kinds of interactions, questions and various other possible ways of engaging. These dialogues with teachers and students in the light of Krishnamurti’s teachings on education and indeed life itself are invaluable.
Talking to the teachers and listening to their viewpoints opened up my mind in so many different ways and helped me to be more accepting of other people’s viewpoints or fellow teacher’s challenges. I have felt enriched by the whole experience and appreciate even more the immense responsibilities of an educator. There is so much more to education than the teaching of academic subjects.
