Redefining Education in Seva Mandir?

Today I was sitting with the education people, facilitating a discussion about Seva Mandir's vision in the context of 'education'. I must say that I am impressed by the quality of the discussion that took place and the readiness of the team to push the boundaries of their own program and to question everything that they are doing. Most commendable!

The education program -like many of the others, I suppose - faces a lot of challenges from all sides. Explaining things to the outside world is one of the big challenges that Seva Mandir faces - I guess that's price of having one's own ideas!?

A major part of our discussion today went into trying to understand exactly what we mean when we talk about 'quality education'. These are the kinds of questions that we sat with:

• What are the qualities we would like to see developed in the children as a result of receiving education?
• What kind of an education is rural society in need of?

We ended up producing a nice list and there were a lot of questions as to how much of it we are presently doing and how much we would be able to do. But here is some of what came up:

• Different forms of literacy (beyond just maths and Hindi - e.g. personal health, livelihoods)
• Sensitivity to gender, caste and other forms of discrimination
• Moral values and trusteeship/responsibility (for environment, family, community)
  
• Curiosity and capacity to ask questions
• Logic-based education based on the children's interest
• Political awareness (and what does this mean in the context of children?)
  
• Development of leadership skills

Getting this straight seemed like the first step before getting into our vision. Although we didn't get through to the end of it, the vision seems to include a little revolution. And, though I don't want to count any chickens before they hatch, there appears to be hope that there is interest in seeing some deep changes in what has, up till now, been called the 'non-formal education centre (NFE) program'. This is the emerging picture (as far as I can perceive it):

NFEs get a redefinition. Firstly, rather than preparing children to get better grades or better jobs, the focus shifts to the idea of creating responsible citizens. We would be looking to nurture citizens who are free from gender and caste bias and who see themselves as stewards of their community, of their environment and the collective well-being of their future. Secondly, the NFEs will be places that disseminate values within the community - like a kind of hub for the values that Seva Mandir stands for - truth, respect, community, dignity, trusteeship... and so on. This will entail linking with all the other children's spaces, concerned stakeholders (youth, parents, committees, etc.) and platforms at the village level and seeking, pro-actively, to spread the knowledge and values to the rest of the village through these platforms and other processes...

It's admittedly still a little fuzzy but it's out there buzzing on the fringes of the team's collective field of consciousness... There's a lot more mind-grinding required to figure out just what this thing on the horizon might actually be but there's also a readiness to engage in a long-term (3 year!) action research process (to be carried out in a small selection of centres) to really figure it out. Part of this process is thinking up a new name; something that will also radiate a new message!

There's plenty more to the education program that I'm not blogging here - both discussed and yet to be discussed. If this level of creativity and openness sustains itself across the rest of the discussions we have the recipe for something rather fabulous! For now though, I will pretend that nothing special is happening - only to save myself from the risk of getting disappointed! My biggest concern is that although the education team believes in what they are talking about, they might not yet have the confidence to stand behind it and defend it. Let us see what emerges

Morning Post

This morning, I got the urge to share an article I recently read called Knowledge Ecology - Part of Getting Smarter Together by Helen Titchen Beeth and George Por. It was posted on the evolutionary nexus site. Here are some snippets that stand out:

Attributes of a healthy knowledge ecology

The qualities that make a great knowledge ecology are the ones that make it easy for users to transform the information in the garden into knowledge that they can apply in action.

• Relevance: Information is focused on factors important to the task at hand.
  
• Reliability: Users must be able to rely on accessing the information they need, when they need it.
  
• Timeliness: Retrieval must be sufficiently real-time to enable effective decisions.
  
• Accuracy: The garden must validly reflect the contributions of whatever source(s) contributed the information.
  
• Completeness: There must be balanced emphasis on all the important factors.
  
• Access: For authorised users, from anywhere, at any time.
  
• Elegance: The goal is actionable insight, not data.
  
• Expression: Everyone must easily understand it.
  
• Relationship: Related information must be easily found.
  
• Explicitness: Examples and uses must be adequately described.
  
• Boundary: All exceptions must be clearly stated.
  
• Glossary: All unusual terms must be defined.

What makes good [knowledge] gardeners?

The answer to this question is unexpected. Knowledge gardening is a sacred task, undertaken for the sake of the whole. It therefore requires individual emptiness - a readiness to engage the emergent field without self-concern or a personal agenda. This gives a spacious consciousness which can detect complex patterns and capture magic from the middle. In our role as knowledge gardeners, we are not just called to the service of evolution, we are called to the service of our own wholeness. So it is not enough to concentrate on doing what we're good at and love doing. We need to be whole to engage in this work. Hence the relevance and power of an integral life practice.

In the context of my previous posts, this seems rather a propos! Enough for now though... It's time to nip into the shower and complete the process of readying myself for the day!

The Main Shift (part 2)

Something about my last post leaves me feeling like I pretended that I had resolved a dilemma. Back at work today, and this feeling is buzzing about inside me quite intensely!

Upon further reflection, I get the nagging feeling that it is a gross simplification to say that facilitating this organisational change process simply boils down to giving the organisation what it thinks it needs in the way that it wants it. Clearly it is also not simply a matter of me giving the organisation what I think it needs in the way that I want! This is the dilemma. It is neither of these things. Indeed, the place where I need to position myself is the interstice between these two horrible abstractions. I need to float about in a kind of limbo between worlds: my world and the organisation's world. I need to be able to tap into the organisation's great sub-conscious - and also my own. I need to be able to tap into the infinite sea of possible futures. I need to feel the call of our times and understand what this 'call of our times' is calling me to do and what it is calling the organisation to do. I need to influence things without really having any control. Indeed, I may be the only thing that I really have any direct influence over!

This makes me wonder. Am I here to make a three year plan or am I facilitating organisational change? How can I tell? Who do I ask? What might be the signs? Am I just doing a kind of dance routine to fool myself into thinking that I am actually having any influence whatsoever while things just continue on their merry way, flowing past me indifferently? Is this just about me wanting to be powerful? Influential? Notice me! Notice me! Listen to my ideas! I have all the answers! That sounds ludicrous and shameful - and shouldn't be coming from me if I am to be true to my values.

But I'm still puzzling over that dilemma. That little gap that sits between my world and the organisation's world; or better still, between my worldview and the organisation's worldview. Indeed, I would contend that it is that very gap that is my playing field. I must play in the interstice; I must live in limbo. I must learn to feel comfortable there. I must put myself above all kinds of attachments but at the same time be calm and persistent.

I recently read a nice article (thanks to a friend of mine for passing it along) by Adam Kahane. Some snippets that I really have to quote are given below:

"The first thing you have to do is commit yourself to changing the world ...

"The second thing to do ... is to listen to what wants to change in the world...

"The sensing and listening that you have to do have three dimensions:

• You have to be able to see the world, to observe precisely [...] through your own and other people's eyes; to see new possibilities and new scenarios through the eyes of customers, of other players, of competitors, of heritics.
• Second and more difficult, you have to be able to see yourself in the mirror [...]; to see your own role and influence, your own part in the dance; to be reflective; to see your seeing
• And third and most difficult, you have to be able to glimpse the place where looking at the world and looking at yourself are the same [...] to see the underlying oneness."

Nowhere does Kahane make it clear just what this involves, but I think it is a pretty apt representation of what I am trying to do. So I consider myself as having a little authority to comment on what it involves: it's not easy. It's so not easy that it's not funny! Half the time, I feel insignificant. Half the time I enter a power-trip where I feel that I ought to be controlling everything. Neither of these are healthy.

As I swing from one extreme to the next, I cross a small patch of clarity. It might happen during a casual conversation, or while groups are presenting whatever came out of their discussion back to the group. It might even come in the morning after I do some stretches or in the late afternoon as I walk back home as the sun sets behind the temple on the hill beside my house. These are the moments when I feel neither insignificant nor on a power-trip. At these times, I know that there is a bigger process going on and that I have helped to give it shape, energy and perhaps even a little direction. At these moments I feel humble but joyful, at ease... I feel as though what I am doing is helping whatever is supposed to emerge to actually emerge. That is to say, that the dilemmas and paradoxes that lie at the heart of all the work actually find a voice and get set on the table for collective inquiry and dialogue... And out of this, new realities can be born.

I am still struggling to understand where, when and how to push and where, when and how to create the space for things to emerge of their own accord. What are the strategic moments, the tipping points where it makes sense for me to add a little of my own energy to the process and where should I stand back and let things take their course? This question is all the more challenging in a context where I know that I do not know everything! So it is not a simple question of pushing wherever things are not how I would like them to be... because that could very well backfire (as it has in small ways in the past) - for example by creating extra resistance (because every action has an equal and opposite reaction) or missing spontaneous opportunities that may present themselves (for example, by not being patient enough to recognise the new/different avenues that open up when a slightly different direction is chosen). At the same time, how do I make sure (if indeed I should) that we end up on the right course, or that the knowledge I bring finds a proper space in the outcomes of the process?

It seems a little as though I have different hats that I have to wear for different occasions. There is my 'facilitator' hat - which I wear when working with groups. My 'friend' hat, which I wear when I chat casually about 'what's going on'. My 'PME/outcome mapping/learning' hat, which I wear when I feel that people are not going about their process of visioning, strategy-making or whatever in a systematic manner. My 'comunity knowledge gardner' hat, which I wear as I zip about from place to place relating stories from one person, group or programme to others in order to give them a better picture of the totality... And so the list continues. Figuring out when to wear which hat is a bit of a challenge. I tend to do it spontaneously... But what effect is it having? And am I taking on too many roles?

I suppose this is exactly what I am learning through this experience.

The Main Shift

The gradual discovery over the last few years that it's not really about me and my ideas versus rigid unhelpful people in the organisation has been rather seminal for me.

It's not that I don't have all these ideas that I want to put into practice: I obviously do and that's a part of why I'm here. But the way that I understand this entire process, I think, has become a whole lot more evolutionary or organic. I have come to see the organisation as a living community - with its own knowledge, energy, direction, concerns, processes, and so on. In some ways, it is like a dense ecosystem - with different bits fulfilling different roles and functions - each component having reached its own kind of equilibrium in relation to others, for better or worse. This equilibrium is a delicate balance of function, knowledge, power and quality of relationship and the way these properties are distributed across the system.

When I come along with my nice ideas, there is a need to explore the fit between my ideas and the organisation. The introduction of any new idea - or meme - then becomes a subject of inquiry. Taking as a starting point the fact that the people I am interacting with do not see things in the same way as me, it is important first for me to understand how people see things.

My first thought would then be that, by knowing this better, I can ever more carefully position myself and adapt, craft the ideas or whatever it is I want to bring, so that it appears more worthwhile. I think this makes sense up to a point.

My second thought is that, as I begin to know the system better, I would also start to look at things differently and shift my own sense of what really is a priority and why.

This triggers a third thought which tries to reconcile the first two: have I simply fallen into the 'hole' that the people I am trying to work with are in or am I developing a deeper alignment with that system that positions me better to really influence it. The former is the view that many outsiders tend to hold when I talk to them about myself, my work and my relationship with the organisation where I am engaged. To them, I appear to have become lost, failing to really get to grips with the real issues, taking long-winded approaches to solving problems that are actually simple and can be classified neatly with high-power consultants vocabularies or through catch all statements like: "you just need to change the management, you know..". I have never been convinced by such perspectives, though I have had definite quarrels with various leaders and often wondered why I they posed such immense obstacles to ideas that I found so attractive.

Today, however, I find myself standing somewhere else. I have come to understand more clearly the fact that the organisation is like a living system - like a giant forest full of different species all interconnected with each other, interdepending on each other, each with their own particular characteristics, habits, niche and so on. As with a forest, I cannot simply come trudging in and expect to reshape it in any way that I want and have much certainty - if any - that what will emerge or result will be any better than what is already there - particularly if I don't understand the properties of that living system. Even if I do 'understand it', the gap between what I know and what I can do and what the other people know and what they can do still needs to be bridged if any truly systemic change is to be achieved without conducting what is effectively a surgical operation - i.e. cutting chunks out and converting curved lines into straight edges. For some reason, I have a deep seated concern with the idea of overly rectilinear approaches to things. It seems like the antithesis of sustainable, systemic transformation - something which to me must be a kind of organic, slightly chaotic self-organising process - and our entire vision of empowering people/communities to take charge of their own development process by gathering the knowledge, changing the behaviour and developing the relationships required to achieve this.

I suppose the conclusion is that I have come to see myself as a kind of conduit for a whole host of ideas and the organisation as a kind of living system that I must come to understand so deeply that I become able to translate whatever knowledge and ideas are out there into the language and rhythms that are meaningful to the organisation: to give the organisation what it thinks it needs in the way that it wants it! rather than to give the organisation what I think it needs in the way that I want to give it! So simple, yet so amazingly hard to appreciate!

Wisdom in the Rickshaw

While I was on my way to visit a friend in Delhi after a conference on Citizenship and Governance (organised by PRIA), I found myself on a rather long rickshaw ride. I decided to start up some casual banter with the driver, an old man from a village in Uttar Pradesh. After some small talk about whether there had been any change in Delhi recently, and whether the lot of the poor was getting any better, the conversation turned to the much loved subject of politics.

The old rickshaw driver took this subject seriously and displayed what I believe is a deep and rich understanding of what democracy is really about… his verdict: we are not living in a democracy! What we have now is politician-power, not people-power! Real democracy, he said, is about people sitting together, discussing things, making compromises and trying to ensure that everyone gains from an outcome. It is, essentially, a communicative process - or perhaps more than this - a community building process. What we have today is so far away from this that there is little surprise we are careering down a rather destructive path with things falling a part and everyone becoming obsessively self-interested, self-serving and just plain selfish!

The simple process of not being connected in any meaningful way to the plethora of decisions that really affect our lives seems like a perfect recipe for alienation. This alienation is supported - or made bearable - through an obsessive focus on things like wealth, status and mostly meaningless entertainment. The philosophical foundations of our culture - and economic, social and political systems that these foundations support - are all tuned perfectly to encourage this great lack of connectivity between people and the decisions the decision that they take every day. And the bizarre thing - in my mind - is that a very significant proportion of people living in this kind of a world actually claim to like living in such a system. They like not having to worry about who their neighbours are; they like not being called to meetings to discuss local development issues; they like talking about the new things they have bought, the new job that they have got, the payrise they secured, etc. And so we go along filling our lives with all sorts of things yet never really being in control of much because we have transferred our own autonomy to a system that we feel it is quite reasonable to be a part of… and gradually things fall apart.

My conclusion, I suppose is that the vast majority of the world has been or is being hypnotised by the lure of acquisition and status in such a way that it forgets the value of the simplicity and connectivity that it once had. This connectivity, this local democracy, I imagine, may have been the gateway to a sustainable way of life and a sense of belonging in the cosmos. I like to hope that we are just drifting through a transitory phase in the history of humanity… or does our future involve an endless experience of alienation?

Funny where you'll find wisdom really.

acculturising with the choklas

Some time ago, last month, I was asked by Swati from Seva Mandir, to help out with some planning for a workshop with a group of representatives from several tribal (Bhil) jati panchayats (also known as choklas) from Gogunda, through Chali, all the way up to Godhaghati (stretching out north of Udaipur)... these people are the traditional leaders of their communities and have the responsibility for overseeing all manner of decisions related to social functions - marriages, deaths, births, customs, norms and various other kinds of family, tribe and other disputes and matters. the basic idea behind the workshop, as I understood it, was that there was a prevailing sense that these groups had some stake in various unfair practices against women - and that this needed to be explored so that changes could be made to help improve the position of women.

The workshop preparation a real last minute kind of a thing and although I was quite enthusiastic, I realised that I really didn't know a great deal about who these people were... So I talked to Swati and tried to get a sense of the purpose: is the focus on trying to get the jati panchayat people to change their practices or is it do find out what is happening and what they think about it (i.e. knowing where they stand)? Obviously, as usual, the answer was that both of these points were important. I brainstormed some workshop plans, doodled up a little, shared them with Swati and some other staff, modified it all and got ready to get rolling. The basic idea was that we would divide into manageable groups and focus on a series of issues:
re-marriages or nata pratha;bride price or dapa pratha (like dowry but the woman's family receives the money); women's exclusion from the jajam (the community's carpet upon which official decisions are taken); various customs in which women have to bear a heavy financial burden;Real stories would be invited from the various jati panchayat leaders related to each of the issues. Sitting in a circle, these would then be with a particular focus on how they impacted women and children, what the role of the Jati Panchayat was in this process and what could be done about it.

I don't want to get right into the depths of all the impacts and stories but, instead, I would like to share some of the most striking features of my discussion that day with the jati panchayat people:

• The Jati Panchayat representatives consider themselves as people who are are responsible for doing seva (service) in their communities - which is not the way that they usually get presented in the 'development' discourse. Their notion of seva seems worthy of further exploration and investigation - no doubt that it would yield something rich.

• Trying to get people to tell stories in which they make themselves complicit came across as being a rather counterproductive or non-sensical strategy.Following a discussion process based on this created less of an opportunity for building trust, mutual understanding and a better sense of how we could work together than deciding to let the discussion flow in a more open way and probing areas that were of personal interest to me and gave the Jati Panchayat people a chance to talk about their own concerns and how they feel, etc.

• The Jati Panchayat people, essentially, feel that much of the change ('development') that is taking place is leading to a breakdown in their social structure, their community values and their hold on the community. This has a direct effect on their sense of identity and, my sense, is that it leaves them feeling threatened, defensive and marginalised. Not surprising then that they appear resistant to change! Any change to their culture simply seems like a threat to their identity. Given the overwhelmingly negative nature of change (from their perspective), it is not surprising that they demonstrate reactions around the idea of changing women's roles in their communities... Starting with their own concerns about what is going on (though not being such an obvious way of addressing our agenda) might end up being an even more effective means of getting to the same, ultimate outcomes.

• Some points raised by some participants in the context of education really bring home their concerns. The leaders were blaming a lack of shiksha (education) on the high rates of young men who run off (apparently quite frivolously) with second wives leaving the first one (often with a child) in a bit of a mess. I questioned this, wondering how the increase in school coverage could correlate with a lack of shiksha. The answer was thus: (1) not all shiksha in the school - both family and community are important places where shiksha happens; and (2) the shiksha provided in the schools encourages selfishness rather than a sense of community or collective responsibility. Wow! And to think that we tried to argue that these people don't know what quality education means!?!? It seems to me that we never really tried to understand their point of view. If we had, we might have made much faster progress over the last 40 years.

Ultimately, the experience left me with a feeling that these JPP could (or should) be one of Seva Mandir's most valuable partners if we could only learn to understand them and work with them! It also left me feeling that I would really like to get a proper chance to engage with them in more depth in the future.

back to the blog

More than a year has elapsed since I was last active in the general blogosphere. But now I am back with the intention of taking it all a bit more seriously.

The last year has given me the chance to work directly with the citizens of a small town called Delwara, working alongside them to strengthen local self-governance mechanisms and promote community leadership. The experience has proved fascinating and deeply enriching for me, enabling me to bridge some part of the giant theory-practice divide. Living and working amongst real people really brings one down to earth and puts one directly in touch with oneself (at least it did so for me!). It has all proved hugely demanding and hugely rewarding.


I have also been involved, though less actively, in an action research process to improve low performance pre-school centres in remote, predominantly tribal villages. This has also served to be a rich source of learning for me and, hopefully, the rest of the practitioners working on the project.

Right now, I am involved in the mother project - which is really what I had wanted to be doing all along - namely: working on organisational change in Seva Mandir. All of my reading and experience over the last four and a half years is now being called upon to be put into action as I help the organisation engage with itself and figure out how best it can bring about the change that it believes in.

All of these experiences have been pointing me at a common insight: I am not in control of anything. I am part of a whole series of ongoing processes that have their own life force. I can merely tend to them, nurture them, enrich them at the 'margins', respecting what they are deep down and striving to create conditions which encourage their best potential to emerge. This brings me back to the quote by Gareth Morgan from my last blog posting more than a year back, which remains as relevant as ever, I believe, to anyone seriously engaged in social change work.

May we all grow together in joy and wisdom!