Smothering diversity

It may seem naive and simplistic but pluralism in classroom, as represented by cultural and economic background of the pupils, may have been compromised the day a uniform dress code was introduced for school children. While uniform dress reflects decor and discipline, lost within it are distinct identities that have further been smothered by a universalised teaching curriculum. To impart a uniform system of education across wide cultural diversity, the system eroded plurality by homogenising cultures and communities in the first place. It is only during recent years that question on a system of education that converts innocent pupils into mindless clones has been raised.

While the indigenous model rejected the colonial, the colonial was uni-dimensional and had ended up eliminating the indigenous. In both instances, it was the baby that got thrown with the bathwater. Far from liberating and transforming the underprivileged, it placed unrealistic heavy burden of education on children. Rather than equipping underprivileged children with skills and sensitization them towards their marginal status, the system of education sought to marginalize them further. Poor learning achievements, low retention, high dropout rates and indifferent attitudes of the parents and communities for the school have been reflective of the net impact.

In search for the answers to such questions, the editors of the volume have sought a way out of it by placing emphasis on ‘social inclusion and pluralism as the core principles of the pedagogic conceptual framework, practices and processes’. This however may be easier said than done. The basic trouble is that it may not always be easy to achieve the core values of social inclusion and pluralism simultaneously. But the book prisms the inner world of education through a wider lens on the world of education in offering solution-based approaches drawn from both the developed and the developing world.

The book has not only been able to diagnose the problem but suggest a solution-based approach as well. Though it appreciates the complexity of the problem at hand, the book remains optimistic in its approach because by only being positive about it can some distance in addressing the problem would get covered....Link

School Education, Pluralism & Marginality
by Christine Sleeter, Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay, Arvind Mishra & Sanjay Kumar (Eds)
Orient BlackSwan, Delhi
500 pages, Rs. 850

Idea of a universal solvent

Why people at times behave the most evil way, not counting others as humans but as mere object which can be tossed around like lifeless entities? Oblivious of grievous injury they cause to others, such persons remain unconcerned about any physical and emotional damage thus inflicted. Conditioned by what Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen calls ‘empathy erosion’, such people lack ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling. In simple terms, the language we can use to describe such a trait would be totally self-focused. Recent research now suggests that people’s position on the empathy spectrum can be affected by both genes and the environment that they live in.

Using real-life cases, Baron-Cohen talks us through a variety of conditions in which the ability to empathize is reduced, leading to the possibility of a violent behavior. In saying so, it is being sympathetically suggested that such so-called ‘evildoers’ are not necessarily irredeemable. This seems an important insight, given the fact that with ‘empathy’ we have a resource to resolve conflict, increase community cohesion and dissolve another person’s pain. Assessing empathy mechanism on both genetic and psychiatric scales, Baron-Cohen makes a compelling argument: ‘unless empathy is employed across conflicting situations across the world, from Washington to Baghdad, more lives are and will be lost’.

The sooner the unempathic acts are erased the better it is because the footprints of such acts can stay longer than desired. Back in 1542, Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet entitled On the Jews and their lies; wherein he had advocated (to the Christians) that synagogues should be burned and Jewish homes should be destroyed. Four hundred years later, the young Adolf Hitler quoted Martin Luther in Mein Kampf to give his own Nazi racist views some respectability, thereby ending the lives of 6 million Jews in the concentration camps. And in the absence of empathy, Hitler was bereft of any guilt for his dastardly actions.

Empathy, concludes Baron-Cohen, is like a universal solvent. From interpersonal problems to international conflicts and from family disputes to political deadlocks, any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. Since it is secular in nature, empathy, unlike religion, cannot oppress anyone. If such be it powers, why is empathy missing from most universal agendas?  Read this immensely compellingly book to find out!....Link

Zero Degrees of Empathy
by Simon Baron-Cohen
Penguin Books, UK
193 pages, UK£ 9.99.