Education And Macro Psychology

“Education for all” slogan is echo loudly since few decades after independence in India. Constitution of India has provision to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right. Ground reality is that “children’s voices and experiences do not find expression in the classroom, most of the time only teachers voice heard in the classroom and children are usually only answering the teacher’s questions or repeating the teacher’s words. Neither they have chance do things nor do they have opportunities to take initiative. The curriculum must allow children to find their live experiences, voices, nurture their curiosity, to ask questions and to pursue investigations, sharing their experiences with school knowledge rather than their ability to reproduce textbook information /textual knowledge. Reorienting the curriculum to this end must be among our most priorities, informing the preparation of teachers, textbook review and redesign the textbooks, the annual plans of schools, learning materials and teaching learning planning, and assessment, evaluation and examination patterns.

According to curriculum framework-2005, long walks to school, heavy school bags, lack of basic infrastructure, including support books for reading and writing, poorly designed furniture that gives children insufficient back support and pains their legs and knees, time tables that do not give young children enough breaks to stretch, move and play, and that deprive older children of play/sports time, and encourage girls to opt out especially for girls, the absence of toilets and sanitary requirements, corporal punishment/beating, awkward physical postures are some common sources of physical discomfort in mainstream government schools in India.

In this scenario, burning questions is that “Does present education playing its role as per our constitutional provisions? Does the educational process, emancipatory in nature? Does any requirement for changes in education? If we want to change in education than which kind of educational change we want and what should be criteria and who will decide?

As per the National Achievement Serve 2017 & ASER reports more than 50% students can’t read and write after passed their fifth grade. Only 27 per cent of students got admission in next grade and remains dropped out (especially girls and economically weaker section children). After all gradually literacy per cent is increasing year by year. That’s why global crises are stand in front of us like global warming, water and air pollutions, suicide rate and social & financial corruptions and crime etc. These crises are the consequence of our damaged mainstream education psychology that was developed by education itself.

Paulo Freire believes that “the greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed, to liberate themselves. Process of reading is not walking on the words, it’s grasping the soul of them. The curriculum designer, educator, policy makers have the duty of not being neutral.” He strongly believe that education should be process as a cultural act for liberation and emancipation. According to him, reading does not just know the dictionary meaning of words, but rather by critically associating with text, that is, reading words should be in the form of reading the world.

Some critical-educationists (Paulo Freire, Joe Kincheloe, Shirley Steinberg, Paul Willis, John Dewey etc.) consider the necessity that perspective about leaners in our schools, should be changed to be based on learners perspective rather than empty pot, as well the role of teacher in teaching methods, should be reformed as a facilitator rather than an information provider. Teacher must be vigilant and sensitive to cultural, social, economical and political references of learners. This element should also be present in the content of the textbooks. If the medium of instruction is the language of the learners, then there is a good effect on the development of learners. If we want to live democratic and emancipatory life then we will have provide opportunity to learners that they can ask question in the classroom, they can raise their voice. For this, we will have need to change our classrooms like a learner centric classroom instead of textbook or teacher centric.

In the absence of these elements’ education process will have not able to play role for emancipation. This crisis requires us to rethink various fundamental issues in order to find a sustainable, fulfilling way to alive. Analysing the root of the crisis and reforming them requires structurally identifying which factors were central to the crisis and need to be reformed in order to achieve maximum benefits. It also requires knowing the direction in which their form and content need to be changed in order to truly solve the crisis.

Carl Ratner addresses these tasks from the perspective of psychology. He show character of cultural factors are contained in psychological phenomena as a kind of top secret that can be unlocked with proper analytical tools. These tools include a social theory that identifies the structure and content of factors that bear on psychology. He articulates this theory under the name “Macro Cultural Psychology.”