>> Home >> From the Foundation >> From the Field

Teachers' Forums

In Tonk and Sirohi districts of Rajasthan, government school primary teachers are regularly gathering together to share their concerns, ideas and pedagogical insights in 'Teachers' Forums'

The Learning Guarantee Program, in its effort to address the quality of transaction in classrooms, felt it necessary to provide a platform to the self-introspecting teacher where she can share with, question and learn from other teachers. The central idea is to provide teachers the needed space to talk openly about all issues concerning them and their classrooms. This is an informal platform where teachers can meet up and converse on the experiences, problems, successes and triumphs they encounter in their everyday classrooms.

The central assumption behind the forum is that there is no absolute expert who can provide solutions and address the needs of the group. Instead every member should work together to seek collective solutions. Here the problems encountered are not theoretical or hypothetical in nature, they are burning problems which every practitioner wants to address to make their classroom processes more effective and inclusive in nature.

The Teachers' Forum is a flat democratic platform where there is no hierarchy between different participants. Everyone has the same stake over the issues and their strength to influence a discussion or dialogue is based on their logic and reasoning strength rather than their power or position. This is a voluntary platform based on the whims of the members of the group. The group decides when to meet, where to meet, what to discuss, and how to take the forum ahead. The forum functions based on the norms decided by the group rather than on any rule from the rulebook.

The forum presents an alternative model to the existing one-shot trainings that happen once or twice in the year. The activities of the forum include:

• - There is a genuine effort made to address the problems, concerns and need of individual participants of the group. This works on the principle that each one of us can gain better through sharing with each other and through collective wisdom

The forum provides a platform where groups can question their basic assumptions and start defining the fundamental premises that they would want to adhere to. For example, the assumption that ‘children cannot learn without punishment’, this preset mental fixture can be questioned based on the individual experience of every member from their life and from their classrooms. The group gets to choose from the multiple opinions to decide on the future path to be taken.

In a nutshell the forum tries to create a group of people who:

• Are ready to introspect, listen, speak out, appreciate and acknowledge each other's work in their own simple way


• Try to understand that it is important to keep oneself a bit away from the situation to understand objectively what would constitute a better option


• Appreciate plurality in thought and action


• Understand that collective wisdom gives the strength and conviction to question the basic premises and to undertake a new path


• Understand the strength of a group which is ready to listen to your challenges and reinforce and motivate your successes


• Always look for options to better themselves

Top