At the confluence of the rivers Kathjodi and Mahanadi in Cuttack, it is a wondrous sight to see the birds coming to roost.
At about 5.30 pm, cormorants and egrets fly by the hundreds to the river and gather in large and small groups, resting on the still waters against the setting sun. In time, they swoop and slide, going around in circles without ever running into each other.
Their objective is a large tree in which they all settle for the night. How all those hundreds of birds find a resting place without the branches bending, let alone breaking, is another wonder.
If you have been to Lodi Garden at sunset, you have an idea
of the noise created, and the sudden silence that descends at a point when some
elder apparently says, ‘Enough, silence, sleep now.’ Any teacher would envy the
immediate obedience this unheard command seems to engender😀
I go there to watch this spectacle regularly, though not
often enough.
Two evenings ago, however, a motorboat with some revellers
were on the water. They were roaring around, making a lot of noise, leaking fuel
exhaust into the river water, and causing a fairly small but distinct backwash,
apparently uncaring of how they may affect the birds. I don’t know if it indeed did affect the birds, they didn’t seem to change their ritual of getting ready
for the night.
But I resented this interference in my enjoyment of a ritual
in nature, even while I acknowledged I had no right to feel like that. None of
that belonged to me, not the river, not the water, not the boat, and definitely
not the birds, any more than they belonged to the revellers.
In this scenario of birds, their flying patterns, their final
dance of the day, I am an observer. I like watching them, wondering about their
lives, and asking questions which I have no intention of answering more cursorily than with a quick search on Google. To me the birds are an ‘object of
curiosity.’ I don’t seek to make any changes, nor interfere with, such natural
events. I am not expected to, nor would it be encouraged. On the contrary, if I
tried to choreograph this sunset dance in any way, everybody I know would be revolted
and I would be reviled, not without reason. Nature, for me, is to observe, to
marvel at, to enjoy – and to go back home with pleasant memories.
Is that what we do with our students when we set them a
project or have them study a phenomenon?
We ask them to examine, look at, observe the world around
us. We encourage them to ask what-whom-when-where-and-why about the things they
see. They attend, describe, hold, identify, locate, name, recognize, select,
and use, if they can, these ‘objects of curiosity.’ They may also discuss,
examine, greet, and label them. They may even report on, recite, respond, tell,
and write about them.
However, do we expect them to see how they affect the things
they observe? Do we encourage them to acknowledge that by just being in the
proximity of these objects of curiosity they affect the behaviour of these
objects? And that is not always desirable? Is our null curriculum that we discourage
them from seeing themselves as part of the word around them?
As teachers, are we teaching students that having curiosity
is enough, that passive appreciation is sufficient unto the day? Is our hidden
curriculum that deciding what is important and actionable, and following through
on it, is not necessary? That recognizing ‘objects of curiosity’ is enough to
make us good citizens of this earth?
Should our explicit and stated curriculum be that our
students get involved in the lives of these ‘objects of curiosity’? That we
teach our students to judge how they should respond actively rather than be
silent, if keen, observers of, say, climate change? Should we prepare them for decision-making
and following through on completing the process of change to the environment or
their society? That it is not sufficient to go through the motions of writing to
the mayor about the trash on the roads, and then walk past that same trash for months without making efforts to ensure the corporation’s trash-collection processes
are regular and effective?
I wonder …
Are we preparing Greta Thunbergs? Should we be preparing Greta Thunbergs?
Photo credit: Rakesh Raghunathan
