India marked Teacher’s Day on 5 September. It was once again a time to celebrate teachers, and also a time for articles and discussions on education. The dream of an ideal educational system has found expression in numerous forms—from fiction to inspiring real life stories; from policy documents, to pockets of practice. In all these the focus has been on the teacher as the key. In India this is once again reiterated in the New Education Policy 2020 which states that: The teacher must be at the centre of the fundamental reforms in the education system. The new education policy must help re-establish teachers, at all levels, as the most respected and essential members of our society, because they truly shape our next generation of citizens.  

The NEP 2020 also  adds that: A good education institution is one in which every student feels welcomed and cared for, where a safe and stimulating learning environment exists, where a wide range of learning experiences are offered, and where good physical infrastructure and appropriate resources conducive to learning are available to all students.

This vision is not new. Over years, and generations, educators have imagined such an educational system. It was the same vision that, a hundred years ago, drove a young teacher in Gujarat to become of the great educationists of our times.  This was Gijubhai Badheka.

As he experimented with new approaches and methods of eduaction, Gijubhai closely observed the responses of the children and noted these down. He also realised that his experiments with children would be effective only if teachers and parents were to understand and apply the same in their dealings with children.  All his experiments, observations, notings, and vision for a different kind of education culminated in the book titled Divaswapna (Daydream). First published in 1931, Divaswapna is a fictional story of a teacher Laxmishankar, which has close parallels with Gijubhai’s own experiments in education.

The story is set in a time when the British were ruling India. Education was bound by a prescribed curriculum, belief in corporal punishment, and supervised by white Education Officers.  But in every situation, there are a few outliers, and Laxmishankar was one of them. Divaswapna journals the young teacher’s experiences in his own words.

Laxmishankar a young and idealistic teacher with very different ideas about what good education can be, approaches the British Education Officer for an opportunity to teach in a school and put some of his theories into practise. 

The Education officer at first laughs at him, but then reluctantly gives him permission to teach class 4 for one year. But with the condition that at the end of the year the students would take the same examination as the rest, and show good results.

Laxmishankar takes up challenge. Armed with all his theories and academic reading he enters class 4. He is shocked to finds that it is like a fish market—with rowdy students screaming, running around and fighting. He realises that to make his daydream into a reality he would have to find different ways to reach the hearts of the students.

The next day he starts by telling them a story. The class becomes quiet and attentive. In fact they are reluctant to go home. The stories continue for the next ten days. When he is reprimanded for this, and for not following the curriculum he explains: I am teaching them orderly behaviour through story sessions. They are being motivated. I am exposing them to literature and linguistic skills.  

This initiation leads the students to want read, they begin to perform the stories, and share them with other students. Laxmishankar sets up a small class library. Students who have never read anything other than their textbook, are curious and interested.

Laxmishankar begins to use games as a way to instil the concept of rules, discipline and team work. 

His bigger challenge comes when he has to convince parents to send their children to school in clean clothes, with neat hair and clipped nails. Both educational authorities and parents deride him saying that personal hygiene was none of his business. But Laxmishankar felt that the first lesson to be learnt was neatness, cleanliness, and

Lakshmishankar is a teacher with passion, ideals and zeal to try something different. But he faces innumerable challenges from all quarters. All the while he has to face the derision and challenges from all quarters. Not just in handling the students and other teachers, but equally in meeting the expectations of the parents. “I had believed that giving a talk and a little explanation to parents would suffice. But the parents here know only one thing. “Teach the boys” they say. They don’t have time even to listen to anything else and they don’t understand either.”

His colleagues look upon him as a misguided individual. “My colleagues the teachers have no faith in me. They look down upon me as an out and out impractical person. Maybe I am rather. Besides I have no experience. But I have no faith in their beliefs and methods of teaching. They annoy me. …The other teachers say that I am spoiling the boys by overindulgence; they complain that I tell the boys stories only and don’t teach them, that I make them miss their classes by taking them out for games.

I am sure mine is the right approach. We shall see. These games and stories are, to my mind, half their education. …I will have to bear in mind that my task is going to be difficult, and I should not lose sight of this.

The higher authorities want quick results. The Education Officer has now become rather impatient. He has his own problems. He has to contend with his superiors and opponents. He wants to share the glory and therefore want results but he wants them quickly.  He has his limitations in helping me.

Undaunted, Laxmishankar continues with these experiments for the first three months. In the third month, he starts looking at the prescribed syllabus. Knowing that the students would have to pass exams in all the subjects, Laxmishankar adopts innovative methods like dictation from storybooks to develop language skills; history through stories; spontaneous play-acting instead of rote learning and recitation; grammar through word games; language through riddles and puzzles; geography and nature study through field trips and outings.

As the year goes on, Laxmishankar continues to try new approaches to teaching different subjects. His students do well in the terminal exams. Some of the teachers too begin to see that changes are possible, but most of them are still sceptical. They feel that Laxmishankar can afford to do these experiments because he does not have to worry about money, and that he reads English books from where he gets his ideas, and that he has the time and leisure for such things. Laxmishankar refutes this. Experiments do not succeed merely because one knows English. That is a lame excuse one resorts to when one doesn’t want to work. The main thing is the intuition to innovate. And that comes from the yearning of ones soul for a cause.

At the end of the academic year the Education Officer sees the real change in the students of Class 4. Not just their academic performance but equally their appearance and behaviour. He recommended that the entire class be promoted. But Laxmishankar himself recommends otherwise in the case of a few students. He feels that these had not come up to the mark. It is not that they are unfit for the school. Rather this school is unfit for them. The school is unable to teach them what they have an aptitude for.

It was decided that instead the prize money of Rs 125 which every year was distributed among the students was instead to be used for starting a school library, and would be continued every year. 

At the Annual Day function the Education Officer concluded by saying: When this gentleman came to me last year with the request for permission to make an experiment in Class 4 of the primary school, I considered him to be an impractical fool. I had thought that he was just like many others of his kind and would run away at the first opportunity when put to the test.  So I gave him permission. I had no faith in him. But I must admit he has achieved success in his experiment. He has changed my ideas.

Divaswapna echoes the continuing quest for an educational system of our dreams, while it tells the story of a teacher who dared to do something to make the dream a reality.  Divaswapna the book is also considered to be one of the greatest contributions to pedagogy in the last century.  Originally published in 1931 in Gujarati, the book was later published by the National Book Trust in 11 Indian languages.

–Mamata