India
Kids are battling a not-good-enough syndrome, all they need is a patient ear: Kiran Bir Sethi | India News
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Educationist Kiran Bir Sethi’s design-led approach to education at Ahmedabad’s Riverside School won the World’s Best School for Innovation award last year. Her recent book, “Every Child Can”, with Mohanram Gudipati and Apoorva Bhandari reveals design-led practices in the way a school functions — from teacher training, parent-school relationships to community engagement.
What led you to begin Riverside?
As a new parent, I was very excited when my son started school. But this soon turned to dismay when, in a test given to my five-year-old, he was asked to copy down four lines from the topic ‘The Cow’. My son had made the ‘grave mistake’ of copying the fourth line (the cow has four legs) before the third (the cow has a tail). There was an angry slash of red pen, along with the punishment to write the lines 10 times. The idea of compliance without any explanation disillusioned me. When I went for the PTA meeting, the class teacher did not know my child by name even after three months. That was the last straw and I withdrew my son from the school.
I had had conservative schooling too. But my childhood experiences and studying at the National Institute of Design (NID) made me realise that education can be liberating. It is easy to blame the system and complain about the teachers, but I used this as an opportunity to ask — can a different way of learning prove more enriching for my son, something that he looks forward to? That was the beginning. Riverside school started from my living room with a design-based approach. On paper, it was designed to fail but it didn’t. It did test my resolve though.
How has Riverside used a design-based approach to benefit students?
The design process is empathetic. We ask who and why — who is the user and what is the purpose? Most students complete a set of tasks given to them at school without understanding why they are doing it. The idea of design is to build agency in students. One way we implemented this in our school was by introducing a portfolio made by students. Instead of appearing for an exam, students stood in front of a jury to explain what they did throughout the year, which is an empowering pedagogical process. But it needs to be built over time.
We have distilled our knowledge over the last two decades into a simple four step framework — feel, imagine, do, share (FIDS) — feel or use one’s empathy to observe and engage; imagine innovative ways to take the current situation to a preferred state, do what it takes to bring change; and then inspire others by sharing this change. This framework was evolved in 2009 and has since been translated into 20 languages, reaching two million children.
Who has been your inspiration?
Teachings of educationists like Reggio Emilia, Maria Montessori, Gijubhai Badheka and Mahatma Gandhi, which underline the values of empathy, ethics, excellence, elevation and evolution, are the core beliefs that shaped our school.
Our educational institutions and workplaces encourage accepting authority without asking questions. Will students schooled in ideas of independent thinking and collaborative work at Riverside find it harder to accept the real world?
On the contrary, our students excel. There is a difference between blind obedience and one that comes from respect. A disenfranchised citizen is not an asset to the country. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, collaboration and creative thinking are among the 10 key skills required in the world of work by 2025. Riverside’s design-led philosophy of education and pedagogy has helped build leadership qualities in students. Since 2004, Riverside children have outperformed the average top 10 schools in Maths, Science and English in the national benchmarking ASSET tests. In 2022-23, we outperformed the average of the top 10 schools by over 27%.
How scalable is this model of education?
The response from schools in India, especially after Covid, has been very heartening. A whole spectrum of schools has made the effort to visit Riverside to understand our way of working. We have impacted over 300 Indian schools and 40,000 schools worldwide.
Exam stress has contributed to many student suicides in recent years. What can be done to make the education system more responsive?
There are several factors that contribute to student suicides and there are no quick solutions. A student’s sense of self-worth is constantly questioned with social media at play. Even today, many schools focus on scores as a measure of success, with skewed expectations from the child. There is a poverty of conversation. Children are constantly battling the “not good enough” syndrome, when all they need is a patient ear and time from their parents.
What has been the biggest challenge in your journey?
The first exam results for our Class X students were not stellar. So, there was a pushback from parents who wanted to shut down our approach and concentrate only on academics. That tested our confidence in the design process. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, we went back to the drawing board and adopted a user-centric approach to adjust the high school timetable, so that students could develop mastery in their work and also have freedom to pursue their passion.
Do you think the National Education Policy is a step in the right direction?
NEP has an interdisciplinary approach towards education. We need to balance the shift. Things have been oversimplified in trying to reduce the stress, at the expense of mastery of a subject. Our education system is skewed in favour of coaching, extra classes and mock exams that rob students of their agency, making it counterproductive. The idea of human endeavour is to better yourself. What we require is rigorous stretching of the mind, not stress.
What is Riverside’s recipe for success?
Keeping optimism and joy alive in the work we do.
What led you to begin Riverside?
As a new parent, I was very excited when my son started school. But this soon turned to dismay when, in a test given to my five-year-old, he was asked to copy down four lines from the topic ‘The Cow’. My son had made the ‘grave mistake’ of copying the fourth line (the cow has four legs) before the third (the cow has a tail). There was an angry slash of red pen, along with the punishment to write the lines 10 times. The idea of compliance without any explanation disillusioned me. When I went for the PTA meeting, the class teacher did not know my child by name even after three months. That was the last straw and I withdrew my son from the school.
I had had conservative schooling too. But my childhood experiences and studying at the National Institute of Design (NID) made me realise that education can be liberating. It is easy to blame the system and complain about the teachers, but I used this as an opportunity to ask — can a different way of learning prove more enriching for my son, something that he looks forward to? That was the beginning. Riverside school started from my living room with a design-based approach. On paper, it was designed to fail but it didn’t. It did test my resolve though.
How has Riverside used a design-based approach to benefit students?
The design process is empathetic. We ask who and why — who is the user and what is the purpose? Most students complete a set of tasks given to them at school without understanding why they are doing it. The idea of design is to build agency in students. One way we implemented this in our school was by introducing a portfolio made by students. Instead of appearing for an exam, students stood in front of a jury to explain what they did throughout the year, which is an empowering pedagogical process. But it needs to be built over time.
We have distilled our knowledge over the last two decades into a simple four step framework — feel, imagine, do, share (FIDS) — feel or use one’s empathy to observe and engage; imagine innovative ways to take the current situation to a preferred state, do what it takes to bring change; and then inspire others by sharing this change. This framework was evolved in 2009 and has since been translated into 20 languages, reaching two million children.
Who has been your inspiration?
Teachings of educationists like Reggio Emilia, Maria Montessori, Gijubhai Badheka and Mahatma Gandhi, which underline the values of empathy, ethics, excellence, elevation and evolution, are the core beliefs that shaped our school.
Our educational institutions and workplaces encourage accepting authority without asking questions. Will students schooled in ideas of independent thinking and collaborative work at Riverside find it harder to accept the real world?
On the contrary, our students excel. There is a difference between blind obedience and one that comes from respect. A disenfranchised citizen is not an asset to the country. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, collaboration and creative thinking are among the 10 key skills required in the world of work by 2025. Riverside’s design-led philosophy of education and pedagogy has helped build leadership qualities in students. Since 2004, Riverside children have outperformed the average top 10 schools in Maths, Science and English in the national benchmarking ASSET tests. In 2022-23, we outperformed the average of the top 10 schools by over 27%.
How scalable is this model of education?
The response from schools in India, especially after Covid, has been very heartening. A whole spectrum of schools has made the effort to visit Riverside to understand our way of working. We have impacted over 300 Indian schools and 40,000 schools worldwide.
Exam stress has contributed to many student suicides in recent years. What can be done to make the education system more responsive?
There are several factors that contribute to student suicides and there are no quick solutions. A student’s sense of self-worth is constantly questioned with social media at play. Even today, many schools focus on scores as a measure of success, with skewed expectations from the child. There is a poverty of conversation. Children are constantly battling the “not good enough” syndrome, when all they need is a patient ear and time from their parents.
What has been the biggest challenge in your journey?
The first exam results for our Class X students were not stellar. So, there was a pushback from parents who wanted to shut down our approach and concentrate only on academics. That tested our confidence in the design process. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, we went back to the drawing board and adopted a user-centric approach to adjust the high school timetable, so that students could develop mastery in their work and also have freedom to pursue their passion.
Do you think the National Education Policy is a step in the right direction?
NEP has an interdisciplinary approach towards education. We need to balance the shift. Things have been oversimplified in trying to reduce the stress, at the expense of mastery of a subject. Our education system is skewed in favour of coaching, extra classes and mock exams that rob students of their agency, making it counterproductive. The idea of human endeavour is to better yourself. What we require is rigorous stretching of the mind, not stress.
What is Riverside’s recipe for success?
Keeping optimism and joy alive in the work we do.
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