Lokmitra has evolved and activity system to transform the school from within. This practice has evolved over last six years. Recent improvisation has been inspired by the work of Prof Manbo Sato of Tokyo University. His work was introduced to Lokmitra by Prof B K Passi, who also did a workshop of DIalogue in Education with Lokmitra staff and teachers in 20011.

1. Improving the School
from within
An evolved Practice of Lokmitra
August 2012

2. Need to Improve the School from within
• How can School promote the right of each child to learn
and grow, given that
– Teachers are not suitably prepared.
– In service Training is fragmented and top driven, detached
from the reality of class room.
– There is little on hand support.
– Limited opportunity & urge for peer learning.
– Tradition of teaching practices among teachers
overshadows their limited & disjointed knowledge of
Theory of Learning .
– Administrative monitoring sends wrong signal of what is
expected from them and generally demoralizes them.
– Teachers and other functionaries have Negative Attitude
towards children and parents.
• Improvement in education system is slow and bogged in
political, administrative complexities.

3. Vision of School as Learning Community
by Prof. Manabu Sato
• Main purpose is realization of human right of learning and
democratization of school organization. Not to pursue a “knock down”
teaching or “a model curriculum”. Rather to guarantee right of learning
of all the members and best way of learning.
• School as learning community is a place, where children learn together,
teachers also learn together as educational professional, and even
parents and citizens learn together through participating in school
renovation.
• Collaborative learning at classrooms, collegiality at staffrooms and
cooperation of parents and citizens with teachers are fundamental
components.
• In order to fulfill this vision, students learn how to work together in
classrooms, teachers build collegiality in their offices where they
creatively challenge the issue of how to conduct classes and critique
and learn from each other, and parents and citizens take part in classes
and work jointly with teachers (classroom participation).

4. Four basic strategies for establishing the pilot school
evolving as learning community
1) School reform can start and progress just from within. However
without support from outside, it cannot be continued.
2) School reform is hard work of long revolution. It needs laborious
commitments and long-term efforts and at least 3 years. Therefore,
we must think school revolutionarily and change it evolutionally.
3) Energy for reform is not generated from conformity but from
difference. As learning occurs and is promoted in differences. We
should struggle against all the sorts of conformity and of identity and
respect for variety, individuality and singularity in learning at
classrooms, school in-house workshops, and curriculum and school
management.
4) Central purpose of school reform is realization of learning possibilities
of all the children, so that school reform should be facilitated with
case method based upon observation at classrooms.

5. Underlying Principles in the Activity System
Improving the School from within
• Pedagogy have made great contributions to improvements in
education, but school and classroom reform is part of social reform
and also part of a cultural revolution, requiring theories from other
disciplines as well from the humanities and social sciences.
• Redefinition of the following three concepts as a basis for school
reform,
• Learning is defined in learning communities as a practice of
dialogue with the world in which one finds oneself, with others
and with oneself. It is a cognitive (cultural), interpersonal (social)
and existential (ethical) practice.
• The concept of “teacher” is also redefined. In learning
communities, they are defined as “learning professional” as well
as “teaching professional.”
• Professional competence of teachers is redefined as an ability to
reflect upon teachers’ own practices and to learn from each
other’s practice, rather than just the capability of “rational
application” of scientific knowledge and techniques.

6. School as learning community - Guided by three ideas:
Public Philosophy, Democracy & Excellence
• Schools are for public mission and accompanying responsibilities. Teachers
are professionals who are responsible for carrying them out. They are
responsible for fulfilling each schoolchild’s right to learn and for bringing
about a democratic society.
• Public philosophy also means that schools are open as public spaces. It is a
concept that schools and classrooms are open to everyone inside and
outside and that ideas and views on life are discussed.
• The purpose of school education is to build a democratic society, and
schools themselves must, therefore, be democratic social organizations.
• Democracy here means a way of associated living. Schools organized on
democratic principles, each schoolchild, teacher and parent participates in
their management as a protagonist with his or her own role and
responsibility.
• Activities to teach and to learn require a pursuit of excellence (not in
comparison with others). It does mean that we do our utmost and pursue
what is best. Learning to stretch and jump.

7. Effort leading to taking up Improved Activity System of
School Improvement from June 2012
• Peer learning system was promoted within Lokmitra so that not only for
internal learning, but also to expose them to this methodology on how to
effectively learn & equip staff with facilitation skill.
• Concerted effort with staff to enhance their understanding and capacity
to dialogue with teachers, enabling Knowledge Construction.
• Effort to improve the dialogue skill of team to take up the issue of
improving teaching practice, especially Hindi Language, with teachers.
• During May-June, in-house preparation was done and written materials to
guide Teachers, SMC members & Staff was developed.
• Team was supported through weekly meetings.
• There was conducive external environment as GoUP gave order to give
school session a better start. (partially due to advocacy effort)
• Shiksha Per Sabha (Meeting of Parents at GP/Ward/School) was organized
in May-June to sensitize large parent body and encourage them to
demand from School Teacher, SMC & PRI/ULB.

8. Activity System to Improve School from Within
• To listen to what others have to say is the starting point of learning. Activity
System provides opportunity so that each one is listened.
• The responsibility to fulfill each child’s right to learn in classrooms should be
shared with all children, all teachers principal and parents.
• Children are organized in collaborative learning system in groups of 6-8
children, enabling learning from each other. Enabling schoolchildren’s active,
cooperative and reflective learning.
• Teachers are expected to children’s responses toward learning. They are
required to consistently listen & pursue creative teaching by spontaneously
responding to children.
• Weekly meetings of teacher to discuss case studies based on classroom
observation is at the heart of school management. Case studies should focus
on learning as experienced by children in their classrooms and about their
learning from each other.
• Parents and teachers work together to create a better classroom, sharing
responsibility for educating schoolchildren.
• Lokmitra is now taking up following Activity System (in next Slide) to Schools
with encouraging initial response.

9. SMC
OOOOOO
Teachers Group
OOOOO
BAL MANCH
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
OOO
PRI/ULB
&
its M
em
bers
Teachers Group
Becoming sensitive to Children’s Learning
Weekly Learning Session, reflecting on Case Work with
Children and each others observation of teaching practice.
Listening to SMC, Bal Manch, PRI and taking lead in preparing
School Development Plan
Head Teacher ‘s Leadership for promoting Children’ Right to
Learning.
Parent Teacher
Meeting for
Each Class
SMC
Collectively setting Aims &
Objectives (attendance,
retention, learning etc)
Collective understanding of
Quality of Education
Analysis of Problems and find
solutions.
Evolving and tracking the
learning system of school
through monthly meetings.
Children’s Group & BAL MANCH
Each Class has children divided in Groups of
6-8 for collaborative Activity Based Learning.
Children also taking responsibility for
attendance and learning.
Children from Each Group of Each Class
collective meet every week for BAL MANCH.
Plan Children’ Collective Activity and suggest
for School Improvement.

10. Addition and Modification in previous effort of Lokmitra as compared to present Activity
System of Improving the School from within
Experiential Learning Cycle and constructivist approach to teaching learning has is being adopted in Lokmitra, in pursuence with
what has been suggested in NCF 2005 what has been made legal under article 29 of RTE Act (that describes the aim of education and
quality of education). This along with growing appreciation of Dialogue, Effective group process has immensely helped the organization
to abreast the challenge in improving quality concern in state government schools. More importantly, Lokmitra team got exposed to
ideas and practices that revolve around promoting learning community. An eminent educationist Dr. BK Passi is supporting Lokmitra in
this direction. Prof. Passi has been Vice-chairman of NCTE India. He has worked as UNESCO CHAIR of distance teacher education. He has
been the President of All India Association for Educational Research.
Building on the idea of J Krishnamurti and that of David Bohm (the eminent physicist), Prof Passi promotes use of Dialogue in
educational institutions for transformation of education system and education. However, the core idea is that dialogue is a process for
sharing our ideas in a safe and happy environment but this environment must not turn into mere gossip. Dialogue aims at learning
about self and also about other’s beliefs, feelings, interests, and/or needs in a non-adversarial and an open way. Although the
participants may challenge ideas or raise questions, the idea is to create understanding rather than debate with each other. The bottom
line is that dialogue must result into some productive outcomes. Literature says that dialogue is skillful exchange or interaction between
people that develops shared understanding as the basis for building trust, fostering a sense of ownership, facilitating genuine
agreement, and enabling creative problem solving. The emphasis is on deep listening.
Prof Passi suggests that Teacher education must introduce the use of dialogue. In order to implement dialogue in teacher education
institutions we need to develop a format of lesson plans and observation tools and give it a judicious place within the section of practice
teaching. Use of dialogue needs flexibility and patience in the users and trainers
At this time we also got exposed to the work of Prof Manabu Sato, of University of Tokyo. He has been engaged in the challenge to
reform schools from the inside by visiting schools throughout the country twice a week, observing classrooms and working with
teachers. Since 2008 when a few schools had miraculous result, many other public schools started embraces reform based on concept of
learning communities. This has taken place in the background of government declaring crisis of public school education and so forth. To
our surprise evolving work of Lokmitra was very much moving in that direction and with the knowledge of this work we find ourselves in
much deeper clarity as how to promote reform in public education. So a summary of idea, analysis & practice of Prof Manabu Sato is
being presented here as this is describes what we have learnt and what we are trying to practice. He says that it is a paradox that in
Japan, under decentralization and deregulation teachers’ autonomy has seriously collapsed. It started in mid 1980s, when political and
economic leaders started to distrust teachers. Teachers are assessed at one side by parents as consumers and taxpayer and at the other
side by bureaucratic officers. Core of professional assessment should be peer evaluation. It is good that Lokmitra has already working to
address this paradox. Some finer nuances have got added. Like preparing the case study of children’s experience with learning, school
observation, action research for discussion in meetings of teachers in school. But team will be able to implement it only in next
academic session.