Key learning spaces in schools outside the classroom: why we must work in them and how

In the last three years, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced nationwide school shutdowns, students have faced extreme situations, ranging from no classroom-sitting experience to extreme focus on addressing the learning regression with classroom-concentrated efforts. During the pandemic, we were forced to explore every avenue of learning outside the school or the classroom, whether gardening, online dancing, children learning through radio and television, even in government schools.

After schools reopened, our goal has become ‘back to the classroom,’ where we want to recover from learning regression by concentrating our efforts towards classroom-based learning. With the advent of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, and the launch of the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission, most states are gearing up toward developing the state-curriculum framework and modules for realizing the recommendations of NEP 2020.

It is the right time to ask the first question: are we doing enough to provide students with a comprehensive schooling experience, or are we just aiming to enhance their classroom learning?

Students walking and exploring corridors without fear and students playing in a playground with or without supervision are learning opportunities. Drawing freely to express themselves, picking up a book of their choice from the library, and reading it independently are also learning opportunities.

Participating in the school assembly, sharing their favourite story, developing a project for an environment-sustainability mela and presenting it in front of their schoolmates in the school assembly are varied learning opportunities. Learning dance and expressing through Mandala art, etc. The list can go on.

Clearly, we all have witnessed and experienced these learning opportunities outside the classroom. Often, these are termed as co-curricular activities, extracurricular activities, or co-scholastic activities, etc. National Education Policy, 2020, emphasizes that the “aim of education will not only be cognitive development, but also building character and creating holistic and well-rounded individuals, equipped with key 21st century skills.”

In section 4.6, NEP recommends that “experiential learning will be adopted, including hands-on learning, arts-integrated and sports-integrated education, and storytelling-based pedagogy, among others, to provide students different avenues to learn and build their capabilities beyond the regular classroom interaction.” Thus, policies advocate and promote a well-rounded, comprehensive schooling experience for each child.

It is evident, whether it is NEP’s recommendations or parental expectations of children’s holistic development, that our schools are struggling to achieve it.

This does not mean that we should not value the learning of subjects, and focus less on subject-based competencies. Rather, the attempt of schooling and education must be to provide diverse opportunities for children to learn and expand their skills and worldviews, as imagined in the 12 skill sets of 21st-century skills.

21st-century skills are broken into three categories:

1. Learning skills
2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills

Learning skills (the four ‘C’s) teach students about the mental processes required to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment. The 4 ‘C’s of 21st-century learning skills are:

• Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems.
• Creativity: Thinking outside the box.
• Collaboration: Working with others.
• Communication: Meaningfully talking to others.

Literacy skills (IMT) focus on how students can discern facts, publishing outlets, and the technology behind them. There is a strong focus on determining trustworthy sources and information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the internet. The 3 21st-century literacy skills (IMT) are:

• Information literacy (I): Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data.
• Media literacy (M): Understanding the methods and outlets in which information is published.
• Technology literacy (T): Understanding the machines that make the Information Age possible.

Life skills (FLIPS) look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities. The 5 21st-century life skills (FLIPS) are:

• Flexibility (F): Deviating from plans as needed.
• Leadership (L): Motivating a team to accomplish a goal.
• Initiative (I): Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own.
• Productivity (P): Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions.
• Social skills (S): Meeting and networking with others for mutual benefit.

The current curriculum and learning scenario majorly focus on classroom- and textbook-centered learning, which is important, but not enough to facilitate the above mentioned 21st-century skills.

To build these, our children need a comprehensive schooling experience inside and outside the classroom and the school. Jobs in the future will be characterized by one’s ability to develop these skills that need to be nurtured from childhood.

If learners are self-aware, ask critical questions, have a solution-oriented mindset, articulate and express themselves confidently, and build supportive relationships, they can be potential drivers of change. And this kind of learning can’t be nurtured within the confinement of four walls and textbooks. Learning within and beyond the classroom will help us realize this vision.

For example, as the ‘Prime Minister’ in the student parliament or Bal Sansad in the school, a child is democratically elected; they identify problems in their school and undertake change initiatives to resolve them with the help of school administrators and community members.

Thus, tasked with overseeing key functions and activities around the school, children will end up building initiative, flexibility, negotiation and presentation skills, and leadership and problem-solving skills. These 21st-century skills are crucial for their future jobs, which regular classroom teaching might not be able to develop.

The second question is, what are the key school spaces outside the classroom, and what are the key attributes of school processes related to these?

• Library: A space which provides free access to students and teachers to read books of their interests, expand their knowledge, and develop a broader worldview. Libraries have a collection of materials, books, or media that are accessible for use.
• Assembly: A gathering where the whole school community gets together, usually in a hall, a ground, or a large space, for the purpose of doing things together, communicating matters of significance, and creating opportunities for enriching the students’ learning and development.
• Building as Learning Aid (BaLA): An innovative concept towards qualitative improvement in education through developing child-friendly, learning- and fun-based physical environment in school infrastructure. It is a way to holistically plan and use the school infrastructure.
• Bal Sansad: A platform of the students run by the students and for the students where they can have open discussions about their needs, rights, roles, and responsibilities in the context of schools and communities, and participate in a range of activities from theatrical performances to displays of craft skills, physical abilities, academic skills, and knowledge.

Library

To create opportunities for children to become lifelong learners.

• Students access books independently and with adult supervision.
• Provides exposure to a worldview beyond the textbook curriculum exchange.
• Different reading-related activities provide students chances to express themselves and understand others’ perspectives.

Key 21st-century skills which can be enabled through the library:

• Judicious and effective use of information is an important skill students need to develop. Libraries are the right place where students can be trained in the effective utilization of information available from both print and digital resources.
• Libraries help to create an enquiry-based and research-based learning process which nurtures self-learning and encourages students to ask questions and seek help when needed.
• Libraries help develop skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration to help students construct knowledge.
• To narrow down the digital skills gap and inequalities worldwide, students need to be equipped with strong digital-literacy skills. Libraries can give them training in skills like ethical use of online resources, evaluation and authentication of information, understanding of cybercrimes, and security tips.

Present status: Widely acceptable and recommended in school facilities across the states in India.

Key gaps: All stakeholders understand its importance. However, many lack resources and the required shift in mindsets to effectively use libraries for learning.

Assembly

To develop a sense of community as well as the confidence to express and participate in large gatherings.

• Students come together to share space and participate in a large gathering.
• Provides opportunities for students to explore different activities to express themselves age-appropriately.
• Provides opportunities for students to start their days with enjoyment, fun, and witnessing talent, achievement, and something new in schools.

Key 21st-century skills which can be enabled through the school assembly:

• Collaboration skills, as students and teachers together plan and execute purposeful activities for the entire school.
• Effective communication skills, as students are enabled to share their experiences, stories, and anecdotes with others and are empowered for public speaking and taking up the stage.
• Creativity, as students showcase their talents in front of the entire school.
• Critical thinking, as students discuss the problems of the school and think through collective responsibility and solutions.

Present status: Considered as part of all school routine, at least for 30 minutes daily.

Key gaps: Present conduct is restricted to disciplining students, offering prayers, and the sharing of school announcements. School stakeholders need capacity-building to conduct this process for learning and as a fun-filled, engaging process.

Building as Learning Aid (BaLA)

To promote continuous self-learning and facilitated learning from school structures and environments.

• Teachers use their immediate school infrastructure and environment for experiential learning of students.
• Students develop capacities to self-learn from structure as well as from their environment.

Key 21st-century skills which can be enabled through BaLA:

• BaLA aims to make the students curious about their surroundings and to help them explore new ways of looking at things and learning from the process. This builds creativity and critical thinking.
• In a BaLA-based learning set-up, students apply their understanding of literacy, numeracy, force, acceleration, and circular motion to complete playful and practical activities.
• A BaLA-based classroom and school setting promotes team-based projects. Here, groups draw on everyone’s strengths to solve problems. This exposes students to new ideas and opposing viewpoints, while demonstrating the power of the collective mind.

Present status: Multiple states are developing school infrastructure, considering it as a learning opportunity.

Key gaps: Most states still do not acknowledge school-building as a critical component to facilitate learning. Designing school buildings and spaces reflecting BaLA is a resource as well as a capacity-development issue.

Bal Sansad

To develop interpersonal skills, leadership skills, and to experience active citizenship and the concept of democracy.

• One of the school processes that needs the least amount of capital resources to support students in developing many of the 21st-century skills.
• Provides students with an avenue to learn and participate in solving problems as well as experience democracy.

Key 21st-century skills which can be enabled through Bal Sansad:

• By taking up leadership roles in the Bal Sansad, or by being a responsible student body that holds the Bal Sansad accountable, students reflect on the self and understand multiple dimensions to their personality.
• Being a student leader, they are pushed to locate, analyze, and synthesize information, identify problems, take informed decisions, ask questions to challenge existing norms, and move toward finding solutions and bringing change.
• Students collaborate, build enabling relationships, take responsibility for their actions, and become adaptable while driving change initiatives.
• The whole experience of running a democratic parliament nurtures an environment where students learn to articulate themselves clearly, comprehend others effectively, and respond with compassion and sensitivity.

Present status: Multiple states have recognized the Bal Sansad as one of the school activities.

Key gaps: There is a lack of know-how in facilitating Bal Sansad and its potential role in developing leadership skills among students. Teachers and head masters require capacity-building for understanding Bal Sansad and its process to achieve its full potential.

The third question is, do we value these opportunities enough to create systemic processes in the school, so that these learning opportunities or spaces are not ‘sometime/occasional/event’ activities or phenomena?

It is a general practice that learning opportunities beyond the classroom are sparse and sporadic. They are hardly organized, and valued even less. Children might be learning something or the other from spaces outside the classroom.

However, they are generally unable to connect these learning experiences with classroom learning. They are also not encouraged to do the same.

NEP 2020 and other policy documents have some relevant recommendations on these, which we list in the next page. Despite all policies recommending holistic education and learning beyond the classroom, schools’ administrative stakeholders’ focus continues to remain on classroom learning.

There are two critical reasons for this gap. First, classroom learning is considered as ‘fundamental,’ and outside learning experiences are still seen as ‘add-on activities.’

Second, budgetary allocations and teacher-training focus on classroom learning. There is little focus on creating a holistic learning experience for students. Additionally, there is a lack of infrastructure and resources for facilitating learning outside the classroom.

As a result, our last-mile delivery agents in the public education system, head teachers and teachers, are either not equipped for facilitating learning outside the classroom, nor are they capacitated for creating and using learning spaces outside the classroom.

Policy Recommendations for School Processes

Library

Committee on National Policy on Library and Information System 1986: “Libraries are central to education, and the only way that our education system can be freed from cramming is to build teaching around the library resources of the educational institutions. Children should be introduced to the pleasure of reading and the importance of books at an early age.

“No school or college should be established without a library and a properly qualified librarian. Primary schools where such facilities cannot be provided should share the resources of the community library. In areas where a community library does not exist, the primary school should serve as the base of the village library.”

National Education Policy, 2020, recommendations: In section 7.2, NEP recognized that “our school complex does not have facilities for music, sports, and library.” In the section on ‘Lifelong Education,’ the fifth recommendation states that “improving the availability and accessibility of books is essential to inculcating the habit of reading within our communities and educational institutions and promotes different forms of libraries within and outside schools.”

BaLA

Right to Education Act, 2009: “Crucial parameters for school development through the infusion of new learning and ideas on design innovations, whole-school planning, and building schools that are child-friendly. The parameters include an all-weather building, consisting of at least one classroom for every teacher and an office-cum-store, separate toilets for boys and girls, safe and adequate drinking water facilities for all children, barrier-free access, boundary or green fencing, kitchen for cooking the midday meal, a library, and a playground.”

National Curriculum Framework, 2005: “The teacher must teach concepts using the child’s environment. The environment is familiar and can be understood. Young children learn only in concrete ways, using their senses. Language can be taught using familiar poems, songs, games, and stories. Science can be taught using familiar plants, animals, and food. Math can be taught using leaves, stones, and seeds.

NCF suggests that the teacher use the textbook as a guide. If children must learn about a doctor, then take them to visit a doctor’s clinic.

If they are studying tools, it is best to study the tools of the local cycle-walla or cobbler or carpenter. We can even study tools used in the kitchen.

The world of the BaLA in your school is an aid to represent the understanding that children are gaining of the world around them.

Assembly

National Curriculum Framework, 2005: “Assembly time can be used for reading the headlines of the morning newspaper, performing some physical exercises, and singing the national anthem.

“Other activities could also be added, for example, singing together, or listening to a story, or inviting a person from the local community or an outside guest to speak to the children, or hold small events to mark some significant local or national happening.

“Classes that have undertaken some interesting projects could also use this time to share their work with the whole school. If not every day, such longer morning assemblies could be planned once or twice a week. In composite schools, depending on the theme, a junior school assembly and a senior school assembly could be held separately.”

The fourth question is, how do we develop systemic processes in schools which organize these learning spaces outside the classroom to increase learning opportunities for every child in our public education system?

We illustrate one possible answer to this question by discussing Piramal Foundation’s work in this area. To address gaps in this intervention space, Piramal Foundation is committed to developing the capacity of the state and that of other stakeholders (such as teachers, headmasters, Cluster Resource Persons, and District Institutes of Education Training) to enhance students’ learning opportunities outside the classroom by focusing on four school processes. These include those related to libraries, the school assembly, BaLA, and Bal Sansad.

Piramal Foundation’s approach

Continuous recommendations across different policies and acts emphasize the importance of these school processes. Yet, these are generally perceived to be ‘good to have’ rather than ‘must have’ school processes. Secondly, in different scenarios, the availability and deliberate activities conducted in these school processes vary depending on school resources, stakeholders’ knowledge, skills, beliefs, and mindsets.

To address this gap, Piramal Foundation has designed a ‘Capability Maturity Model’ (CMM), given below, for these school processes, so that any stakeholder, be it external organizations, school teachers, headmasters, state and district education functionaries, can set up and execute these processes. This can address informal planning and implementation of school processes for learning outside the classroom.

The CMM is a 5-stage maturity model. For any intervention to reach its maximum potential, there are 5 stages that should be achieved in order to mature and move to the next level of the intervention. The five stages define the journey from non-existent to a sustained phase, where students, staff, and community are all participating and contributing members in the process. The capability maturity model is designed considering three important aspects of Piramal Foundation’s approach:

• System-driven: To create a system-driven model that provides different stakeholders with frameworks to plan and implement solutions. Thus, this capacity maturity model has systemic milestones to be achieved at every phase. The next image carries the CMM model for Bal Sansad.
• Ensuring community partnership: School processes cannot be sustained to provide continuous opportunities for learning outside the classroom if they do not integrate community participation. Thus, we actively engage communities in our intervention to create awareness towards these must-have school processes and collaboratively plan interventions to increase participation from community members and to establish governance mechanisms to ensure accountability of schools. The different categories of community stakeholders to be involved and leveraged for enabling school processes are youth, volunteers, self-help groups, Panchayati Raj Institution members, faith leaders, local media, etc.
• Ensuring scalability: The capability maturity model is designed to increase the scalability of these processes. The school process-implementation journey, from the non-existence level to the sustainability level, broken down into micro-milestones, supports stakeholders to take key action steps to achieve that stage. Scalable products are defined as those that can be operationalized, implemented, and internalized across cultural contexts by user communities and organizations with minimal or no need for facilitation. Thus, with a step-by-step approach, these school processes lend for easy implementation, making them scalable.

It is important to reiterate that our students need all our combined efforts to support them in achieving the subject-based competencies.

But as Dewey shares, “Society must have a type of education which gives individuals personal interest in social relationships and control and the habits of minds which secure social changes without introducing disorder.”

Thus, we have to start looking outside the classroom and encouraging children to develop the habit of learning from their environment, peers, and social settings. This encouragement has to be facilitated with deliberate effort. Thus, facilitating these four school processes can be a good starting point.

Working in schools outside the classroom: reports from the field

1. Kerala-Library: To promote literacy rate in tribal districts
2. Center working on ‘Bal Sansad’ program
3. NITI Ayog appreciated-ShravastiBal Sansad