Learning from Failure

In “A string of failures: roadblocks, struggles and politics,” Arvind Sardana takes off where Hardy stops, with respect to the history of HSTP/Eklavya. He shows us the enormous challenges involved in working with the public education system, and what it takes to fail when the goal is its complete transformation toward equity and effective learning.

Kshitij Patil, in his piece, discusses the case of an organization of which he was a co-founder, which had to be merged with another CSO with similar goals. He discusses the organizational trajectory that the CSO traversed, and the learning from the journey.

The second one, with sustainability practitioner P. S. Narayan, deals with larger questions about what it means to fail and succeed in the social sector. Both, independently, and when read together, may deepen our understanding of education and social action by showing us what is involved in intervening in a reflexive manner, and what it means to succeed and fail. Hope you find this issue of the journal of use, in thinking about this important aspect which we all must deal with.

This issue of the periodical also carries two interviews. The first one, with educationist Jane Sahi, discusses her experiences of being involved with the running of an alternative school in Karnataka for around four decades, which was eventually shut down.

In their article titled, “On your mark, get set, fail!” Pallavi Maheshwari, Priyanka Rambol and Soumya Bhaskaracharya discuss multiple aspects of failing in the context of their work in education – from failing in knowing the child, to failure in aligning on-ground partners with their CSO’s vision, the pitfalls of relying solely on ‘individual brilliance,’ and the failure to scale.

Hridaykant Dewan (Hardy), in “The many meanings of failure and success,” reflects on his experiences of the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Program (HSTP). Reflexively, he braids together his personal experiences and ‘failures’ with institutional history.