Indian School Provided by Sir Akhyar Ahmad

Research Paper
An Ethnographic Contemporary Education Dialogue

10(2) 163–195
Study of Disciplinary © 2013 Education Dialogue Trust
SAGE Publications
and Pedagogic Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Practices in a Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0973184913484996
Primary Class http://ced.sagepub.com
Suvasini Iyer
Abstract
The article presents an ethnographic study conducted in a class in a
government-run primary school in Delhi.
It was found that a chief concern in the school was that of disciplin-
ing children. In the observed class, this took the shape of controlling
children’s bodies and motor movements. It is argued that through disci-
plining, teachers were striving to create docile and obedient bodies. In
addition, disciplining was also aimed at reforming children.
The pedagogic practices were also observed to further the agenda of
reforming children. Learning was construed as no more than a set of
motor skills. Learning was seen as a passive, silent and individual activ-
ity. It is argued that the pedagogic practices employed by the teachers
served to cast a normalising gaze on the children, and to differentiate
between them along a moral–scholastic dimension. When seen through
a Foucauldian lens, it appeared that the purpose of pedagogic activity in
the observed class was to maintain surveillance.
It was found that while children actively negotiated with the prevailing
culture, they nevertheless remained bound by the dominant norms.
Keywords
Discipline, Foucault, pedagogy, classroom ethnography, reform, Krishna
Kumar, order, primary class, symbolic Interactionism, surveillance
Suvasini Iyer is Faculty at the Department of Elementary Education, Miranda

House, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. Her research interests include
studying classroom processes, children’s play and history of school education.
E-mail: c.suvasini@gmail.com
164 Suvasini Iyer
Introduction
The study presented here was conducted in 1999–2001 as part of the
author’s M.Phil. studies in Delhi University.1 It is an ethnographic study
of Class 3 in a government-run school in Delhi. The school selected for
the study was chosen because of the prior knowledge that regular teach-
ing took place in the school. Within the hierarchy of government-run
schools in Delhi, this school can be placed in the higher tiers of the sys-
tem. It operated from a two-storied building, with primary classes being
held on the ground floor. There were separate rooms for each class, in
addition to a separate principal’s room and a room for conducting admin-
istrative work. A large playground, lined with tall trees, surrounded the
school building. Morning assembly and school functions were held here.
The classrooms were well furnished, with adequate blackboards, desks,
chairs and cupboards. The school had a library as well as a computer
room.
There were a total of 800 children enrolled in the school, of which
around 75 per cent were children of government employees. Many chil-
dren were from families with an annual income of less than `50,000. The
school charged no tuition fees; additional support in terms of free uni-
forms and books was provided for children from groups with lower
socio-economic status. Children were given refreshments every day,
either biscuits or fruits.2
The Class 3 in which fieldwork was conducted had a total of 43 chil-
dren, of which 14 were girls. They were in the age group of 8–9 years.
Around half of them were getting aid from the school in terms of free-
ships. The children were largely from families from the Hindi-speaking
belt of north India.
The two teachers who were primarily responsible for the class were
from a higher socio-economic background as compared to their students.
Their own children studied in private schools.
Five subjects were taught in the class—English, Hindi, Mathematics,
Science and Social Studies. Music and Physical Training were also part
of the curriculum, but had a peripheral status.3
The daily routine in the school began at 8:45 AM with morning assem-
bly for which the children gathered in the playground. After this, the
children returned to their classroom and the teacher took the attendance
roll call. There were seven periods in a day, of 35 minutes each. The
Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Disciplinary and Pedagogic Practices in a Primary Class 165
lunch break was for 25 minutes. During recess, children would spend
time playing in and strolling around the playground. At 1:45 PM, children
would disperse for the day.
Theoretical Background
The primary objective of the study was to produce an internally consistent
narrative that would retain the complexity of the data. Simultaneously, an
attempt was made to ‘make sense’ of the participants’ actions by locating
the data within larger societal contexts, and by relating these data to exist-
ing theoretical literature. Some of the theoretical perspectives that were
employed for the analyses are discussed next. It must be pointed out here
that the purpose of analysis was not to ascertain the validity of a particular
theory or to test it out in the field. Theories were employed to create a nar-
rative that would be more than merely a descriptive account of the field.
The research was oriented along the methodological–theoretical per-
spective of Symbolic Interactionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967;
Blackledge and Hunt, 1985, pp. 233–248). Within the Symbolic
Interactionist perspective, the classroom is construed to be a social space
in which ‘shared definitions of situations’ are evolved through negotia-
tions. Unequal power relations have a bearing on the negotiations, and
the more powerful actors may impose their perspectives (and the less
powerful may resist). In classroom situations, it is likely that the teacher
is more powerful than the students, and among the students, power may
be unequal and may be continually contested. Symbolic Interactionist
theory considers the negotiations between actors to be ongoing and
dynamic, and never permanently settled.
The present study drew upon the tenets of Symbolic Interactionism in
specific ways. First, it did not make any a priori assumption regarding
class differences at work, or regarding structural determinants. The start-
ing point for the analysis was the observational data. Second, the analy-
sis attempted to uncover ‘the meaning of the situation’, in this case, the
ongoing classroom interactions.
It is pertinent to note at this point an important aspect of the interac-
tions in the classroom. The teacher–student interactions appeared to the
researcher to be fragmented, discontinuous and highly ritualised.4 Often it
appeared that ‘meaning’ was a missing element in the conversations. Such

166 Suvasini Iyer
interactions posed a problem in analysis. Teachers, therefore, have been

‘explained’ to be tacitly executing pedagogies. In (the researcher) taking
such a stance, the teachers have been presented as if lacking in agency.
Therefore, while the analysis was guided by the perspective of
Symbolic Interactionism, its limitations in terms of not adequately con-
sidering the participants’ perspectives remain. It is with such caveats that
the analytic narrative must be read. The narrative presented next must
therefore be seen as a partial, not a complete or an exhaustive account of
classroom processes. The analysis gives primacy to the dominant activi-
ties in the classroom, which were invariably initiated and controlled by
the teacher. Further, it presents the teachers as if they constituted a singu-
lar entity, and differences between children are also not brought out. In
considering only the classroom interactive space, the individual teach-
ers’ voices, to an extent, have also been omitted.
The second chief strand of analysis draws upon the work of Michael
Foucault, primarily his book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison. According to Foucault, there emerged in the early periods of
European modernity, new forms of exercise of power and subjugation of
the masses. By their very nature, these forms of control were built into
the institutions that emerged in this period—the prison, the hospital and
modern mass schooling systems.5 All these institutions, according to
Foucault, had one thing in common: they sought to control the multi-
tudes. This new form of control directly targeted the body of the indi-
vidual. Parallel to the development of these institutions, there also
emerged new scientific ways of understanding the body that made it pos-
sible to control and regulate the body like never before. The purpose of
such control was twofold—to increase the economic utility of the body
and to make it obedient and docile. In this modern form of power, an
infinitesimal control came to be exercised over the active body—on its
movements, gestures, attitudes and its rapidity (speed). There is an ‘unin-
terrupted, constant coercion ... and is exercised according to a codifica-
tion that partitions as closely as possible time, space, movement’
(Foucault, 1977, p. 137). Interestingly, the methods through which such
ubiquitous control was achieved were called ‘disciplines’.
Within the machinery of the emerging school system, discipline
attempted to create ‘docile bodies’. In the course of time, disciplinary
control gained rapid currency and came to dominate the schooling
system. Surveillance, the key to the exercise of disciplinary power, was

integrated into the architecture as well as the pedagogic practices of these

early modern European schools. Schools were constructed as enclosed
spaces. The detailed and specific spatial organisation of the school was
aimed at locating individuals, and at establishing individual presences
and absences. Efficient supervision of the conduct of each individual
was a primary objective.
Integrated into the teaching and learning relationship was a supervi-
sory system; disciplining was woven into the pedagogic act. ‘Officers’
were appointed from amongst the pupils who were assigned teaching
tasks and also had to keep an eye on other children, and make note of
their errant behaviour. Therefore, ‘... a relation of surveillance, defined
and regulated (was) inscribed at the heart of the teaching practice, not as
an additional or adjacent part, but as a mechanism that is inherent to it
and which increases its efficiency’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 176).
In the present study, Foucault’s observations about disciplining and
surveillance in the schooling system are used to explain the observed
classroom interactions.
Finally, the analysis has also drawn upon the various writings of
Kumar (1992) on pedagogic practices in the Indian classroom. This has
helped make sense of the ethnographic data by linking them up to the
wider Indian social and historical context.
The research was done within the broad paradigm of the interpretive
framework (Blackledge and Hunt, 1985, pp. 233–248; Geertz, 1973). Data
collection consisted of unstructured observations in the classroom and in
the playground, during subject-teaching classes, free periods, lunch breaks
and school assemblies. The researcher also engaged in informal conversa-
tions with the participants, and conducted semi-structured interviews. The
fieldwork, which was spread over six months, consisted of over 36 hours
of observations.
Data analysis was guided by the techniques of Grounded Theory
(Strauss, 1987). To begin with, some portions of the field notes were
analysed in detail (line-by-line coding). Codes were defined and the
more abstract categories were evolved from the data. After the initial
establishment of codes, large chunks of data were placed along these
codes. Thereafter, linkages were drawn between various categories. For
example, one category ‘Child asks query’ was related to the category
‘Teacher maintains order in the classroom’. Making strong linkages
between categories helped create a conceptually dense analysis. Extensive

168 Suvasini Iyer
memos were written for each category. Through this, an attempt was
made to theorise about the data. The aim was to generate an internally
consistent narrative that would retain the complexity of the field situa-
tion, and also simultaneously engage with the disciplinary knowledge in
the social sciences and in education.
The analysis begins by unveiling the culture of discipline that was at
the core of life in the classroom.
The Culture of Discipline
Discipline as Maintaining Order

In the observed school, it appeared that maintaining discipline was val-
ued as an end in itself. Further, disciplining was understood as children
maintaining ‘physical order’. One of the practices followed in the school
was of marking classes for their orderliness. On one occasion, when the
children of the class under study stormed out of the room on hearing the
bell for the physical training (P.T.) period, their teacher reproached them.
She said, ‘Children of 4th and 5th classes maintain proper discipline.6 They
walk out of the class and walk back in [in single] lines. No one comes to
know that children are moving about’. She instructed them to do the
same, and cautioned that she would keep a check on them through the
day. The P.T. teacher, who also conducted regular drills in the morning
assembly, was an articulate spokeswoman of the disciplinary ethos of the
school. She was of the extreme opinion that ‘If teachers can’t control,
how will they teach children?’ Other teachers also agreed that control-
ling children was central to the task of teaching. These findings find
resonance in Kumar’s observations that Indian teachers show an unusual
and exaggerated concern for maintaining order amongst their students.
He further notes that Indian teachers perceive this order in a rather nar-
row and confined sense (Kumar, 1991, pp. 11–19).
Discipline as a Response to Class Size

It may be argued that excessive concern with maintaining physical order
was a managerial response to a large class of over 40 children. The

simultaneous presence of a large number of young children can make

unique demands on the teacher. At the very least, a teacher would have
to ensure that conditions are conducive for learning for each student. For
example, during a test, Ms Sudha7 had to ensure that the blackboard was
visible to all children (since the questions were written on the board).
She could not allow children to stand or sit as they pleased. In a social
studies class, Varun sought the teacher’s permission to stand and write
with the copy8 on his desk. Ms Das refused, as this would block the other
children’s view of the board.
The pressure to maintain order became particularly acute when class-
room activity consisted of individual work. Children worked at different
paces, and could become restless when their assigned work was finished.
When some children completed their tests before others, teachers urged
them to check their papers or revise for the next test, lest they break
loose. Such classes could be very trying for the teacher. In one such
class, where the children were copying down answers from the board,
Ms Dutt said resignedly, ‘Those who have not finished will not come to
me. Those who have finished will also not come to me’ (for checking the
copies).
The argument discussed above is in line with the observations of a
study in the U.K. by Galton et al. (1980) in which they found that in
classrooms of more than 30 children, teachers often took up managerial
roles when children were engaged in individualised tasks. During these
phases, their urgent and immediate aim was to keep the class busy. Goals
of progressive education—allowing the child to discover things for her-
self and stimulating this activity by probing and questioning the child—
took a backseat.
Therefore, it may be stated that the pursuit of ‘physical order’ was in
part the result of the large size of the class with which teachers had to
work.
Discipline as a Consequence of Disengagement

Teachers were seemingly disengaged from their work. They were found
to be divorced from, and disinterested in, their work. They seldom pos-
sessed copies of textbooks, despite their having to transact the text
through the year. The common practice was to ask children to lend a

170 Suvasini Iyer
textbook for the immediate period. When, in January 2000, the researcher
asked Ms Sudha for the half-yearly answer sheets (the examination was
held in December 1999), she replied nonchalantly, ‘I have thrown them
away for raddi’ (disposed them of as rubbish).
The above-mentioned observations may be better understood by
examining the historical development of the (school) teaching profes-
sion in our country. According to Kumar (1991, pp. 47–93), colonial rule
led to a systematic erosion of the school teacher’s professional and social
status and epistemic autonomy, all of which were enjoyed by the teacher
in the pre-colonial indigenous school. The British introduced a central-
ised and bureaucratically controlled system of education, where the
teacher became no more than a salaried employee of the state, and, fur-
ther was placed at the lowest rung of the bureaucratic ladder. Introduction
of an alien curriculum, a foreign language (English) as a medium of
instruction, and bureaucratised, impersonal examinations further eroded
the teacher’s epistemic autonomy. In this scenario, which constituted a
marked break from earlier traditions of school education, the teacher’s
role was reduced to the execution of pre-formulated syllabi using
textbooks.
According to Kumar, this led to the teacher defining her task as pri-
marily one of ‘maintaining order in [the] classroom to facilitate safe and
speedy delivery of the prescribed content’ (Kumar, 1991, p. 85).
Such a perspective helps explain the teachers’ disengagement from
the epistemic component of their work, and their parallel preoccupation
with disciplining, both observed in the study. The teachers’ definition of
their task as one of disciplining children and maintaining order in the
classroom may, therefore, be a ‘norm’ in our country, with its origins in
specific historical events. Deprived of an opportunity to imbue with per-
sonal meaning what they taught, and how they went about it, they were
compelled to define their task as that of maintaining order and gaining
control.
However, the factors discussed earlier do not explain why the mean-
ing of discipline assumed a narrow definition such as ‘regulating chil-
dren’s bodies’. It is argued in the next section that such a definition of
discipline partly resulted from the age-related characteristics of the chil-
dren, which were interpreted by the teachers as requiring ‘bodily
regulation’.

Creating Docile and Obedient Bodies

Children were Physically Restless/Their Symbolic Activities were ‘immature’
The children observed had a conspicuous ‘physical presence’. They had
abundant physical energy and showed quick changes in their attention
and behaviour. Their spontaneous activities were predominantly physi-
cal, such as hurling pencils with rubber-band slings and bursting paper
‘patakas’ to produce a loud noise (blowing paper bags), and revealed an
immersion in the present moment. A rat crossing the playground (the
playground could be seen from the windows) or a rain worm crawling
across the floor could throw the class into disarray. Even their play
tended to be physical, and of short duration, as is evident in the following
example.
During the lunch break, at 11:35 AM, Jyoti, Prerana, Parul, Preranarani
and Poonam were seen playing on a mound of sand, running up and
down. Soon they changed to khikli, a game in which two girls hold hands
and spin around speedily; the movement is physically exhilarating. After
this, they shifted to rotating individually, with their arms spread out hori-
zontally. They then changed the game to ‘cat and mouse’ where one girl
became the ‘pivot’ and two girls, holding the hands of the first girl,
swung about, with the ‘cat’ chasing the ‘mouse’.9 All this transpired
between 11:35 AM and 11:45 AM.
The children were characterised by physical vitality and restlessness.
Also, these children did not demonstrate any adult-like symbolic activi-
ties. This was evident in their language usages and brief exchanges. Their
conversations stemmed from the present and were at times aimed at
directing their own activities. Their voyages into any symbolic realm
were observed to be short-lived.
The conversations that the children had were rarely long-winded dis-
cussions. They stemmed from the present and tended to be of rather short
duration. In one event, Reema and some boys were engrossed in observ-
ing an insect, which had made a groove on the classroom wall, which it
had made into its home, and where it had laid its eggs.
Pranav: ‘Ma’am, she has her own children!’

‘What is it?’
‘Bee.’

172 Suvasini Iyer
Reema came closer to inspect the eggs, plucked out some eggs, threw
them to the floor, and mercilessly crushed them underfoot.
Reema, tum par paap chad jayega (Reema, ill fate will befall you [because
you have committed a sin]).
Pranav: ‘Ma’am, butterfly’s child—Reema has . . .’
Reema then asked Alok: ‘Do you know how the egg was?’
Atul was infected by the enthusiasm of the other children: ‘Egg, egg’, he
repeated.
Reema: ‘It was her child. It was small. Here, push it’. She ruthlessly shoved
paper into the groove, stuffing it completely.
Teachers’ Constructions of Children’s Characteristics

The teachers, too, referred to these characteristics—physical restlessness
and lack of mental perseverance—in their construction of their students’
characteristics and abilities. The implicit ‘theories’ employed by these
teachers may be placed in perspective by referring to Olson and Bruner’s
ideas of folk psychology and folk pedagogy (Olson and Bruner, 1996).
They argue that teachers’ pedagogies are derived not from formal theo-
retical knowledge but instead stem from cultural constructions of the
child.
In the observed milieu, teachers’ constructions revealed that they dif-
ferentiated between younger and older children. They perceived (although
not in the refined vocabulary of formal disciplinary knowledge) that
younger children are more physically present and less mature mentally,
as compared to older children. This was implicit in Ms Sudha’s remark
that ‘Older children are able to understand’. A differentiation between
younger and older children was also implicit in her remark that there are
different kinds of disciplinary problems with older children—telling lies,
not doing their homework and not informing parents. Other teachers also
lamented that younger children (when compared to older children) are
difficult to control.
Young children were seen as ‘difficult to control’ and as ‘unable to
understand’. Their physical vitality and short attention spans were inter-
preted as problems that required the regulation of their bodies. The Indian
teachers’ concern with maintaining order (Kumar, 1991) took on a rather
limited meaning in the classroom setting—demanding that children main-
tain normative body postures and behaviour. The fixation on ensuring and

exercising physical control was manifested in the following ritualistic

interaction between teacher and children:
Ms Dutt, the Hindi teacher, asked the students of 3rd B,10 ‘Good chil-
dren how?’
The students immediately responded, ‘Like this’. They promptly
assumed attentive postures, with folded arms and straight backs, and
faced the teacher with a watchful guard.
Ms Sudha entered 3rd B and conducted the following exercise:
‘Raise hands’.
The children raised their hands.
‘Clapping’.
The children clapped together.
‘Up down, up down’.
The children swing their arms up and down.
‘Sit down’.
The children sat.
Bernstein (1982) argued that rituals in school embody and transmit

the value system of the school. The above-mentioned rituals reveal that
the value system of the school was one of maintaining ‘physical order’.
It must be noted that the rituals were physical exercises directly focusing
on the ‘physical body’. They were blunt in asking children to rehearse
physical and motoric ‘propriety’.
These rituals also served a consensual function. In enacting such ritu-
als, individual students were likely to experience a sense of belonging to
the group. They served an important socialising function in that acting
out such rituals socialised the children into the ethos of the school.
Bernstein (1982) argued that socialisation through rituals is deep, because
it operates at a tacit, primeval level. That the children had come to share
the teachers’ definition of discipline was revealed when the teachers pro-
nounced ‘3rd B’ in a sufficiently menacing tone. The children would
assume the required postures, and order would be restored in the class-
room, at least for a while.
Central to the teachers’ constructions of children was the idea of the
‘child as a physical being’. These constructions were revealed in the
above-mentioned rituals, which served to regulate children’s bodies. In
the teachers’ construal, the child’s mental existence was largely absent
or was reduced to insignificance. It was observed that disciplinary

174 Suvasini Iyer
transgressions were also treated by resorting to physical punishment.

When Ms Sudha found Lokesh, Alok and Rahul talking, she became
furious and pulled Lokesh’s ear and slapped him. She ordered him to
assume the pose of a murga (the individual assumes a squatting position
while simultaneously holding both ears; the position imposes consider-
able strain on the body; the word murga means cock in Hindi; it is used
here in a derogatory sense) outside the class. In urging children to con-
duct themselves properly, never, not even once during the course of the
study, were teachers seen asking the children to contemplate the matter
of why they were being asked to conform to certain expectations or why
they were being punished. This strengthens the argument that for the
teachers, the children were more physical beings than thinking beings.
Through the incipient legitimisation inherent in such mutual interac-
tions, the children were socialised into the ‘teachers’ definitions of order’
(Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p. 112).
When seen from a Foucauldian perspective, one may conclude that
the teachers’ efforts were indeed aimed at controlling children’s bodies
and behaviour. Disciplining sought to create docile and obedient bodies.
Teachers construed children and children’s behaviour solely through
such a disciplinary lens. Foucault wrote that disciplinary control seeks
blind obedience; no rationale is provided for why a specific, artificial
behaviour is demanded, instilled or imposed. That the teachers observed
in the study never sought to provide any explanation, never sought to
bring into the sphere of ‘rational discussion’ the reasons for their demands
for discipline, makes sense when interpreted in this light. The ritual of
‘achhe bachhe kaise’ is also indicative that blind obedience was sought
from children.
The following section further elaborates the teachers’ constructions of
children. It is argued that the ‘hidden agenda’ behind the need to discipline
children was to reform them. Such an argument explains why teachers
used the phrase ‘good children’ in enacting the above-mentioned rituals.11
Disciplining to Reform
In this section, it is argued that central to the practice of disciplining
children was an attempt to reform children. According to Kumar, moral
upliftment was one of the concerns of the British when they established

schools in India (Kumar, 1991, pp. 26–43).12 The discourse of moral

upliftment also contained latent evangelical intentions; moral influence
through English education ‘was a euphemism for Christian ethics’
(Kumar, 1991, p. 33). Further, Kumar argues that Indian intellectuals and
social reformers also began to perceive the uneducated masses in the
same light as the colonisers. This was in no small measure also due to the
fact that the educated elite also came from the upper castes and/or upper
classes. Such a historical perspective helps in understanding the teach-
ers’ agenda of reforming the children.
The children in the class often did odd jobs for the teacher and for the
class. Ms Sudha would ask the children to fill up her water bottle, to keep
her lunch box in the staffroom, and to rearrange the chairs so that the
researcher could sit. It was clear that this was the accepted norm in the
class. On 16 September 1999, the few children who had come to school
(the term examinations had ended just the day before) spent a consider-
able amount of time cleaning the room with brooms and dusters. Rahul
even wiped Ms Sudha’s bag with a wet duster. The children also distrib-
uted the mid-day snack, carried notebooks for the teacher and brought
chalk boxes from the staffroom.
The researcher never saw any child protest. On the contrary, the chil-
dren appeared eager to engage in such work. Such a response on the part
of the children may be because, in general, the teacher–child relationship
lacked intimacy, and classroom life rendered the child anonymous.
Teachers threw copies at children after correction, did not know their
names, and mistook one child for another. The large class size and the
presence of many subject teachers (as opposed to one teacher teaching
all the subjects) exacerbated this sense of anonymity. It is argued that the
children did such jobs for the teachers as it offered them temporary relief
from anonymity, and bestowed on a child a monitor-like status for a short
while.13
The relative class difference between the teachers and the students
perhaps contributed to the creation and maintenance of such a culture.14
Whatever may be the reason, the consequences were clear—doing phys-
ical work was in line with, and further strengthened, the teachers’ notion
of children as do-ers.
Another dimension in the teachers’ construction was that of ganda–
acchcha, which in Hindi connoted the binary of bad–dirty–disgusting—
good. Teachers used derogatory terms for children, often labelling

176 Suvasini Iyer
children as gande. Teachers often announced in class that the children

were en masse gande. Ms Sudha, while taking an English test, pro-
nounced for no apparent reason, ‘How gande these children are, no?’
Individual children were also thus spotted. One teacher hit Reema on the
head with a book and said, ‘Complete idiot’. When Sriram hesitated in
reading, Ms Sudha scorned him: ‘Where do such namuneys come from?’
Teachers also openly expressed disgust, sarcasm, scorn and other nega-
tive feelings towards children. When Rahul got up to offer his seat to me,
Ms Sudha jeered at him: ‘Rahul . . . he also . . . is trying to become a
hero’. Once Ms Sudha remarked, ‘This Rahul, Sumit, Manoj, they are
nalayak [completely worthless, no good]’.
Implicit in such labelling of children was the understanding that the
teachers’ own pedagogy would reform the children. Disciplining chil-
dren was necessary to cleanse them of their ‘ganda-ness’. Giving marks
for orderliness thus made sense, as children had indeed earned them, by
showcasing their ‘goodness’. Such an argument is supported by the fol-
lowing example, where a teacher explicitly explained how good children
behaved: ‘Class 4th is very quiet. Children there are very good. Good
children do work and sit quietly’. Good children were disciplined. This
also explains the use of the phrase achche bachche (good children) in the
rituals conducted by the teachers.15
A Foucauldian line of analysis can expediently explain the teachers’
efforts at reforming children. According to Foucault, reform was at the
core of disciplining activity in early modern schools in Europe.
Foucault argues that at the heart of the disciplinary power exercised in
early modern schools was a judicial-penal system, wherein judgments
were passed on lapses such as (a) misuse of time/idleness; (b) failure to
perform an activity due to inattention, negligence or lack of zeal; (c)
improper behaviour such as disobedience; (d) inappropriate usage of
speech such as idle talk and (e) non-maintenance of the body such as
lack of cleanliness (Foucault, 1977, p. 178). Within this juridical system,
anything that was non-conforming became punishable. Offences included
not only behavioural infractions but also the inability to carry out
assigned tasks. The nature of punishment within this system was a form
of corrective training; the punishment purported to rectify the defects for
which the punishment was administered in the first place. For example,
a child who had not produced written work would be punished by being
ordered to do the written work many more times.

Within this penal system, all of a pupil’s behaviour was placed

between the two poles of good and evil. The purview of the system was
totalistic. Such a system differentiated not only the behaviour along the
good–bad/evil axis, but pupils themselves were also differentiated along
the good–bad/evil axis. Further, as noted by Ariès (1962, pp. 241–268),
in early modern Europe, childhood was construed as a stage of weak-
ness, and the practice of humiliating children was widespread. This was
institutionalised in schools. Corporal punishment became common.
Constructing the Meaning of Teaching–Learning

Classroom culture plays an important role in giving shape to the mean-
ing of subject-knowledge as received by children (Kumar, 1991, pp.
21–22, 117–130; Kumar, 1992, pp. 23–43). This is because for a child it
is through the regular and daily participation in activities involved in
learning a subject that the ‘structure of the discipline’ of that subject is
internally constructed (Schubauer-Leoni et al., 1989). The classroom
culture and the specific pedagogic practices that are followed are central
to this process of defining the meaning of a subject for the student.
In the observed class, the ‘hidden’ objective of teaching was found to
be that of reforming the children.
Teaching as Reform
In the observed class, it was not possible to distinguish between episodes
of teaching and episodes of disciplining. The processes of disciplining
and syllabus transaction were neither temporally separable (occurring
during different time periods) nor spatially separable (occurring at dif-
ferent sites). In the daily flow of classroom life, teachers would smoothly
shift from one to the other. Subject teaching was generously sprinkled
with disciplinary injunctions. Ms Dutt paused her music lesson to ‘teach’
children discipline. ‘Today, I will teach you to sit quietly. Fold your arms,
fold your hands’. Disciplining children and transacting syllabi work
were so fused together in teacher–student interactions that they seemed
to be part of the same semantic category. For example, quarrels amongst
children were addressed by alluding to work, rather than addressing the

178 Suvasini Iyer
actual issue that had led to the quarrel. When a boy beat up another boy,
the teacher demanded of the offender, ‘Why did you beat him? Do you
come to school to fight? Why isn’t your work over?’ She slapped him
and said, ‘Say sorry’. The focus was on work; the actual issue of the
conflict was not taken up. When children violated disciplinary codes, it
was by referring to work (questioning the children’s motives for coming
to school) that teachers often addressed the issue. When a child com-
plained about Anirudh, ‘Ma’am, Anirudh is playing with a piano (a mini-
ature toy Casio)’. Ms Sudha demanded of him, ‘Do you come here to
study or what?’ For the teachers, discipline and work constituted the
same thing. It will be seen subsequently that as with disciplining, in
teaching subjects, too, teachers focused on children as ‘do-ers’,16 and
sought to reform them.
Teachers labelled as gande bachche those children who did not score
well in tests and examinations. They viewed these children in an
extremely poor light. When Ms Sudha was returning corrected test cop-
ies to children (by way of throwing the copies at them), she shouted at
Reema, ‘Gandi bachchi, bad girl. Reema Sharma, [you] have not studied
at all’. When Prashant, a top-ranking student, produced ‘incomplete
work’, Ms Sudha lambasted him. Among other things, she also loudly
exclaimed, ‘Sits at the back, so doesn’t work. He is becoming ganda’.
Poor academic performance hinted at the child’s indolence and sloth,
attributes of his/her ‘ganda-ness’.
The choice of high performers as monitors, to assist the teacher in
disciplining the class, also indicated that notions of discipline and class-
room learning were closely knit. Doing well in examinations was reason
enough to elevate a child to a position where he was chosen to oversee
the behaviour of his classmates. Soon after the first-term examinations,
Ms Sudha reappointed the class monitors. After an exchange of good-
morning greetings, she announced,
I am appointing two monitors from [among the] boys. When I am not in class,
he [referring to the first monitor] will mind17 the class. If he is absent, then
the second monitor will mind. From [among the] girls also, there will be two
[monitors]. Now sit down and show me your faces.
With these remarks, the class was ushered into the selection proceed-
ings. Ms Sudha appointed Prashant and Priyank as monitors no. 1 and

no. 2 respectively. They replaced Rahul who had been the class monitor
until then. While selecting girl monitors, Ms Sudha paused for a long
moment before announcing her decision, ‘From [among the] girls,
number 1 is . . .’ The class was abuzz with whispers, ‘Preeti, Preeti . . .’
Ms Sudha chose Gita as monitor no. 1 and Sonali as monitor no. 2. Preeti
was selected as monitor no. 3.
All the appointments were based on high performance in the recent
examinations. Rahul had been stripped off his monitorship because he
had scored poorly in the examinations. The children’s expectation that
Preeti would be appointed as a monitor was also in keeping with this
norm.
Teaching was the epistemological component of the larger agenda of
reform through discipline. Poor academic performance was frowned
upon because it was perceived to be indicative of a child’s lack of effort.
Teachers ‘explained’ poor scores in tests and examinations in terms of a
lack of hard work (does not study) and of the child slipping back into
‘ganda-ness’. In the following sections, it will be seen that teachers con-
structed learning as a silent activity and laid much emphasis on motoric
work and physical labour, that is, drill and practice (which contemporary
theories would consider peripheral, even inconsequential, to learning).
This was consistent with the teachers’ construal of the children as ‘doers’.
There was no mention of thinking, or even of memorising. Indeed,
Ms Sudha explained a girl’s failure in examinations as the result of her
thinking excessively. She said, ‘Prerana does not have any time off from
thinking . . .’ (Usse toh sochne se phursat nahi).
The above-mentioned observations fit in with Foucault’s observations
that discipline was an integral part of the pedagogic exercise in early
modern European schools. The specific practices observed in the study
match with Foucault’s descriptions. According to him, one of the
methods through which disciplinary power is asserted is by
differentiating the students and fitting them into a system of ranks. The
rank of a pupil is indicative of his position within the hierarchy.
Through this process, a hierarchy of ranking is developed, and there is
a distribution of values and merits. Different classes of ranks exist
(from the ‘very good’ rank to the ‘shameful’ rank). By ranking children
thus, they are subject to comparison and hierarchisation. A normalising
gaze is cast upon the pupils, and the abnormal, the deficient and the
deviant are also produced. Such a practice differentiates between pupils

180 Suvasini Iyer
and further distributes them. The system compels the pupils to conform.
In the observed class, children were ranked along an axis of ‘achche–
gande’, in which the moral-disciplinary dimension of their selves was
confounded with their scholastic performance.
The monitorial system observed in the class (which is also a common-
place practice in Indian schools)18 also recalls Foucault’s description of
surveillance systems that were inbuilt in the pedagogic practices estab-
lished in schools in early modern Europe. Children who scored high in
examinations occupied higher ranks and were therefore recruited as
monitors to keep an eye on other, lower ranking children. Surveillance
was entrenched in the system. All aspects of children’s behaviour were
judged. The normalising gaze left nothing outside of its purview.
Copy-keeping, Neatness and Speed

‘Copy’ was the term employed to refer to notebooks used by children.19
The category ‘copy-keeping’, which emerged during the analysis, sub-
sumed teacher–pupil interactions concerned with the maintenance of
copies. In the observed class, teachers fussed over the meticulous main-
tenance of copies. For children, the conventions of copy-keeping consti-
tuted an integral part of their subject-learning.
Writing was the primary method by which children learned their sub-
jects. It was hence necessary for children to have something on which to
write. At the least, teachers had to ensure that children had something on
which they could write. But the requirements of copy-keeping went
beyond this. Children were asked to possess individual copies for differ-
ent subjects. For each subject, the type of notebook was specified: sin-
gle-lined notebook for Hindi, social studies and science; square-lined
notebook for mathematics and four-lined notebook for English. Even the
size of the copy was specified. Within the study of a subject, different
copies were required for different purposes—class work, homework and
tests. Copies had to be covered with paper, and the student’s name had to
be written on the cover. Teachers could be inflexible, refusing to check
work if it had not been done on the required copy.
In addition, teachers demanded that children follow rigid procedures.
Before starting class work, children had to write the date and inscribe the
heading ‘class work’. Further, they had to write the ‘lesson name’, the

question number as specified in the book or on the blackboard and draw

lines to demarcate one question-and-answer from the next. Teachers
were likely to take serious note of any failure on the part of the children
to follow these norms. When Prashant did not have the date and ‘test’
written on his copy, Ms Sudha slapped him and said, ‘It is the worst error
(that a child could possibly commit)’. Children took these regulations
seriously and were eager to follow them correctly. They queried the
teacher about the order in which the questions are to be answered, and
whether lines should be drawn after each answer. If for some reason a
child did not possess the required notebook, she would tell the teacher
and consult her on what to do. For both the teachers and the students, the
fuss over the copies went beyond the requirements of expediency. It is
the exaggerated concern with such matters (and the relative absence of
concern with ‘real’ learning issues) that is underlined here.
The teachers also overemphasised the importance of neatness of work
and speed. When children were doing their class-work, Ms Dutt moved
around the classroom overseeing their work. Some of her comments on
children’s writing were:
‘The writing should be good . . .’

‘It is written very badly. Work hard. Come back to me after writing beauti-
fully . . .’
In one instance, Ms Sudha refused to check Girish’s copy: ‘I cannot check it
. . . dirty copy’.
Teachers also appeared in a tremendous rush to finish teaching their

quota of the syllabus. Ms Sudha once told her class, ‘I thought I would
finish the fraction chart, you people are so slow . . .’ (the children had not
finished their mathematics test). Ms Das was always in a hurry.
Immediately on entering the classroom, she would take off: ‘Page number
75, page number 75, get me a chalk. Come on, quick’. For teachers to
succeed at completing their work quickly, it was imperative that children
should also increase their pace. Teachers would prod the children to
hurry up. When Sahil was a little slow to begin his English reading,
Ms Sudha was annoyed: ‘Sahil-ji, come on quick. I have to teach also’.
Children were repeatedly urged to work faster: ‘Work quickly, good’.
‘Children, is everyone’s work over? No? Come on, quick, quick’. Speed
was at times emphasised over the actual work itself. Even though some

182 Suvasini Iyer
children had not completed their tests, Ms Sudha started with the next
activity. ‘Insufficient blackboard space’ was often the immediate cause
for the rush. Teachers often threatened to rub off what was written on the
blackboard and pressed the children to work faster: ‘Quickly, quickly,
note down. I am rubbing off’.
Speed was also an integral part of testing children. Completing the
test within the given time was more important than finishing the task, as
Ms Sudha declared, ‘In two minutes, I will snatch the copies whether a
person’s work is done or not’. She was not joking. There was soon a tus-
sle, as copies were literally snatched away from the children. She
assigned this task to some children who had already finished their test.
Ms Sudha said, ‘How many children’s tests are over? Raise hands. I am
taking away the copies . . . come on . . . .’ Priyank, Gita and Preeti
assisted her, and took away the copies of the other children.
The requirements of copy keeping—neatness, the mandatory tagging
of work with markers such as date and lesson-name, and speedy comple-
tion of work—were intrinsic to everyday activities through which chil-
dren constructed the meaning of classroom learning. Learning became a
set of ‘to do’ skills. In turn, learners became do-ers. In the absence of any
emphasis on mental activity, learning was reduced to a set of atomised
and meaningless actions. The preoccupation with atomised, physical
skills, which construed the learners as do-ers, is consistent with the (ear-
lier discussed) teachers’ foci on children’s bodily selves.
The practices described above also bear similarities to Foucault’s
descriptions of early modern European schools. One of the characteristic
features of the modern elementary school was that it introduced a new
economy of time. Marking a break from earlier traditions, the modern
school system sought to utilise time to the maximum. It worked on the
principle of extracting the maximum amount of work from the smallest
fragment of time. Underpinning this value of the full and productive uti-
lisation of time was the pious notion that it is forbidden by God to waste
time. Pedagogy therefore also sought to regulate work towards an opti-
mum speed. Executing work quickly was an aim of modern schools, and
speed was therefore a virtue.
Under the earlier traditional system of apprenticeship in pre-modern
Europe, the pedagogic arrangement was that a pupil worked for a few
minutes with the master, while the other students remained unattended
and/or idle. In the newer spatial arrangement in the modern school,

where each individual was assigned a specific place, it became possible

for the teacher to simultaneously supervise the work of all individuals.
This made it possible for the pupils to be engaged in work through the
entire duration of the school day.
Another feature of the modern school system was the introduction of
a rigid time schedule. While previously time maintenance had been prac-
tised by religious orders in Europe, in the machinery of the modern
school, the counting of time increased in minutiae, that is, the unit for the
measurement of time became increasingly smaller; time began to be
counted not in hours, but in minutes and seconds. Activities were required
to be executed in a time-bound fashion. Foucault cites an example of a
timetable that was suggested in the early nineteenth century for the
‘mutual improvement of schools’: 8.45 entrance of the monitor, 8.52 the
monitor summons, 8.56 entrance of the children and prayer, and so on
(Foucault, 1977, p. 150). More precise measurement of time made pos-
sible more precise surveillance.
Precise measurement of time also made possible the elaboration of
the pupil’s activity. It could be broken down into chronological steps,
and each step could be assigned a duration, a direction, and an aptitude,
and the order of succession of the steps could be established. For exam-
ple, good handwriting was sought to be achieved by placing the body
parts in specific positions and by operating the body via calculated move-
ments that obeyed an order in time. The relation between the body and
its object (the object it handled and operated upon) was also articulated,
for example, the way in which the pen must be held.
Ariès (1962, pp. 286–314)20 provides a brief history of curriculum
change over the period when modern education was becoming wide-
spread. His descriptions corroborate Foucault’s arguments. For the
purposes of the present study, it is interesting to note that writing was
considered a specialised skill, which remained the preserve of tradi-
tional writers (scribes or scriveners) for a long time. ‘Elementary
schools’ were not permitted to teach it even while they taught children
how to read (Ariès, 1962, pp. 294–297).21 Writing was considered
craftsmanship, and copying by hand and calligraphic writing were
regarded as important to this craft.22 The exaggerated concern with
neatness and beautiful handwriting noted in the present study may have
had its origins in historical circumstances such as those described
earlier.

184 Suvasini Iyer
Learning as a Silent Activity

In the observed class, learning required children to be silent. The follow-
ing observations support such an understanding. Children could often be
seen in conversation about topics arising from/related to ongoing teach-
ing. On one occasion, Preranarani and two boys were examining the
directions on a map given in the social studies book. Even as Jyoti and
Poonam were working on the social studies class work (chapter: Our
Helpers), they jointly identified the illustration on the page as ‘A
Postman’. They continued to work and talk alongside.
Educationists would argue that such interaction should be encouraged
and utilised for learning (Kumar, 2000; Tudge, 1990). However, in the
observed classroom, children’s voices were the equivalent of white noise
to the teachers’ ears. Teachers did not know what children were really
talking about. They were largely ignorant about the finer nuances of chil-
dren’s talk, a fallout of their indifferent and distant relationship with chil-
dren. This resulted in a lack of differentiation between which talk was
beneficial for learning and which needed recourse to disciplinary action.
They, therefore, reacted to all conversations (including those related to
syllabi learning) with a call for quiet and restoration of order in the class-
room. This translated into creating a repressive regime in the classroom,
silencing even the children’s efforts at negotiating actively with their
work. Passivity was imposed on children, and work was constructed as a
silent activity. As children were writing answers (the subject was Hindi),
Ms Dutt walked around the classroom, ordering the children, ‘No talk-
ing. It is bad to talk. Make pictures without talking. You have to work.
Make [pictures]. Do your work.’
The requirement for silence became very pronounced during tests
when no interaction, with the exception of keeping a check on other stu-
dents, was permitted. Ms Sudha changed the seating arrangement during
an English test to ensure that the children did not interact, ‘Preeti, sit in
the centre. Pranav sit with Akansha. Why do you talk so much? Does
anyone talk during a test?’
Coupling learning with silence created a definition of learning as an
act of individual engagement. Teachers went beyond this, sometimes
even directly encouraging children to be competitive. Ms Sudha coun-
selled a boy during an English test, ‘You hide your work. Otherwise you
will get less [marks], others will get more marks’. Further, classroom

learning was constructed as competitive through the practice of ranking

children on a comparative scale, a scheme that Kohn (1986, pp. 3–5)
defines as a ‘mutually exclusive goal attainment system’. One child get-
ting a high rank necessitated that others got lower ranks. In Kohn’s anal-
ysis, when competition is built into the very structure of the situation, an
artificial scarcity is created. In the context of the observed classroom,
ranking the children created a scarcity of all (referring to various sym-
bolic commodities) that was associated with marks, for example, good-
ness of character, which was very closely associated with obtaining high
marks.
The emphasis that the observed teachers laid on examinations and
on individual performance can be seen to concur with the Foucauldian
understanding that because examinations combine surveillance as
well as the normalising judgement, they have come to occupy a cen-
tral role in the modern schooling institution. While in earlier systems
of guild-apprenticeship, the examination would mark the end of appren-
ticeship, under the new school system in early modern Europe, the
examination was woven into the fabric of the school system. The exam-
ination enabled the teacher to create a specific normative knowledge
about the pupils.
Foucault observed that through examinations, a knowledge base about
individual pupils, their aptitude, and their evolution is developed. Further,
individual pupils are compared, and a science of the normal distribution
of individuals is invented. The examination, therefore, serves to further
subjugate the pupils, and now does so through a discourse that is pur-
portedly scientific.
Therefore, it is not surprising that in the observed setting tests were
construed as individualistic and competitive. Their purpose was to inform
the teachers about the students’ academic or scholastic performance, so
as to ‘scientifically’ differentiate among them.
The Use of the Blackboard

The use of the blackboard is also a measure of how learning was con-
structed in the set-up. The date was written on it every day. The home-
work was also listed on the blackboard. During tests, teachers wrote the

186 Suvasini Iyer
questions on the board, which children answered individually in their

notebooks. For class work, teachers wrote down the questions and
answers, which children were required to copy down. Any active usage
of the blackboard on the part of the children was limited to asking the
teacher what was written on the board. These observations further indi-
cate how children were rendered passive in the process of acquiring
knowledge in the school.
Subject Pedagogies for Teaching English and Hindi

English was taught using Hindi as the medium of pedagogic communi-
cation. For each chapter, the teacher first explained the meaning of dif-
ficult words, which were given at the beginning of the chapter. This was
followed by the children reading the chapter. The teacher then explained
the lesson and the exercises. Finally, the children wrote answers to the
questions given in the exercises, copying them from the board, where the
teacher had written them.
At every level—the reading of the chapter and the giving of explana-
tions of the chapter and of the exercises—the emphasis was solely on
explaining the meaning of isolated, individual words and the mechanical
algorithms of sentence construction. Children were literally taught ‘how to’
make sentences. There was a conspicuous absence of any attempt to explore
the meaning of the text, as can be seen from the following description.
Ms Sudha was explaining the meaning of the sentences: Once there
was a donkey. He was very lazy. He didn’t like work. One day, he looked
up at the sky. (Central Institute of English, 1972, Lesson 2)
Teacher: Donkey kisse kahte hain? (Who/what is called a donkey?)

Children: Gadha (the Hindi word for donkey).
Teacher: ‘Was’ past hai ya present? (Is ‘was’ used for the past tense or is it
used for the present tense?)
Children: Past.
Teacher: Ek donkey hai ya tha? Kaam karna accha nahi lagta. Kanha dekha?
(A donkey is there or was there? He didn’t like to work. Where did he look?)
The fragmentation of language into meaningless entities and dispa-

rate words and phrases was clearly visible when children were explicitly

told to read by breaking the text (tod-tod ke pado). That this rendered the
text incomprehensible was not a pedagogic concern.
The teaching of Hindi was less reductionist than the teaching of
English. For example, while explaining the meaning of the text and of
the exercises, the teacher went beyond the text to include the children’s
experiences. Text reading was less fragmented than the reading of
English. However, it was the teachers who interpreted the texts. Children’s
participation was limited to gauging their comprehension of what the
teacher had already defined as ‘the knowledge’. Children were given
‘ready-made’ knowledge and then tested on their accumulation of this
knowledge. The following is an example of the teacher explaining an
excerpt from the Hindi text:23
The farmer held some plants and announced, ‘The neighbours have
not come even today. The wheat has ripened even more. I will send my
brothers tomorrow for harvesting them. Come, my son, let us tell them ...’
(Ludra and Verma, 1987, p. 7).
In explaining the above-mentioned passage, Ms Dutt posed the ques-
tion, ‘One’s brother can still be trusted. Whom shall I tell?’
The children replied, ‘Brother’.
When discussing questions from the text, she asked the children,
‘When no one came to help with the harvesting, to whom did the farmer
go?’
The children replied, ‘He went to his brother’.
The pedagogies employed in teaching a subject play an important role
in mediating the meaning of the subject matter for the students (Edwards,
1990; Edwards and Mercer, 1991). Schubauer-Leoni et al. (1989) argues
that scholastic subject matter cannot be considered ‘in abstracto’. Pupils
do not interact with knowledge as an abstract entity. Rather, they con-
struct the ‘meaning’ of the subject through the tasks they undertake in
learning the subject. For the children observed in the classroom, it was in
the fragmented reading of the chapters, listening to teachers’ explana-
tions, ‘knowing’ the correct answers to the questions and copying down
the answers from the blackboard, that the meaning of ‘Hindi’ and
‘English’ was construed. These teaching practices rendered a reduction-
ist interpretation of the subjects. They broke down ‘language’ into a set
of ‘to-do skills’ and a body of inert knowledge that had to be acquired.
This was especially true in the case of English. Children’s role vis-à-vis
this knowledge was that of being passive receivers.

188 Suvasini Iyer
Next, the following aspects of pedagogy observed in the classroom

are compared with Foucault’s descriptions: copying from the blackboard
and a teaching method that rendered the subject as atomised and that con-
strued learning in terms of behavioural actions alone (a pedagogy that did
not expect the learners to engage with the meaning of the material).
Copying was a common practice in early modern European schools
(copying catechisms in school) and was central to the craftsmanship of
writing. Copying was also a practice prevalent in indigenous pre-British
Indian education, where children copied from religious texts (Nurullah
and Naik, 1951, pp.1–50). In both European and Indian indigenous edu-
cation, reproducing a written text (copying) was central to the develop-
ment of the skill of writing. Therefore, it may be argued that the practice
of copying had antecedents in both the Indian indigenous school system
and in early modern European schooling.
Foucault observes that in the modern European school, parallel to the
meticulous breakdown of time, programmes were organised and
sequenced according to an increasing level of difficulty, and the move-
ment of individuals through the sequence of programmes was noted and
controlled. Such pedagogy meticulously broke down the subject being
taught into its simplest elements, and hierarchised each stage into small
steps. Foucault provides an example in which the process of learning to
read is broken down into seven levels—the first for those who are begin-
ning to learn the letters, the second for those who are learning to spell,
and so on.24 Further subdivisions were introduced to deal with a large
group of students. Such a meticulous articulation of the subject matter,
by breaking it down into a series of steps, also enabled an analogous
organisation of children according to their levels. All this made possible
greater control and surveillance.
In the present study, it was seen that subject learning was broken into
a series of atomised activities. While such reduction rendered the subject
meaningless, it nevertheless made it possible to specify the exact behav-
iour (or utterance) required of children. Such a practice bears a similarity
to Foucault’s descriptions. The outcome of such pedagogy was that it
rendered children as ‘do-ers’, and learning as a set of to-do skills, thereby
enabling greater surveillance and control over children.
The pedagogy observed in the school also did not make any demand on
the learner to engage with the meaning of the text or learning material.
This, too, may be better understood by taking a historical perspective.

Seeking individual interpretations of texts was not a feature of indigenous

Indian schools. In the Western world, too, deriving meaning from texts
was a phenomenon seen only in the post-Enlightenment period (Kumar,
1991, pp. 47–70).
It may thus be concluded that the pedagogic practices observed in the
present study in their near entirety closely resemble the descriptions
given by Foucault.
Children’s Negotiation with the Classroom Culture

Children were ‘bound by the semantic categories’ provided by the teach-
ers. They used them to label each other and to assess themselves. One
boy asked the researcher if Ms Sudha was making a list of achche bac-
che (good children). He wanted to know if his name figured in the list.
His definition of gande bacche included ‘those who do not study’.
The interaction between monitors and other students also seemed to
mirror the teacher–student interaction. One monitor admonished an
errant child, ‘One stands and drinks water, or does one sit and drink
water?’ Children also ascribed the teacher’s status to the monitors, seek-
ing clarifications from them and complaining to them about other chil-
dren. When Varun was monitoring, Priyank pointed out to him, ‘Varun,
you are minding. [See] who is talking with Preeti’.
Theorists such as Mead argue that the child’s early life is critical in
developing a sense of self as well as a sense of what constitutes the world
(Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Mead, 1964, pp. 199–246). It is through
day-to-day interaction with significant others that such a sense is devel-
oped. In the observed class, the children’s use of markers such as gande
bachhe as well as their reproduction of dominant values in spontaneous
interaction are both suggestive of their appropriation of the normative
values of their class.
Concluding Remarks
It may be concluded that in the observed class, disciplining and teaching
practices sought to create docile and obedient bodies. The surveillance of

190 Suvasini Iyer
children was integrated into the pedagogic activities of the teachers. In this
section, the implications and significance of these findings are discussed.
Before doing so, it must be noted that the above-discussed analysis is
based on a limited sample. The Indian schooling system is vast and
diverse, and different categories of schools exist, catering to different
strata of the population. The varied school system also incorporates a
variety of practices. Therefore, based on such limited ethnographic data,
it is not possible to comment on the pedagogic practices of Indian schools
and classes in general. With this cautionary note, an attempt is made here
to further understand the chief finding of the study, namely that peda-
gogic practices in an Indian classroom in contemporary times bear con-
siderable similarity to the descriptions of school systems in early modern
Europe given by Foucault and Ariès.
While the findings of the study cannot be taken to represent Indian
classrooms, it is nevertheless useful to note that similar observations have
been made by others. In her study on village primary schools in a location
on the outskirts of Delhi, Sarangapani (2003) found that success or failure
was seen as an attribute of a child’s cognitive–moral make-up. In the dis-
course of the school, the two were conjoined. Failure to perform assigned
tasks could lead to punitive action. Success in performing school tasks
could be rewarded by the appointment of such students as monitors, who
were given temporary moral-disciplinary rights over the other children.
Kumar’s (1991) comments on pedagogy and disciplinary practices in
Indian schools also resonate with the findings of the present study.
Therefore, it may be concluded that the observations made in the
present study are not altogether unique. Others have also noted similar
practices in other schools and among other teachers. Furthermore, if one
examines certain English words used in the classroom, it leads one to
infer that the practices they invoke cannot be unique to the classroom
observed. These words are discipline, control, monitor, copy and mind.
Simply put, the specific teachers observed could not have invented them;
they drew from the pool of shared language available in the shared cul-
ture. Moreover, a deeper probing into the meaning of these words in
colloquial usage reveals, in fact, that they connote meanings and inten-
tions that were prevalent in the early modern European school system (as
described in the writings of Foucault and Ariès). This strengthens the
conclusion that the similarities in the pedagogic practices observed in the
school and those noted by Foucault and Ariès are not coincidental.

An argument that has been considered at various points in the article

is whether the disciplinary and pedagogic practices are, as Kumar argues,
in continuity with pedagogic practices that came to dominate Indian
schools as an outcome of (a) specific British administrative policies and
(b) the civilising and reforming mission that underlay British educational
efforts. The present study hints at an additional nuance to the above-
mentioned understanding, which is perhaps worth further exploration.
Specifically, the study argues that
a. Disciplining should be seen not as an isolated concern. In the

school observed, disciplining was integral to a pedagogy that was
geared towards maintaining surveillance.
b. A Foucauldian perspective is helpful in understanding pedagogic
practices.
c. The complete package of specific pedagogic practices that was
observed in the study—an overemphasis on discipline, a focus on
maintaining physical order and bodily control, an agenda of
reforming children, the integration of discipline with subject
teaching-learning, the fuss over neatness and speed, and the
stress on atomised skills and inert knowledge within the subject
pedagogies—may have been positively and directly inherited
from the schooling practices of early modern Western Europe,
rather than being an indirect and adjunct consequence of British
administrative policies. Specifically, when Europeans set up
schools in India, they may have brought with them pedagogic
practices prevalent in their countries. These may have continued
to last even till contemporary times. Such practices may not
‘make sense’ when seen through a contemporary lens, especially
if the latter is informed by liberal–rational–humanist perspec-
tives. However, in their day and time, they may have appeared to
be sensible, even natural.
One question arises here: why has such pedagogy continued to persist
over a span of more than a century? Or, why have the waves of progres-
sive pedagogy not led to the gradual extinction of the older pedagogy?
While these are important questions, finding answers to them remains
beyond the scope of this study. The article has, however, provided a new
perspective within which to posit these questions.

192 Suvasini Iyer
For the moment, it would suffice to conclude by noting that in the

observed class, the pedagogies were directed towards creating obedient
and docile bodies. A normalising gaze had been cast over the children.
Children, in turn, were found to have internalised the normative gaze.
Notes
1. The study was undertaken under the supervision of Professor Poonam Batra.
A complete copy of the thesis, titled ‘Evolving a framework for classroom
inquiry with a specific focus on teaching-learning processes’, may be
obtained from the library at the Central Institute of Education, Department
of Education, University of Delhi (Suvasini, 2001). I thank Professor Batra
and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on the
article. I also thank Mr Saswata Ghosh for useful discussions on Foucault.
2. At the time the study was conducted, it was not yet obligatory for schools
to provide cooked meals to children. Under the National Programme for
Nutritional Support to Primary Education, launched in 1995, government
schools in Delhi provided children with ready-to-eat food items such as
biscuits and seasonal fruits (Sharma et al., 2006).
3. The textbook used for teaching English was Book Three, Special Series of
the English Reader Let’s Learn English, prepared by the Central Institute
of English, Hyderabad in 1972. For the other subjects, NCERT (National
Council of Educational Research and Training) books were used. The various
guiding objectives of the books included teaching of language structure and
vocabulary (English textbook); training the child to think, reason, analyse
and articulate logically (Mathematics textbook, NCERT, 1987); inculcating
values such as a sense of responsibility for the group and reverence for
teachers (Hindi textbook, Ludra and Verma, 1987); and understanding and
experiencing one’s entire neighbouring and remote milieus (Social Studies
textbook, NCERT, 1994).
4. Similar observations were made by Batra et al. (1996).
5. It is appropriate to add a note here about the time period being described
by Foucault. The modern schooling system in Europe, which has been
examined by Foucault, is said to have emerged in the late fifteenth century
and existed until the late eighteenth century (see Foucault, 1977; Ariès, 1962).
Reforms in the late eighteenth century led to the gradual disappearance of
such pedagogies. The time periods of the ascendance and the eventual
disappearance of such pedagogies were uneven across the three countries
chiefly examined—France, England and Germany. However, a reference to
a more specific time period is beyond the scope of the present article.
6. ‘Discipline’ was the term used by teachers, not the Hindi equivalent.
Similarly, teachers used the word ‘control’, not its Hindi equivalent.

7. The teachers and the students have been assigned pseudo names. However,
names rather than simply common nouns, for example, ‘the teacher’ or ‘the
student’, have been retained to ensure that the teacher and the student are not
represented as abstract categories or singular entities.
8. Copy is the colloquial word for notebook.
9. All these are traditional games played by Indian children.
10. The class was often addressed as 3rd B, B standing for the one of the sections
of Class 3.
11. The author does not argue that all this was premeditated. Indeed, it is more
likely that teachers themselves are unaware of the ultimate consequences of
their acts. It is argued that these aspects of the teacher’s role may have been
executed tacitly.
12. According to the conventional wisdom of the era, Western civilisation was
superior, evidently due to its material advancement and its social and political
developments. Indian people were considered to be ignorant, illiterate and
inferior to the English. It was believed that Western education could free the
Indian masses from their ignorance.
13. It is argued subsequently that monitorship was perceived as a privilege and
was much sought after by the children.
14. See Talib (1998) for similar findings. However, it is not possible in this study
to conclusively argue that class difference is the cause for the treatment
meted out to the children.
15. Sarangapani (2003) observed that teachers awarded children for their ‘good’
traits. In her study, the teachers were found to include the development of
moral character of children as part of their duties.
16. What specifically is meant by the construction of children as do-ers is that
children’s actions/external behaviour are/is highlighted; their psychological
beings are not invoked.
17. Minding is used here in the sense of overseeing, taking charge of. ‘Monitors
mind the class’ is a common colloquial usage.
18. Sarangapani (2003) made similar observations in her ethnographic study.
19. Interestingly, Kumar (1991, p. 62) points out that the term copy-book
was used for textbooks ‘since children were expected to copy them’. He
was referring specifically to missionary schools in India in the nineteenth
century.
20. Ariès’s (1962) accounts match those of Foucault. Both describe the same
phenomena albeit with somewhat different objectives.
21. Traditionally, reading and writing were regarded as partly independent
skills.
22. To understand why this may have been the case, it is important to remember
that this was a period prior to the invention of the typewriter and the printing
press and before the large-scale availability of paper.

194 Suvasini Iyer
23. The excerpt has been translated into English here.

24. Such an understanding was also common to indigenous Indian schools
(Nurullah and Naik, 1951).
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Research Paper

An Ethnographic Contemporary Education Dialogue

Suvasini Iyer is Faculty at the Department of Elementary Education, Miranda

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

interactions posed a problem in analysis. Teachers, therefore, have been

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

integrated into the architecture as well as the pedagogic practices of these

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

The Culture of Discipline

Discipline as Maintaining Order

Discipline as a Response to Class Size

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

simultaneous presence of a large number of young children can make

Discipline as a Consequence of Disengagement

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Creating Docile and Obedient Bodies

Pranav: ‘Ma’am, she has her own children!’

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Teachers’ Constructions of Children’s Characteristics

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

exercising physical control was manifested in the following ritualistic

Bernstein (1982) argued that rituals in school embody and transmit

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

transgressions were also treated by resorting to physical punishment.

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

schools in India (Kumar, 1991, pp. 26–43).12 The discourse of moral

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

children as gande. Teachers often announced in class that the children

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Within this penal system, all of a pupil’s behaviour was placed

Constructing the Meaning of Teaching–Learning

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Copy-keeping, Neatness and Speed

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

question number as specified in the book or on the blackboard and draw

‘The writing should be good . . .’

Teachers also appeared in a tremendous rush to finish teaching their

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

where each individual was assigned a specific place, it became possible

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Learning as a Silent Activity

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

learning was constructed as competitive through the practice of ranking

The Use of the Blackboard

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

questions on the board, which children answered individually in their

Subject Pedagogies for Teaching English and Hindi

Teacher: Donkey kisse kahte hain? (Who/what is called a donkey?)

The fragmentation of language into meaningless entities and dispa-

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Next, the following aspects of pedagogy observed in the classroom

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Seeking individual interpretations of texts was not a feature of indigenous

Children’s Negotiation with the Classroom Culture

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10, 2 (2013): 163–195

An argument that has been considered at various points in the article

a. Disciplining should be seen not as an isolated concern. In the