Reflections on Educational Practice (Pedagogic Studies in Learning of the First Language)

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Introduction It is widely acknowledged that education has emancipatory potential for learners. teachers, and society. In realising this possibility questions of educational practice need to be looked at critically. On the one hand, scholarly literature provides the theoretical frameworks with which to approach questions of practice, while on the other, engagements with field practice contextualise and bring new insights to this literature. The dynamics of theory and practice bring alive what the Brazilian radical educator Paulo Freire famously termed 'praxis. Yet we must recognise the tensions between theory and practice, especially the truth claims made by both, with one often seen as superior to the other. In education this is perhaps more visible, as the field demands solutions to existing problems and theory is geared more towards examining those problems and not necessarily finding solutions.

Over the years the rift between educational researchers and practitioners has become wider necessitating the need for the discipline of Education at the university level to address the tension between theory and practice in a creative and constructive way. Various courses which fall within the broad and amorphous ambit of education, are designed in universities to study educational problems and issues through the lenses of different social science disciplines. They provide insights and principles that underlie the curricular and pedagogical domains in education. This foundational knowledge helps a range of people who engage with the sphere of education, whether it is teaching in schools as teachers, in communities as activists, in academic spaces as curriculum designers, policy makers or researchers.

However, as stated above, this is not a simple process, more so for education practitioners who return to formal academic spaces such as universities as students after a long time. They are often anxious and in hurry to find solutions, whereas teachers in universities extensively engage with ideas, theories, critical lenses etc.

This compilation is a collection of articles which were generated as a result of carefully studied engagements with the theory-practice dynamic, conceptualised and addressed as an essential curricular component in a master's degree programme in education. The Masters in Elementary Education (MAEE) programme launched in 2006 at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai is a special programme designed for working professionals. It is a collaborative effort of several organisations. It was designed to provide practitioners engaged in diverse areas of education an orientation to academic knowledge in the area, the core objective being to strengthen the knowledge and research base in the field. A component of this programme was designed as Field Attachment with the aim to provide students an opportunity to look at educational praxis in relation to academic knowledge. The Field Attachment (FA) course is linked to one or the other theoretical course in the programme and involves analytical engagement with practices in the field between the first and second year of the programme. A two-week period is mandatory for students to engage with the site if it has a physical location.

The objectives of the FA are: to provide an opportunity to engage with innovative educational practice in 'real' settings or at the grassroots; to understand and explore possibilities for education development and change through interaction with practitioners; and through this experience to develop more specialized knowledge and skills in some aspect of the professional practice of elementary education. The nature of FA may vary depending on the course to which it is anchored. An FA has different stages, (proposal making, engaging with the site, writing the report, and presenting the findings) and in each of these, the student requires guidance and support from a faculty supervisor and a field mentor.

Hundreds of students have graduated from TISS since 2006, so the library houses an equal number of reports as well. Most of these studies can easily be considered as a rich repository of resources in a variety of educational spaces and in a range of domain areas. A need was recognised by both the faculty at TISS and Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) to bring together some of this work which would be of value to scholars and practitioners of education.

FA reports were then identified for publication based on a comprehensive assessment representing multiple criteria. However, any selection process entails elimination, and it is quite possible that some of the equally good ones also got left behind. These reports essentially cover fieldwork research in different schools and organisations in India between 2006 and 2013. The papers refer to and draw insights from the different courses and vary in nature and scope of their work. This collection is being brought out as three books one centered on pedagogic issues of science, maths and social sciences; one on pedagogic issues of first language; and one on thematic issues of curriculum, materials, evaluation, teaching profession, caste, class and gender. Freire had stressed that we read the word to read the world. This collection of student essays on field practice start with the words of scholarly books to read educational worlds.

However, these reports have also raised before us several interesting questions: How do we enable students to take the critical lens of scholarship to spheres of be practice without being judgmental? How do we equip students to document and reflect not only practices, but also processes, in which they themselves may interpellated? How is the act of writing related to subjective experience? Do we allow our students the space for such subjectivity? How can students assist organisations through the work they do as part of their FAs? How can they work with these organisations with commitment, concern, and empathy, even as they retain the critical perspectives acquired from their academic courses? A larger question for us is how the linkages between organisations working in the field and university-based student research can be strengthened.

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