Why Teach India?

In early April 2008, six educators from Boston independent schools met to discuss how they teach India in their respective disciplines. Two were developing curricula for an interdisciplinary course; two were building a service-learning program; one was thinking about teaching ancient religious texts; and one — a former economist for the World Bank — was designing case studies for classroom use on India’s role in the global economy. Varied in their approach, these teachers shared two common goals: they wanted to make a case for the inclusion of India in high school curricula and identify classroom practices that would support the teaching of a non-Western culture.

Initially brought together by Harvard’s South Asia Initiative, the group quickly realized it was not alone in its desire for dialogue and resources that supported its goals. Currently, few resources exist for teaching India at the high school level. At the Urban School of San Francisco (California), for example, Dan Matz has been teaching a semester-long Indian history course for over 10 years, but has yet to find a textbook that meets the needs of his course. Similarly, at the Winsor School (Massachusetts), teachers chose to develop a course on India based on one thematic idea; they, too, became creative in finding historical material that honored the complexity of the theme while still being appropriate for high school students.

As independent schools develop more emphasis on teaching non-Western­ cultures, professional development is changing. In this case, it emerged from teachers who couldn’t find it anywhere and so decided to create their own. What they built along the way was a supportive network of teachers who share resources, curricula, and ideas for teaching India at the high school level.

One year after their first meeting in Boston, the six teachers had received funding from their home institutions to create an organization whose mission is to enhance the teaching of India in private and public schools. The organization, Educators for Teaching India, developed a conference held in April 2009 that was attended by over 90 teachers from around the country. Hosted by the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University and sponsored by Phillips Academy (Massachusetts) and the Winsor School, the conference explored the question “Why Teach India?” through the lens of multiple disciplines.

The morning keynote speaker, Harvard Business School Professor Tarun Khanna, underscored the extent to which teaching India can create global consciousness in high school students. He began his talk by asking participants to state their biases and stereotypes of India. What emerged were a series of paradoxes: that India has one of the world’s fastest growing economies alongside an unyielding poverty rate, that it is a hub of technological innovation while maintaining ancient religious practices and traditions, and that it has established the world’s largest secular democracy while housing almost all of the world’s religions. These paradoxes, he argued, create an intellectual laboratory in which students can study social change and innovation as India simultaneously departs and gains power from an ancient civilization and culture.

While similar issues face many developing countries and emerging markets, it is the degree to which India’s contrasts are visible — and the degree to which India has allowed these contrasts to define itself — that offers students greater accessibility to global issues than the same students might encounter in studying other countries. That one can physically see the disparity between private wealth and public welfare, or lack thereof, without even traveling more than one quarter of a mile on a street in Mumbai, for example, offers a case study that lends itself to the classroom. Students can begin to internalize the disparities because of their extremities, and, consequently, begin thinking critically about the resulting problems and triumphs.

The conference also raised questions about the “how” of teaching India by offering two forms of professional development for teachers: content knowledge and pedagogy. While the morning sessions were led by local professors whose scholarship focused on India, the afternoon sessions were led by teachers who had experience both developing curriculum on India and implementing it in the classroom. What became apparent in both sessions was that teaching a non-Western culture requires its own classroom practices. Conference presenters offered approaches for developing interdisciplinary lessons, teaching religious texts and working with local Indian communities to enhance classroom teaching.

The 2009 conference also made clear that the work of Educators for Teaching India was just beginning. Since then, organizers have been channeling the energy of conference participants to organize the second annual conference in Boston this coming spring. The direction the organization takes will be determined by the vision given to it by teachers from around the country. For more information, including ways to get involved, please see the organization’s website, www.teachingindia.org.

Indu Chugani teaches English and Indian literature at the Winsor School (Massachusetts).