From feminist pedagogies to critical approaches, teaching strategies and learning methods, we look at pedagogy as a living, breathing organism shaping learners’ abilities to take constructive action.
In November 2021, a group of eleven women found themselves sitting together in a room in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Three of us (Anushi, Ekta and Angarika) had traveled from Bangalore, and the rest from different parts of Madhya Pradesh. There was a nervous energy in the room. “Why do you think we’ve all come here?”
Prisons are taken for granted within ‘civilised’ societies; we often do not think of the what and why of the institution. Often, we find ourselves at one of three points on a continuum: being oblivious and uninterested, feeling secure in knowing that there is a prison, or being concerned about the people who reach prison.
“Is deterrence of crime a valid end of justice, and therefore a valid measure of punishment?… Which is the crime whose deterrence one is talking about? To say that punitive justice may validly seek to deter rape is at least a sensible proposition.”
In 2022, the theme for Pakistan’s annual Aurat March was Reimagining Justice. The manifesto highlighted failures of the criminal justice system, and emphasised the need to build a “feminist culture of care that looks beyond the individual to address structural violence”. The word ‘care’ it said, needs to be “decoupled from stereotypical understandings of feminine traits and envisioned as collective responsibility”.
It is 10 years since I made my last documentary, many people ask me, when are you making another film? And to some I answer truthfully, that according to me, Agents of Ishq (AOI) is also a film, a very lengthy film—an infinite film.
At the beginning of 2022, I was still a student. Just along the fag end of that identity. At the end of 2022, I was a teacher. On a lot of days, I feel a bit trivial.
Tilottama says the inspiration for the graphic narrative Do You See What i See?! comes from a co-learning space where we all feel safe while exploring our curiosity unconditionally.
Aashiyan has the air of a scout. Squeezing through gullies lined with garbage, whizzing past the worn-out, exposed brick-and-cement houses, she, along with around 15-20 other girls and women of Welcome Colony, Shahadara, looks at her neighbourhood anew.
It’s been over 20 years since I started working on women and adolescent girls’ literacy. Twenty years, and I still continue to feel that letter writing is a significant pedagogical tool in the teaching-learning process of any literacy or education programme.
In Part Two we discuss the limitations of anger, the potential for empathy instead if accompanied by rigour, and the underrated merits of using joy pedagogically.
