E-Paper
Why curriculum should start where childhood begins
This article is authored by Rajni Chandiwal, assistant professor, SoLAS and Aditya Kumar, assistant professor, SoEPP, RV University, Bengaluru.
Is the world of children different from the world of adults? Or is there a correlation between the world of adults and children? How do we decide what kind of knowledge should be imparted to children? Do children learn something from their storybooks that is also linked to their school curriculum? If not, then why do we have children’s literature that is specifically created for children? Are there concepts which are only useful /required for grown-ups? This is a question which is often asked in the context of pedagogical engagement and education regarding children. In the school curriculum, we often see a hierarchy within subjects where some subjects such as economics, are only taught first time in the later secondary stage of school or at the higher grades of school education. However, this division completely disregards the fact that children inhabit the same world as adults. Their dilemmas and problems might appear small to the adults, but they are probably a micro reflection of the problems of adults. As we grow, these dilemmas become grander and more complicated.
Varun Grover’s story Karejwa which was originally published in Eklavya’s Chakmak magazine in 2015 is a very good case in point. It's a story about a boy named Pintu who wants to have his favourite sweet Karejwa before the destruction of earth as a ‘death star’ is going to usher in the end of all life. Like adults in his family, Pintu has only half an hour to fulfil his last wish but, nobody is paying attention to his last wish. He has to make a decision whether to wait for parents or to go by himself to get his favourite sweet before life ends on earth. Similar is the case of Johnny in Johnny’s Decisions (Jeff Feraldo) who has to make a decision about what to do with the rest of his day after coming back from school. Whether to go to the park or to a library. He makes a rational decision to go to the park because his mother tells him that it can rain the next day. He has multiple choices but limited time like everybody else and like everyone else Johnny wants to do everything from swings to slides in his limited playtime. Pintu and Johnny’s problems of time management and making a right decision from available choices are problems of the adult world as well. Does rationality only matter to adults?
Munshi Premchand’s story Eidgah shows us that even children are keen observers of their circumstances and make rational choices when it comes to making a decision about priority and basic needs. Hamid, a 4-5-year-old boy who comes from a poor family, notices that his grandmother often burns her hand while making chapatis. He sacrifices his wish to eat sweets on Eid and spends his Eidi (gift money) to buy a chimta (tongs). Here, Hamid is a classic example of what in economics is called ‘trade off’.
In an adult world, a lot of people are like Pintu, Johnny and Hamid. A lot of us have constraints on our budget (in terms of money or resources needed to acquire the particular commodity). We always focus on maximising our utility from a purchase or consumption of a commodity. Majority of the time, people do not realise in this process that they are giving up on some other commodity. If we introduce these concepts through the means of children's storybooks in the school curriculum, it would prepare us to make more informed choices to deal with the problems of the adult world.
There is an age-old story of a rabbit and a tortoise. Multiple moral lessons are derived from this story, but there is more to the story than just ethical counselling. Can we see the rabbit in a different perspective and not just as an arrogant and over-confident being? Maybe the rabbit represents a problem of inconsistency and inability to judge the strategy to deal with long-term problems. If we try to see the story of the rabbit and the tortoise from the lens of financial planning, it teaches us that it does not matter what exceptional quality or edge one has when it comes to the success or achievement of the goal. Rather, in the long run, it is the consistency and the habit which make all the difference. The rabbit has the advantage of pace and agility (like a huge corpus of money), but it was not used correctly. On the other hand, the tortoise, though having the disadvantage of slow pace and lack of agility (less income), wins the race. Similarly, with the less resources in hand, if people practice a healthy habit of consistent investment and wait for the power of compounding to work, they will be able to build a secure and safe life for themselves.
The hierarchy of subjects is a larger problem of disconnect or divide between knowledge and subjects between adults and children. We often confuse and limit subjects such as economics with concepts like demand, supply, inflation, GDP and so on. In reality, lessons of economics can be used in the day-to-day life of both adults and children. The school curriculum should not be aimed towards only passing exams and reproducing what Pete Seeger called ‘little boxes’ but should be designed so that we (as children and as adults) can make a better sense of the world we inhabit. It should prepare us to make rational and informed choices in the playground and in life.
Children are already making choices and decisions in everyday life. If they can recognise that the choices they are making have a theoretical grounding, they might be able to do it more systematically and strategically. We think now maybe it is time to introduce these storybooks into the school curriculum because economics as a subject is finely ingrained into children’s stories, lives, and choices they make.
This article is authored by Rajni Chandiwal, assistant professor, SoLAS and Aditya Kumar, assistant professor, SoEPP, RV University, Bengaluru.
