Promoting Heritage Education Programmes in Schools

As you are aware CBSE has recently launched several programmes to promote heritage education in schools including the celebration of World Heritage Day, Adopt-a-Monument programme and functioning of Heritage School Clubs. The CBSE Board firmly believes that heritage education is important for the following reasons:

• To bring history and the social science curriculum alive for the students through active learning and doing.
• To promote awareness of and involvement in heritage to inculcate a respect for diversity, tolerance, mutual understanding, patience and promotes peaceful co-existence in school children.
• To inspire young children and encourage them to build a future through an understanding of the past and the present.
• To equip children to understand and explore their local heritage and gain a confident sense of self.
• To encourage children to learn about national heritage as well as gain exposure to different heritages around the country.

Heritage is a conceptual identity of an area which includes not only built tangible heritage but has intangible aspects like its language, lifestyles, ceremonies, festivities, work cultures inherent /specific of a community.

To create and enact a heritage education programme for your school, you need to draw a Plan of Action comprising activities, programmes and projects planned through out the year depending on the resource availability. Just a small local site visit can bring alive a number of aspects of a history textbook. For this, an activity sheet would need to be designed and an expert found to conduct the walk. If no expert is available, a teacher can lead the walk with a little research. For heritage education programmes we need to encourage schools and teachers to use local resources and fall back on local monuments, museums and experts.

CBSE recently met with the Sahapedia team in New Delhi to discuss ways to popularize heritage education in schools nation-wide. Sahapedia is an online encyclopedia on Indian culture and heritage whose main goal is

to serve an educational resource for school students and researchers. In particular, Sahapedia is in the process of developing modules for heritage education for school teachers that include learning modules/heritage workbooks, heritage walks and heritage clubs. Please look at the concept note on Sahapedia and their heritage education section called “Saha Learn”, attached herewith to understand their project in the fullest.

The Sahapedia team as part of the Heritage Education Group at CBSE, New Delhi, has developed a list of ideas and guidelines herewith for your perusal to help you design a project for your school. We also request you to first fill up the questionnaire that has been developed and uploaded along with this circular to understand the state of heritage education in your school and the kinds of help you may need to start a programme. Kindly submit this questionnaire online by 20th November 2011 to enable us to get back to you with desired help/ resources.

We at CBSE feel that heritage education is a very important part of the learning process. Shortly we may also be starting a heritage corner on our website for better interaction with you on all aspects of heritage.. Please also refer to Sahapedia’s current website: http://sahapedia.wordpress.com as a resource for your heritage education programme. We look forward to your feedback and to your efforts at creating a heritage education programme with your school.

Annexure 1: A Concept Note on Sahapedia Sahapedia An Open Online Encyclopedia on Indian Culture and Heritage Vision

Sahapedia is a definitive, multi-lingual encyclopedic web resource on Indian culture and heritage. It is an informational and educational project that seeks to transform the way people access and create knowledge on Indian cultural heritage. Sahapedia aims to foster knowledge, encourage engagement and generate action towards understanding and revitalizing the diversity of Indian culture.

Background

India’s diverse knowledge traditions spanning several centuries and different disciplines are manifested in a mode of interconnectedness and non-linearity. To provide an integral understanding of each discipline, tradition and form, Sahapedia will provide multiple entry points such as articles, images, maps, audio-video material, learning modules, blogs and social networking communities, thus exploring the full potential of the online medium. Such an experience of Indian knowledge systems and heritage, integrating multiple formats, does not presently exist in the web world.

By following a participatory mode of content generation, Sahapedia opens its doors to contributors from all over South Asia and the world, and encourages contributors to engage in discussion on topics of their interest. Sahapedia will contribute in two areas—culture and education. As a project on culture, Sahapedia will provide information on various cultural forms and practices, and invites enthusiasts to write about little-known aspects of culture. As an educational project, Sahapedia will be a valuable tool for educators as well as students at various levels of their academic career.

Objectives

• To become the first-stop for reference on any aspect of India’s cultural heritage;
• To generate and share knowledge among users with varying levels of interest and expertise;
• To provide a unique experience of Indian history and culture on the web through multimedia content and tools;
• To provide an inclusive space for dialogue among members of different communities and groups; and
• To become a forum for advocacy in the area of heritage conservation and revitalization.

The target audience includes students, teachers and scholars, heritage professionals, travelers, and enthusiasts.

Domains Covered

1. Knowledge systems

2. History

3. Cultural practices

4. Built spaces and heritage sites

5. Natural Heritage

6. Literature

7. Festive events

8. Performing arts

9. Material arts

10. Museum and institutions

11. Culinary traditions

12. Film

How will Sahapedia be different from other comparable sites?

• Unprecedented focus on India and the region of South Asia to respond to global interest in the country and the region;
• Sahapedia will be a total web experience with multiple types of content (jpeg-s, doc-s, mp3-s, pdf-s, avi-s etc.);
• Sahapedia has launched an oral history initiative in which audio recordings are made of important thinkers and creators in various fields in many languages. This audio archive will be free and available to all users;
• A unique workspace featuring several tools to allow users to access, create, analyze and order content;
• Quality features and content contributed by editorial team;
• Content in major regional languages of India;
• Cultural mapping on India that does not at present exist on the internet;
• Mobile and web-based applications; and
• Providing a personalized experience through personal gallery spaces and social networking opportunities.

About Sahapedia

Sahapedia is a not-for-profit venture registered under Societies Act 1860. It was started by SAHA: Stirring Action on Heritage and the Arts, CMC Limited (ATATA Enterprise) and the International Institute of Information Technology (Hyderabad).

President: Mr. S. Ramadorai (Vice Chairman, TCS and Advisor to Prime Minister, National Skill Development Council)

Vice President: Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan (Scholar on Comparative Drama and Founder Mission Director, National Mission for Manuscripts)

Contact us

Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan Executive Director, Sahapedia CMC, 5th Floor, PTI Building, Parliament Street, New Delhi-1 Phone no.: +91-23736151-58, ext. 650 Email: sudha.gopalakrishnan@sahapedia.org.in

Annexure 2

Ideas and Guidelines for Heritage Education Activities

Heritage education is not merely recreation for students but should be an important part of their learning process. It will help them understand history and society and will inculcate values of respect for diversity and tolerance. While it is important to highlight aspects of national heritage, it is also important to bring local heritages into the purview of heritage education programmes. Very limited resources are required for the most basic heritage education programmes. More involved programmes require some investment. But most heritage activities, like heritage walks and heritage clubs, require little capital investment but can go a long way in helping children experience culture and heritage and bring alive many of the things they read in their history textbooks.

Suggestions

1. Heritage walks in historical areas of cities/towns/World Heritage Sites

2. Nature walks/excursions to local parks, areas of bio-diversity, even agrarian sites

3. Site visits to museums, interpretation centres, archaeological sites.

4. Organising SPICMACAY events and workshops. Please refer to CBSE Board’s Circular No. 50/10/18.08.2010

5. Essay competitions on literature (in English and local languages) and talks by writers. Students should be encouraged to read and write creatively in their local language. An introduction to the heritage of the language would be very useful – this can be done by a writer or a poet in the said language or a teacher who is fluent in it. 

6. Small research projects for students that can be put up as mini-exhibitions/bulletin CBSE Board displays on heritage

7. Involving students in documenting local living heritage like festivals, performing arts or craftsmen and women

8.Establishment of heritage clubs for heritage debates, quizzes, discussions and activities like presentations, field trips and documentation

9. Adopt-a-Monument scheme where students/heritage clubs can adopt a local monument, clean up its environs, investigate its local official and oral history, study the monument and make drawings of its details as well as overall plan, understand the challenges in its conservation and upkeep and campaign for its preservation. 

10. Painting and drawing competitions for students at built heritage sites.

11. Workshops with artists and craftsmen and women, both traditional and contemporary to help students understand the basic vocabulary and techniques involved.

12.Workshops with experts which involve hands-on learning. For example, a local classical or folk musician could conduct a workshop over five sessions to introduce students to the basic vocabulary of their musical form so that whenever students have occasion to hear the music, they can understand its basic outlines

13. Traditional recipes may be collected by the students from their parents and grandparents and a show-and-tell can take place introducing the importance of the recipes and their relevance to certain occasions like festivals or seasons. Comparisons of names for different fruits, vegetables and spices in different local languages can be done.

14. Encouraging students to trace and write their own family histories and traditions, to understand historical change through this

15. Site visits for students to crafts centres, textile loom units, handicraft workshops and factories to understand craft and industrial heritage.

16. Students may be asked to create a nature trail in their own school premises (if possible), marking trees, plants and other flora.

17. Theatre workshops in which students are encouraged to learn the nine emotional states and how to express them, how to make and use traditional puppets as well as other aspects of Indian performance theory.

Basic steps involved in creating a heritage education programme

1. Have a thorough understanding of heritage education programmes around the country and the world

2. Make a thorough survey of local resources – including potential sites, experts and sources of information like publications, photographs etc. The ‘local’ is an excellent resource for heritage education – including local languages, writers, film, folk traditions, festivals and more as may be relevant.

3. Identify an activity relevant to the target class group’s textbook. For instance, if the students are learning about the Delhi Sultans, the Tughlaqs, a site visit to a monument from that period may be relevant. If the school is near a Tughlaq monument, then that might be used. But if not, a local monument of the same time period may be selected as it may be helpful for students to understand what was happening in their area at the time of the Tughlaqs.

4. Select a date and time for the activity and prepare a pre-activity worksheet or small warm-up exercise like writing a short essay using their imagination, or making presentations on different aspects of the site they are about to visit.

5. Prepare an activity sheet for the site or activity itself. For instance, if you are taking the students to a site, prepare a worksheet that they have to fill there complete with a drawing exercise. Or if you are holding a workshop on dance, ask them to write about their impressions and what they learnt at the end.

6. Prepare a post-activity exercise like making a presentation on the activity or putting together a little heritage corner in the school with drawings and write-ups and objects that they collected or made.

7. Establish a heritage club with atleast 20-30 students and establish a weekly or bi-weekly time to meet. Prepare a charter with the students of what the club will do with targets for activities.

Guidelines for conducting heritage walks for the students

Heritage walks/tours equip children to understand and explore their local heritage and gain a confident sense of self. The child also learns about national heritage and is exposed to different heritages around the country.

Pre Heritage walk activities

1. Interaction of the faculty/parents with the students on the selection of the heritage site/museum to be visited.

2.Audio-visual presentation of the site and its significance-designed in accordance to the CBSE curriculum of the class.

3. Students should make their own presentation based on pre-visit research and on their textbooks on various aspects of the site and its history/heritage.

4. Hand-out of dummy models of the architectural elements (ex. Arches, pillars and sculptures extra) among students for a better understanding of the structure(s).

5. Hand-out CDs and print-outs with diagrammatic representation of the site along with photographs to students. 

6. To get questionnaires (specific to the site) completed by each student to understand their aptitude and interest.

During Heritage walk activities

1. Assistance by faculty/parents (student faculty ratio-8:1).

2. Site tour with special reference to practical understanding of the structure and its significance. It may be conducted by an expert or a trained teacher.

3. Arrangement of on-site activities (quiz/painting competition/clay modeling/debates and extempore/ photography etc in accord to the specific age group and general interest.).

4. To again get questionnaires (specific to the site) completed by each student to trace their progress and emphasise certain aspects of the site like natural heritage, architecture, structural engineering and how people lived there (if applicable).

Post Heritage Walk activities

1. Students who performed particularly well in the activities may be given certificates recognizing their efforts.