A unique experiment happened at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technical University, Lonere from 11th to 15th July 2022. Teachers, management representatives, non-teaching staff, and students ( total, 35 in number) from 8 colleges across Maharashtra gathered and stayed there to listen to Dr. Anand Nadkarni, a leading psychiatrist from Thane, Maharashtra, and his team from IPH – Institute for Psychological Health, an organisation working for over three decades in the field of community mental health. The experiment was a first for all the stakeholders – for the participants who underwent this kind of training and who go back with action plans as ambassadors to make their colleges ‘Pragnya Parisar’ – emotional-friendly; for IPH, who though have conducted innumerable sessions for teachers and students over the past many years, had not attempted a ‘structured’ project aiming at bringing about change at an institutional level; and for Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy ( MSFDA), a teachers’ training academy, with inclusion and diversity as a non-negotiable cross-cutting principle. 

The programme was conceived sometime in January 2022 when Vijay Joshi introduced Anand Nadkarni. In the very first meeting with IPH – it happened at 9.30 pm (we were rushing against time to get the proposal approved in forthcoming Board meeting and desiring to sign the MoU on 26th January!) – Anand expressed a surprisingly amazing clarity on how IPH could proceed further. He said ” we will work for three years in a college.. a mixed trainee group comprising teachers, management, non-teaching staff and students will be selected for training. It is important to involve them all, since a college’s environment is also affected by how your canteenwalla behaves with you.. also it is important to involve the management, since such changes have to be driven from the top … In the first year, we will generate ‘interest’ amongst the stakeholders. Rather than getting into details, we shall share basic concepts of emotional-friendliness and give tips on how colleges can tweak ongoing happenings in their colleges – a gathering, a rose day or exams – to make the same emotional-friendly. As they undertake certain activities on their own in the first year, and delve deeper into it, certain questions and doubts may arise in their minds…. In year two, therefore, when this demand surfaces, we will work deeper with them and suggest solutions/ clues to address more difficult issues. In the third year, we will continue to nurture them and also evaluate the programme…The endeavour will be to not only help selected colleges to become emotional-friendly, but also develop a manual for any college across India, should it wish to do so!” 

Later, when I asked Anand how could he think of these details in the very first meeting, he mentioned that he had not thought it prior to the meeting. And this plan just unrolled by itself in the meeting. He feels the inspiration of his father, a professor, may be behind this. Insight happens where thoughts cessate. 

The word Pragnya was chosen for a reason as it resonates with the basic premise of MSFDA – making colleges learning-friendly. Pragnya brings in emotional regulation. Beyond ‘intelligence’ that is construed more to mean successful grades and career, and beyond the ‘street-smartness’ and ‘management skills’ touted as being critical for success, Pragnya meant an environment that is emotionally friendly to students, that nurtures learning. IPH underlined the research evidence of effects of emotional friendliness on learning. 

In order to have an impact beyond training a few individuals, the project was designed with ‘institutions ‘ in mind. It was planned that initially, five participants from each college – “catalysts”  would be trained, and they, in turn, would train 15 more stakeholders ( including some parents as well). And then all these 20 people will be further oriented collectively through refresher online trainings. These 20 people were then expected to spread the seeds of their learnings throughout the college in a phased manner over three years. 

Amidst merciless rains of Konkan, the participants arrived at Lonere University. Anand, who had just recovered from Covid, also reached to be stationed there – to be with the participants for five days – formally from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm every day, but informally much beyond with them. He was accompanied by Vaidehi Bhide, Project communicator and two more psychologists, Mrunmayee and Ketki. A total team of 9 people from IPH is working on this project – which involves not only training, but simultaneously content generation, research and documentation. 

The five-day training was divided into three parts – the first part of two and a half days focussed on learning emotions – their awareness, acceptance, analysis and application. The second part of one and a half day focussed on developing skills to carry forward these learnings. And on the last day, each college was to present their ‘action plan’ on how to train other stakeholders in their college and continue the momentum. During the five days, participants went through a 360 degree understanding the subjects viz. functions of mind, link between thought, emotion and behaviour, self-talk, mind-body connection, emotions, emotional regulation on a college campus, effective communication, balance between self-goal and institution’s goal, merging education and entertainment, and developing roadmaps. The training incorporated activities and role-plays to enable participants to comprehend the topics better. The design and structurisation of the programme was such that action planning and future steps were incorporated into it. Further skills to carry out those activities were imparted during the training itself. And their action plans curated to enable them to continue the journey …

The motto of the training was – ‘not events but experience’. Many a times, follow-up of such trainings get reduced to conduct of certain events. While those events may have a learning of their own, Anand emphasised that those events cannot be one-off or cut-off from the regular activities of the college. In other terms, emotional friendliness has to be imbibed in every activity of the college. The regular activities of the college throughout the year have to be tweaked to make them more interesting for the students. 

‘Pragya Parisar‘ is the first training by MSFDA wherein students have participated. This brings a lot of value to the training. The peer-to-peer model is especially useful in subjects like mental well-being, wherein the students may find it much more comfortable to talk to their friends and peers rather than a teacher or a counsellor. The initial support by friends – who have been trained adequately – can be life-changing for a student going through a difficult phase, and even otherwise ! The energy that students bring to the programme, their novelty of ideas raises much the bar of the project – and adds to making education student-centric. 

Sometimes an impression is that mental well-being and emotional friendliness is something that needs to be ‘imbibed’ in students by ‘teachers’. In fact, it could be the other way round as well ! One, the teacher has to be much more understanding and sensitive, should (s)he have to inculcate such trait in students; two, many a times an unconditioned response by a student may throw new light, new ideas, promoting the concept and teaching the teacher in turn. Involvement of both teachers and students together in the project enables such harmony.

The non-teaching staff expressed that in many colleges, they may be given a secondary ‘status’ – leading to a lack of openness and inimical to a happy environment. Involvement of non-teaching staff in training along with teachers and students helped to break such barriers and brought in much needed value of interconnectedness of the eco-system. 

Colleges from Aurangabad, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Pune, Ahmednagar, Nashik and Raigad districts participated in the training. They expressed that this was a training different from routine trainings – and they did not feel like going back ! The approach of discussions and learning was appreciated. And they said – ‘we realised importance of emotions!’ Participants were from different disciplines – arts, science and commerce. The science teachers mentioned that they never had had opportunity to discuss subjects such as emotions, whereas these are common and critical for one and all. The trainees participated freely in discussions and interacted with Anand Nadkarni without any hesitation – signalling the value of openness. One participant indicated that nurturing of talent, rather than focussing only on marks, is what he learnt. Another said – he realised a need for greater communication and a feeling of love and understanding between teachers and students. The bonding between IPH team and participants got cemented through various informal activities they did together in the evenings – a walk, a satsang and much more.  A participant referred to this experience as “learning about emotions with ten books  and ten subjects open around us!”

Each college prepared and presented an action plan comprising unique activities. One teacher from Deogiri college, Aurangabad mentioned that he mentors disabled sudents in his college and derives much satisfaction from that work. The training on emotions will help him further to appreciate their point of view and do even better. Another participant remarked that having understood the gender perspective, they would hold activities and programmes in their college where female to male participation ratio is not 50:50 but 60:40 ! Some talked of using film clubs, trekking, sports and music kattas to promote their learnings. They spoke of using art and pictures to promote messaging in these subjects. Some mentioned calling inspirational people to motivate the students ( to which Anand suggested that it would help if such inspirational people are local so that everyone can relate to them). The participants also began to think of innovative names for their cells which are more friendly and different from the more fearful ones such as ‘counselling centres’ ! One spoke of initiating a Harry Potter ‘Mirror of Erised’ to speak about looking at one’s own emotions … A student from Lonere University said that grandparents have much to share, teach and guide regarding emotions. However many students may not have their grandparents staying with them. She would therefore like to organise a ‘grandparents’ night’ for everyone to collectively listen to and learn from grandparents. Further, she said, in order to appreciate more the work of staff, they would volunteer to take duties of their college guard, canteen person etc. A student suggested that they could prepare an ‘Appreciation shelf’ in college, where anyone could send admiration notes to teachers or others whosoever has been kind or helpful. A teacher agreed to keep a ‘feedback box’ in his classroom to know about his teaching. One spoke of having ‘essay writing’ – and not ‘essay writing competion‘ in the college. One important feedback from participants was, “We receive readymade training module and are told to impart it. Here, for the first time, steps for planning and implementation were given; but freedom of generating ideas was bestowed on us”.

Anand suggested everyone to take up activities which gave them happiness. He advised that processes must be enriched rather than focussing on outcomes; and mentioned that ‘goodness’ must be expressed assertively for it to flower. He provided them links to relevant resource material that might be helpful for carrying out further work. They were advised to be in close touch and keep sharing their activities. 

The training underlined many aspects of the National Education Policy, 2020. ‘This was the policy in implementation‘ – a participant remarked. Besides contribution to holistic development, the training touched upon key issues such as openness in college campus, dangers of competition, need for better teacher-student communication and relationship, addressing biases in education, and value of multidisciplinarity and aesthetics. 

One participant said that they learnt about balance between emotions, thought and behaviour – and how things can improve when it so happens. For this project, he said that MSFDA provided the thought, IPH taught them emotions, and now the colleges will implement it in their behaviour ! 

Further trainings for the remaining districts are lined up in August and September 2022. The partnership has made a start.