Abstract
Widely prevalent in a variety of educational contexts around the world, rote learning practices entail repetition techniques to acquire new knowledge. These practices have long been critiqued because of the emphasis on recall rather than deep understanding. Less attention has been directed, however, at the literacy ideologies underpinning such practices: specifically, how such practices shape what students perceive as learning and how they see themselves as learners. In order to examine this, I draw on data from an 8-year investigation into the language and literacy socialization of six young boys who lived at an orphanage and attended a village school in suburban New Delhi. In addition to uncovering ideologies related to rote learning practices, I show how students acted as “bad subjects” by discursively resisting socialization into passive learner subjectivities. The findings are then related to the reproduction of inequality within the educational system through literacy practices.
Widely prevalent in a variety of educational contexts around the world, rote learning practices entail repetition techniques to acquire new knowledge, giving primacy to recall rather than deep understanding (Mayer, 2002; Stefansson et al., 2021; Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2010). Such practices have been criticized in the educational literature for leading to the mechanical reproduction of knowledge (Mitchell & Martin, 1997), superficial learning (Hay, 2007), and passive, unanalytic learning styles (Subramaniam, 2008). The memorization of formulaic chunks of information functions as a primary learning goal within the process, leaving “no room for exploration and critical thinking” (Pande & Relia, 2020, p. 40). In India, where this present study takes place, the dominance of rote learning is considered a key failing of the educational system (Bawane, 2021; Pandey & Jha, 2021). The government, in its presentation of the most recent national education plan (i.e., the 2020 National Education Policy), framed rote learning practices as highly problematic, noting that they taught learners “what to think” rather than “how to think” (Mishra, 2020). Significantly, the educational landscape in which these practices circulate is characterized by sharp disparity: Poorer children are more likely to encounter rote learning practices, limiting their access to both language and content (Annamalai, 2005; Bhattacharya, 2017; Mohanty, 2019). For upwardly mobile students, meanwhile, schooling is more connected to meaning-making, and likelier to foster learning, creativity, and deep understanding (Gilbertson, 2016).
While there is little contention regarding the educational consequences of rote learning practices, perceptions related to such practices have been underexplored (limited exceptions include Al-Issa, 2005; Li, 2004). This is no minor area of neglect. Literacy practices are not value neutral; the socialization into and through such practices is inherently ideological (Ochs, 1988; Street, 2003). The scholarship on educational underachievement due to rote learning has illuminated how these practices are tied to students’ educational futures, but it has revealed little of the literacy ideologies, or beliefs about literacy, that underpin, sustain, or push against such practices. Why is this important? Literacy ideologies reveal how students see themselves as learners and what they construct as learning. Rooted within rote learning practices, then, this study seeks to uncover such ideologies. Moreover, since socialization into ideologies is never straightforward, I also investigate students’ resistance in the context of such practices. Specifically, my analysis of learners’ literacy ideologies reveals how they act as “bad subjects” (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004), resisting socialization into specific learner subjectivities. For this purpose, I draw on data collected over an 8-year ethnographic investigation into the language and literacy socialization of young boys living at an anathashram (orphanage) in suburban New Delhi, India, and attending a nearby village school. The following research questions guided this study:
What literacy ideologies manifest in rote learning practices? How do the children show resistance to such literacy ideologies? What role does the socialization into rote learning practices play in reproducing socioeconomic hierarchies within Indian education?
The data and analysis here illustrate, on the one hand, how such practices attempted to ideologically position students to be passive and disengaged learners, and, on the other hand, how students discursively enacted resistance to these practices. The analysis of this ideological tension is then related to wider issues of educational equity.
Background: Education and English Rote Learning in India
Rote learning practices have been employed over several millennia in India, primarily in Hindu religious instruction. These have historically played a central role in the transmission of religious texts (Sheshagiri, 2010). In the ancient Vedic period, for example, Majumdar (1979) noted: “The master recited the texts and the disciple repeated them after him as frogs croak one after another” (p. 32). The presence of rote learning practices in more formal (nonreligious) schooling contexts, however, is attributed to distinct and deliberate educational policies created and implemented during British colonial rule. Balaram (2005), for example, critiqued the “rote, routine, restriction” (p. 16) of the Indian educational system, arguing that it is a relic of an oppressive colonial system intended to produce subservient British subjectivity (see also Viswanathan, 2014). Elsewhere, Sheshagiri (2010) argued that the institutionalization of rote learning practices in Indian education occurred because of the systematization of examination processes under colonial rule.
Despite the departure of the British nearly three quarters of a century ago, such practices maintain a stronghold within the formal educational sector. Rote learning practices in English, crucially, receive the closest popular and scholarly attention. A British colonial inheritance in India, English is key for socioeconomic mobility (Chakraborty & Bakshi, 2016; Christ & Makarani, 2009; Mohanty, 2008; Ramanathan, 2005). Since neoliberalization in the early 1990s, English literacy has been intertwined with popular discourses on development and globalization; the perception of English as the language of international communication and commerce has made it highly coveted. Further, higher education is conducted almost exclusively in English; it thus serves as the key gatekeeper to educational opportunities (Christ & Makarani, 2009).
Crucially, it remains a minority, elite language, most accessible to those who live in urban areas or belong to the upper and ruling classes. The circulation of English now, thus, mirrors the colonial circumstance, where the language maintained a similar relationship to power and privilege. Rote learning practices in English form a pivot around which socioeconomic differences crystallize within English education. Wealthier students benefit from greater exposure to English in their daily lives, and they typically have access to more trained teachers, superior facilities, and better after-school support and instruction, among other privileges. Their schooling entails less rote-based English instruction, fostering creative and communicative engagement in the language, leading to more successful educational and economic outcomes (Gilbertson, 2016; Nussbaum, 2006).
Learning in poorer contexts in India, meanwhile, is already adversely affected by factors such as chronic teacher absenteeism and infrastructural issues (Nedungadi et al., 2018), widespread poverty (Tilak, 2018), child labor (UNESCO, 2015), high dropout rates (Marphatia et al., 2019), gender disparity (Sahni, 2017), graft (Kingdon, 2007), and inconsistent application of educational policy (Grant, 2012), among other issues. The dominance of rote instruction in English pedagogy, moreover, functions as another crucial problem, honing memory skills but not developing communicative ability, creativity, and critical thinking (Bhattacharya, 2013; Nussbaum, 2006). Parents of poorer students often stretch themselves thin to send their children to expensive private schools offering English-medium instruction—that is, schooling that is conducted in English. However, the returns on such schooling, particularly when it comes to English literacy, are highly questionable (Bhattacharya, 2013). The fact that rural and poorer students disproportionately encounter them is thus an important educational equity issue. Hinging on the issue of rote learning, the socioeconomic divide continues to be sharpened by questions of both access to English as well as quality of instruction, impacting student achievement as well as retention over the long term. This current investigation takes shape within this hierarchical and unequal landscape.
Rote Learning Practices, Language Socialization, and Ideologies
The broader theoretical framing in this study is that of language socialization (LS), which describes and analyzes the socialization of learners into and through language (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Within LS, a key analytic motivation is to unpack “attitudes, values, beliefs, and skills that are culturally transmitted to learners in relation to the development of literacy skills” (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986, p. 181; see also He, 2015). Notions about literacy practices within the paradigm have drawn on the work of New Literacy Studies scholars (see Sterponi, 2011), adopting an ideological approach to literacy. Street’s (2003) notion that literacy practices are ideologically charged—that is, that they function as “particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing in cultural contexts” (p. 79)—exemplifies this perspective. This current study engages these two critical aspects with reference to rote learning, analyzing matters of literacy ideology as well as practice.
Situated within LS, rote learning practices are here seen to mediate the acquisition of culturally appropriate stances, orientations, and subjectivities (see Ochs, 1988). Engaging in rote learning practices in the classroom, thus, is not seen merely as an instructional, methodological issue but also as one of socialization into particular learner subjectivities. This framing distinguishes this study from other work engaging with the analysis of rote learning in the Indian context. Critically for this investigation, the emphasis on cultural and linguistic patterns, or repetition, within LS makes it a particularly appropriate and powerful theoretical tool for studying rote learning practices. Moore (1999, 2006, 2011, 2016), for example, has done extensive work in this area, drawing on her longitudinal ethnography of rote learning practices, conceptualized as guided repetition, among young Fulbe children in Cameroon. In her analysis, she illuminated its role in children’s socialization into Islamic values and Cameroonian citizenship. Her work, like this study, situated rote learning practices within its sociocultural circulation. Working within the same framework, I rely on theories of literacy ideologies, that is, sets of beliefs about literacy and literacy practices (Auerbach, 1991; Hasselbacher, 2018). I apply this analytic in unpacking beliefs about literacy and learning associated with rote learning practices. As I show in the analysis, rote learning practices that the teachers foster in the public school classroom I studied aim to socialize children into engagements with literacy that put a premium on recall but deemphasize—or even forbid—meaning-making. However, as we see, the children articulate their resistance powerfully in their ideologically charged descriptions of rote learning, their critique of rote pedagogy, and their repeated demands for access to meaning.
The issue of resistance deserves a theoretical pause here. LS accounts for both socialization into literacy ideologies and resistance within them. Learners are not expected to mechanically and automatically acquire cultural stances, beliefs, and subjectivities; they are “selective and active participants” (Ochs, 1988, p. 165) within the socialization process (see also Sterponi, 2011). Socializing instructional interactions, thus, are not unidirectional; there is potential for students to oppose, challenge, and change the process. One powerful way of conceptualizing resistance is offered by Kulick and Schieffelin (2004), who drew on Althusser’s (1971) concept of “bad subjects,” that is, “subjects who do not recognize or respond to calls to behave in particular, socially sanctioned ways” (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004, p. 355). According to the researchers, the analysis of “bad subjects” in LS entails examining situations where socialization is unsuccessful or when it unravels in unanticipated or unpredictable ways. Berman and Smith (2021) have pointed out that “bad subjects” are conceptually similar to “novices” within LS theory, that is, positioned as those who are unable or yet to be socialized, with timing in the developmental process serving as the point of critical difference. Importantly, Kulick and Schieffelin (2004) explained that the word “bad” is not meant to carry structural contours, but in Althusserian terms, a subject is so labeled when there is refusal to “recognize or respond to socially powerful, coercive calls to inhabit certain subject positions” (p. 355). I conceptualize the children in this study as “bad subjects,” arguing that their sharp critiques against rote learning practices precisely demonstrate such rebellion. In discussing the analytic underpinnings of “bad subjects” within LS, moreover, Kulick and Schieffelin (2004) raised questions about the importance of understanding which subject positions may be within reach and the role of power in making these determinations. In the context of schooling, these kinds of considerations can have a powerful impact on learners’ access to literacies that are critical for socioeconomic mobility, as I argue here. Ultimately, “bad subjects” are those who defy normative expectations of socialization and find themselves on the margins, propelled into “trajectories of disenfranchisement” (García-Sánchez, 2015, p. 171). In describing the rote learning practices in their schooling and narrating the boys’ resistance to them, this study reveals how the children acted as “bad subjects” who discursively tried to resist such educational trajectories. The resistance, ultimately, did not allow them to evade the constraints imposed by such practices, which I later link to wider issues of educational equity.
Method: Research Context and Design
Data Collection
LS methodology facilitates the documentation of how sociocultural and linguistic patterns are absorbed in cultural memory over time (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002; Schieffelin & Ochs, 2014). LS studies adopt an ethnographic perspective characterized by longitudinal study design, field-based data collection, and conversation/discourse analysis of a substantial corpus of audio-/video-recorded naturalistic discourse (Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002; Schieffelin & Ochs, 2014).
The data used in this study deal with rote learning practices and ideologies narrowly, triangulated to offer a holistic understanding of key issues. The focal participants included six boys and three teachers. This investigation focused on data from five observations of 10 h total from 2010, 2011, and 2018 during study periods at the anathashram, as well as approximately 20 h of classroom observations at the school in 2011. Observations at both settings typically lasted 2 h. I homed in on representative moments that revealed common patterns related to rote learning practices: in how they were enacted and how resistance within them was languaged. The data used here included (a) videotaped participant observations at school, (b) videotaped participant observation of anathashram study periods, (c) semi-structured audio- and video-recorded interviews with the boys, (d) field notes (handwritten in real time and those typed immediately after), and (e) texts used in rote learning practices. I aimed to provide a “thick description” of the study context for depth (Geertz, 1973). I catalogued and transcribed audio and video data during the data collection process and after. An important note here about the transcriptions: The video and audio data used were first transcribed into Hindi, Bengali, and English. They were then glossed and translated into English. In my analysis, I worked with the transcriptions and not the English text. Transcription practices organize analyses in particular ways (Ochs, 1979); therefore, I reviewed the video data repeatedly to ensure the transcriptions honored the original language and contextual meanings as closely as possible. While I transcribed most of the data, a small portion was transcribed by an undergraduate researcher; I cross-checked her work to ensure consistency and accuracy. On return visits over the years, I had asked the children to fill in gaps in understanding, leading to a layered understanding of key literacy issues over time.
Last but not least, it is important to note here that the current investigation is part of a larger study at the anathashram spanning 12 years that examined the boys’ language and literacy socialization (for more, see Bhattacharya, 2013, 2017).
Setting
In the descriptions that follow, the names of all participants and most sites have been changed to protect identities.
The anathashram (orphanage)
The anathashram was situated in an ashram (Hindu religious commune) in Noida, a bustling city in the state of Uttar Pradesh. A priest served as administrator and was aided by two assistants. The children's ages typically ranged between 5 and 14, and they received room, board, and/or education free of charge or at subsidized costs.
The anathashram was bounded by high walls and a wrought-iron gate. Two doors led to the main building: one reserved for visitors and another for residents. There was also a kitchen-cum-dining room separated from the main building, where the children ate meals on floor mats. A spacious temple to the Hindu goddess Kali was at the heart of the ashram, its air fragrant with incense and flowers. The priest held office hours in a lobby next to the main hallway, adjoining which was a cramped TV room. On the other side of the priest's office was a computer lab and his bedroom. Boys aged 11 and older lived in the basement, while younger boys lived in the dormitory upstairs.
Life at the anathashram was dictated by routine. On weekdays, the children would awaken early and participate in prayers. Then, they would do chores. By 7:30 a.m., they would shower and eat breakfast, after which they would head for school. They would return by 2 p.m., eat lunch, and then nap. From 4 to 6 p.m., they would play cricket in the courtyard. Next, it would be time for chores until the call to prayer. After that, they would study for 2 h and then eat dinner. The younger boys would then go to sleep, while the older boys would continue studying. On weekends, the children would do chores and study, but also enjoy some coveted TV time, and phone calls and reunions with family members.
Subhash Chandra Bose public school
The school in which the children studied was Subhash Chandra Bose (SCB) Public School, located in Madhupur Village (private schools in India are referred to as “public” schools). The school had about 250 students. Madhupur was home to approximately 3,500 inhabitants. The principal of SCB, Bade (Hindi, “older”) sir, started the school in a multistoried building, renting out the ground floor to tenants, and using the first and second floors as the school. The primary section spanned kindergarten through sixth grade and took up one large room on the first floor (partitioned into five classrooms). Wooden desks were arranged so that students in one grade occupied one column, and those in the next higher grade occupied the other. The second floor had two rooms, where the higher classes were held, and the roof doubled up for teaching and conducting morning assembly. School was in session from 8 a.m. through 1 p.m., Monday through Saturday. SCB was a multigrade school, that is, children from multiple grades studied in the same classroom, which is the norm in India (Blum & Diwan, 2007). At SCB, 12 classes were thus packed into six classrooms. For the 2010–2011 academic year, four men and three women were listed as teachers at SCB. However, in January 2011 two of the female teachers left the school, but no replacements were immediately hired.
Last but not least, a note about the textbooks used in the school: Apart from the Hindi textbooks and the Class VIII Social Studies reader, all textbooks were in English. Additionally, all textbooks were modeled on the National Council of Educational Research and Training curriculum, which informs educational curricula and programs nationwide.
Participants
Anathashram participants
Although they lived in what was labeled an anathashram, some focal children had two living parents, and the rest had single parents, guardians, and access to family networks. The children's parents or guardians were mostly impoverished migrant workers, having arrived from rural West Bengal, Bihar, or Nepal to different parts of Delhi. Most of their fathers or male legal guardians were employed as daily-wage workers, security guards, or cooks, and most mothers or female guardians were employed as domestic servants. Parents or legal guardians spoke to the children weekly and visited on Sundays and on major festive occasions. The children were mostly first-language speakers of Bangla, Nepali, or Bihari and second-language speakers of Hindi.
The six focal children for this study formed a diverse group. Aryan was a long-term resident of the anathashram who was born in rural West Bengal. He had moved with his mother to New Delhi when very young, after his father passed away. A gifted artist and savvy with electronics, he was soft-spoken, good humored, and friendly. He was a diligent student but struggled with academics. Another boy, Sudheer, had also moved there from rural West Bengal. He had lost his father in a tragic incident when he was little; his mother lived in nearby Delhi. Ambitious, serious, and bright, Sudheer did well academically.
Prateek had grown up in rural Bihar. His mother remained there, while his father worked in Delhi. He was funny, intelligent, and amiable. He struggled with schooling and often expressed frustrations about the quality of teaching at school. Chaitanya, meanwhile, had moved to the anathashram with his older brother from an urban area in Uttar Pradesh. He said he had lost both his parents (though this was disputed by the administrator). He was the youngest child in the anathashram for a few years and was protected by the older children. He was sensitive and emotional and had a winning smile. He had aptitude for learning but found school difficult.
Arun had moved to the anathashram from rural Bihar. His mother lived in Delhi, and I never learned what happened to his father. He was funny, always cracking jokes and pulling pranks. Though he was sharp, he was consistently in trouble at home and at school, many times for his poor academic performance. Ajit, the final participant of this study, was from rural West Bengal. His father and younger brother had been murdered before his eyes. His mother lived near the anathashram and visited frequently. Ajit was reserved but smiled often. He was wise beyond his years, thoughtful, and diligent.
School participants
All the teachers were in their 30s and 40s and had grown up in nearby towns and villages, with Hindi as their first language. Bade sir taught several subjects to various classes in addition to acting as principal. For this study, I focused on observations with Bade sir, Raj sir, and Manav sir. All three had been educated in Hindi-medium schools and held master's degrees in various disciplines from local universities. They all taught a variety of subjects. Bade sir was stern but also occasionally playful with the students. He taught higher grades (6 and up). Raj sir was a veteran teacher who was strict and feared by the students, and he taught lower grades (1–4). Manav sir was gentle and soft-spoken for the most part, and the focal children appeared to relate to him the most. He taught mostly sciences to students in Grades 6 and up.
Data-Analysis Procedure
The data analysis unfolded in several steps, entailing at various points both analytic narrowing and conceptual expansion. The first such step involved marking the data with quick, instinctive code jottings (Saldaña, 2009), which I did throughout the data collection process. These jottings were typically one- or two-word observations I used to capture noteworthy aspects of language and literacy socialization practices. Over time, through observation of repeated patterns, I noticed the salience of rote learning in the two settings. I found that a variety of repeated codes, such as “doing studying,” “mimicking,” and “memorizing” in Bengali and Hindi, described a single literacy practice, that is, rote learning. The process of conceptually bringing these patterns together was inspired by Moore (2006), who treated the overarching code of “rote learning” in her LS study in Cameroonian schools as the same “phenomenon.”
When data collection ended abruptly in 2019 due to the pandemic, I decided to closely examine the full data corpus with a sharp focus on rote learning. It was clear by this time that it was a critical aspect of literacy instruction for both the boys and their teachers. While revisiting the data, I carefully reviewed, refined, added, and in some cases discarded codes related to rote learning. To be clear, I engaged in a constant, iterative analytic process, attending to the “patterns in linguistic and pedagogical practices, as well as in the ideologies that informed them” (Moore, 2006, p. 112). In identifying and categorizing codes, I was careful also to question my assumptions and paused reflexively on my own developing conjectures (see Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). Once I was convinced that I had all the relevant data related to rote learning, I extracted the data coded as the phenomenon of rote learning from the larger project.
The next step was to identify patterns within the now focused data that addressed the first two research questions. The first question, to recall, sought to examine literacy ideologies related to rote learning practices and the second to investigate the boys’ resistance to the same. During this process, I was careful to situate the analysis of rote learning within “focal activities, the languages, and the institutions in which they were embedded” (Moore, 2006, p. 112), to bring contextual coherence to the corpus.
In evaluating patterns in response to the first research question, I noticed the following salient themes characterizing rote learning: (a) Rote learning as recall, (b) Rote learning as teacher translation, (c) Rote learning as unanswered questions, and (d) Rote learning as English unease. In answering the second question, I focused on patterns within the children's critiques of rote learning practices. I found the following themes to be most prominent in analyzing the data for the second question: (a) Rote learning as not “knowing” or “understanding,” (b) Rote learning as temporary knowledge, (c) Rote learning as a mechanical process, and (d) Rote learning as dehumanizing. Taken together, these themes uncovered the complex, ideological dynamics at play within the practice of rote learning and helped to anchor my findings.
Positionality Statement
My reflexivity has been an integral part of this project. I was raised not far from the anathashram, in an area with a similar linguistic landscape. However, my world was one of socioeconomic and educational privilege when compared with that of the boys. My experience of schooling was markedly different, involving access to highly skilled teachers, rigorous textbooks, extracurricular opportunities, and sports and other facilities. In terms of rote learning, while there was some emphasis on memorization skills, the more sustained pedagogical efforts focused on understanding and deep learning. In my analysis, I have been mindful of the ways in which my own schooling has differed. Part of my awareness of these differences stems from the fact that my own father grew up in poverty in rural Bihar.
My initial access to the site was through my mother, who volunteered there and took me with her, brokering an introduction with the administrators and the boys. Over the years, I have played multiple roles of didi (Bangla, “elder sister”), researcher, tutor, and confidante for the children. Different aspects of my identity drew me closer to and distanced me from the boys. My Indianness in attire and speech made me familiar, whereas my working in American academia made me somewhat unknown. My status as a Delhi native brought me closer to the children, as did my parents’ status as neighborhood residents, but my life outside of India brought distance. Moreover, my marital status as a Hindu Bengali woman keyed into cultural scripts familiar to them, but that my husband was white and American complicated their perception of what that meant. The children knew I was a product of the Indian K–12 system, and they talked about the system expecting I would easily understand their references to it. But they were also acutely aware that my schooling had looked very different from theirs. I was vigilant about both these aspects in my analysis.
The role of researcher I had to navigate was thus complex, characterized by multiple scales of inbetweenness as a result of my transcontinental life trajectory. I was aware that my analysis would be refracted through my own histories with my/these people and places and worked hard to listen to the participants and honor their insights. One key point of convergence was crucial to maintaining this balance: The children and I discussed the importance of highlighting their educational struggles. No matter how differently we saw the world, that unified vision formed the foundation for building our collaborative understanding on rote learning.
Findings
The Practice of Rote Learning
Rote learning practices were the primary learning approach at SCB school. Students spent several hours a day rote learning in class, and the practice also dominated evening studies at the anathashram. In this section, I highlight specific themes that characterized literacy ideologies associated with the practices.
Rote learning as recall
Memorizing was the predominant aspect of rote learning practices at SCB, characterizing most engagement with text. English composition, for example, entailed memorizing essays dictated orally, written on the blackboard by teachers, or assigned from grammar books. Students were expected to memorize these written essays and reproduce them faithfully during tests. In an earlier study (Bhattacharya, 2013), for example, I provided an example of a “model” composition called “The Cow” that students rote learned across three grade levels. Here is a little taste: In Grade 6, the composition began: “The cow is an useful animal. We call her Gau Mata.” In Grade 7, it commenced: “Ram has a cow. She is domestic and gentle. She is brown.” In the next grade level, the text started: “The cow is a useful animal. They are white, black, brown or spotted.” Even from the few lines excerpted here, the inconsistencies and grammatical issues are evident; these would often become fossilized in memory as a result of rote learning. Further, it is noteworthy that students had to memorize variations of the same text, barely modified, as they proceeded across different levels. The sixth-grade composition, for example, was 10 lines long, the seventh grade one had 11 lines, and the eighth grade one had 10 lines. There appeared, thus, little expectation of development in language proficiency. Additionally, because they were instructed to memorize “models” for tests, students had little or no opportunity to engage in their own creative writing. Unfortunately, these poorly written texts also shaped their sense of what was supposed to be seen as superlative in English composition. While these writing practices were meant to reward rote memorizing, the students said that they found memorizing these essays to be boring, irrelevant to their lives, and demotivating. In sum, they said that they found that such practices stifled their creativity and individual voice.
Rote learning as teacher translation
At SCB, rote learning was affiliated with a high degree of reliance on translation-based pedagogies. Classes were typically lecture-style, where teachers would read out loud from the English textbooks. They would stop intermittently to translate texts into Hindi, heavily relying on translations provided in the guidebooks (i.e., the teacher's desk copies). These guidebooks, which I examined, had full Hindi translations accompanying the English lessons, and there were also glossaries with Hindi translations of key English words. Crucially, the teachers’ English-to-Hindi translations were highly unpredictable and erratic, comprising a few words or phrases, sentences, or entire paragraphs. These unsystematic translations made it harder for students to follow along, as they often complained to me. When teachers would translate an entire paragraph or phrase in a single stretch during a lesson, for example, it was not always clear what part of the English text was being translated. That is, word-level correspondence was largely missing. The inconsistent bilingual switches emerging from unsystematic translation practices, then, limited the development of English decoding skills and increased students’ reliance on rote memorization. Such switches also restricted the circulation of the target language, since most of the explanations and sense-making occurred in Hindi, with interpretations led by the guidebooks. As meaning was principally accessible through teacher-controlled translations, students themselves would remain distanced from it, which served as a constant source of frustration.
Rote learning as unanswered questions
Importantly, the children were not invited to answer questions or offered an opportunity to ask them. Teachers were seen as principal repositories of answers: They would either dictate them orally or write them out on the blackboard, which the children would then copy in their notebooks. After reading out a lesson, for example, teachers would write out answers to comprehension questions (mostly “Wh-” questions) on the board, without once engaging students. The pedagogical approach to questions, then, aimed to socialize children into passive reception of knowledge.
Here is an example. After completing the lesson “Bachendri Pal,” on the first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest (from the Baby Birds English textbook), Bade sir pointed to the question “(B). Write the root words for the following words,” which was followed by a numbered list of eight words that appeared in the lesson. Bade sir went to the blackboard and wrote out the answers: “1) mountain, 2) teach, 3) learn, 4) high, 5) continue, 6) climb, 7) success, 8) complete.” He then instructed the children to copy the answers in their notebooks. After finishing this, they were assigned to redo this exercise in their “fair” notebook and told to rote memorize the answers for upcoming tests. These were comprehension-check questions, but ultimately, given the pedagogical process, they did not “check” comprehension. Additionally, teachers ignored any questions that required interaction or group work. As a result, there was no communicative practice in English; in fact, no communicative tasks were assigned during any of my observations. Rote learning practices, we see thus, aimed to position students as those who were given answers and not as those who asked questions, fostering, in yet another way, learning passivity. The students craved communicative engagement, as they told me, but were disenfranchised as a result of pedagogical practices that positioned them as nonspeakers within the classroom.
Rote learning as English unease
For their part, the teachers shared that for them, a lack of confidence in their own English literacy skills was a key reason for relying on rote learning practices. The teachers were all second- or third-language English speakers, giving rise to what Evans and Cleghorn (2010) have referred to as complex language encounters, a context in which “teachers and their learners engage with each other in a language which neither party can use with ease” (p. 32). This led to leaning on guidebooks and heavy dependence on rote learning practices, since teachers did not want to create space for questions that they may be unable to answer. Further, given that teacher authority was of paramount importance within the classroom, this imbalance appeared important for them to maintain.
Rote learning practices, we see from these glimpses into the classroom, were primarily associated with literacy ideologies that prized passivity and not active learning, and mechanical memorizing over deep engagement with text. The children's education primarily entailed mechanical copying, memorizing, and recitation tasks. Their creative voices were stifled and meaning primarily accessed in Hindi translation of the English texts. And the students, we will see more closely next, had a lot to say about this.
The Children's Ideologies of Rote Learning
The children articulated strong resistance to these practices in everyday discourse. Their ideologies about rote learning were filled with pointed critiques. Here I outline some of the themes related to this.
Rote learning as not “knowing” or “understanding”
A principal belief about rote learning for the children was that rote learning did not lead to knowledge or understanding. For example, Prateek offered the following definition of rote learning one evening: The meaning of rote learning [is that] we memorize all just like that. And what is the difference between rote learning and understanding? In rote learning we don't know anything. If we understand then it will be useful for all our lives.
Here, he cast rote learning practices as committing information to memory “just like that.” That is, for him, there was no underlying rationale as to why one needed to memorize. When I pushed him to explain the difference between rote learning practices and understanding, he claimed that in rote learning practices, “we don't know anything.” That is, such practices meant committing language and content to memory in ways that did not lead to “knowing” or “understanding.” Importantly, he suggested, if one comprehended the material to be learned, the knowledge gained in this manner would be useful for life.
Aryan manifested similar ideologies during a different evening study period. He used the metaphor of a blank sheet of paper to describe his inability to “read” rote learned text. How do you study? I study with [my] mouth. You study by mouth meaning? I must learn by rote only. But I am very fond of understanding. You are fond of understanding? Very fond. I want that I should understand each and everything. When you do not understand, then? That feels like a [blank] paper to me only. Tension. … Seems like [blank] paper meaning? [Blank sheet of] paper, just [blank sheet of] paper. In which you don't understand anything it is only [blank] paper, no? Yes. [Currency] notes—if there is nothing imprinted on [currency] notes—then what kind of a note is it? Then is it of any use? You tell me, is it of any use?
Asserting the oral nature of the practice, Aryan complained that he was “fond of understanding” but was forced to “learn by rote only.” In this manner, he positioned the two as ideological opposites. Moreover, he invoked powerful, critical images to convey what rote learning practices meant for him. A first was that when learning by rote, engaging with text felt like reading blank pages; because he could not understand the words, the pages containing them might as well have been blank. Second, the texts were of no value since he could not understand them; they were thus akin to useless currency notes that had nothing printed on them.
It was not merely the inability to understand that was a problem, however. It was also that there was an explicit diktat dissuading students from understanding. Sudheer's interaction with his class teacher is an example of how that worked: Do you more often rote learn and study or try to understand? I try to understand but Ma’am does not explain. Ma’am says, “As much as has been taught only do that much. As much as has been taught do that much. Otherwise, you will be beaten.”
When Sudheer requested his teacher to explain the material, thus, she framed understanding as beyond the scope of classroom instruction. He was instructed to stay within the boundaries of what he was “taught”; she threatened corporal punishment if he continued to insist on explanations. This distance from understanding entailed in rote learning frustrated the students, making them highly resentful of these practices.
Rote learning as temporary knowledge
The children were also highly critical of the temporary nature of learning entailed through rote learning practices. Prateek explained this as follows: Rote learning means [that] just like that, you rote memorize. And we all write it down in the paper and come back just like that. Meaning? Meaning just like that by mouth, we put it in our brains for a little time, then [put it] in the exam. Put for a little bit of time? Yes. Then we go and write in the paper and then forget.
Here again, three times, Prateek used the phrase “just like that” to describe the process of rote memorization and the regurgitation of rote learned material in exams. For him, the lack of rationale rankled deeply: This kind of learning felt essentially meaningless. On being asked to expand, he offered that rote memorization entailed the oral intake of information and then its placement for a brief period in the brain, for the sole purpose of testing. Once exams ended, the information disappeared from the mind. In this manner, rote learning led to knowledge that was ephemeral.
Arun also invoked beliefs about the oral and temporary nature of learning within rote learning practices during one evening at the anathashram. See, what is rote learning? That is one thing that you say 10–15 times. Keep barking, keep barking. Keep barking, keep barking? Hey, that's it, keep saying, keep saying. Okay, then, if it stays in the mind—then okay, then it will be remembered for two-three days.
Here, we see, the repetitive and impermanent nature of rote learning practices is reiterated. An interesting departure was Arun's construction of the oral repetition component of rote memorization as “barking.” The linking of the description to an animal sound illustrated the dehumanizing aspect of rote learning practices, which I address in a later section.
Chaitanya, seated near Arun, offered similar views regarding the fleeting nature of knowledge so acquired. Rote learned thing, I mean, you will then [for] three, three-four days remember. Then for the paper, that's all. [The] work is finished, [the] paper is finished. Everything has left the brain. Then anything leaves the brain. Now I want to understand. Now if I don't know something, [then] I am compelled to learn by rote. Why is understanding important? The understanding is important because
I rote learn then—then after three-four days we will forget only. If one understands then we can remember for many days. What [do you mean] “days,” [it] will be remembered for all time only. Yes, yes, yes, many days.
Arun, to begin, invoked as well the evanescent nature of knowledge acquired through rote learning practices, stressing that it was retained for mere days. He also emphasized that it lasted only as long as the “paper” (exams) lasted, and after that, “everything…left the brain.” Just like Aryan, Chaitanya asserted that he wanted to understand instead. But, as Aryan had also noted, he felt forced to learn through rote practices. Notably, Chaitanya also framed rote learning practices as distinct from understanding texts. When Chaitanya noted that understanding meant that the learned material would be retained for “many days,” Ajit, overhearing, interrupted and offered a correction, dismissing the use of the word “days,” asserting instead that understanding would lead to retention “for all time.” Chaitanya quickly agreed. Retention of knowledge, thus, was clearly linked to the practice through which it was acquired.
Rote learning as a mechanical process
The children's literacy ideologies also revealed that they were unhappy with the mechanical and unimaginative nature of rote learning practices. They would often talk about the emphasis placed in the classroom on mechanically writing down what the teacher dictated. One evening, I gestured toward a Word Meaning exercise in Arun's textbook, asking him what it was. He and Prateek were seated together, doing homework. This is word meaning. This Sir says, “Take this down with black pen this with blue pen.” Just keep imprinting, imprinting, imprinting. Till here will get done. Then if [he] asks for [its] meaning no one will know it. This means you memorize it. Copy and paste.
As Prateek was explaining that the exercise I asked about was “word meaning,” Arun entered the conversation, saying that “Sir” (his class teacher) would tell them to note down the words with black pen and the associated meanings in blue pen. He followed that with the comment, “Just keep imprinting, imprinting, imprinting,” using the Hindi infinitive “to stamp” or “to imprint.” Rote learning practices were here considered akin to mechanically imprinting, in a way that did not entail the processing of words. Moreover, Prateek claimed that if the teacher were to ask the students the meaning of a word, “no one [would] know.” This was because memorization did not offer a real connection to meaning. Aryan summed up the process pithily thus, agreeing: “Copy and paste.” Literacy, in this manner, was an imitative, perfunctory exercise, leading to insubstantial, unprocessable knowledge.
Rote learning as dehumanizing
The children's literacy ideologies, further, demonstrated how rote learning practices negatively shaped their conceptions of themselves. Specifically, such practices resulted in their feeling dehumanized. Recall Arun's comment about the process of learning through such practices as “barking.” This was not an unusual perspective. During an evening study period, for example, Arun, Prateek, and I were talking about the process of studying. I asked whether they tried to learn with understanding or by rote. Both said they primarily learned by rote. Aryan had previously shared with me that he experienced “self-hatred” because he could not understand texts. He informed me that his mind told him to understand, but his brain told him to memorize. I asked him to elaborate on his process of studying, and he offered: I am a rote learning individual. Hmm? You are a rote learning individual? I am a parrot.
Here, tellingly, Aryan defined himself as a “rote learning individual,” a “parrot.” We see thus that rote learning practices had a clear dehumanizing component for the children: For one, the act of oral repetition was like senseless barking, and for another it felt like a parrot's mindless mimicry. Not only were the words uttered in the practice of rote learning considered meaningless, but the divorcing of sound from meaning reduced the utterer to animal form. The critical part to note here, of course, is that this process led Aryan to define himself as a parrot, that is, as nonhuman, and also generated feelings of self-loathing. Later that week, he offered a rhyming Hindi couplet that he created to respond to my query about rote learning: Rote learned knowledge, decreasing intelligence.
This is an important critique for the children: Rote learning practices not only kept them from learning, but, from their perspective, also effectively reduced their intelligence. Thus, not only did these practices distance students from learning material, but they also affected their ability to learn and process knowledge in the long run.
Discussion
Situated within the LS paradigm, the core ambition of this study was to uncover ideological perspectives underpinning literacy practices, specifically rote learning, and to unearth resistance within these educational mechanisms. Their ideologies helped illuminate the boys’ self-conception as learners and shed light on what they conceived of as learning.
The first research question focused on literacy ideologies manifested in rote learning practices. The analytic themes clarified that such practices sought to socialize children to be passive receptors of information within schooling. Students were taught to regurgitate texts, with little or no expectation of meaningfully engaging with them. Unsystematic translation practices, further, made it difficult for learners to develop their English skills, especially when it came to decoding English texts. This made learners heavily dependent on teachers’ explanations and interpretations since all their textbooks were in English. Moreover, students were trained not to respond to questions or raise them; answers were fashioned as the sole domain of teachers. Inadequate English training of teachers, further, exacerbated reliance on rote learning. The ideologies of literacy that undergirded the children's educational experience, we saw then, shaped a culture of learning characterized by compliance, copying, and constraint. For the children, this resulted in an intellectually suffocating educational experience.
Significantly, the boys demonstrated strong resistance to the practice of rote learning, which the second research question sought to capture. The students’ forceful resistance should not be framed as extraordinary: As Ochs (1988) previously outlined, learners are always “selective and active participants” (p. 165) in socialization processes. I argue here that the children's sharp critiques and refusal to discursively inhabit passive learner subjectivities revealed how they functioned as “bad subjects” (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004) within the context. They enacted resistance to “powerful, coercive calls to inhabit certain [learner] subject positions” (Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004, p. 355) within the classroom context in multiple ways. This resistance was clear in how they critically defined, described, and evaluated rote learning practices. It also surfaced in their repeated, poignant expressions of desire for deeper and more meaningful connection to learning. For the students, it was clear that rote learning practices did not support them in attaining their higher educational goals; they grasped clearly that these practices did not lead to knowing or understanding. In fact, rote learning led to such disconnection from texts that reading was akin to grappling with blank sheets of paper. Additionally, for the boys, knowledge acquired through such practices was transient: There was no long-term retention of the information to which they were exposed. As a result, they were unable to build incrementally upon knowledge as they progressed through classes. The blinkered and robotic focus on test performance made them devalue their learning practices as well. The children also frequently decried their inability to ask questions; this led them to feeling further constrained in their learning. Furthermore, they critiqued rote learning practices as being mechanical, that is, not requiring intellectual or creative manipulation. Finally, the children viewed such practices as dehumanizing and inspiring self-contempt. As “bad subjects,” then, the boys repeatedly articulated their resistance to passive learner subjectivities through barbed critique.
Despite the powerful realms of resistance, the children were still forced to rote learn, they complained, because meaning-making was effectively discouraged, denied, or restricted by classroom practices. Regrettably, they were largely circumscribed by the learner subjectivities made available to them within the classroom, and they had little power to change their educational circumstances. In the resulting tussle, most of them disconnected from learning, since accepting rote learning fully felt like submission to forced passivity. They could not switch to a different school, had limited after-school support in their learning, and had little access to English outside of school. There was not an easy, clear path out of this mess. Most of the focal children mentioned here struggled extensively in school. Sudheer was the only exception, and that was likely because he had attended a superior English-medium private school as a child before his family's circumstances changed and he entered the anathashram. By the end of data collection, two of the six boys had dropped out of school, and all but one of the remaining (i.e., Sudheer) were at high risk for doing the same after 10th grade. Initially, these boys had aspired to be pilots, doctors, and army officers; with time, soured from their struggles in school, their ambitions were markedly recalibrated. Most said they would “sit in a shop” (work as an assistant in a shop) after completing schooling. Their English skills had stagnated over the many years I had known them. Given the high-stakes nature of English proficiency for employment and higher educational opportunities, their limited English skills made the better life they had earlier imagined quite out of reach. All of them felt demotivated and convinced that the educational system was not set up for their success. They were not wrong. And rote learning practices were at the heart of this crisis of learning.
Conclusion
For many children in India, particularly those on the socioeconomic, linguistic margins such as the children at the anathashram, rote learning practices remain, unfortunately, primary mechanisms for teaching and learning. Importantly, rote learning plays a critical role in restricting how deeply students can engage in critical analysis of educational content, because the content itself is rendered inaccessible or only superficially accessible through such practices. The boys’ literacy experiences align well with what exists in the relevant scholarly literature regarding how rote learning practices stifle learning in marginalized educational contexts in India. Velaskar (2010) has claimed that the Indian education “system is brazenly committed to privilege and nurture the merit of middle and upper caste/class children and actively denies same standards and development of merit, in the case of poor and historically excluded and subordinated groups” (p. 69). Rote learning plays a critical role in maintaining this unequal system. Ultimately, there is well-established research in this field to show how such practices keep poorer children in a cycle of perpetual educational “disenfranchisement” (see García-Sánchez, 2015). It shows that children are forced to become passive learners and pay the price socioeconomically down the road. The point of departure for this study is that it does not craft a straightforward story of socialization into passive learner subjectivities through rote learning practices. It not only highlights key literacy ideologies underpinning such practices, but also elucidates how learners may resist such passive subjectivities within the literacy socialization process at a discursive level. I suggest that moving forward, we explore how to channel and foster such critical thinking to counter the challenges of rote learning in marginalized contexts.
One question deserves a pause here: If the children were systematically socialized into such passive learning practices, how did they develop their criticality, as manifested in their critiques? The concept of “bad subjects” is again useful to bring up here; it captures what happens when socialization processes take unexpected turns. The children do not follow the anticipated trajectory of becoming passive learners. In my long-term work at the anathashram, I have seen their criticality develop through peer interactions and in the informal learning spaces they occupy at home. Tracking the development of criticality, creativity, and resistance among the boys is beyond the scope of this current article; I can, however, offer an anecdote to illustrate what I mean by those informal learning spaces.
In the winter of 2014, I was studying science ideologies at the anathashram. The children struggled to answer a basic question: What is science? They offered me various definitions, mostly regurgitated from their textbooks. In school, as we know, science was learned by rote. The children often complained that they had to rote learn science experiments and their results without ever being able to participate in lab work, which their textbooks presupposed. Then one evening, a child called me over while he was playing with some younger boys. He bent down on the cement floor, took a coin, and swiped it hard against the concrete. The coin sparked against the floor. The other children cheered. He laughed and explicitly offered it as a response to my question about science. I had my answer: Even as the children struggled with science learned by rote at school, there was a tangible connection that emerged in informal learning contexts. It was not schooled learning, but it was personal, playful, meaningful, and powerful. That was the type of critical thinking that the children acquired and displayed outside of formal schooling settings, primarily in interactions with their peers. Unfortunately, there was no room for that in their schooling.
Looking Ahead
There remains much to uncover in terms of further research. Informal learning contexts, such as the one mentioned previously, could serve as one avenue for further exploration, particularly in locating literacies that circulate outside of the strictures of rote learning. Additionally, I see a need for closely investigating rote learning across socioeconomic classes, language media, and urban/rural contexts so that we can make stronger claims about these practices and their unequitable educational impact. Unfortunately, there is sparse literature in India comparing the educational contexts of the privileged and those who are on the socioeconomic margins. The more privileged spaces remain notably invisible, underscrutinized; this is another aspect that merits further study. Further, policies like the National Education Policy cannot quickly undo the negative impacts of rote learning practices simply by government proclamation. There is a compelling need to assess and document how educational processes, policies, and practices shift over time and to carefully examine their on-the-ground impact. How rote learning is addressed in teacher training is another aspect for exploration. Future studies could also offer insight into teachers’ explicit ideologies regarding rote learning practices, an aspect that is undeveloped here. A switch is clearly warranted from dated methods that privilege “parroting” over understanding, but, importantly, there also has to be an ideological transformation that deeply values comprehension and literacy engagement. The traumatizing “rote, routine, restriction” (Balaram, 2005, p. 16) systems that have been lodged in place since colonial times must be cast aside, and the path forward must open up possibilities for deeper, more meaningful learning for students across socioeconomic divides.
Ultimately, this study directs our gaze at how socialization into particular literacy ideologies is intended, achieved, and resisted through literacy practices. It elucidates how, through such practices, children come to see themselves as learners and how they construct learning. Such lessons are not limited in their application to Indian education. In any literacy context, it is worthwhile to consider which literacy practices we embrace in our classrooms and why. We must also question how literacy practices shape student learning across socioeconomic divides. How do they perpetuate inequalities? We must ask intentionally: What are the histories of oppression of literacy practices into which we socialize our students? What do we teach our students about learning and knowledge through specific literacy practices? What learner subjectivities do we encourage our students to occupy? How do we constrain or foster curiosity, creativity, and criticality through literacy practices? For educators and literacy scholars alike, these kinds of reflections are crucial in ensuring that we honor and humanize all our learners, engage them in learning, support them in a just and equitable manner, and give them an equal chance for making meaning in the world.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
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