Teaching for ‘Global Telephony’: A case study of a community school for India’s 21st century

Abstract

Although controversial, perhaps no piece of legislation has the potential to transform India’s future more than the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). Upon the passage and enforcement of RTE in 2009, the Indian government instituted a series of wide-ranging reforms to India’s education system. For example, the act mandates that all private elementary schools (Classes I–VIII) reserve 25% of their class strength to underprivileged children. Private schools have options regarding their adherence to this law. One option is to provide “Equal Opportunity Schools” where underprivileged children are provided a quality education but in a separate school building. In response to RTE, a number of private schools are considering the “community school” model as a possible way to meet the “Equal Opportunity School” provision. While many definitions exist for a “community school,” one defining feature of a community school is that it is more localized and often reflects the customs and traditions of village life. This article’s purpose is to examine a Bangalore-based private school’s response to RTE. Specifically, the article describes a case study of the creation of a community school with the mission to bridge the local and the global with the aid of laptop technology.

At the southern periphery of Bangalore, India, is an area known for its stately and highly acclaimed international school campuses. Coconut and palm trees bound much of the surrounding environs. This is an area of Bangalore where a person can see water buffalo trudging through rice fields, which are adjacent to the walls of gated communities that guard homes with two-car garages. It is the encroachment of affluence on the idyllic; an area where modern India meets ancient India. At the border of one of the area’s international schools, a kilometer-long gravel road leads to a small, primary school campus that I will refer to throughout this article as Komu Community School. At the school’s entrance there is a white sign, similar in size to a parking signpost. The bright red letters on the sign greet each visitor with this statement: “You are now entering an equal opportunity school.” The sign is both a purpose statement and a political statement. Indeed, Komu Community is a school that prepares India’s most common elementary-aged children—the underprivileged children living in villages—with language and technology skills for a successful future and a deep appreciation of their villages.

The purpose of this article is to report on how Komu Community implements its educational mission by bridging the local and the global with the aid of laptop technology. Throughout the article, I develop and expand a theoretical framework for investigating the intersection of globalization, education, locality, and technology. I refer to this framework as “global telephony. ¹ ” In defining global, I follow Kumar’s (2003) assertion for the need of a critical methodology for understanding the terms: global and globalization. A critical methodology for defining globalization includes recognizing how the terminology is: (a) scaffolded by local meanings and global happenings; and (b) situated in “context of power and inequality” (Kumar, 2003: 108). Thus, I define “global” as a complex (and contested) phenomenon that reflects the tension between identities of power, locality, culture, and equality. By telephony, I mean something semiotic or metaphorical rather than a literal description of telecommunications. For the purposes of this article, I use the word “telephony” to capture how technology is used as communication tool, which allows for the transmission and interpretation of ideas. Thus, I define telephony as how ideas are transmitted and reinterpreted with the aid of technological tools, specifically computer technology. In this article, I construct the theoretical concept of “global telephony” through a case study of Komu Community School. I start by describing the case study and then revisit the terminology at the end of the article.

Komu Community School’s context

Earlier, I explained that the “equal opportunity” sign at Komu Community’s front entrance delivered both a purpose statement and political statement. Komu Community’s purpose is to provide a high-quality education for local village children. The school’s administrators and teachers define this “high-quality education” as immersed in an English medium curriculum that prepares students with technology skills. Such an education also delivers a political message. Unlike the neighboring international school campuses, which serve many of Bangalore’s wealthiest families, Komu Community is a school for the children of the day laborers at the local brick kiln and the krishikaru, which is the name for those who toil in the surrounding ragi fields. Komu Community serves the population living outside the stately gates of the international schools.

Since Indian Independence in 1947, the Indian government has attempted to address the challenge of providing education for all children in India (Govinda, 2007). India’s Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) campaign, also known as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, has increased India’s elementary school numbers. As part of the UEE campaign, the Indian legislature has begun to enforce the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). This act, passed by the Indian parliament in 2009, gives all Indian children between 6 and 14 years of age a legal right to a free elementary education. Komu Community originated as the way in which one of Bangalore’s international schools chose to comply with the 25% rule in the RTE (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2009). The 25% rule states that all private schools throughout India have to reserve one-quarter of their classroom seats for underprivileged children. Alternatively, the private schools can construct a separate school building, called an “Equal Opportunity School,” that is specifically for underprivileged students living in the area around the private school. Komu Community is an example of such an Equal Opportunity School. The children who attend Komu Community live in villages that are within a five kilometer radius of the school. To carry out its purpose of providing equal opportunities through a high-quality education, a community school model was adopted for Komu Community. The community school model, which has become increasingly popular among policymakers in developing countries, is a model of education that seeks to empower local communities (Sujatha, 1999; UNESCO, 2009, 2010). One way that community schools empower the community is through their commitment to teach about local customs. Another way that community schools give power to local communities is by directly employing teachers who are from that community. All the Komu Community teachers live in the same local villages where their students live.

The reflection of the local villages is evident even as one walks down the dusty road that leads to the Komu Community campus. Large murals adorn the five campus buildings; the murals show Hindu gods, people working in fields, and dancing celebrations. Signs explain the meaning of each mural. The signs are written in English and in the Kannada script, the official state language of the State of Karnataka where Bangalore is located. These signs seem to be more for visitors than for the students who attend Komu Community. For the students, the murals communicate symbolic meanings of local customs far beyond what 140 words on a sign could capture. The murals are the tangible examples of Komu Community’s commitment to being a community school. The school campus is designed to look like a village school, albeit one that is quite upscale. Small fields of ragi, millet, and red sorghum surround three sides of the school campus. Coconut trees tower over the grain fields; these trees form a natural border between the school and the forest where many of the area’s small villages are located. Before Komu Community created a policy of busing all their students to the school, many of the school’s children would walk to school via the forests and fields. Tardiness, among the students, became an issue because so many children would take their time “to smell each coconut,” as one Komu Community administrator put it, as they walked to school. So Komu Community now buses all its students to and from the school campus each day. Besides the school buses, the only other motorized vehicles that traverse gravel road to Komu Community are the administrators’ compact cars and the occasional Bajaj scooter.

It is common to see families packed on a scooter or walking along the dusty road. The families’ purpose is to apply for the chance to get their children selected to Komu Community. Although Komu Community was still in its inaugural year during the time of my field research (January through May of 2011), the school quickly gained an excellent reputation among the local villages. The school’s student capacity is 300 students from first grade to sixth grade. In its first year, Komu Community had over 1200 applicants for their 300 spots. Every day I visited Komu Community, there were local villagers lined up by the principal’s office door to fill out applications for the next academic year. I noticed the earnestness in the villagers’ faces as they hoped to secure a seat at Komu Community for even just one of their children.

While the villagers waited in line, I observed many of them curiously scanning the campus grounds, which most likely seemed a bit peculiar. Indeed, in keeping with the idea of a community school, the Komu Community campus was landscaped and manicured to resemble a village. For example, a large mango tree was planted in the center of campus to provide a shady place for the children to congregate. For the villagers, the mango tree must have looked somewhat familiar because in many Indian villages a large tree, typically a Banyan tree, provides a central gathering spot. Komu Community’s mural of the chital, or spotted deer, striding through stalks of grain depicted an everyday bucolic scene. Similarly, the villagers would have recognized the bust of Ravana, the red-faced demon, perched on an overhang warding off any evil spirits.

Yet, there were parts of the Komu Community campus that the Komu Community administrators stated would likely seem rather strange to the villagers. Children typing away on laptop computers might have sounded unfamiliar. Another curiosity might have been the school’s brick privy building that had a steel roof, a separate bathroom areas for boys and girls, and sit-down flush toilets that were plumbed to a septic system. The school’s durable materials unveiled the monetary investment in building a first-class community school campus. Yet, there is some irony in the building materials as the material cost of the school would likely have been more rupees than many villagers would ever hope to earn over their lifetime. While the school seeks to reflect the cultural context of the surrounding villages and people, Komu Community is also a school committed to preparing its students to live in a globalized world. This is evident from the Komu Community mission statement that is showcased near the entry door of each classroom. The statement reads: “Our mission is to prepare twenty-first century citizens possessing a strong sense of the community with a global perspective.” The Komu Community administrators believe this mission is best delivered with a curriculum supported by laptop-based computer technology and focused on developing English language proficiency.

Case study method and investigation

My specific research purpose at Komu Community School was to investigate how its fifth graders construct meaning for their use of the school’s laptop computer technology. This investigation was part of a larger ethnographic study of the uses and meanings for computer technology in a variety of Bangalore’s elementary schools. At each school I visited, I collected four sources of data: artifacts, field observations, interviews, and questionnaires. I analyzed these data to form a case study of each school (Yin, 1994, 2008). The field observations, in the form of participant observation and detailed field notes, comprised a large percentage of the collected data as I averaged over 50 hours of field observation time at each school.

In the rest of this section, I describe how the Komu Community mission was implemented through the school’s fifth grade curriculum. I spend some time in this section unpacking and describing the social context of the school’s fifth grade classroom. I narrate the majority of this contextual description in the present tense to draw the reader into the context, which as Van Maanen (1988) asserts is how “to crack up open a context … and present the doing of fieldwork rather than the done” (p. 102). In cracking open this context, I describe the classroom spaces and the uses for the school’s laptops. I share a small, but specific “impressionist tale” (Van Maanen, 1988: 101). By “impressionist tale,” I mean a retelling of an actual situation that happened in the field, which includes my interpretation of what was happening in the event. Since the “impressionist tale” is short, I call it a “snapshot.” I also narrate the snapshot in the present tense to invite the reader to observe what I observed (Van Maanen, 1988). The snapshot captures the curriculum-in-use (Anyon, 1981). The curriculum-in-use refers to how a school’s interpretations for the use of laptops, for example, come to fruition through the curriculum.

Komu Community’s fifth grade

The Komu Community fifth graders share a classroom building with the sixth grade students. A brick wall separates the building’s two classrooms. The building is painted in a garnet color that contrasts nicely with the jade-colored, steel roof. Geometric patterned rangoli form a decorative border around the building’s two mustard-colored classroom doors. The fifth grade classroom is rather spacious. Each wall is decorated with bulletin boards. One bulletin board contains hand-drawn pictures of the nervous system. Another bulletin board contain proverbs like: (a) “Good work attracts good people” (b) “Silence and smile are two powerful tools” (c) “Talk less and work more” (d) “The student’s life is a golden life” (e) “Where there is a will there is a way” (f) “Practice makes man perfect” and (g) “Knowledge is power.”

The students’ desks, 25 in all, take up the classroom’s floor space. The desks are arranged in five small groups, with five desks per group. In one of classroom’s front corners, a large metal storage locker contains all the classroom’s laptops. In front of the locker, a small table and metal folding chair provide a makeshift teacher’s desk. A keyboard rests on top of the table; the keyboard is attached to a computer that sits on the floor. The teachers use this computer to operate the classroom’s Smartboard. Two small sound speakers are affixed above the Smartboard while a large political map of India hangs next to the Smartboard. An LCD projector, which points to the Smartboard, is bolted to an overhead ceiling beam.

Although there are 25 student desks in the fifth grade classroom, there are actually 50 fifth graders who attend Komu Community. To accommodate all these students, the school day is divided into two shifts: the morning shift and the afternoon shift. There are 25 students in each shift. The morning shift starts at 8am and finishes by 11:30am so that these students can eat their mid-day meal, which is provided by the school. The afternoon students arrive in their buses just a little after 12 pm to eat their mid-day meal. The afternoon shift starts at 12:30 pm and goes until 4 pm. Regardless of the shifts, though, the order and sequence of the fifth grade daily schedule stays the same. Each school day, the fifth grade students have five class periods that are 40 minutes in length.

English and mathematics are scheduled every day, and on some days, the students have two class periods of mathematics and English. Each week the fifth graders receive 320 minutes of English language instruction and have 240 minutes of mathematics. English represents 32% of the weekly schedule and mathematics takes up 24% of the weekly schedule. Together, English and mathematics are the subjects that the students spend the majority (56%) of their week learning. Throughout the week, the fifth graders also have four class periods (16%) of science, three periods (12%) of social studies, two periods (8%) of second language (Kannada), and two class periods (8%) of information and communication technology (ICT).

The fifth grade has 25 laptops, one for each student who attends whether in the morning shift or afternoon shift. The laptops are Jetway Ecomos with a 10-inch screen and are connected to the school’s wireless network (Wi-Fi) to allow students to access the Internet. There is one fifth grade teacher, Ms. Mamita, and two ICT teachers, Ms. Eshani and Mr. Tarun. Both ICT teachers have responsibility for ICT instruction throughout the whole school. Ms. Eshani is the lead ICT teacher for the fifth graders while Mr. Tarun provides technical support. Ms. Mamita, the fifth grade classroom teacher, is responsible for teaching the core fifth grade subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, and social studies.

Snapshot of the curriculum-in-use

Ms. Eshani begins the fifth grade ICT lesson by announcing it is a “practical lesson in PowerPoint.” What she means by practical is that the fifth graders will be creating a document with Microsoft PowerPoint rather than just learning about a PowerPoint feature, which would be called a “theory lesson.” When Ms. Eshani says “practical lesson” the fifth graders let out a buzz of excitement, they open their laptops, which are already on their desks, on click on the Microsoft PowerPoint icon. After the brief commotion, Ms. Eshani continues with her lesson, “Children, today you are going to make advertisements in PowerPoint. Tell me, children, what is advertisement?”

The fifth graders, whose desks are arranged in groups, begin talking to one another, but the students do not offer an answer. Ms. Eshani interrupts their caucusing and states, “Can no one tell me? Children, maybe you need clue? Would you like clue for advertisement?” The fifth graders call out, “Ma’am, yes, ma’am. Ma’am, please, ma’am.” Ms. Eshani smiles and replies, “Okay, children, I give you clue. You find advertisements in paper.” She then holds up a copy of the Deccan Herald, a popular English language newspaper in Bangalore. Several hands go into the air accompanied by shrieks of, “Ma’am, I know, ma’am! Ma’am, ma’am, pick me, ma’am!” Ms. Eshani points to a girl who is waving her hand. The girl exclaims, “Ma’am, advertisement is selling picture, ma’am.” Ms. Eshani replies, “Yes, advertisement is picture in paper to sell you things—like this.” Ms. Eshani points to an advertisement on the Deccan Herald front page. Then Ms. Eshani continues, “Today, I give you different advertisements. Then, you make advertisement with PowerPoint.”

Ms. Eshani starts to distribute cut-outs of the newspaper advertisements. As she is passing out the advertisements, Ms. Eshani tells the students to re-create their advertisement on a PowerPoint slide. She lets the students know that they can change the color of the text, but the advertisement design should be similar to the cut-out example. Ms. Eshani also tells the students that if they do not know what a word means on their advertisement cut-out to go to Google and search for the word or ask one of their group members. The fifth graders begin re-creating their advertisements using PowerPoint.

I watch as a fifth grade boy re-creates an advertisement about Hewlett-Packard (HP) laptops that corresponds with a promotion during the Holi festival (Holi is an Indian holiday, celebrated during springtime, which often includes children throwing colored powder on each other). At the top of the PowerPoint slide, the boy inserts a Word Art text book that has a multi-colored font. The boy looks at the advertisement cut-out that is next to his laptop and then begins to type, “Happy Holi from HP Computers.”

The boy opens a new window and goes to Google Images. He types and searches for “laptops.” The boy scrolls down a page of laptop images. He finds one he likes and copies the image using his laptop mouse pad. Then, the boy clicks on his PowerPoint window and pastes the picture on the PowerPoint slide. Using the laptop mouse pad, he moves the image over to the left side. The boy clicks back on the Google Image window, selects another laptop image, copies it, and pastes this second laptop image on his PowerPoint slide. The boy slides the second laptop image directly underneath the first laptop image. The boy then looks down at the advertisement cut-out. He studies it. Then he goes back to the PowerPoint slide. He clicks on the “Text Box” icon. Using the mouse pad, the boy moves the textbox to the right of the first laptop image. The boy clicks on the textbox and changes the background color of the textbox to red. He looks down at the advertisement cut-out and then begins to type in the red textbox a bullet point list of features of the laptop. On the final line of the textbox, he changes the font size, taps the caps lock key, and types, “BEST BUY: Rs 26,000 + TAX.”

The boy picks up the advertisement cut-out, takes a few moments to compare the cut-out with what he has copied so far on the PowerPoint slide, and then puts the cut-out back on his desk next to the laptop. The boy creates another textbox on the PowerPoint slide; he colors this textbox yellow, and places the yellow textbox next to the second laptop image. The boy types in a bullet point list along with a “best buy” price in the textbox. He then saves his PowerPoint slide to a USB thumb drive. A couple of days later, during the next ICT class time, the boy would present what he called his “Holi laptop advertisement.”

Analysis of snapshot

This snapshot reveals a common use of the Komu Community laptops by the fifth graders. The students use their laptops to create and present PowerPoint documents. The snapshot also depicts the larger meanings that are assigned to the laptops. First, the laptops are practical. Not only is the laptop practical for copying and re-creating advertisements, but it is also practical for looking up the meaning of English words. A second meaning is that the laptops provide a way to practice English vocabulary. The snapshot captures the dominant pedagogy for learning English vocabulary: copying, or imitating, an artifact. However, although the fifth graders were copying (or re-creating) their cut-out advertisements, this practical exercise provided them with an opportunity to use a variety of PowerPoint features.

After her lesson was finished, I interviewed Ms. Eshani and discussed the lesson in more detail. The first thing that Ms. Eshani asserted was that this kind of PowerPoint activity is good practice for students who are interested in future careers in graphic arts. Ms. Eshani also believed that the activity provided practice with presenting. She explained that verbal presentation allowed the students to gain confidence as they practice their English in front of an audience. Indeed, student presentation is a regular part of the pedagogical practices within the Komu Community fifth grade.

During our interview, Ms. Mamita, the lead fifth grade teacher, echoed the same sentiments about the importance of student presentation. I first asked her, “What two words or phrases do you think of when you hear the word laptop or computer?” Ms. Mamita responded with “good for English presentation” and “saves energy” ² during her interview, I followed up about what she meant about “good for English presentation.” Ms. Mamita replied, “Laptops help children learn English and presentation help children practice their English, so they can learn their English better.” What both Ms. Eshani and Ms. Mamita agreed upon was that their students’ PowerPoint presentations were a tangible outcome for building confidence with English.

The students’ constant creation of PowerPoint presentations was something that I was struck by in my field observations. I probed this practice further in my interviews and asked Ms. Mamita, “I have noticed that the students create a lot of PowerPoint presentations, what is the purpose for making PowerPoint presentations?” Ms. Mamita explained that there are two purposes for the students to work on PowerPoint. First, PowerPoint helped the students build their technical knowledge about the software. For example, students learned how to design a PowerPoint slide by using bullet points, inserting clipart, and including WordArt. Second, PowerPoint gave the students practice and confidence with communicating their ideas in a text-based and verbal way. Here is how Ms. Mamita put it: “I want the children to organize and communicate what they are learning. The more the children communicate in English, the more confidence they will have with English. I tell them, the more you present the more confidence you will have in your English.”

So what did the students have to say about using the laptops? I conducted a focus group interview with eight fifth grade students. My first interview question was, “What words or phrases do you think of when you hear the word laptop or computer?” Although I had an interpreter for this focus group interview, the students responded in English with these associations: “English (repeated five times),” “PowerPoint (repeated four times),” “Google (repeated three times),” “games,” “fast,” “learning,” and “whole world.” I was curious about the words that the students repeated. Specifically, I wanted to find out why English and PowerPoint, and Google were repeated a couple of times.

First, I asked about English, “Why English, why does the laptop make you think of English?” A girl replied, “Sir, laptops help us learn English. Laptop will help me speak English nicely.” Another fifth grade girl interrupted and shared, “Sir, if I do not know English then I do not know how to use laptop. English and the laptop help me find a good job.” Like their teachers’ interpretation, the students had a strong association with the laptops helping to improve their English or as the first girl put it, “to speak English nicely.” The students also communicated that English was part of operating a laptop and if they do not know English, then they will not know how to use a laptop. Conversely, the students emphasized how using their laptops was part of their English language development.

Second, I also followed up about why PowerPoint was repeated four times. A boy in the focus group explained, “Sir, we learn English with PowerPoint. We like PowerPoint. We enjoy it because we can include pictures with English words.” A girl in the focus group added, “We show our PowerPoint to the class. We speak in English when we show PowerPoint.” What these students were communicating is how PowerPoint gave them a chance to practice English. PowerPoint represents activity-based learning. As the snapshot illustrated, when creating their PowerPoint advertisements, the Komu Community students are actively using English vocabulary. They are matching pictures to text. Thus, PowerPoint provides a tool for understanding English vocabulary, a tool for providing a contextual meaning to English words. In their creation of PowerPoint presentations, the students developed a deeper understanding of English vocabulary by including images with the vocabulary. Likewise, the students’ verbal presentations provided great practice for communicating in English.

Global telephony in the Komu Community mission

To this point, I have described how Komu Community’ fifth grade teachers and students interpret the school’s laptops as a tool for English language proficiency. Such an interpretation reflects the “telephony” of the Komu Community laptops. The laptops have become more than just hardware and software; the laptops are symbols for the promises of English proficiency. But what are the promises of English language proficiency within Bangalore? And how did such a vision for the laptops emerge at a community school? These questions shed light on how Komu Community’s “telephony” embraces the “global” encroachment that surrounds the school. Later on in this article, I critically examine the paradox of “global telephony” as it relates to the prominence of English, the language of colonialism, within India. For now, though, I continue investigating this case study of Komu Community by exploring the role of the school’s two administrators and their vision for the Komu Community’s one-laptop-per-child program.

The vision for the Komu Community laptops starts with school’s administration: Mr. Chitesh, the school’s principal, and Ms. Risha, the school’s vice-principal. In their interviews, Mr. Chitesh and Ms. Risha often referred to the school’s unique vision. For example, when I asked about the school’s laptop program, each one explained how the laptops are one facet of the school’s overall vision statement, which states: “To adopt an integrated approach to learning, with emphasis on empowering students through leadership competencies, proficiency in English, the power of technology, and a strong sense of their communities.” The administrators recognized that the laptops were part of a deeper commitment to providing a “quality education” that connected children to their villages while also preparing the children for future success in a globalized India. Mr. Chitesh defined quality education as an “education for life.” In addition, Ms. Risha explained how a quality education empowers children with confidence and self-esteem. According to Ms. Risha, the Komu Community children receive a comprehensive education, one that prepares them with English and technology skills, but, even more importantly, it is an education that imparts dignity, equality, and self-worth. Ms. Risha summed up her beliefs about quality education by explaining that, “Our children might have been born to poor families, but that is not their mistake. That is not their karma. They are children, like any other children in the world. The goal here at Komu Community School is to get the children to believe it.”

Out of the larger goal of “delivering a quality education,” the administrators identified two important skills that Komu Community was preparing its students with: (1) proficiency in the English language and (2) the ability to operate computer applications. The administrators believed that these two skills worked in tandem. Mr. Chitesh explained that there was an incentive for the students to learn English since the laptops’ Windows-based operating system was also in English. Because the students desire to use their laptops, they also are compelled to learn a basic level of English in order to operate the laptops. Mr. Chitesh further stated that, “Komu Community School has proven that English language learning and technology skills can develop together.” He identified that it is the child’s curiosity that makes this happen.

As Mr. Chitesh discussed the importance of curiosity, he referenced Mitra’s (2002) “Hole in the Wall” project, and explained how many of the Komu Community students arrived on school’s first day like the children from the “Hole in the Wall.” The students had almost no exposure to computers and could only understand a handful of English words. Yet, after only a couple hours of using the laptop, many of the students figured out how to use the laptop’s mouse pad as well as click on links to the Internet and several computer applications. Mr. Chitesh commented how he noticed that once students overcame their fear of touching the laptops, they quickly became interested in learning how to operate the laptops. Together, curiosity and interest in the laptops motivates the students to learn English.

The administrators also identified the importance of Komu Community students mastering the skill of being technologically literate with a computer. By technological literacy, I mean the ability of the students to confidently operate computer applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and, even, the Google search engine. Both administrators posited that the skill of operating computer applications was something that has immediate and lasting benefits for their students. An immediate benefit is increased confidence. When the Komu Community children were given a school laptop, Ms. Risha explained that this act removed the “fear of technology off their minds.” She reported that the children at Komu Community are no longer afraid to turn on a laptop or worry about breaking the laptops just because they touched it. The skill of operating computer technology starts with being confident and comfortable with computer technology. According the two administrators, the lasting benefit of technological literacy is future success. Mr. Chitesh talked about this benefit as part a package of “life skills” that the students needed for success in school and their future careers. Mr. Chitesh identified that “life skills” included the skills of operating a computer, searching for information with a computer, and presenting information with a computer. Mr. Chitesh explained that he often imagined 10 to 15 years in the future when Komu Community students were on the job market. The students’ likelihood of landing a “middle-class job,” as Mr. Chitesh put it, would significantly increase when they are able to show that they can operate a computer and present in English. Thus, the PowerPoint presentations that the fifth grade students created and presented to their peers were an important part of their development for future success.

Global telephony as an interpretive lens

I utilize the case study of Komu Community to develop and complicate the theory of “global telephony.” Within the case study, the global identities emerge. On the one hand, Komu Community identifies itself as a community school, which represents (and celebrates) India’s village life. On the other hand, Komu Community has fashioned an identity that is rooted in preparing its students for future success; success which is not situated in their villages, but more so in the globalized India, which Bangalore has come to represent (Friedman, 2005; Guha, 2007). Earlier in the article, I defined “global” as a complex (and contested) phenomenon that reflects the tension between identities of power, locality, culture, and equality. Komu Community reflects that complexity as it navigates the tension between its community school vision and its mission to prepare 21st century citizens who possess a global perspective.

The school’s emphasis on English language proficiency is another “global” tension. Many Indian scholars explain that English is the medium of the global economy (Advani, 2009; Guha, 2007; Kumar, 2002; Sen, 2005). English is required for landing a decent job and esteemed as the entry ticket into India’s growing middle class. Summarizing the role of English in relationship to Indian society, Advani (2009) simply states, “English education has increasingly become an object of desire for all” (p. 48). And, yet, there is the hegemony of the English language; the language represents a dominant (and oppressive) form of political, economic, and even cultural arrangements in many nations’ history, including India’s (Alexander, 2001). Indian English, as Ramachandra Guha (2007) calls it, represents India’s mixed identity; it is a vestige of colonialism but also a pathway to privilege and economic security. As a multi-linguistic community school, Komu Community reflects that mixed identity as it bases its instruction in a language (English) that can be culturally repressive, but, perhaps, economically liberating.

In light of the “global” tensions, Komu Community perceives its laptop computer technology as a significant part in transmitting and “delivering a quality education.” Indeed, the Komu Community administrators believe that the students’ use of the laptops is both emancipatory and pragmatic. In the case of Komu Community, the purposes for the school’s laptops reflect the place where the “global” and the “telephony” conjoin. In discussing emancipation, I follow Freire’s (1970, 2005) notions of an emancipatory education, which is an education that liberates; an education that helps learners to be conscience of who they are and ways to change social structures. The Komu Community administrators understood that the students’ use of the laptops was, in part, an act of emancipation. The laptops symbolized the “ticket to a better life,” as Mr. Chitesh called it, and a way to have access into India’s middle class. Such interpretations for the laptops were part of Komu Community’s vision to liberate students with the “power of technology.” Yet, the administrators’ interpretations were also quite pragmatic in that they have identified two skills, English language learning and operating computer applications, as the most practical for the students’ future education and career. In considering the theoretical constructs of “global telephony,” how much is the use of tools, like laptops, for emancipatory purposes? How much are the use of tools related to pragmatism and what is practical? These are questions that demand further study.

Conclusion

Krishna Kumar (1989) posits that, “Schools equip individuals with knowledge and skills that are appropriate to the tasks generated by the economy and supported by politics and the local culture” (p. 69). In this article, I introduced the term “global telephony” as theoretical terminology for investigating how schools go about doing what Kumar described in a globalized context. In particular, I described how one school was teaching for “global telephony” through their use of laptops. Through this case study of a community school in Bangalore, India, I explored how educators seek to provide “equal opportunities” through the use of laptop technology in order to help their students become proficient in English. “Global telephony” is a theoretical construct that can be useful for exploring how technological tools are used for emancipatory purposes and to develop stronger sense of place (Gaudelli, 2009) both now and in the future. Yet, at the same time “global telephony” also reveals the contests and complexities that arise when technological tools are used to navigate the global.