LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:3 March 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2022
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Sustaining Cultural Values in Formal Education:
Integration of Folktales in School Language Curriculum

Dr. Ch. Sarajubala Devi & Dr. Melissa Wallang

Abstract

Education must respond to the needs of the society as a whole and the individual. As a result, it also should reflect the aspirations of the people: the social, cultural, emotional, and economic needs of the learners. Therefore, the desired curriculum of today’s globalized world should be integrating technological advancement at the same time retaining the cultural values. However, the present day education in the country by and large, suffers from the gap between its content and the lived experience of the students. Schools must strive to restore and sustain the universal and eternal values oriented towards the unity and integration of the people, their moral and spiritual growth enabling children to realize their potential, at the same time realizing the purpose of life. With the renewed impetus on accepting the idea of constructivism we have to allow a child to build new knowledge on the basis of his/her previous knowledge. Folktales contain a wealth of knowledge handed down from generation to generation. It is also the reflection of cultural wisdom, the value system, the inclusivity required in the society etc. Folktales in brief tell the practical ways of living, of knowing the reality in the context in an amusing way in an easy language. If we want to inculcate the cultural values, folktale is a viable tool. The paper intends to look into the ways of integrating folktales in formal language curriculum for the sustenance of cultural values.

Keywords: education, folktale, constructivism, teaching and learning, curriculum, integration of knowledge.

Introduction

It is a well-known fact that education moulds and shapes a society, it is the basic essence of life and actions. Getting education means preparation for future life. Our mind is always processing new information from the environment in which we live and connect with the new knowledge required for the future/. It is important that the available knowledge is relevant to the future needs of the society. society and knowledge are the two faces of the same coin which empowers and enables a person to realize his/her own potential to an optimal level. On the societal front education helps in transmitting society’s norms and values, sociologist Emile Durkheim maintains “Society can survive only if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity; education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child from the beginning the essential similarities with collective life demands”.

Society through education performs the task of creating solidarity through cooperation, social solidarity, and social life, which basically aims at developing a sense of commitment, a sense of belongingness, and a feeling that a real-life and powerful society exists and that he is a part of it. Educational institutions serve as miniature societies where that children learn that basic value of the society. Therefore, education is a social process. The functions of education are mainly imparting survival knowledge, norms and values, culture and heritage and provide them skill and placement.

The Background

National Curriculum 2005 (NCF 2005) stated that knowledge is constructed by the child. It implies that curricula, syllabi, and textbooks should enable the teacher in organizing classroom experiences, in consonance with the child’s nature and environment. Children are natural learners; they constantly explore, respond, invent, and work things out to add meaning to the world around them. Childhood involves being socialised to adult society, in acquiring and creating knowledge of the world and in relating oneself to others, in order to understand, to act, and to transform. Each new generation inherits the storehouse of culture and knowledge in the society by integrating it into one’s own web of activities and understanding, and in realising its ‘fruitfulness’ in creating afresh (p.12). The relevance of folktales in the lives of children, lies in the fact that they pass on wisdom in a symbolic form from one generation to another.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Ch. Sarajubala Devi & Dr. Melissa Wallang
Associate Professors
sarajubala@yahoo.com, melissancert@gmail.com
NERIE-NCERT, Shillong
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.