Achieving “development nurturance” in schools and educational institutions

The “nature versus nurture” debate has witnessed a seesaw battle over the last century. While the role of “nature” has come into question time after time, the role of “nurture” has never been in doubt. The question has always been around the extent of its role and its primacy over the role of “nature”.

We find the “nature versus nurture” debate less helpful. We choose to focus on “nurture”, and inquire into the nature of “nurture” in different settings. Less has been explicitly said about how the nature of “nurture” could or needs to vary depending on the subject and her environment. An analysis of nurturance required for the growth and development of children within a school environment outlines the need for a nuanced understanding of specific types of nurture.

Let us consider in some depth the nature of nurturance that is required for students in schools. Schools and educational institutions need to be a primary source of nurturance for children, which is second only to the nurturance provided by the parent or primary caregiver. Children are susceptible to manifold vulnerabilities, extending well beyond the considerations of health and safety, that the school environment needs to take cognisance of. Children are susceptible cognitively, given that their thinking are nascent; affectively, as they are yet learning to master their emotions; and conatively, given that they are yet practising the skill of developing purpose and goals.

Providing a wholesome education is challenging in its own right. When the imparting of education extends and morphs into the providing of nurturance, then the task becomes complicated manifold. Consider what it will take for school principals, governors and teachers to provide nurturance that will simultaneously develop a sizeable population of children with their unique cognitive, affective and conative skills, and their unique family contexts.

To instantiate and sustain, “developmental nurturance” necessitates several preconditions. First, a school environment that is adept at and conducive for learning, growth and development. The environment for nurturing students needs to include the environments for pedagogy, enabling assets such as teachers and learning infrastructure, school operations, and school governance.

The second precondition for developmental nurturance is the presence of a pedagogy that is student-centred and inquiry-based. Teachers need to account for different learning curves across children, and for variable momentum of learning for each child. Such pedagogies differentiate between formative and summative assessments, and require teachers to vary the level of scaffolding they provide to children. Importantly, development nurturance requires that adequate consideration be provided to the child’s “mode of learning” – a feature that could vary sharply across a student cohort.

The third precondition is the presence of a clear and inspiring vision for the educational institution, which encapsulates goals for student learning outcomes and students’ learning experiences. Vision and strategy for schools is not a common feature, but much needed if school leaders, teachers, senior students, parents and the broader community were to partake into a common vision and work collaboratively towards common goals of student growth and development.

The fourth precondition is centred around the role of teachers. Experiential learnings and research have made it abundantly clear that the most prominent “rate limiting step” in schools is the shortage of high quality teachers. We take the argument a step forward, and emphasise the need for “teacher leaders”. For a school to advance along its development nurturance goals, teachers need to go beyond being “classroom educators”. They need to take on administrative roles that will provide much needed bandwidth to the school leadership, allow the school to excel and get noted in areas beyond learning outcomes, and in the process, provide students with opportunities for well-rounded holistic development.

The fifth precondition is focused on the role of parents and the broader community within the schooling system. Involvement of parents has always been a difficult topic for schools. While school leaders complain that parents do not want to get involved, the reality is that parents often do not know how to. Research on “school performance” has undeniably established that involvement of parents and community plays a reinforcing role in providing developmental nurturance. School leaders have no option but to go the extra mile to identify, engage and encourage “parent leaders”.

The final precondition is centred on the smooth operations of the school and the optimal usage of its people and physical infrastructure. In this regard, the importance of the “master schedule” cannot be emphasised enough. The topics of decision making such as the allocation of classrooms and the sequencing of subject periods may appear tactical, but are silent and forceful enablers of student development and nurturance. Without thoughtful operations and resource allocation, all the above-mentioned preconditions in unison would not suffice to bring about developmental nurturance.

Nurturance, therefore, finds its own expression in the environment of schools and educational institutions. It is worth reemphasising that imparting wholesome education is not the same as, and only a subset of, the broader and more exalted goal of “developmental nurturance”. Such nurturance will simply not come from high quality infrastructure, high quality teachers and a contemporary pedagogy. For such nurturance to come about and impact the lives of vast groups of students, school leaders will need to assiduously put in place the six preconditions described above.