Rama Watumull Collaborative Lecture Series – October 17-18
Samina Mishra
Cosponsored by The Department of English and the Center for South Asian Studies
Talk Title: Happiness Class: Is Happiness Teachable?
Thursday, October 17, 2024, 3:00-4:30 pm, Kuykendall 410
“The Happiness Curriculum” was introduced by the state-run Delhi government in 2018 as a pause in the school day that would facilitate the strengthening of children’s “inner resources to cope with stress.” But for children who come from difficult socio-economic circumstances with precarious everyday lives, could this pause be enough? The curriculum seeks to build empathy across differences but as I talked to children, it became clear that for it to be truly meaningful, there was a need to focus on teachers’ perspectives as well—their ability to really know the students and their diverse contexts, and ways of bringing those lived experiences into classroom discussions. Were the teachers being supported to do all that? My film Happiness Class explores the idea of happiness seen through its inclusion within a curriculum. It uses a collage of stylistic approaches—the more conventional documentary interview, arts exercises with children to facilitate intimate conversations, and animation that acts as visual commentary—to provoke a deeper and more critical engagement with the ideas of childhood and education. In my talk, I will use excerpts from my film to talk not only about the importance of centering children’s voices but also to critique the distortions that creep into the idea of “happiness” by a social reality in which teachers remain estranged from the particular dynamics of their students’ lives.
Workshop Title: The Child’s Voice: Co-creating with Children and the Challenges of Collaboration
Friday, October 18, 2024, 3:00-4:30 pm, Kuykendall 410
In the workshop, I will be focusing on my methodology and collaborative process for creating media and narratives for children. I believe it is critical to include children in our conversations about the world, and that by enabling children to tell their stories, we create opportunities to learn from their lived experiences as well as supporting their developing sense of self and of the world. I will be culling examples from two of my projects—the “Hum Hindustani Poetry Podcast” and the “Incredible Child”—to discuss the ethics and challenges of the collaborative process. While the institutional ethics guidelines often require interviews and other data to be anonymized, and families to sign consent forms, this process has the effect of a subjective loss in terms of leaving out the individual child’s voice for a voice that tends to be always pluralized. I will share details from these various projects to showcase how I negotiate around these difficulties of representing the child’s voice as children’s voices.
The Hum Hindustani Poetry Podcast is a curated selection of poems written by children on the ideas of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity—principles enshrined in the Constitution of India—for the Hum Hindustani education research project.
The Incredible Child is an ongoing art project at the Simurgh Centre, Delhi that involves engaging with the children of Khirkee village, mainly Afghan refugees, using films, poetry and visual art.
Speaker Bio: Samina Mishra is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and teacher based in New Delhi, with a special interest in media for and about children. Her work uses the lens of childhood, identity, and education to reflect the experiences of growing up in India.