The interview (see link under the photo) features Ms. Nishi from the Science Faculty at Heritage School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. She reflects on her sustained engagement with the Pre-Text pedagogy in classes from grades 6 to 12. Over the past three years, she explains how this approach has reconfigured her teaching practice by positioning students as co-learners, fostering dialogic reading practices, and generating artistic responses grounded in textual exploration. She underscores the pedagogical value of specific protocols, such as text-to-art, particularly in the context of Science and Biology, where sustained interaction with the text allows learners to cultivate a deeper relationship with content and reimagine it creatively through graphic organizers, role play, comic strips, and diagrammatic representation. This account illustrates the capacity of Pre-Text not only to strengthen comprehension but also to nurture critical engagement and expand the expressive modes through which scientific knowledge can be understood and articulated in the classroom.
At a critical moment, when Nishi found that her students had given wrong answers to the questions they posed, she had to decide between correcting them and trusting the art-making protocol. She bet on art and the joy of students who discovered their own errors justifies her faith in them and in Pre-Texts.
