How Teach to ELICIT Educators in Kashmir Turn Classrooms into Spaces of Healing

When we think about a classroom, many of us picture a safe, familiar space, but in Kashmir, a region where conflict permeates the rhythms of everyday life, a classroom is much more than that; it is a vulnerable space where trauma, identity and goal collide.

The scale of the problem is staggering. According to UNICEF data, one in six children across the world—473 million of them—live in conflict-affected areas. In Jammu and Kashmir, over two million students are growing up in a backdrop of decades of unrest, disrupted education, and intergenerational trauma.

This is where Education and Livelihoods in Conflict Impacted Territories (ELICIT) Foundation intervenes. It supports the development of resilient education ecosystems in conflict-affected regions, where teachers lead young people from a posture of survival to one of thriving. As part of its flagship two-year fellowship, Teach to ELICIT, young educators are placed in teaching positions in the mainstream school system throughout Kashmir, especially areas of Pulwama, Shopian and Budgam, to help children rebuild agency and relationships of trust through learning.

Teaching as Healing

For Saima, a fellow from Awantipura in South Kashmir, the fellowship is inseparable from her identity. “As a child of conflict myself and a close witness to how, as Kashmiri, our nervous system reacts to situations differently, the main focus of this journey is meeting to work on the well-being of children,” she states with a mix of pride as we speak with her in a virtual meeting. “This fellowship also shapes you as an individual, as ‘Self’ is another domain of this, after Class and then Community.”

Her classroom practice movesawayfrombeingtextbook-focused.“When our topic was ‘Conflict resolution at the government level’, we started by brainstorming what comes to mind when we hear the word conflict. The students created a mind map, followed by discussion and writing on how we cannot resolve conflict at the government level, but we can reflect on what happens to us during conflict and identify the things that can help us resolve it.”

Her methods are small acts of restoration in a space where children have frequently and erratically endured school closures for over three decades across Kashmir. “There is not enough breathable space for children to really be children,” she notes. “What we do is keep humour alive in the classroom, not make learning rigid, value words if not sentences, and have more and more conversations.”

The Fragile Normal

Surya is a filmmaker from both Ahmedabad and Mumbai, and came to Teach to ELICIT to better his practice of participatory storytelling.

A Kashmiri classroom can appeartoberun-of-the-mill from the outside; children are laughing, avoiding their homework andgettinginto arguments about their computer projects. However,thereisincredibletension, on a deeperlevel, between identity and narrativeimposition.

“The difference I do see comes from the cognitive dissonance that exists while existing in the education system of India,” Surya reflects over our call. “At home, they are thinking of their identities as Kashmiri, but through books, they have to be in a certain way—only Indian. This dissonance closes students down, and it starts showing up in classrooms, especially when there is an event, like an attack, and they again have to choose sides.”

Surya noteshowtwosimplechoices, editinga photo of Pakistani cricketer Babar Azam or Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, become symbolic. “Just these two characters show the larger conflict and how it affects the whole interaction between students,” he says.

Another pressing challenge is time. “In Kashmir, schools almost never get the 220 teaching days they should. It is often closer to 140. Teachers then try to cram the syllabus, and it creates anger in classrooms.” The constant compression of time, alongside surveillance in everyday life, makes the classroom feel less like a sanctuary and more like training for the outside world.

Building a System of Care

With Teach to ELICIT, the challenge is two-fold: not only the placement of fellows in schools, but also how to sustain them. 

"We are one of the first to think about how to work on trauma-informed pedagogy in mainstream schooling in a context as difficult as a conflict-impacted space,” says ManasviShah, Fundraising Lead. “We always have to be iterative, intentional, and authentic in our response because the challenges are unique. There are no templates.”

Fellows from the organisation have been building reflective practice and well-being sessions with psychologists, participating in weekly reflections. Schools are also engaged as partners - talking to students through climate surveys, talking to leaders through community dialogues.

For Surya, the change must also extend to the profession itself. “There is a lot of need for much better pay, which is almost very hard to live on. And there is a need to connect the teaching community with multiple opportunities so they start seeing the profession as a growth profession instead of an option, which it sadly has become.”

Despite the burden of the work, fellows like Saima and Surya carry on, not as saviours but co-learners. Their classrooms are spaces where conflict is acknowledged, where children who have inherited trauma also inherit hope.