This series of four articles was published in Le Mauricien of 10, 11, 12 and 14th October 2006.
1. Building confidence and nurturing talent
“…examinations are a nuisance. All that can be said about them is that they do push us on a little… But… [they] are no test of anything worthwhile.”
This is what Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi on 29 June 1936, the day she took the seven-hour Oxford entrance exam and failed (cited by Katherine Frank in ‘Indira, The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi’, p. 116). She did not have the advantage of an English education and faced difficulties in clearing her Latin papers both at the Oxford University entrance and Pass Moderation examinations.
Her father understood. Clearly, for him the experience of learning was more important than passing examinations.
I distinctly remember my father telling us children to listen to the Akashvani radio news because ‘choti munni’ (small girl) would come. It was his way of switching us on to the news. We learnt about other issues while waiting intently for one of our ‘age group’ to come on air. She spoke like a nervous young girl on verge of tears.
How does one who started so poorly in health, examinations, public speaking, ideas (Mrs. Harold Laski described Indira Gandhi as, “a mousy, shy, little girl who did not seem to have any political ideas” (ibid., p.135) grow up to be such a powerful leader with incredible physical stamina, a real asset for a leader of the world’s largest democracy and an exceptional orator who delivered speeches in Hindi, English and French with equal ease?
She was allowed to learn, fail, gain experience and grow in a very conducive environment. This atmosphere also helped in building her confidence in her own abilities.
She was not an exception. There are many who achieved great heights in the fields of arts, business, literature, sports, science, politics, social work, … in spite of not doing so well at school. The important point is that they did not give up and were not allowed to wither away.
At the same time there are many more ‘could have beens’ and who have no remarkable achievements to their credit. Why did their talents remain untapped?
Why do I tell this story? Definitely, not to diminish the importance of examinations or to tell students on the eve of examinations not to work hard. In fact, examinations have evolved in the last seventy years and now strive to provide a finer and more dependable picture of student’ academic profile. It is also time that students stopped wasting time and focused on their work to score good grades.
Neither is the purpose to cast any blame on anyone but to draw attention to the need to address the broader objectives of education. Each child is special and requires specific and appropriate environment, opportunities and treatment to develop his/her inherent talent.
The question we need to reflect upon is, “are we providing our children with the opportunities they require to express and develop their talents, strengths, interests, views and ideas?” We all are aware of the state of extra curricular activities in schools. Some teachers even forbid primary school pupils from running around the yard during recess!
Here it is worth remembering that a doctor does not have a blanket treatment for all patients suffering from various ailments. Farmers know that different soils, fertilisers, pesticides, sowing and harvesting methods are required for different crops. The reasons are obvious.
Why do we wish to maintain the same treatment for all children? At the same time, we cannot deny the importance of academic attainments in this era of exponential knowledge growth. Thus we are faced with the formidable task of guiding each child in the achievement of academic objectives while using and developing his/ her inherent interests and abilities.
The task is difficult but not impossible. It is a challenge that we need to accept for we have to decide whether we want to encourage and nurture the special talent that each child has or let it wither in oblivion. The choice is ours.
2. Ownership of learning and learning skills
Recently I met a friend who was sad because his son was not doing well in studies despite the exceedingly strong dose of private tuition he was taking. The young boy and his friends also got in trouble with the school head for damaging school property.
This is not a one-off incident. Many bored students engage in reprehensible activities and neglect their studies. Are they immoral and academically weak? Why do they require supervision to engage in a constructive activity? Obviously, they require channels and challenges to express the vast amount pent up energy.
However, as many teachers would vouch, the curricular activities also fail to induce cognitive engagement or active participation of many even not so bored students in their learning. Paradoxically, one can see these students regularly and punctually attending school, listening to their teachers, doing all class work and homework and proceeding to take tuition lessons after school hours.
Why does the hard work these students put in remain passive, mechanical and superficial? Why do they not take the ownership of their learning? Is it because the generous ‘support’ they get that inadvertently shifts the responsibility of their learning to their teachers and parents? I remember one star college head telling me, “we ‘kurchul’ feed them.”
While it is true that this excessive support may produce short-term gains in terms of examination results we can not deny the serious repercussions it has on students’ ability to solve problems, take decisions, retrain and relearn with the changing requirements and conditions. The difficulties that they face during further studies and at work are flagrant.
I often refer to the story of a lame butterfly whose entry in the world was facilitated by an eager young boy. He had helped it to come out of the pupa. Certainly, there is a developmental process through which a butterfly has to go through, develop and strengthen its body parts before emerging out to face the world. There are no short cuts in life.
I am reminded of yet another story. Each morning, when I open my window I see a young boy of 16 or 17 sand papering cars parked in a vacant plot under a Longane tree. He is there on rainy days, on cold days, on windy days, on sunny days, on weekdays and on Sundays. He sings the latest film songs while pouring water from an empty paint can. His boss welds and paints cars in a nearby shed. Why does this boy go on scrubbing and washing even when no one is around?
Similar is the case of a Form III drop out who works as a beauty parlour assistant. Within six months she has moved from menial jobs to handling facials and hair brushing. With equal ease she offers her opinion on clients’ beauty queries addressed to her boss.
The perseverance and confidence with which both these young apprentice are learning and the hard work that they both put in to make sense of their work, is remarkable.
Many questions emerge from these stories. How does one change the ‘passive and giving the impression of diligent performer’ attitude of our children to that of an ‘active and responsible participant’ attitude? How do we help our children build a strong foundation of knowledge, skills, abilities and values that guarantees smooth sailing not only in examinations (which are just a necessary part of the learning cycle) but also in life? How do we help our children see the relevance of their work? How do we ensure that our children take the ownership of their learning? How to make education ‘cool’ that they get motivated to get engaged in it?
The list of questions is very long. However, it is not enough to raise questions or to comment on students’ poor learning standards. It is crucial that we evaluate the practices, provisions and resources that have produced such appalling results and subsequently suggest and implement improvements. We have to create the right conditions for learning and meta-learning of generic and transferable learning skills and abilities. The choice is definitely ours.
3. Educational technology and management of learning
Two decades ago as a young wife and mother I sent air letters to my parents in India and waited for at least three weeks to get answers to my many questions. We rarely phoned. International calls were expensive. During the late nineties, I could get recipes from my mother through e-mails. Now I get immediate answers to my culinary queries via sms. “Mash a boiled potato in the dough and you will be able to roll it” mummy replies in full sentences. She still has to pick up the sms slang.
It is amazing how fast the technology has changed. However, classroom teaching has largely remained untouched by these developments. My children were taught the way I or my parents or my grand parents were taught.
Well, there are changes. ICT, for one has entered the school curriculum as a subject but not as a learning tool! There are changes in the content of other subjects as well. However, the methodology to transmit this content has remained the same.
At the most, ICT to aid learning is limited to Internet search for projects and assignments and in most cases to unabashed plagiarising. This may not contribute to any meaningful learning as students reproduce this information without even bothering to summarise in their own words or to address to the question set.
And yet we know the ease with which even very young children adapt, handle and master technology. Most parents would proudly confirm that they learnt text messaging from their children. Their children also rescue them by recovering the document they had ‘lost’ on the computer. Their children are the ones who initiate them to the latest technology and give useful tips on its efficient use.
Why has technology not seeped into the classroom to make learning more accessible, interesting and to motivate students to learn? Is it just because of the scant resources? I am not so sure. It is more to do with teachers’ fears, insecurities, insufficient trust in their ability to handle technology and the absence of necessary support than with the availability of resources. It would not be incorrect to say that because of the ‘hurdles’ one faces in using technology or any other innovation for that matter, ‘chalk and talk’ turns out to be the best option. This observation is further strengthened by the fact that we are not making full use of even the accessible resources. Quality audio-visual programmes have been available for decades now. Each year the list grows longer. And yet not many schools use these programmes regularly and efficiently.
This state of affairs is largely attributable to the management of learning in schools which remains largely untouched by developments in the field of management. Each year, business managers strive hard to increase efficiency and productivity. School administration, on the other hand entrusted with the responsibility of producing the most important asset that a society needs, restricts itself to attendance, replacements, discipline, punctuality, leave sanction and other similar activities. This administration, at best projects a semblance of order and prevents the disquiet from surfacing but it is not of much pedagogical significance.
A school as a whole is made of many small units or classes each headed by a teacher. Most teachers conscientiously prepare according to the syllabus and the training they have received, teach, test, correct and mark students’ work. In this routine, each teacher creates a niche for himself/ herself and remains inside it indifferent to the external reality. There is no interference from the school head as long the teacher is in the class and irrespective of whether s/he is doing any useful work. Neither is any discussion, support and guidance on what is to be achieved in terms of learning outcomes or on what has not been achieved and why and on what should be done to improve. This school administration does produce some good results and some not so good results. However, it is not sufficient to cater for the learning needs of our children.
What we need is the participative school management where all resources are harnessed to achieve a common goal. The participative management where all participants – heads and teachers share the same understanding of the goals that have to be achieved, the conditions under which these have to be achieved, the strategies and means to achieve them, the strategies to evaluate the attainment of these goals, the corrective actions that need to be taken, the training needs, the recognition/ reward system,… Unless, this participative management is put in place, most resources will remain either unutilised or underutilised. We have to decide. The choice is certainly ours.
4. Education for life
A couple of months ago we attended the wedding of two very successful professionals. He (probably as most husbands) was disappointed when she first cooked and could not hide his feelings or eat the food. He missed his mother’s food. She teased him when he could not change a washer in the bathroom tap. Her father could repair anything and everything. They have frequent arguments and according to the grapevine they may soon separate.
I do not wish to support any gender stereotypes that girls should learn to cook and housekeeping and boys all the rest or vice versa but raise a basic question, “does the education system prepare young people to be tolerant, adaptive, adjusting, sharing, giving space to others to develop and respecting the views and differences of others?”
The issue is not just about maintaining marital peace between the two but also about how to strike a balance between career aspirations and family and home responsibilities especially when career for women is no longer an option but a necessity. It can be a very difficult period for a young family.
It certainly does not imply that the home and family responsibilities should be dumped on the in-laws (the advantages of living in a larger family are plenty provided one maintains a healthy two-way traffic) and one concentrates on one’s career for the problems of adjustment and working together are not limited to the marital life. One faces similar problems in the professional life also.
I always circulate my papers to my friends for their views and trust their contribution in improving the quality of my work. One day a colleague asked me not to do this. His sincere concern was that others would copy the idea. “Would that not be flattering?” I asked. He wasn’t so sure.
We also have long discussions on many issues with colleagues and friends. However, we prefer to maintain silence on topics related to our professional growth. It is rarely shared. Unless of course we are seeking a push from a superior who offers no threat or competition.
Why are we so reticent about sharing with and learning from each other? Many students would tell us of the difficulties they face in catching up after missing a class or two. Not many friends come forward to help and provide information on what happened during their absence.
Certainly, there are expectations to achieve, to excel and to do better than others. Trying to meet deadlines and excel in whatever we do can put additional pressures and result in severe stress for some. With a past track record of good academic performance, it becomes difficult to accept our own limitations and weaknesses in the personal / professional sphere. In most cases, the difficulties we face have nothing to do with our inherent abilities (we can still possess an intellect fit for a rocket scientist) but with the education we received.
We do not always realise that seeking help and sharing problems do not raise question about our abilities but indicate our willingness to learn and improve. Many forums that are launched to provide opportunities to discuss issues, share experience and seek solutions dissolve after a couple of sessions due to insufficient participation.
It is difficult for a grown up to change his/ her behaviour and develop certain attitudes and values. These have to be inculcated from the childhood.
This does not imply that the school should introduce an additional subject on ‘living up to the future responsibilities.’ All subjects can inculcate the basic values of cooperation, collaboration, living together and many others. We have to explore ways of implementing this part of the curriculum that largely remains hidden and latent, especially because it is not amenable to any ‘external’ testing. We have to decide whether we want to ensure a smooth transition for our children to their future roles or not. The choice is finally ours.
