Yogesh Khosla
According to Pratham’s ASER 2014 Report, only 40 percent of class V rural children are able to read class II level text. Only half of class V students are able to do simple mathematical operations of adding and multiplication. Only 45 percent of class VIII students are able to do division which is taught in class III/IV. For those of us who are privileged in getting their children educated in high fees, private, urban, English medium schools and feel that our children are better educated and skilled than rural, underprivileged children, here is another eye opener. According to the recent Aspiring Minds National Employability Report, 80 percent of our engineers are unemployable. In the CBSE Central Teachers Eligibility Test-2015, only 9.1 percent trained graduates (B.Ed) were able to qualify for middle level teaching. This means 89 percent trained teachers are unemployable unfit to teach. These statistics point to huge gaps in our teaching learning process. Perhaps it is unfair and premature to call our educated and trained youth as demographic dividend as many of them lack even the basics in education and training. There is an urgent need to upgrade our teaching learning to take India into the 21st century. Real challenge is to bridge the learning deficit in our schools, colleges and training institutes.
Let us try to understand what is learning and how some new approaches in learning are changing education world over. When we hear the word “learning”, we think of schools and teachers and studying and passing some exams. But learning is not limited to schools – we learn every moment of our lives from all experiences. Skills like dancing, singing driving swimming, cycling, also involve teaching and learning. In the broadest sense, learning is the process through which experience causes permanent positive change in knowledge or behaviour.
Learning to construct knowledge :
Traditionally, learning in schools has meant that some knowledgeable people (teachers) give some information, methods and solutions to young pupils who are supposed to accept all this digested material gratefully, store everything in the brain to retrieve and use later. This approach based on rote memory is now being questioned as it does not make the children intelligent, wise and skilled. Good memory, which was at a premium for a long time, is no longer the most important indicator of intelligence and wisdom. This job of storing, retrieving, processing and interpreting of information has long been transferred to the computers which are both fast and efficient.
How can we help our children to learn better? NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework-2005 recommends constructivist approach to teaching and learning. According to this approach, children are encouraged and helped to construct knowledge on their own-using their previous experiences and knowledge, taking hints and guidance from their teachers, thinking and pondering, discussing and questioning and learning through hard work. Says John Dewey on constructivist learning: “Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at hand, seeking and finding his own solutions (not in isolation but in correspondence with the teacher and other pupils), does one learn.” This applies to all scholastic and non scholastic areas of study in the schools and also to the learning of skills and to learning about life.
New approaches to learning necessitate fundamental shifts in the role of teachers and the methods of teaching. Shift is from teacher centric, stable designs to learner centric, flexible processes. Shift is from role learning to understanding, interpretation, analysis and critical thinking. Shift is from learning within the four walls of the classroom to learning in the wider social context, connecting with life outside school. Shift is from knowledge as “given” and “fixed” to knowledge as it evolves and is constructed by the learner. Shift is from passive reception by the learners to active participation in the process of learning through questioning, doubting, interacting and discussing.
Enhancing Learning :
There are many factors of good learning-some pertaining to learners and the others where parents and teachers can help. We are focusing here only on two important factors.
ATTENTION : Total attention with all our senses-seeing, listening, writing, putting our mind, heart and soul into whatever we are attempting to learn, is a prerequisite for good learning. Sadly, attention is a big casualty in the modern times. Ask any teacher or parent of young children. Children eat and study and listen to the music at the same time and are easily distracted. Inattention is hampering learning at all levels. Extreme form of inattention is a mental disorder in children called ADHD which is difficult to correct. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are restless with short attention span and are easily distracted.
The great philosopher, educator and spiritual guide J Krishnamurti considers “attention” as the most important ingredient in learning. Says Krishnamurti on what it means to be attentive. “Attention means giving all your energy, sensitivity, the whole nervous mechanism to something so that not only your hearing, your eyes, but everything is tremendously alive.”
Bad teaching, uninteresting books, difficult curriculum (beyond the developmental stage) are some factors due to which children lose interest and are, therefore, inattentive. Of course, even the worst cases of inattention can be engaged joyfully by good teachers.
LEARNING WITHOUT BURDEN : For learning to be effective, the mind must be free from stress and fear and must be peaceful and joyful. Sadly, our parents and teachers neglect this essential component of learning resulting not only in learning deficit but also in causing incalculable damage to the children. This damage starts from children’s early years.
National Focus Group (NCF-2005) on Early Childhood Education comments that pre primary education in India is limited from burden to boredom.
Says Focus Group on early education in India:
“Majority of private pre primary schools in India are of very poor quality and sometimes of a kind that can have damaging or even dangerous consequences for children.
Short term risks include the manifestation of stress symptoms among children resulting in respiratory problems, pain in legs and in the body, poor weight gain, irregular bowel habits and disturbed sleep patterns.
Long term risks include far reaching harmful effects on the children’s motivation, intellectual and social behaviour.”
The Focus Group recommends Play and Art as the basis of learning at the pre primary level and stresses that early education must be in child’s home/most familiar language in informal environment. Formal instruction and writing etc must start only when children are developentally ready i.e 5+ years.
After an outrage in the Indian Parliament, Yash Pal Committee went into the problem of joyless burden of learning. In its report titled “Learning Without Burden”, the Committee portrays a grim picture.
“A lot is taught, but a little is learnt. Intrinsic motivations and child’s natural abilities are being smothered at a scale so vast that it cannot be correctly estimated. Our national commitment to the development of human resource is daily challenged in our nurseries and schools.
Barring those studying in reputed and exceptional schools, the majority of our school going children are made to view learning at school as a boring, unpleasant and bitter experience. They are daily socialized to look upon education as mainly a process of preparing for examinations.”
Challenge before the policy makers, educators and teachers is to bring fundamental changes in teaching/learning and to create a system wherein improved learning outcomes is the only criteria for success of educational/training activities.
(The author is former Principal)
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