#TeachersDay: Thoughts on Reforming Education

It is another Teachers' Day on Sept. 5th, at least in India. I believe it is celebrated on several different days around the world. Whatever be the date, the idea is similar: celebrate and honor the contribution of teachers in our lives.

But, does the world really value teachers highly today? How have teaching and the teachers around us changed over time -- over years, decades, centuries? And what about the students? Are they really putting their best foot forward and giving it their best shot -- like Arjuna did when he pierced the eye of the revolving fish with his arrow in that famous story from the Indian epic Mahabharata?

In a world getting hotter, more crowded and ever more chaotic with each passing day, these are questions worth pondering -- because the students of today will inherit that world and make it worse or less worse (making it better seems a slippery possibility, but that is for another blog post :)

As far as India is concerned, what I have noticed is that the overall quality of teaching and teachers has been coming down -- ironically, in the midst of an abundance of knowledge available through the greatest library ever created on Earth, the Internet. Barring perhaps a few hundred schools in a country of 1.3 billion people, the quality of teaching -- and consequently, of learning -- is of grave concern, as survey after survey has pointed out in recent times.

On the brighter side, there seems to be a new movement in education that talks about things like blended learning, self-paced learning, life coaching and other progressive ideas. Driven by online lectures, knowledge repositories and the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), new education ventures seem to be sprouting up all over.

However, in the midst of these mushrooming novelties, I think some fundamental things are still missing and we have quite a distance to cover before we can bridge the gap between a child's true potential and helping her realize it to the full or near-full level.

First of all, we need to completely overhaul how we currently build and run schools. We have all heard of that famous quote about not letting our "schooling" interfere with our "education" (the quote is often attributed to the writer Mark Twain but possibly it was Grant Allen who first expressed such sentiments as long back as the 1890s).

Whoever said it, we are still stuck with the dissonance between the two: schooling and education.
I was fortunate to have met or studied under some honest and dedicated teachers. I'm reminded of this definition by one such teacher (with inspiration possibly from the Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi): he once told us that true education is the harmonious development of the three H's -- hand, head and heart.

Unfortunately, the schools we so earnestly built became places where hundreds of thousands of students "reluctantly went" to "mug up or cram their lessons" by rote learning. Some of those students developed keen interest in studies and turned out to be the brightest ones, acing the toughest competitive exams (and often going abroad for "higher research or studies" to succeed commercially). But they did so mostly on their own initiative and supported by private coaching/tuition, etc. The typical institution of school had little to do with their success.

In today's knowledge-rich world, (super) specialization is very much required. But I think we need to relook at the stage a child is encouraged or nudged to pursue such a specialization and not take the cookie-cutter approach (10+2 or whatever) we have traditionally been taking.

Rather than build walled classrooms where students are bunched together and given (mostly) insipid, boring "lessons" -- which most teachers now, by the way, are just too keen to "finish off" so that the syllabus is "covered" -- we must make schools into happy, joyous, fun-filled "sanctuaries for children" if you will, where they discover the importance of learning in life, are given multiple chances to identify their interests and pursue those interests with the guidance of teachers genuinely interested in their life-success.

Alas, what we have in most places in India is the spectacle of students ferrying bagfuls of books and notebooks back and forth between home and school. The things they most look forward to when going to school is not the joy of learning but the company of their friends (which is fine as an important add-on).

The curricula, too, need to be totally revamped for New Age learning. The question of why they are learning something and its practical applications (or significance of applications) is as important as what they are learning -- in order for them to show genuine interest and be more curious about the subject at hand.

Chinese philosopher Confucius is said to have remarked, "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand," way back around fifth century BCE (that's when he lived, right?) But in India the majority of schools are ill-equipped to show their students how things work or enable them to "understand by doing." Their typical approach? "Here, take these dense texts and just mug them up."

This is not to belittle the role of memory in learning. In fact, India has the oldest (and at its peak the most advanced) tradition of auditory learning -- writing of the texts came much later. But the keyword in all learning is "understanding" -- which goes for a toss when the emphasis is merely on cramming, even in higher grades when students have better grasping and perspective prowess.

The need of the hour is a revolution, not just an evolution, in learning.

Happy Teachers' Day -- nay, change that to Happy Teaching and Learning Age!

(Image: Google.com)

Four Life Lessons My Kids Taught Me

In one of his poems, William Wordsworth famously remarked, “The child is father of the man.”

I had read this line years ago. But now, when I look at it again I'm not only in a better position to appreciate its import, I can perhaps make my own little additions to the very notion as well.

As an unabashedly proud father of a 14-month-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, I have spent countless wonderful hours with them—loving, learning and laughing enough to feel a little preachy.

So, my dear poet, not only is the child father of the man, the child is the teacher, guru and even God to man.

If the smiling face of a young child does not belong to God Himself, what else does?

If the whooshing cooing gurgling bubbling sounds of the child do not come from God's own throat, what else does?

If their little innocent pranks and pulls are not rooted in God's mischievous mind, what else could be?

In India I've heard a lot of old folks say, “Children are the embodiment of God.” Not only do I second them but I think the reverse could equally be true: God is made possible by children.

But let me not take you too far into the domain of theistic or ontological questions. Let me only share some of the most vital lessons my kids have taught me.

The first and foremost lesson—though I'm yet to fully imbibe it (revive it, rather)—is to always take delight in the little things around us. The melodious sounds of a toy, the vibrant colors of a book, the playful dance of a piece of paper in a whorl of light and air. Delight in anything that is pleasing to the eye, sweet to the ear, cool to the touch. Delight in anything that is new, exciting, mysterious, inviting...

They have made me discover the beauty of the world and take delight in it through their experience. So whenever my senses are numbed by the greedy and possessive ugliness of the world (and they often do), I need only look at the kiddos laugh and play and share their delight.

The second vital lesson is simplicity of being. A child just wants to be. Period. The thought of emulation or rivalry or the blind pursuit of a vocation is thrust upon them in their formative years. Have you ever heard children spontaneously say what they want to be? It is the parents or other people who usually put the nasty idea of being or trying to be someone else into their fragile brain.

True, sometimes the children say they want to be whatever they fancy at any given moment. But these whims keep changing and no true picture emerges until at least teenage. I've learned—and continue to learn—that we must let kids be. Our role is only to help them identify their true calling and facilitate their journey as much as we can. The rest is up to them.

Another great learning is that, tied as we have become to our clockwork schedules, we must sometimes allow ourselves to be yanked away from the tyranny of time—and be thrown cheerily into the timeless playfulness that is immanent in all children. (And in all Nature indeed.)

By simply throwing their arms around me, or clinging to my legs when I’m late for work, my children have often taught me, without saying a single word, how infinitely better it is to be a willing slave to love than to be a forced prisoner of time.

That is not to say that we do not meet our professional commitment or neglect work we are paid for—but just to reiterate that one thing cannot be a substitute for something entirely different and certainly much more important. (Unless your only priority is to chase greenbacks, in which case you shouldn't be reading this article.)

Perhaps one of the most important lessons children have taught me is forgiveness. They just keep forgiving me for my innumerable imbecilities. No matter how cross I’m with my daughter or how much I’ve scolded her (my son is too young to be scolded, though my wife disagrees :), she hugs me with an unconditional love that puts my tyranny to shame—and makes me want to become a better-behaved father next time around.

And these are not the only lessons. As I continue my parental journey, I'm sure there will be countless occasions for me to learn, unlearn and re-learn life's most vital lessons from children.

And so my education goes on...


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