Schools that L‘EARN’!

No. I am not going to talk about whether schools are over exploiting with fees or I am also not going to talk about education becoming business. I feel educational institutions becoming more commercial is fine. But, in the process what schools need to keep in mind is what I would like to discuss here about.
First let us list some advantages of educational institutions becoming commercial. I have come across many such schools who charge fees substantially. Some positives things that I observed in this trend is that –

1. Schools are equipping themselves with more infrastructure and sophisticated learning environments
2. Schools are slowly moving beyond booking knowledge to at least positioning themselves as catering to the holistic development of a child
3. In the competition, each school is also trying to position itself as one step ahead of the other so called 'best' schools

So I am seeing development and growth because of education becoming commercial. I am not going into the negatives now. Let us keep that aside as of now.
While it is a healthy climate to see growth, what is worrying is when schools empower themselves for the sake of earning and not learning, when schools better themselves for attracting parents but not for benefitting students.
'Air conditioned classrooms.'
'Air conditioned library'
'Smart boards in every class'
It is very important for a school to equip themselves with latest technologies. But at the same time Air condition is a luxury over empowering teachers on various new methodologies of teaching! 'Project based learning' has been a buzz word in the west almost for the past 2 decades. But How many of our school heads would have tried and implemented it. How many of the schools are open to learn new things in teaching or open to bringing in a student centric approach or creating a culture of thinking in classrooms! While majority of the schools have budget allocated for books, sports equipments, teaching aids, technology, etc. it is saddening to note that not many have a budget allocated for empowering their teachers. And even if they have, it is very minimum and suffices just to put a record in the books that they are empowering teachers.
We stop learning when we feel we are full. So what would be the state of a school whose head feels he is full / his school is the best / he knows everything. The learning stops and they are no longer available for learning new things.
In the last week times of India there was a half page article on 'Innovations in education' and it stated that in a decade the world is going to face a huge crisis. The number of degree holders would be much more than the job demands. India has a greater chance but at the same time Indians face a big problem. We lack 'employability skills'. Empathy, working in teams, being a team player, motivation-all these fall under the employability skill. I have seen MBA graduates who can't speak English properly! So there are lot of youngsters out there who think they would get a job if they have a degree!
The process has to start from school. The teaching has to extend beyond textbooks to different levels of Blooms. Unfortunately, though Blooms taxonomy is taught in B.Ed. schools the application is just in examination level and teachers don't remember it beyond that.
'It is good to earn. But don't stop to learn.'
I end this blog with this punch dialogue. J
LET THE CHILD BLOSSOM


Leave your comments below.

The ‘Expected Answer Seeking’ Syndrome

Q1 - "You all enjoyed the previous blog right?"
Q2 - "So what are your comments on my previous blog?"


Q1 - "Is there a difference between the above two questions?"
Q2 - "What do you think about the above two questions?"

Now, are we able to see the difference between the Q1 questions and the Q2 questions? The answer that I am expecting from you is "YES". This is exactly what we are going to talk about – The expected answer seeking syndrome. J And the largest community that is suffering from this syndrome is the teaching community. And they religiously pass on this syndrome to generations after generations. Please don't mistake me that I am being very pessimistic about the teacher community. Are you getting me wrong? NO…? YES…? NO…? This is when we really get confused and the syndrome works out really well.

Tell me if you have not been put in such a situation, where you are been asked a question. You answer and the tone of the teacher would tell you that the answer that you gave was not the expected answer and if you are intelligent enough, you would take the clue and change your answer without even understanding the reason!

Tell me if you have not experienced a situation where you want to tell something but you KNOW somehow that the person who is asking the question will not be pleased by your answer and you just give out the answer that would please the questioner!

This syndrome is the greatest enemy of creativity. If I am suffering from this syndrome I rarely appreciate unique and creative answers. I would even say I don't understand what it means to be creativity or I would not be able to appreciate seeking unique answers. It is just not there in my dictionary.

Rewind a bit to the school days and recollect such incidents. A question in a 3^rd standard annual exam – "_______ adds beauty to face?" Without the context of a lesson you could answer smile, hair, makeup or whatever you want. But in the context of the lesson 'Teeth' the expected answer is – teeth. While the teacher was teaching this topic I remember a child got up and asked "Ma'am, a child is not having teeth but still it is so beautiful right?"

What a brilliant observation and question. But the question was lost in the syndrome. The teacher just smiled and asked the students to underline the word teeth in the sentence – Teeth adds beauty to the face.

Coming late – How many teachers would have got irritated even if we had genuine reasons? "Look at his audacity. Why can't you just say sorry?' So the expected answer is just sorry and the teacher would be satisfied with that.

Imagine the situation where a principal has a doubt that a particular teacher has not been teaching well and he wants to prove that her students know nothing. When the objective is to prove that the students are stupid the questions will be framed in a way that the students will be seen to be stupid. It is as simple as that. And even among them if some student is trying to make a mark he would not even be appreciated and even more tougher questions will be thrown.

The only solution for this problem is…

I am sorry. I don't know. J Please leave your comments on what you think on this topic.


"You enjoyed the blog right?" J
J
J