Recognition Backlash

A group of students started helping staff to clean-up school area. No one told them to, they just got together and started voluntary service. It is not very often that you get to see such helpful attitude in schools but then the eight and nine year olds are innovative and nothing would stop them.

This was a great opportunity I couldn't let go. I wanted to use this chance to infect more kids with the same bug, I took photos and posted them around the school. Kids just love to see themselves in the photos. There was great excitement for two days.

Then something strange happened which I was not prepared for. After two days the spontaneous help stopped. Finished. No one came to help; kids said they prefer to play or chat. It puzzled me.

Many days later, I brought up the subject with them. The kids said there were too many others now wanting to share the work and no one got happy enough. Further, kids who started it didn't like the spot-light turned on them through the photos. My pro-activeness had effectively killed the social phenomena. The promotion had exactly opposite effect to what I naively expected.

Its been a months since then and some kids have returned to help again. This time around, I am keeping away from them. They know better.

Lot of things, but nothing to do.

Today there is much more focus on things. Children want things that they see on TV or are talked about by their friends. Parents are also eager to buy things for their kids - books, toys, cloths, shoes, video games (you get the point).

However, things such as these can't teach as much as various activities could teach us. So we, parents and teachers, need a plan to convert demand for things into suggestions for activities.

For example, if a child demands a plane or a car then, can he or she rather buy aero-modeling kit ? Instead of buying a foot-ball, can we put that money in football coaching ? Instead of buying computer games can that money be saved for a programing course ? Instead of buying cloths can that money be used to pay for summer camp ?

While things give you instant pleasure they don't usually build useful skills. On the other hand activities require a longer term involvement and commitment. While most things you can't carry around with you or won't last long, the skills you learn stay with you life-long.

Do we give such alternatives to children and teach them to choose activities over things ? We should be ready with a list of "to do" activities when the demand comes.

Which would you prefer - a kids saying "I know how to do this" or a kid saying "I have so many things" ?

The Cascade effect

A School is like any other legacy system. Over the time lethargy sets in and people tend to become fatalistic and disillusioned. I am not an expert on how to turn around such organizations but a couple of things I notice.

In such organizations, questioning fundamental premises or giving radical alternatives doesn't work. The system has lost any flexibility to respond to any such solutions. In fact, that is why it has became a legacy in first place.

What we need to do is to engineer small, successive and positive accidents. These may be trivial but they should work. This gives a feel that system is responding, which in-turn changes the mindset of stake-holders. The good news is that even though the grown-ups would have largely given-up, schools have large population of young crowd which is willing to try.

After many small positive accidents, one should try out bigger proposals that are also guarantied to succeed. And slowly people would get into good mood and are willing to try new things. At least that is the hope.

Schools, of all, need to be very responsive to changes happening in the society. Its only through such cascade effects that we may have of hope changing the schools.

The tower of...

I had thought that if one could convey the very basic principles then so much of science can be explained so easily. For example, if fundamentals of electromagnetic spectrum can be laid-out then so many things can be readily understood (I don't mean to start from Maxwell's euqations, but that light in any form can be understood with a single concept of EM spectrum).

This, I found doesn't work in the class. Children simply fail to sense the magnitude of how fundamental the electromagnetics is. They are unable to see the path which appears to us as a grand short-cut from our learned point-of-view. To that extent a subject-expert may have a disadvantage in the class-room.

For most part, your goal in the class is not to unify information (that comes later) but to demonstrate the diversity of phenomena. In the present example, one will have to show students various things that happen to the light first-hand from radio waves to x-rays.

While its the business of science to unify diverse phenomena into smaller set of fundamental rules, the full sense and understanding of this comes only as a hind-sight. For most of the school life the focus is only on one brick at-a-time and view of the tower to be built. The tower of knowledge has to be constructed brick-by-brick, lots of bricks.

Small numbers...

In any class there is spread in abilities of children. They fall in three broad categories 1. Above average, 2. Average and 3. Bellow average.

In a smaller-sized class, the difference in their abilities stands out markedly. And there are small number of students in each of the three categories. This makes it harder for a teacher to adopt a single strategy which works for all. Any strategy will discount at least two of these three group of students.

In a large class, the number of students in the average category is large (middle of the Bell-curve) compared to those in the other two categories. A teacher can adopt a strategy which benefits maximum number of students; those in the middle of the distribution.

Thus I think the size of the class affects quality of learning (and teaching) and interestingly bigger class sizes may stand to benefit more. At least this effect is counter our perception of smaller the class is better. Obvious question is, What is the optimal size of a class for a teacher with given resource, time and ability, so that maximum students can benefit without compromising quality ?

PS : I don't imply that one should leave out above and below average students. We do need to challenge the above average students and give additional help to the bellow average students. But a single teacher can't have three strategies going on at the same time in a class.

Together we....

Its a very different experience to observe a class in choir practice. They are all singing together in-tune and in-rhythm, engrossed and taking cue from the conductor/teacher's hand. Their own collective voice makes them quiet and focused. If only one could get such behavior in the maths classes then so much more can be done.

However in many ways aims of choir and maths are in opposition. While in choir, we would like all to sing one note in sync, in maths we would like children to have varied response and approach. Further, there is no telling what thoughts would occur to different children. One would encourage a variety of explanations and methods of doing same problem. It would be full of kids questioning teacher and each other. So in many ways a maths class can never be like choir practice.

The great feeling that one gets from being together in choir has to come in maths class from collectively discovering inner workings of maths.

How to solve a problem...

Usually, maths is taught with series of rules where - certain rules are taught to solve certain problems. As long as you learn these rules, you can solve those problems. However that doesn't mean you have understood how it works. So how to build understanding of how it works ?

I find this template from Rafe Esquith's book useful starting point for maths teaching. His steps are very practical. It's another matter as to how to get children to think like this.

• Step 1 - Put your pencil down, Collect data (what is given)
• Step 2 - Chose appropriate strategy -Act it Out, Chose an Operation, Draw a picture, Guess and check, Look for a pattern, Make a chart or table, Make a list, Reason with a partner, Work backwards
• Step 3 - Pick up your pencil, Give it a go
• Step 4 - Does the answer make sense ? No - don't worry, re-think. Yes - great you got it. Can you do it by any other method
  

This way one can build skills to look at same problem from different angles. Meta-rules can be built from which children can themselves derive rules.

But I can't draw

Drawing must be one of the first skills to erode as children grow. Up to age 9 children draw prolifically at a mere request. But ask an older child and he/she would make excuses. How much of this is due to self-awareness and how much is due to peer review ?

It is quite possible that passing remarks about your drawing starts to put you off . Or may be around this age, there is a burst in cognition of real world - as a result child realizes that his drawing can't really catch-up with the world in full detail. Thus grows the reluctance to put a pencil to paper.

Whatever may be the cause, there seems a barrier at around age 9-10 when children seem to grow out of purposeful drawing activity. Though they may continue to doodle well into their adulthood.

How old are you really !

In the last few decades, urban prosperity has made our children thrive. This investment in our childrens' health is visible in classrooms. Children are now taller, stronger and are exposed to a variety of things in the world early in their life.If you just go by their looks and talk they are like adults.

Emotionally however they are as much kids, as one would expect to be at their age. Material prosperity can't really speed-up emotional development of a child. Some times surprisingly small silly things excite them exposing their innocence.

This creates a, sort of, illusion between what you expect from their looks versus how they really behave emotionally. They are like smaller age kids trapped in the body of grown-ups, leading to a mismatch in our expectations from them.

To some extent, this may be unfairly contributing to our perception of todays generation being immature.

Point by Point ...

There are several ways to understand a concept. One of them is to "compare similar things point-by-point". Here is how you can do it,

• Collect a sample of similar things and make a list of their properties
• Which of the properties are similar ? Why ?
  
• Which of the properties are different ? Why ?
• Can you draw any generic conclusions from the comparison ?
  

If you collect roughly similar items then one can learn much by contrasting them with each other. If two things are completely dissimilar or completely similar then it dosen't tell much about their inner workings.

For example, in order to understand Earth's Atmosphere - you can compare Atmospheres of Mars, Earth and Venus - point by point. Look at their composition, structure, weather, ice, ocean cover, amount of Sunlight etc. This would generate a gut-level understanding of Earth's Atmosphere which is founded on a broader base.

Knock-Knock !

Typically, some children seem to be decoupled from the whatever is happening in the class. Albeit they are small in number, but still worrisome. Its not like they are trouble maker. I wish they were, for then I could engage them one way or other. They seem disinterested in whatever goes on in the class. I have a feeling that this is not wholly due to quality of teaching or bad schooling - but something larger happening in childrens' lives .

May be we are over simulating them with all the audio, video, brightly colored life. They have seen the best, the costliest, the fanciest and coolest things. Real life must appears too dull to them. Consider then how History or Maths text book would appear to them.

It is harder now for a Teacher to turn around these children. In a job which is already extremely demanding it has become near impossible to turn around decoupled children.

Whatever this trend is, it is less present in the younger children and the apathy seem to be gradually growing upon them. So may be there is a clue in this some where.

It's getting real !

I have seen that these days children (age 8 yrs and above) prefer realistic stories like adventures or exploration (like Bribal-Badashah or Famous Five etc) as compared to make-believe stories (like when animals talk or wild things happen).

A librarian confirmed my hunch when she said - over the years the pattern of books borrowed by children has changed towards realistic books.

If this is true then its sad, as children probably aren't exercising ability to imagine or believe in things - as a thought experiment. They want it 'as-it-is'. May be they will lose out on model building or imagining scenarios.

[ I think Cinderella and Harry Potter exceptions are created by media. They are selling more, not as books, but as advertised products . ]

Marking with a difference

Why are we giving marks to the answers and assignments ? Only a minority of students take a clue from their poor marks and work hard to improve on specific skills (if ever we tell them what those skills are).

We know very well that absolute performance has a wide spread in any class, so it hardly helps if one child gets 2 out-of 10 and another 9 out-of 10. The good grades of one child don't percolate to another child like osmosis !

Percentile is even worse way to evaluate a child (compared to absolute marks) as it enhances the competency differences and has less to do with progress of each child. These marking schemes are like a fuzzy snap-shot of progress in time.

It's the progress per child that we want to track and not the absolute performance.

So shouldn't we be giving marks for how much a child has improved on the Simple Evaluation Metric (SEM) between the last assignment (the slope of the gradient) and the current one ? Larger the improvement greater the n, e, s score.

The marks should say - you have improved n, on neatness; e, on English; and s, on Subject understanding - between the last assignment and the current assignment !.

• So a good teacher is one whose class has high average <n>, <e> and <s>, averaged over all the students over one academic year
• A good school is where average <n>, <e> and <s> is high for all students, all classes.

Its a place where all students do far better, as compared to themselves, year after year.

Simple Evaluation Metric

It seems there are three basic things that one looks for in the answers

1. Neatness (N): This involves handwriting, presentation, no erasures or bloches etc.
2. English (E): This involves how well and adequately the answer has been conveyed.
3. Subject Matter (S): This involves asking if the subject matter is correct, to the point and the clarity of arguments.

Any subject (even maths) can be evaluated on these three simple parameters. It doesn't make sense to collapse these three into one grade (even with a weighted average), as these are independent skills.

Here, N, E and S are the absolute performance metric you would measure against some standards. How ever, what you want is the change in these skills over time (how well a child has improved these three skills). Let those be n, e and s (that is n = dN/dt, e = dE/dt and s= dS/dt).

So if at-all, the marks should be given in triplets of (n, e, s) for each answer or assignment

ReMarks not Marks

I try not to give marks for assignments. Giving 3 out-of 10 to a child hardly says what exactly is missing in his/her work. Instead, I give Remarks, +ve and -ve.

• In the +ve remarks, I highlight a.what is done correctly and b. what can be done to improve upon it.
• In the -ve remarks I write a.what is not done correctly and b.how it can be done correctly.

I do give marks for my own reference using Simple Evaluation Metric (SEM) as a baseline performance of each student - but students don't get to know these marks.

Learning to Learn

'Learning' and 'Learning how to learn' are two entirely different things. There is a subtle but fundamental difference.

• 'Learning' means - you teach a subject and they learn the subject. This involves text-books, assignments, exams, evaluations, marks etc. We think, a good teacher is the one who can get this done. All schools, teachers and curricula aim to achieve this.

I don't think one can be excellent in a subject unless one has mastered the skills that are required for learning - whatever may be the subject. So learning a subject alone without mastering these skills can take you only thus far.

• We should be actually teaching 'How to learn' rather than teach "a subject". This involves how to observe, how to articulate, how to take notes, how to classify, how to gather data, how to draw inferences, how to strategize, how to organize, how to reverse-engineer etc. To teach these skills we require very different exercises and syllabus. Further, these skills are so generic that acquiring them will help a student of any subject.

[ Thank god that these are 'set of skills' and not 'in-born traits', so there is hope that we can formalize these ]

I believe, teaching 'How to learn' would reduce the burden on teachers, as their job would become that of a subject mentor rather than being a watch-dog and micro-manager.

Individual teachers can probably make this shift in their class. But I have no idea how we can shift an entire school system from "Learning" to "How to learn".

Upper limit - 20 minutes !

Shown a 50 minutes documentary today. I notice that children (age 12 -13 yrs) get distracted after about 15-20 minutes. They chat or needle some one or drift. Thus even a well made documentary on an important issue - directly related to their lessons becomes in-effective. I wonder if the 15-20 minute upper limit of their focus is shaped by the TV commercial breaks.

• Is it too early to expect 40 minutes of attention span for these 12-13 year-olds ?
  
• Or is it already late to expect 40 minutes of attention span for these 12-13 year-olds ?

Defination, Analogy, Examples and Explanation

There are four surprises when I ask children to explain me a concept. For example, 'Green House Effect'.

1. Some children give me definition of Green House Effect (courtesy text-book). A definition is basically most precise explanation of the concept in least amount of words. But a correct definition doesn't tell me if the child has understood the concept.
2. Some children give me analogy of the concept. But analogies fail when applied outside their narrow domain. So this still doesn't tell me if the child has got correct (i.e. necessary and sufficient) understanding of the concept.
   
3. A few children will give me Examples of the concept - which is application of the concepts to specific situation. But examples is not the same as explanation.
4. Then there are a few who can explain the concept in ways that even I may not have thought-of. If I start shooting holes in their explanation typically - they can 'separate wheat from chaff'.
   

How should one convey the difference between definition, analogy, example and explanation.

From What, to How and Why

Children often ask a "What" question. Nothing wrong with that - but this often leads to definition or information about things.

The possibilities are more interesting with a "How" or a "Why" question. Here, one can show the inter-relations, cause and effect and leave space for alternate explanations.

For example, What is a rainbow ? is not as interesting as "How are rainbows formed ?" or "Why do rainbows occur ?" In answering "How and Why" questions, one can start building models which will help children learn more complex concepts which come later.

Hence we should teach children ways in which they can convert "what" questions in to "how" or "why" questions.

Revise ? What is that ?

The concept of revise or draft is vanishing in the children. They don't know that a finished product requires multiple revisions.

Even successful writers/researchers make several drafts of their work before they get it just right. Yet for children this is not the accepted practice. As a result their first work is their last, take it or leave it.

There is a way around this. All assignments should be done with following four steps

1. Make a list of points you want in the essay
2. Write one paragraph for each point - first draft
   
3. Read and correct what you just wrote
4. make final draft

This may teach them to reflect on their own words.

Quality of visual channel

If I were to write text on the board and ask them to copy it down (which is the mode they prefer instead of dictation), I find them merely copying word by word. So the quality of this visual channel is very poor mostly like - cut and paste.

We seem to learn fundamentally differently when we hear something and when we see something - the topic may be the same.

No space left for hard work

It has become harder to find space to do hard work in today's schools. No doubt children do a lot of home work and re-writing notes etc.

Strangely, we get exhausted by the end of the day but we don't really do hard work. I think the difference is mundane activities exhaust us while purposeful hard work (gardening, cleaning etc) make us feel better at the end of the day.

I have a gut feeling that it is easier to build self-esteem and pride in children through purposeful physical hard work (as compared to scholastic hard work). But it is not easy to find time for such activities in schools today.

Shutting down listening channel

I was surprised today that children refused to write down text as I dictated the text. They wanted me to write everything on the board which they were used to copying. Again it seems that they prefer visual channel rather than auditory channel.

Obviously some were finding it difficult to construct spellings from spoken words. I had to repeat parts of sentences three times, as many were unable to hold even short sentences in the short term memory and write.

It is as if - they know individual words but are failing to comprehend the integrated sentences, their meaning or sense.

Mean-ness in class rooms

There is much rude behavior between boys and girls (and even between groups of boys or girls). Typically - calling derogatory nick-names, trashing and mocking happens when one group asks for some adjustment with other.

If children are so intolerant about even minor day-to-day adjustments, how will they face the world where other people's opinions may be out-rightly opposite, or a compromise is required. Would they then become violent on one side or depressed on the other.

In the hard times ahead children need the skills to adjust and negotiate, see others point-of-view. Yet, there is little opportunity to develop these specific skills in the school.

This lack of tolerance is limiting the efficiency for work/projects done in groups and is distracting.

Where exactly is the problem here

Even when text-book based questions are asked, the answers come in and - the quality of English writing appears to be poor. The sentences are deformed in such strange ways, one wonders if these are works of some literary genius who can distort the English in this way. What is the problem here ?

1. Is the English impoverished due to some half-backed concepts which come out garbled?
2. May be the concepts are clear enough and the grammar is half-baked. A sentence begins in the past tense and ends in present tense !
   
3. Or May be children are not reading refined English anymore. So even if they have clear concepts and correct grammar, they just don't have the range of vocabulary to express.
4. Or they do not parse what they have just written. So they never discover the gems they produce.
   

It could be combination of these and other factors. I have no idea at this stage.

Story telling

Primary school children prefer story-books with pictures in it and demand to see the pictures. This interrupts the flow of the story as children rush to see the pictures.

I have tried encouraging them to imagine the scenes with not much success. Its as if they are used to ready made pictures and find it difficult to imagine a scenario through language.

Something is amiss here

I am dumping here some thoughts and observations that I run into in the school - mainly for my own sake. I have no idea if these issues are generic to today's schools, are they specific to urban schools, are they specific to some economic class etc.

There seems a subtle change in the classrooms today, as compared to a decade back when I did a brief teaching. There is something about children which has changed towards worse which I can't put my finger on. But may be a picture will emerge as I jot down my notes here.

If you have something to say about these notes, you are welcome to add your two cents in the comments.