Being Creative-Collaborative

The world has become unpredictable in many ways. Consider the exceptional weather we are having lately, delayed rains, short-cold winter, snow in summer in Australia. Consider the economic crises. Consider the governments and regimes. As we enter these modern times many things will become more and more uncertain.

However, one thing is certain. Going forward the most required thing would be to be creative and collaborative. How important is this can be judged from who gets paid a lot these days.  Look at Technology,  Media, Design, Finance, Governance, Diplomats -if you can be creative and collaborative then you are in demand.

These very qualities are also required for our future. Consider the challenges we will face in future. We will have to tackle global warming, create a world-wide stable financial system, take-care of aged and growing population, feed the masses. All of these are enormous tasks and they absolutely require you to be creative and collaborative.

So how are we training our children for such a future ? The answer is  - Not at all. I find that in school we are still worried about fixed curriculum, standardized teaching and standardized evaluation. Batches after batches of students who are judged individually on their knowledge of topics which are not very relevant. Next generation is being educated for things which are going to be useless to themselves and to the world.

We should be teaching children how to collaborate, how to accommodate diverse of opinions, how to compromise, how to re-train and adapt. How to compare, infer and integrate. Dealing with people and coordinating will be more important in future. To use technical terms - next generation should be trained not to design "products" but "solutions".

There isn't much hope that existing schools will/can adapt themselves for this challenge, in time. We will have to build system parallel to schools, where kids mix with others, brainstorm, collaborate and create solutions to their immediate and pressing problems. Then they would be ready to take on the tough future that they will be facing.

Multi-tasking and Teaching

The skill of multi-tasking your work is not easy to learn. With training a few learn to manage two critical tasks at the same time. This is most apparent in technology organizations where creative work needs to be done with quality, to the specification and on a tight time-line. In such organizations, one is careful in giving more than two projects to anyone at a time.

There is some sense it this practice. Loading a person with more tasks would result in sub-standard results. There may be an upper limit on our mental resources which makes it harder for us to multi-task between more than two projects

Now contrast this with a teacher in a typical school. At any given time, there are many  time-critical projects on teacher's head. Here is a not-very-uncommon list of them - other than teaching a lesson, there is managing the class, correcting notebooks, setting exam papers, evaluating papers, substitute classes, filling progress reports, attendance, lesson-plans, dealing with parents, meetings, concerts, sports-day, national-days, projects, presentations.

Many of the above tasks are ON at the same time. But more importantly all of them are important. The requirements for any of the above tasks is not very different from those of technical projects. A teacher needs to be creative and resourceful to deliver results with quality, to the specification and on a tight time-line.

Has anyone asked, how much a teacher can multi-task ? Consider the role played by a teacher in children's life. Consider if the teacher delivers badly on all these tasks in the end. In the view of this reality, is it possible for a teacher to deliver quality education. Multi-tasking beyond two projects is impractical. We need to address this if there is any chance of improving education.

How far out is ok...

Every one of us must have come across some inspiring teachers. And usually they would have some peculiar ways. They would talk or walk or behave differently - almost to the point of becoming a joke in the school. I had a teacher who was manic about chalk dust, unless every thing around him was chalk-dust-free he wouldn't start teaching. He used to carry his own dust-free chalks and pick them up like surgical tools. Another teacher used to go silent in the middle of a lecture, leaving us wondering in our seats till the bell rang. I think there was some connection between being inspiring and peculiar. Looking back we think of these teachers fondly.

So let us look at todays schools. There are many more schools and school-teachers now than there were 30 years back. One would expect greater number of peculiar-inspiring teachers in schools today. Surprisingly the teacher-community has become quite uniform across schools today. There is so much uniformity amongst teachers now that  if one teacher is replaced by another at a short notice, it doesn't matter. The lesson of any subject can go on as usual.

One obvious reason may be that a talented teacher can find much better jobs outside schools. It is rare to find an inspiring teacher in schools however high may be the salary. Yet, I think this alone does not explain the deficit of cranky-inspiring teachers. In many fields we see people working with passion against all odds. Then why do we not see enough of inspiring teachers in education.

I think there is another reason. Schools have become less tolerant to any kind of outlier teachers over time. An inspiring teacher is little too unpredictable or weird. Schools don't want to take a risk of employing a teacher who does not fit their norms. And strictly so. School have become methodical in running the school with set norms. This has weeded out good teachers who may otherwise have some peculiar ways to handle the class or teach.

Collectively, the schools, parents, policy-makers and educationalists who have fixed ideas about teaching have reduced the diversity of teaching styles in class-room.

The cream of the class...

In any class there are children who behave well and who don't behave. I don't call them good children and bad children, because its not the 'children' who are good or bad but its 'their behaviour' which is good or bad. Teachers often forget to make this important distinction or do not make it visibly enough. So many children grow up thinking they are good or bad in themselves. So it is important to point out the difference over here.

But there is a third, smaller category of children. Some children are academically good but they give hard time to teachers otherwise. They finish their work and get into some unrelated activity in class. Like, they start a game when they quickly finish maths work. They are not shy of suggesting or giving opinions. Like, they give me reasons why I should not be teaching Maths but Science today. They argue back making weird exceptions to your point. Like, one child asked me if veins have valves to stop blood flowing downwards then are there valves in arteries going to brain ? They play on words. Like a child told me in Maths class that this is an example example. These children are typically not toppers in the class. Neither do they seem to care much.

Usually they recognize smartness in others and are sporty about it. The sheer fun of playing around with ideas is greater to them than personal grudges. They are the ones who, I hope, will grow-up and question the system. They will think out-of box. With right opportunity and guidance, they would become leaders, entrepreneurs, inventors, inspiring educators. According to me this third category of children are the cream of the class, however difficult they may be to a teacher.

A middle way...

The current model of schools evolved during the Industrial Age. Skilled workers were required on a regular basis to a variety of industries. Miners, ship-builders, accountants, Rail-road builders, Tailors, Doctors, Masons etc. These jobs required a common foundation on which further training was given. The schools were designed to provide the work-force and they continue to function in the same spirit.

But the world around us today looks nothing like it used to in the Industrial Age. Three things have changed,

• Manufacturing - is now far less dependent on labour. The bigger opportunities are in services that require thinking and collaborations.
• Internet - provides enormous amount of knowledge now. You can take advance courses, provide services, launch a venture, show your talents. You use the net, phone or modern transport.
• Mentors - Never in the human history can you find so many specialized, learned scholars in one place as in todays cities. You have many passionate engineers, scientists, programmers, managers, linguists, artisans, scholars living around your house. 

So why are kids being still Educated by a system that was designed for the Industrial Age. Are we sending kids to school so that they can get a manufacturing job ? not likely.

We need a new model of schooling. One that takes into account new aspiration. One that takes best of what school and outside world has to offer. I propose a three point solution,

• Find a least-demanding school closest to your house which has small working hours. A school which would take care of your child's need of socialization. This would cost you less and free-up a lot of time for the child.
• Find a handful of mentors around your house where your child can go as an apprentice to learn from passionate people. Drawing, Maths, Science, tennis, swimming, Sanskrit, Drama whatever interests the kid.
• Invest the time and money to travel wide to give exposure to your child. Historic places, geographic sites, camps, workshops. Use that spare money to teach skills  - a camera for movie making, a computer for programming, a studio for fabric design, a kitchen for baking, a lab for science experiments.

Till we change the model of schooling or until the current model becomes completely redundant, this may be the middle way which provides best education.

PS : Yes, home schooling is an option but its not for everyone. Also, home schooling has  its own limitation unless there are many home schoolers around to make a society. That is why I think this is a middle way.

What works..

Of late, interesting discoveries are happening in the study of Human interactions. What motivates humans, how to get best out of human interaction etc. Here is one talk on what motivates us.

A lot of this work is driven by the realization that unless we understand how people work, and work together we can't get the best that they have to offer. Of course, leading this revolution in work-environment are the small and nimble technology companies. They attract the best of the talents, make amazing products and also make money in the process. Yet a lot of great free stuff comes out of these organizations.

Even NGOs and Service companies have realized that good business results not necessarily from high-pay or strict quality control, but by pointing the people in right direction and letting them take charge of their work and life.

In case of Technology companies, the drive to make an idea succeed makes them adopt fresh ideas of human-resources. In case of service sector, its the drive to give the best service makes them adopt best practices. Now a days even some government departments are adopting new ways to manage staff and provide services.

So how has this new look at human resources affected our schools. Schools after all are where one needs highest creativity, most dedicated and hard-working people. People on whom future of our kids depends. It is where human interaction is at the very heart of good education. Shouldn't they be the leaders in modern methods of people management ?

Sadly, most Educational institutions are far from adopting these ideas. They are not much worried about how they manage their human resources (that is teachers and children). They continue to be run like the old government departments - going in for the lowest tender in everything they do, making archaic rules  - with the only difference that they now take-in high fees.

One reason may be that society doesn't looks at schools as "service-providers". What value are you getting for the money you pay. What is the worth of school-teaching in todays market (other than a certificate). If schools are also treated as competing service-providers then that will make schools take a note of how they treat their human resources.

Schools are in danger of making themselves irrelevant to people and their education.  Someone is bound to ask the question, what kind of educational service are we getting ? and is it worth it ? I believe that time will come soon.

The Four Things

Interacting with children often makes you think about your fundamentals. During a recent project of mine, a nature-camp with children, I got to crystallize one such thought. We started the discussion on most important things in life and around ? This is how it went.

Obviously, money is important, they said. You can do so many things with money. Don't we learn so that we can earn more money ? true. Someone said that resources are important. Water, food, houses - then we discussed how some resources are easy to make like cars and houses. But some resources like trees and pure water take many years to make, so they are more precious. One boy suggested working is important - that is hard work (grown-ups would have said labour). Indeed a lot of things are not possible without hard work.

This discussion went on for a while and I started seeing a pattern in what the kids were talking. It seems there are just four basic things that are important in life. They are - money, hard work, skills and ideas.

Of course, love, peace, family are also important but these are rather abstract concepts. Ideas, hard work, skills are as real as money and they can be traded with each other. A lot of money without ideas, skills and hard work isn't a worth while life.

Can we exchange an idea for a meal ? Can I feed you for a price of a skill ? How about hard work in return of a good idea ? Can we build a business or a community on trading these four things. At the least it would be great fun.  Its a pity that money alone has tilted the scale off-balance. Our children should be exposed to idea that skills, hard work, ideas and money, are important and can be exchanged.

Thanks to the discussion with kids, we found the four basic things we must trade to live a better life - Ideas, Skills, Hard Work and Money.

Actives, not Activists...

There are two kind of parents seen these days. First are those who are not much bothered about the education. They are happy to continue schooling the way it works - exams, marks, punishments, classes etc. They don't have much to say or do about any of this. Once they pay the fees and collect report cards the communication is over. This docile group is probably larger of the two groups. Obviously these parents can't move the school systems to provide better education as they themselves are not vocal about it.

The second group is smaller but more visible. They are the activist-parents, who are not happy with the situation. They question the methodology, motivation, means and ends of teaching. They protests, send legal letters and some time even go to court. At times they question schools only because their child is not happy, fairly or unfairly. Activist-parents cause fair amount of headache to schools. The schools have to make policies to handle such parents - and they apply it to one and all.

Unfortunately, activist-parents also can't move the school system to provide better education -for several reasons. Firstly, schools are stressed even under normal situation. Activists-parents put more stress on them, which no one likes. Schools aren't flexible and nimble to handle criticism. Its difficult to take it positively and integrate into policy changes. Often schools show a knee-jerk response to activist-parents and over react. Lastly, schools are in such a demand that education will always be a suppliers-market. As a result when an activist-parent wins, most often real education is the casualty.

To improve education, what we really need is group of Active-parents and not Activist-parents. Active parents would want to visit schools. Understand what are the top three or four pain-points at the school. They would want to organise volunteer-parents group and support the school in reducing the pressure. School can benefit from a variety of such help - gathering resources, identifying topics which can be taught across subjects or classes, developing skill sets, collating and integrating information needed for each lesson, arranging interesting personalities to visit the schools, teach teachers how to use computers effectively, helping teachers with project material, taking initiative to support educational out-door visits, raising funds for specific needs (such as, sports equipment or audio/video systems). The list could be long. Schools hardly have enough resources, skills, time or money to organize many of these things.

If you notice, this is not something that would ever happen through PTA meetings. What is needed is loosely coupled group of parents who would bring diverse skills and resources to the table. Fortunately, todays technologies allows parents to readily form such volunteer group almost free of cost.

Organizing these things costs little money, considering how much money is already poured into schooling. Yet, these are the very things which improve quality of education. These things change the nature of education much more than worrying about completing curriculum, text-books, exams or fees.

We need - Large number of active-parents around each school.

The Litmus Test

In educating a child we face many choices and dilemmas. Is CBSE better or SSC, Is English medium better or Marathi. Should there be Sanskrit or Hindi ? How much home work is enough, is good handwriting required, should we arrange for tuitions ?  How many marks are enough ? Is the school worth the cost ? How much of the money actually goes into learning and teaching ? So many questions and options.

Naturally most of us think that better education can be arranged if only we can make the correct choice or resolve conflicts. When push comes to shove, we change schools, start tutorial classes, put pressure on teachers or worse, put pressure on the child. We split hair on these things and yet remain dissatisfied. The whole affair is very stressful, come to think of it.

So let us step-back for a while and ask the original Question. What is a good education and how do we know we are getting one ? If we have a 'litmus test' for this , then that is exactly what we should  look for. We can use such a test to resolve all our seemingly difficult questions.

There is a simple answer to this very fundamental question. What is a good education ? If learning is a fun-experience for a child then that is a good education. You need not look any further. Any school, any school-board, any teacher, any text-book or any medium of instruction can be tested against this criteria. Mind you, I did not say learning should be  entertaining, I say it should be a fun.

The principle also works in the reverse. What is good fun ? The 'litmus test' is again very simple. If the fun is a learning-experience for a child then that is a good fun. It doesn't matter if its TV, reading books, talking or singing. The important question is, is fun a learning-experience.

Unfortunately, we have convinced ourselves that good education is a matter of making correct choice, or pay right amount of fees, or have certain facilities, or choose the right medium of instruction. Media, schools, government, educators and money has scared-us into thinking this way. I believe all of this is completely irrelevant to our primary goal- the need of good education.

That education is the best which makes 'learning a fun-experience and fun a learning-experience for a child'. Such education must be sought after.

Unfair reputation...

Today in the school, I was called for an emergency. As I walked I thought of short-circuits or some kid's broken arm or a snake. As it turned out there was a large, rare-looking insect which was causing all this panic.I caught and put it in the box.

I am amazed at the amount of  fear and animosity insects generate in the grown-ups. And its rubbing-off onto children, which is sad. I find many children are repelled by insects now a days. And no one seems to be making the case for insects. Movies like Antz and Bugs Life haven't really dispelled the fear of insects from our children. 

Its grossly unfair that insects should have such a bad reputation. Insects are one of the most ancient species still living on the Earth and they live in such large numbers. Insects (like amphibian) are sensitive to the environmental changes and so we should prey that they don't disappear but thrive. Yet society at large seem to have written them off.

What impresses me most is the sheer variety of insects that we see. Just turn-on the terrace-light one evening and wait'n watch. They will gather in a wide variety on your terrace. Each is like an exquisitely carved jewel with shiny colours and symmetric patterns.

The insect that we found in the school was most likely a beetle called 'Stromatium barbatum'. Its also known as wood borer - a rather dangerous insect if you happen to be in the timber business. I got to know this from an interesting site on Indian Insects run by zoology people from a local college ! 

I showed the insect to the 8-9 year-olds, and after initial screams they were willing to take a look. The beautiful patterns on the back of the insect must have attracted them. Some of them also held him in the hand - which was a minor victory for the insect kingdom. During the lunch time two girls took the box out and let him loose into the trees. We hope he isn't drilling into some ones furniture now.

Mirror, mirror, who is the fairest one of all

In the fairy tale 'Snow white and the seven little dwarfs' the magic mirror informs the Queen that she is the fairest one of all, until one day the mirrors says otherwise. All of us know what happens afterwards. A similar, but much more powerful, mirror is being created and used today - its the social networking sites like FaceBook.

Increasingly a lot of youngsters are using these sites to interact with their real and virtual friends, many of them are clearly bellow the legal age. Parents often find it cool that their kids have taken to networking. A parent told me proudly that he didn't know his young daughter had an account till he ran into her on the internet.

For over a year now, I am looking at the interaction of youngsters on the social networking sites just out of curiosity. I notice two things that have great implications to the future of our children.

Most often a post from a child gets out-of-proportion praises. U r sooo kool, U look gr8, I wish I could do that, sooo lucky, ooh you saw a ferrari ?. Youngsters get addicted to such feel-good feedback. A student once told me after a bad exam that she doesn't feel bad that she has done poorly, she said she recently reached highest number of friends on the site.

But if you happen to post even mildly disagreeable post,  the reprehensions are quick and violent. It becomes a game - who can insult with the best wise-crack. This sends some children into depression while others retaliate with more verbal violence.

I think psychologists/anthropologists will find great differences in the way ego (or the sense of self) is built in the pre-facebook and post-facebook era. We are going to create even  more self-centred and a less tolerant society on the net. And it will surely reflect in the real physical world.

The magic mirror is no longer telling the whole truth, its selectively distorting your image. Its picking-up things that only you like to hear. If you leave this comfort zone, then you will be damned. Its not a good environment for a child to grow.

Purposeful entertainment

How much TV watching is enough for a child ? this is a common question these days. The answer may lie in asking - if the entertainment is purposeful or purposeless.

Typically, the child starts watching a program on TV (say Tom & Jerry). Every 15 minutes there are very compulsive ads targeted for children. After a while the child is mainly watching the Ads and not the story. When the Ads get repetitive, the child  changes channels to something else. What was the original purpose of watching Tom & Jerry ? What happened to the story ? How did it end ? The purpose of watching TV is lost after a while.

There are many ways to make any entertainment purposeful. Ask a child to narrate the story at dinner time, discuss the reaction of characters. Ask them to play it out. Why was the program funny or sad ? Can you write about this in a letter to grand-mother ? Can you draw a picture on the story ? How would the story end if you change the plot ?

You are creating a purpose for that entertainment when you ask such questions or weave it into an activity. You make it a worth-while and learning experience for a child by doing so. By assigning some purpose we make it more enjoyable, not less. We make child an active part of that experience.

There is not much difference between watching TV this way and doing studies. We need to bring in purpose to our entertainment and some amount of entertainment in our studies.  Both should be a 'purposeful enjoyment'.

So, how much TV is enough for a child depends on How much of it you can make  purposeful.

Growing citizens...

Nearly 70 % of India's population is said to be living villages. However if the current trend of development continues, by 2050 majority of people will come to live in cities. No doubt the present cities will grow into mega-cities and smaller villages will become towns.

Sleepy villages doing agriculture will be replaced by fast-paced towns running the service-sector. This is an enormous change to happen in one generation. And considering we are one billion people, this is not a small number of people either. This requires an enormous change in the life-style and attitude of people. So how are we training the next generation of urban dwellers ? We need to look at todays class-rooms to find the answer.

There is hardly any sign of this drastic forth-coming change in our class rooms. While  children are increasingly becoming self-centred, there is not much done to teach them to live together. As expected teaching is focused on maths, science, languages and social sciences. The society and economy seem to be focused on promoting individuality and personal status. How do we make people care for each other because their well-being will depend on each other more so in future.

There is a desperate need for schools to focus on these issues. They need to know their locality, their place in community, the support systems. They need to be taught to talk, walk and behave when millions are packed together in smaller and smaller houses. While academic subjects can be taught or learnt in later years, behaviour is hard to learn at a later age. We need to train children for the good citizenship now.

Be a good team player, follow community rules, don't use bad language or physical violence. What are the very basic things that we need to teach to future urban citizens ? When and how shall we teach them ?

Starving the hand...

Grip your left hand firmly with your right hand. Open and close the left palm a few times to pump the blood out of the left palm. Now hold the grip for a minute and watch and feel.

This was our experiment to see what happens when our hand is starved of blood. Children found interesting things - as the blood flows out the hand freezes, you can't open the fingers. The palm looks white as the blood is drained out. The hand becomes cold as the energy production is shut down. Fingers feel numb as neurons are starved of oxygen and energy.

Children found it unbearable after one minute. Now free the left hand and watch. Children observed - the palm immediately blushes red as the blood rushes in. It feels hot as the oxygen burning and energy production starts. The hand now feels heavy due to rush of extra-blood. Tingling continues for some time till neurons start working again. It takes another minute before the hand feels normal again.

Children wrote down their experience and the experiment. Their first-hand experience of why blood is important to our body. We begin study of human circulatory system.

The anti-Pavlov Experiment

While we were learning the human digestive system, children did a short version of the famous Pavlov's experiment. They thought of their favourite food and observed how their mouth waters. The digestion process starts just at the thought of food. Our body and mind is driven by the sensory inputs.

Some years back scientists discovered yet another powerful effect. Something like an anti-Pavlov effect. This looks at how children resist reflexes and what happens to these children. In the now famous experiment, children (age 5-7) were give a chocolate. They were asked to wait till the teacher returned after 15 minutes if they wanted another chocolate. Not surprisingly, most children ate their chocolates and a few resisted the temptation (about 2/3 and 1/3, respectively). It turns out that those who resisted the temptation went on to do exceptionally well in higher studies. Those of who ate the chocolate many became school drop-outs. The study is now well established and suggests that - learning to delay gratification may be a major factor in doing well in studies.

When I talked about this experiment in the class, they all wanted to try it out- and so we did. This time I raised the stakes by saying that they may eat chocolate only after dinner and they should not talk about this to anyone till then. I admit that I had primed them by telling about the experiment - but the 'delayed-gratification' part was still valid. To not eat is ok but 'not talk about it' is a serious challenge for a 9-10 year-old.

I was expecting a scandal in school about chocolates being distributed in class by teacher. Other classes demanding their share of chocolates. To my surprise, there was no sign of it till the end of the school-day. Children had managed to keep mum. Now they are off to a short vacation. When they return I will find out if they really did wait till dinner time - before telling their parents.

PS : Back from vacation, I asked them. Most children did not eat the chocolates till after the dinner. There were a few who came and told me 'they had eaten it in the school itself - because the chocolates were melting in their pockets'. I notice that children like to be challenged - may be I need to raise the stakes higher next time.

The gossip girls

Playful fight starts amongst the boys. They are running around, chasing and challenging each other. Its all part of growing-up and sizing-up each others strength. But more often these days this play-thing ends up in bitter arguments or fist-fights. No doubt our children have become more individualistic these days. They have less tolerance for others and a low threshold. However with boys, things are quickly forgotten. In couple of hours you can see them playing some other physical game.

Not so with girls. Girls have gossip-circles from which you can be excluded if you go cross with the group. And this is so devastating to the excluded girl. It affects her for many days. It is long time before another coalition is formed. Girls use this trick to marginalise an individual very effectively. More often the girl being excluded never get back her original comfort level with the group.

Somehow not being included in the gossip-circle is much more hurtful to a girl than boys getting into fist-fights. May be girls give lot more importance to the perceived status than boys do. Boys may be paying more attention to the intrinsic worth rather than perceived status.

Learning is also a responsibility

In general, Maths needs lot more participation from students than any other subject. Understanding of a concept, even at a face-level, requires immediate involvement from the student. More involvement from a student will earn him even deeper insight into how maths works.

If students are not willing to think (as is often the case with maths) they are less likely to understand the working of the Maths. Understanding can happen when there is both, teaching efforts and learning efforts. While there is a lot of focus on teaching efforts today, we don't seem to pay much attention to the need of learning efforts.

I have observed that students who are unwilling to do the maths work are most likely to claim that they haven't understood the sum - when the time comes to check the sums. This is almost a sure sign of an excuse. This distracts teachers into thinking that better explanation would lead to the understanding. However for these students 'not understanding' is an excuse to avoid work and a way to put the ball in teacher's court.

This has resulted in commonly seen attitude amongst students (and parents as well) that teacher is whole and sole of education. We all understand that teaching is teacher's responsibility. But do we understand that learning is equally serious and demanding responsibility on the students ? Good understanding of a concept can happen only when both, teachers and students, are making efforts to meet their responsibility.

PS: I was made aware of this parity by a teacher friend of mine. I was making a feedback form for the course I had just taught. I asked my students, "What contributions did you make to make this course successful and useful to you ?" and got back equivalent of a blank-look saying, "us ? do we have to do something as well ?".

End of Innocence

These days we often talk about how smart the kids have become. They know how to manage cell-phones, they are up-to-date with the kid's movies, they know the prices of cars, they even know the cool places to eat in town. When kids talk, grown-ups often have a look on their face which is somewhere between amazement and admiration. Children are certainly smarter today if you compare with kids of same age from a generation back.

What is not talked about or realized is the early loss of certain innocence in these kids. What is not talked about enough is that kids are becoming wiser, as in cleverer, rather than being world-wise.

There is another draw-back to knowing lot more at an earlier age (even more dangerous is to know that you are admired for it). Children tend to think that just because they know things they understand things. The over exposure of information creates a barrier in many kids to learning. The smart-type kids have a mental block in learning something, which they know, from a new perspective. 

There is a certain benefit in letting children be children for some more years. These additional years expose children to diverse experiences. At a later age their ability to see the inter-relations and consequences is better developed. They can infer things with better judgement and sensitivity. Questions and concepts, especially those in the Social Sciences, can be posed, debated and answered with far greater depth.

This is not to say that delaying learning process is better - children should learn at all ages. But we should let children stay innocent till the age when they can compose the bigger picture themselves.

I can't give you no money...

Once you understand something, you tend to look at it in a completely different light. And you wipe out the memory of how it used to be before. I came across a curious case of this while teaching negative numbers.

The negative numbers carry sign of, - , in front. The sign's job is to suggest the value of the number. The value may be compared to zero, such as -30 or it could be a relative value such as -15 km from my house. The negative sign here is like an adjective.

Unfortunately, the exact same sign, -, is also there for the subtraction operation. Here it represents an operation between two numbers. Namely, the operation of taking difference between the values of two numbers. It is like a verb here. If you can't guess which role the, -, sign is playing then that leads to a great confusion.

Soon things get more complicated. The numbers whose difference is to be taken by subtraction could themselves be positive, +, or negative ,- . Many are unable to recognize the dual role played by, -. This may be one reason why so many children find concept of negative numbers baffling.

It is less confusing if its put in words, such as, "Subtract minus four from three". Here the two jobs played by our friend are clearer. Once you learn to recognize it as an operation or a value, then you see negative numbers in a more generic light.

PS: From another angle, subtraction operation is like finding the value of second number with respect to the first number. But that's even deeper to realize.

You can only learn it.

Recently a student of mine, who tried teaching maths to younger brother, narrated the frustrating experience to me - "its so obvious to me, but he doesn't get it. He just doesn't get it".

This is especially true of Maths. Maths is the ultimate compact way of saying things. Obviously a lot of thought is required to unpack all the thought that is hidden in a simple looking maths statement. A teacher can show what happens when different levers are pulled. But to understand how the Maths-machine works a student has to figure it out for himself/herself. Teacher may use various props to nudge a student to think about the inner working of maths. But for the student, think he must.

Maths demands a lot more "willingness to learn" from a student in that sense. The best kind of maths-teaching is when student does most of the thinking and teacher remains invisible.

Some things can not be taught, but can be only be learned.

Form versus Format

In today's schools many things are over-designed. There are formats for all kind of written works - notes, tests, letters, comprehension etc. Children have to follow these formats else they may lose marks.

No doubt this makes it easy for teachers to detect outliers and non-conformists. And indeed it is easy to catch sloppy children by strictly adhering to various formats and rules. However, this has far-reaching, unintended consequence.

Its become harder for a child to develop a sense of neatness in his or her work. There is a difference between a 'format' and a 'form'. Children quickly learn to mimic the format without developing internal sense of form and proportion. An elegant written work has a form - spacing, margins, tabs for paragraphs and justifications.

Sometimes, when kids ask me how they should write some text or solve a maths sum, I tell them to do it in a way that looks neat - no rules. And hope that they will learn to differentiate between neat work and sloppy work.

While it is easy to learn the format, it takes time and an eye to learn the form. Children wouldn't learn elegance of written work if we don't give space and time to explore.

Addicted to Eraser

They hold pencil in one hand and eraser in other hand. This seems a common style of writing these days. No sooner they make a mistake they want to erase and correct it. It may be a factual error, or a compute error, or even a case of bad hand-writing. Erasing your mistakes may seem right thing to do - after all children are conscious of their own mistakes, but it has unwanted consequences.

Firstly, by erasing their mistakes they forget about it and make similar mistakes down the line. Leaving a mistake on the page - there to see - helps in identifying it next time you do it. Secondly, most children are not careful in erasing, as a result their writing only becomes more smudgy. Some times the paper is torn as well. Why can't you simpley draw a clean line across your mistake and leave it there for the future ?

Secondly, this habit seem to undermine their confidence. The line between a 'mistake' and 'not getting it exactly correct' is very thin. For example, ask children to draw freely and they hesitate - unless they can use an eraser now and then. By relying on eraser so much, we seem to have closed the feed-back loop that allows a child to learn from their 'not exactly correct' wanderings.

In our efforts to improve educational quality, somehow we have sent a clear signal of what is correct and acceptable. Children are reacting to it by relying more on erasure. Will they ever learn to get things correct in first place, or draw lines confidently ?

Maths as a story

It has amazed me to see the extent to which children equate maths with numbers and formulae. They have strong conviction that maths is numbers and rules. They hardly think about maths as a story, drama or an event. As a result simple word-problems baffle them.

Well before we get down to actually doing the maths, we must understand what happened in this story. Say, Meena goes to market to get a dozen bananas, a dozen times. We need to play this drama in our mind, only then can we figure-out what to do. Is this a multiplication or a division sum. A fraction or a square-root sum. Unfortunately, well before children are hooked to stories of maths, they are made to learn the maths of the story.

One way out is to start teaching elementary maths only through stories. It doesn't matter if they don't know the generalized rules, as long as they know how to resolve the situation in the story. In Meena's case she could have made 12 trips and buy 12 bananas each time (hence 12 times 12, which is 144 bananas). Or, she could have made 12 trips to buy one banana each (hence 12 times, which is 12 bananas). These possibilities are there. The maths (as symbols and rules) hardly enters here.

It would be easy to teach children generic rules once they understand many maths-stories. However, if they know the many generic-rules, its not easy to figure-out which of these would apply to a specific story-sum. So treat maths more like a story than a formula.

One good teacher = how many educationists ?

Every year, like the dark monsoon clouds, new educational reforms arrive. Typically text-books change (new minister), languages come and go (Marathi is in as-off today), exams change (from no-exams to weekly exams), evaluation rules change (marks or percentiles or grades ?). Add to this the large annual churn of teachers and things can get very dizzy for children.

How does one draw any conclusions about education when nothing seems to be ever constant ? I guess words "new reforms" says it all - meaning we are dumping "old" reforms. We don't even know if those worked or not.

In last few decades many educational theories have done 180 degree turns. Here is one example. For years educationists promoted idea of different learning-styles (the literature is vast). Children have different learning -styles, so there have to be teaching-styles and evaluation-styles. This spawned an industry of text-books, tool-kits and experts. Now it seems, the evidence for 'learning-style' learning isn't quite there. A new study shows that teaching-styles have no effect on the actual amount of learning that happens amongst different children (Paschler et al). Give it another year and the new study will also spawn an industry with its own experts.

The problem is - we are theorizing faster than we are collecting evidence. And we are marketing faster than we are theorizing. There is too much focus on class-rooms. Class-rooms have become cutting-edge labs for all sorts of experiments. Educationists are quicker to take new results and create policy-advice out of it. Education, of all the fields, requires a very long baseline and control population (I would say half-a-generation at least). But no one has patience or time to verify anything here.

I think schools are suffering from too many Educationists and too few teachers. A good teacher is an intuitive educationists. A good teacher develops views and techniques over many years. He/she knows how to balance different approaches to teaching (if only we would leave him/her alone).

No means no, means no, means no, means ....

There is this growing thing in children today, both at home and in school. When I say "no", meaning "you will not do or have a thing", kids consider it as an Invitation for Negotiation.

They are really really really sorry.., oh please, please, please..., can't we do this just for 10 minutes..., why can't we..., but you allowed yesterday... This can go on for minutes, hours or even days. They want to know what they can do to get around this 'no'.

The grown-ups, rationals, teacher-types think kids will understand if we explain why. Intentions are good here, but this only furthers kids' impression that this is open for negotiation. For every explanation of yours, kids have varied explanations of why not 'no'.

May be it is possible to reach end of the argument, with one or two kids at home. I found number of parents are also suffering from this epidemic. However, there are 30 or 40 kids to tackle - in class-room. There is no scope of ending the arguments and also teach what you decided to.

Its worth studying this phenomena. It's telling us something about their strategy or their changed perception of who they and we are.

The original song...

Some of you may not have seen the 'School Chale Hum' Ad that used to come on TV in India, about education to all. Here is the youtube link to this great short film.

When going gets tough...

I had to do a tight-rope walk in giving Maths sums in the class. Give simple problems and fast-learners get impatient. Give tough problems and slow-learners are lost. Soon the class would end in disarray. This went on for a while till I got the idea of - "Star" problem !

Start with simple problem that everyone can solve, and make it progressively difficult. At the end comes the Star-problem, which is challenging. Fast-learners look forward to the star-sum. Slow-learner don't need to do the Star-sum, instead get this additional time to catch-up with the back-log of sums. This made the class-room much quiet and organized.

A teacher-friend however suggested that I do the star-sum in the middle of the period. And give a problem that every one can solve at the end of the class. Why ? because it's important to leave children with positive feelings in the end. This seem to work even better.

On a recent open-day at school, I heard from parents that kids seem increasingly enjoying maths. Much thanks to my teacher-friend.