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.