What drives what

Checking the Math final paper. I see two trends - some good students have done poorly simply because they haven't been systematic. But a few students from whom I wasn't expecting good performance, have done well partly because they have done a systematic step-by step work.

This leads me to think that, just as clear thinking should reflect in clear writing (not always true though), clear writing often aids in clear thinking. For some children clear and neat writing is intrinsic. They write step-by-step, one equation bellow other, without missing a step. For majority of children this doesn't come naturally. However systematic writing of steps in Math is also a skill that can be learnt. If they do learn, then their thinking is guided by the step-by-step writing process. And, in some cases it leads to better performance in Math.

Compared to old time, there is far less emphasis on handwriting and neatness in the present schools. Its suppose to be some what progressive not to force children into a given form of handwriting. The lack of putting focus on neatness has this one side-effect. A few more children can be brought into the fold of Math if only we can teach them the skill of writing maths in a neat format. I do believe that clarity in writing drives clarity in thinking.   

What marks are for

Today a student came to me very happy and excited. He is a hyperactive child, academically not quite on-par with the class. He said he has got eight out of ten and, nine out of ten marks in recent exams. "My parents will be so happy today when I tell them that I got good marks", he said.

I should know, I am the one who gave those marks. But I was surprised to see his reaction to it. The real fallacy of the situation struck me a couple hours later. He didn't say he got good marks. The child was happy because his parents will be satisfied to see his good marks. It was the parents approval that the child was seeking. These marks are to his credit no more occurs to him.

Undue emphasis that parents have put on children's marks has this unseen and sad flip-side. Marks is what the children earn to keep their parents happy.

Shouldn't marks be something that gives a child a sense of his or her intrinsic worth ? Like, I am so good, or I have understood so much correctly ? We want marks to be objective evaluation of students competence. So many thesis have been written about standardized testing etc. Yet, in reality, marks have bizarre consequences and social implications.

I am happy for the child. These are rare occasions when he can get good marks on standardized tests. Yet in some sense I am sad for him.

VAM - Value added Marks

Somewhere, in another post, I claim that total marks is a poor indicator of the component skills that a student has. Marks is a poor tool to provide positive feedback to students. However, recently I discovered that we can use marks, not as a indicator of learning but, to motivate students. To do this, we should give-up idea of using marks as a means of evaluation. This is how it started...

I told my students (age 11-12) that they can even score more than 100 % marks in my Maths tests. This was unheard-of. In a society where people are obsessed by extra half and quarter marks, it was unbelievable that I was offering more than 100 % marks. My tests have bonus questions along with the standard exam questions. Children could get extra marks by finishing the normal paper and then also solving bonus questions. Many started pushing themselves to get bonus marks. Some even got 110-130 % marks.

I played another psychological trick in one exam. I said everyone gets 100 % marks to start with. Then for every mistake I removed some marks. The thought that, every one started with 100 % marks - alone made them more relaxed. Rather than earning marks for correct answers, they would lose marks for wrong answers. So make sure you don't lose what you have.  Isn't it great that at this age they are still so naive.

This got me thinking of more ambitious marking-schemes. I floated a linear scheme -  for every two questions that they will do correctly in a row, they will get 2 bonus marks. For three questions correct in a row 4 bonus marks. For all 10 questions correct in a row, they get 180 % marks ! I could see their eyes opening wide. Why not a non-linear reward scheme. Double the reward for every question they do correctly in a row (2**N). The students started calculating how much marks-profit they can make.

Someone asked me if there would be negative marks for getting a question wrong in a row. Well, I could give both reward and punishment - depending how motivated my class is or is-not. For a moment I felt like giving them a lecture on basics of game theory. But its clear to me that such Value Added Marks, can be used to motivate children to do more sums correctly. I am tempted to try my linear-bonus scheme for the final Maths test.

Of course, the marks still won't reflect component skills of a student, but they would definitely represent the motivation of students. If the aim of teaching Maths is to motivate them to do Maths, and do it correctly - then who cares about absolute marks.

What it takes ?

In the debate on schooling and education, talk is all about what a good education is,  pedagogy, how to inspire children, how to evaluate real understanding etc. etc. All this is absolutely required. And every item is a must. But who is going to deliver all this fancy stuff - the teachers of course, who else ?

Yet, shockingly there is no talk about teacher's life in any of these debates or reforms. We understand well that for the birth and growth of  a healthy child, the mother should be well-looked after. She should be well-nourished and relaxed. Yet, for a teacher - who acts like a mother of 30-50 children for 6 most active hours of a day for tens of years, there is no thought spared.

Typically, all teachers work 120% or more for their salary. They are hardly heard. There is no time to invest in their own enrichment. Yet, they are suppose to lead the revolution.
If good learning happens when children are happy in schools, isn't it obvious, that good teaching can happen only when teachers are relaxed and happy in schools ? Not a chance, there no debate today, anywhere, to make teachers relaxed and happy in their work-environment.

While having sky-high expectations from teachers, there is not a thought given to what it takes. Teaching profession must be unique in that, it demands most creative, inspiring, physically/mentally demanding work and yet the work environment is uninspiring, menial and exploitative for the meagre salaries that are paid. Just imagine, how much would an IT professional ask for doing - equally creative work, managing 30 people for equivalent time. I know no other profession where the contrast between expectations and reality is so stark.

Make teachers happy and relaxed in their environment, give them paid free time to enrich their knowledge. Educators, Administrators, policy makers and governments should stop selling dreams for a while and focus on teacher's life. That is what it takes.

Use and Share

This is not a post directly related to education, yet it is in some ways. We often say that Western Society has a 'Use and Throw' mentality. We say its criminal to waste so much. This is quite true, in developed countries you see quick use of many things after which they are discarded adding to the garbage. There is a real fear that as our country develops we will adopt this use-and-throw culture as well. It would be much worse then as we are so large in number, that the wastage will be colossal.

But we, the developing nation, is guilty of equally criminal habit. It should be called 'Don't use and don't throw'. We as a country just collect things, rarely or never use them and neither do we give them to anyone. Think of cloths, furniture, utensils, books, crockery, kids toys. This is an invisible but colossal waste as well. I see many in my generation guilty of it and certainly the older generation was. We won't share it, neither would we use it. The don't-use and-don't-throw society also needs to be high-lighted.

However, tomorrows generation stands at this turning point in-between. This is why, I think this point is relevant to schools today. We should not go from a don't-use-and-don't-share society to a use-and-throw. We need children to grow in to a 'Use and Share' society. I have noticed that if, we buy something and don't use it for three years, then there is little chance that we will ever use it. Remember the set of spoons you bought,  still in wraps. May be someone else is just going to buy one. So why not give-it away or share it ?

This is easily said than done. The trend in school seems every one buys one copy of everything. There aren't enough activities in the class-room in place to encourage a use-and-share attitude. We need to build the exchange mechanisms and also the attitude to make this kind of behaviour natural. Schools is one place where we can actively promote sharing or giving-up what you don't need.

Culture Vs Rules

How to get children to behave the way you want them to. Many schools (and indeed many organizations) take the road of rules. They have many rules - do this, don't do this, and the consequences. With time, the rules and counter-rules grow. But there is always new behaviour or an incident which requires new rule.

Despite this escalating cycle of rules and super-rules, children don't seem to come under control. This leads to standard conclusions that - good-old days were different, now things have gone to dogs. Still more rules.

However, I think we are barking up the wrong tree. There are things which don't respond to rules, for example, Culture. Children behave according to the culture in which they find themselves. As that culture is lost, typical reaction of a school is to set-up rules to bring back the culture. This doesn't work, so there are more rules made, more control sought. That is why we find, most legacy systems, which are not working, are over-designed with rules. Too many rules, is a signature of barking-up the wrong tree.

I believe that one can never regain a culture by making rules. To develop a culture, we need to have campaigns, promote activities, praise heroes, have debates, invite volunteers. A lot of these activities slowly change the atmosphere and establish a culture. Note that, there is no rule-making here.

Think of it, all of us behave in a particular descent way in a restaurant or a temple - not because there are rules but because we know the culture. On the contrary, despite many rules, we don't hesitate to jump the signal or take a short-cut on scooter on the wrong side of the road. What culture can deliver, rules can not.

Of course, making rules is easy and gives a sense of short-term control over the situation. So most organizations take this short-cut. But bad-behaviour comes back in one form or other. On the other hand, promoting cultural activities is hard and has to be sustained over a long period to establish. But once a culture is established, children are embedded in it, they behave.

I often ask children (in a disguise) what would they like, rules or culture ? Invariably, no one likes rules, they all prefer to operate in appropriate culture. The catch is, one individual can't promote culture, organization has to step in.

So systems such as schools, should pay close attention to if they want to promote rules or promote culture. The two things take different roads.

Pink is for Girls ?

In the two divisions of Grade 4 (age 9-10) I did some weaving activity. Kids were to work for couple of weeks to make a small colourful woollen pouch. The exercise was to push them to concentrate and also to develop their motor skills. They were to take the pouch home as a surprise present for their parents.

Children from the first division finished their pouches with woollen threads of many different colours. The second division has started making pouches with a new set of woollen colours - which had a baby pink colour in it ! I had little idea of the trouble brewing. The girls from second division desperately wanted the pink thread. The girls from the first division strictly told me that other division can't have pink, since they didn't get to use it.

Finally, I have played safe and removed the pink thread from the activity. However, I was  surprised at the depth of this pink-mania. We have branded girls with pink (and boys with blue).  So much so that these biases are now affecting their sense of design. Rather than thinking about what colours look good, girls have made-up their mind that pink is good. We have manipulated their choice and judgement (its a bit like child abuse).

We are all party to this brain-washing - parents, friends, birthday-gifts, marketeers and advertisers. In a world where we are looking for men-women equality, why are we branding girls and boys with completely arbitrary claims. Shouldn't we fill child's world with many different colours each having a sense and a story.

PS : Are boys as fanatic about colour-blue, as the girls are fanatic about colour-pink ? I don't think so. Why ?