The gossip

I took a bunch of 10-11 year old kids on a two-day outdoor, nature camp. The group was a mix of girls and boys of same grade but different divisions. The kids worked out well with each other. Some did cooking and others explored the outdoors. We had discussion on changing climate and importance of learning skills. When things got wild, pillow-fights broke-out. As you can see the camp went-off well.

Throughout the camp, I listened to their gossips. And I was surprised to hear how much of their talk was about their teachers and how they taught in the class. Teachers weren't trashed or discussed with any bitterness. The talk was mostly giggling about their peculiar manners and happenings in the class. Who were the crazy teachers and mimicking those. Surprisingly bad teachers weren't discussed much but good and peculiar ones were.

I was made aware of the large role teachers have in children's lives today. The gossips and talk was rarely about their own parents or hobbies. It was rarely about the gadgets they buy or the money they spend. It wasn't even about what teachers teach. It was mostly about how the teachers teach and about teachers personal lives when they cross with children's own. Listen to what children are talking amongst themselves. Its seems teachers, especially the good-cranky ones, are the binding thread for these kids.

While the role of parents has become more and more of that of a provider, teachers roles has grown. They are the people around whom children's social interaction happens. I hope teachers realize the strong influence they have on children's social life and so do parents.

Hurrey ! No text-books

The teacher says we won't need a text-book this year, we will just learn what we can. No text-book means no reading, no mugging-up, no portion to complete and doing question-answers from end of the chapters. This is dream come true for children. They love it. Now they are ready to discuss and happy to plan what we should learn this year.

This is what is happening in my class. As a teacher, actually, I haven't given-up the text-book or the syllabus. I follow the topics and concepts from the curriculum. I just don't toe the text-book, line by line, and check the students on text-book questions. But the students don't know this since they don't open the text-book now.

As a teacher, I can now focus on the concepts and explain them using what the children themselves have to contribute in discussion. So we are making a good progress on understanding. But what about the written work and testing ?

I hadn't realized the true impact of this till now. Since there is no text-book to hold-on to, children have to write what-ever we discuss as notes. I give tests based on the class-notes. If they miss-out on notes it's their problem. As a result students have to stay focused in class and take down the notes. It has made them more responsible, not less. In fact, I told them that I will be using their note-books as Text-books for the next year's class, so please write well. This made them real proud.

What good is a text-book ? Your read from the text-book, children read from the same text-book. Questions are asked from the text-book and children write whatever is given in the text-book. As you can see, in this circular process one can get good marks without understanding an iota of a thing. For many children no knowledge is generated in this entire process, yet they get good marks.

Superficially, It may look like, to give-up text-books is a disaster. Will this drop the quality ?, what will children learn ? On the contrary, now children have to do lot more work. They don't realize this is a trick to get them to do more work, not less. Learning a subject through discussions, notes and reference work and writing these down in your own words  is much more work. They are ready to work harder for the same curriculum.

I have realized that learning with text-book has become mindless. That is one reason children don't want it. By giving-up text book, they are learning the same curriculum much better and happily. It's counter-intuitive.

Mind the gap

We had a very knowledgeable visitor today talking about ecology and conservation. We arranged close interaction of my students with the speaker. There was a lot to hear and learnt from the speaker. I played the role of observer, and what I saw disturbed me.

About five minutes into the interaction, groups of students had already got decoupled from the talk. Only when some fancy slide was shown or cool name was heard that they seemed to focus for a second. A wide gap opened between the speaker and children. And this was not because of the difference in their technical levels. There seems lack of listening with a purpose and intent. The attitude seems to be - If it ain't super exciting, it's not worth listening.

In todays world there is so much to learn and so many exciting people to meet. How much you know is no more limited by availability of knowledge or opportunities. It is mainly determined by how much you can take-in. Some children seem to have stopped listening. Only bright eye-candies can get them to focus. What fraction of the things we hear do we internalize ? very little for some children.

This was a stark example of how wide and damaging is the gap between speakers and todays young listeners. Really sad.