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.
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.
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