Compete with Magnanimity

We see mindless competition all around us. Struggling for extra marks,  endless tutorial classes, paying donation to get in better colleges. The competitive spirit is clear in an advertisement I saw recently. It said, 'Buy this Book - Give your child Unfair Advantage'. Do we even notice what we have come to be. So no doubt such competition is bad for children and everyone-else.

This has led to many progressive and experimental schools to shun the competition entirely. Competition, in any form, is suppressed. However, to compare and compete is very fundamental. Notice that people who are against competition in school also enjoy ICC and Wimbledon matches. Competition exists amongst children in worst form, whether schools sanction it or not. They fight for petty things and show-off their new goodies. Better shoes, more costly pen. On the other hand, where they should compete to excel, these children become complacent and sloppy. They don't know what it is to strive to deliver.

What we want is to promote good competition, where children push each other to excel - in their niche fields. And they know that they are not special outside the niche. Then they see their win in a larger perspective. And they are magnanimous about it. To be a winner is great, but to win and be magnanimous or humble about it is even greater.

Schools should promote - Competition with Magnanimity. I believe we should cultivate a philosophy where we compete to excel in both real and moral spheres.

Power of Ambiguity

I told the story of the Giving Tree at the assembly. In the story a tree keeps giving away its parts to a boy till only stump is left. Even then the tree is happy to offer the stump to the boy to rest. It's a famous and moving story.

Later in the day, I had a science class where I am doing 'life of plants' with kids age 10yrs. The topic of the morning Story was raised by some children. One boy said that it was a sad story. Many children agreed with him. Seeing that the story had made some impact on the kids, I decided to play on the ambiguity.

I asked, how-come the tree was happy then ? Shouldn't it be a happy story. Now some children agreed with me. So was it a sad story or a happy story ? Why did they think so ? One boy, who is otherwise difficult to deal with surprised me by saying that 'even though he is happy for the tree, the story is sad in many ways'. I could see the sophisticated ways in which kids were able to articulate.

The power of getting children to think lies in the ambiguity of the story. Depending on how deep you see the meaning (how much you empathise), you end up getting different views. It brings out the 'devil's advocate' in them for a good purpose. They are able to distinguish many levels at which the story can be read.

We should use ambiguous stories, such as this, more often in the class. Where, there is no clear answer. There are only interpretations depending on how you much you think about it.

Tight Transitions

Children are like insects. They like to follow a set pattern and schedule. In absence of a routine it takes long time for them to get-out of what they are doing. Children of age 9-11 yrs aren't good time-managers. They can't stop on a dead-line and they can't effectively use free time either.

At the beginning of my teaching my classes used to end and begin in a chaos. I expected children would plan and switch tasks on their own. But we lost focus and time at each transition.It seems that the event-horizon for children at this age is as short as 15-minutes. They can't really estimate and plan their work beyond that. Unless they foresee what is coming in due course, they tend to continue what they are doing or get scattered.

They needed visibility into the their future every 15 minutes, so that they can anticipate and plan the work. It took me some time to realize this.

I do a very controlled transition between the tasks, now a days. I say that - at the count of five we will start taking notes. I say - now you put the pencil down and listen. I say that - next 10 minutes I will talk. I say - I will take only 5 questions now. This creates the visibility into future for them. They wait for their turn and do their job. Even play-breaks between two periods are tightly transitioned like this.

I have found that it is not only important to divide the class-work in small tasks, but its also important to tell students in advance. It is one of the tools to keep the class under control. Tight transitions save time, increase focus and children enjoy more.

But why ?

A friend showed me a link to Edward DeBono's write-up on the 'why technique'. In this you simply keep asking a Why question till the person gives up.

Immediately, we decided to try this out out at my friend's start-up. We called couple of engineers one-by-one and raised a question about their work. Thereafter for every answer we asked another why question, taking us in different directions. We stopped after five trials.

To our questioning, we found two kind of responses. Those who had understood the purpose of what they were doing, gave articulated answers in couple of steps. Those who did the work simply because they were asked to, also ended in couple of why questions. But their answers became repetitive and trivial.

I think this is a good method to check the depth of understanding and ability to articulate your knowledge. But there is another use of this technique. It forces a person to think about the purpose of what he/she is doing. Most often we forget why we are doing the hard-work. And subjecting yourself to series of Why questions can bring back that focus.

I am going to try the Why-technique on my class 1. to probe the depth of understanding and 2. to show the purpose behind ones work. Let us see how far it takes us.

A Square peg in a..

At the beginning of the year we played a game of focus where kids (age 9-10) were to walk on a loopy track of hurdles with a bell in hand. Only a few kids could walk without making the bell sound. They did it with concentration and took long time. But one boy walked the entire track like a breeze in far less time. I decided to watch him over the year.

Later in the year, I had challenged the class to finish a woollen pouch, which required many hours of focused work. It took children a long time. However, this boy's pouch finished the earliest. And his pouch had a feel of like done by an expert - though this was the first time he had held the loom in hand. He went on to help others finish the pouch.

At the end of the year, I decided to test the class with the Bell-game one last time. Again this boy did it the fastest and with little efforts. He seem to have an exceptional and nearly inborn skill to manage manual and physical tasks. The boy stood head-and-shoulders above others.

I had nearly forgotten him, when the class-teacher mentioned that the boy has been detained (failed) for bad academic performance. What happens to him now ? During the normal proceedings of a class and the syllabus, activities such as above are rarely done. Had I not done these activities, I wouldn't have realized the exceptional skill this boy has. And this worries me.

Who are we to decide which qualities are worthy of graduating from a school ? Who are we to say, that 20 years from now, his physical skills are of no use but the academic skills are. Do we routinely fail exceptional children with our own view of academic standards ?

The D-day

I don't much recall my own result-days from my school years. Partly because I never did  badly enough to be concerned. But may be result-day wasn't such a great affair back-then.

It was result-day at my school. I saw the scare that result-day generates amongst children - both, those performing well and not. But the bigger tragedy is that result-day is all about the child and not about the school or teachers. Nowhere does the result say about institutional short-comings that lead to a child under-performing. On that day, there is little realization that child's result reflect the circumstances as well.

It was my result-day as well (after many decades). How did I do ? My teaching ended with a distinct feeling of dissatisfaction and failure for me. I could have done more for many under-performing children. And many bright children were not challenged enough. If I had worked extra one hour, I could have been more inspiring and of help to them. I felt being unfair and guilty. I can't say how much of their failure can be attributed to my short-comings.

If there is so much thought given to objective evaluation of a student, then shouldn't there be mention of the circumstances as well. Their results should be normalized with corresponding evaluation of school's ratings. If child's performance can vary from school to school then we must admit that school has a role in child's success and failures. And we should scientifically factor that in.

In fact, results say as much about how school is performing as about how child is performing. If used properly,  results can become a useful tool to improve the school and circumstances.

Giving results without assessing school's performance is like doing an experiment without specifying the boundary conditions.I don't know how it can be done, but there is need to define the boundary conditions in this case.

Who are you

I joke and talk in a light-hearted way when I meet kids. I do so to put-them at-ease and get down to their wavelength. It doesn't take long to be a friend then. Now they will tell you silly jokes, gossips and their concerns. They will tell you their frank opinions and about cool things. Such interaction happens almost all the times - in the class and other places. However I am amused (and puzzled) by the reception I get, when I meet the same child with her/his parents.

Now they appear very formal and indifferent. If I address them, they look at their parents. As if their parents are their spokes-person. They are apprehensive to laugh and participate in the same light-hearted banter that I continue with. Some parents look at their kids fondly to say how well-behaved and shy he/she is etc. But I see tension between where the child wants to be and the situation. They are not sure what is the right thing to say and what they really want to say.

A few kids though remain as normal as they always are even in presence of their parents. They will joke with me and talk about their concerns just as freely in front of their parents as behind them. That says a lot about their relation with parents. It is a pleasure to see such children. There is a comfortable overlap of their world with their parents expectation of their world.

When children have to grow-up in two different worlds, child's own and parent's, with  different expectations it becomes harder for them. More importantly the two worlds may grow apart leading to gap in perceptions. So its better to have large overlap between child's world and your own. One sign of this happening is when children remain as their natural self even in parents presence (that is not to say that they are, or should be, unruly).