Hold two things in mind

I never realized that holding two operations in mind would be this difficult. It surprised me. The age group being 10-11 years. I had given kids a series of statements, some correct some false. They had to first correct the false sentences and then write them out in the natural order.

This threw many of them in chaos. Should we write the correct statements also ? What to do with the false statements that are in some order ? The kids weren't all comfortable with the question. To understand and execute these two together needed a child to hold bigger picture in mind, to do it in a single step. He/she had to see the corrections and correct order in mind together.

As grown-ups, we can do a sequence of operations with ease. Some talented people can  set priorities to operations to make computation easier. Some can readily see which operations are dependent on each other, and which other are independent and parallel. However, this is a very high-level competence.

In schools we typically put questions with specific operations. And often with a single specific way to arrive at the answer. The real life is full of multiple and inter-dependent operations. Are we doing enough to train children to manipulate operations, themselves ? Not quite.

We may need to do innovative exercises. Teach them to hold two operations in mind. And then to prioritise them intelligently. 

Sense of 'to have'

This week our class visited an archaeological museum. The museum has extensive collection of artefacts from as far back as the Stone age, displayed with detailed information about each collection. We had allowed students to carry cameras so that they can document what they saw for their study. As one would expect, the students enjoyed the excursion and collected photos.

Something interesting happened at the very end of our trip. One boy said that, he now has a lot of information about ancient things. He said, "Its all stored here in my camera". And one girl asked me how could she work, because she didn't carry her camera.

To us 'having information' means knowing the thing. I tried arguing this with him that he may have collected a lot of photos, however that is different from he having the information. Also, I told the girl to go ahead and write down or draw the things that she thinks are important. But to them that wasn't same as 'having' information of 'their own'.

To these children 'having information' is same has possessing that information in their hand. They think, if they own a print-out or a photo then they literally have the information.

This may suggest that today children aren't treating information as something to be understood, interpreted and integrated with their own knowledge. Information, to them, is a thing to own. And they would store it safely for many years, ofcourse on the net.

Creating role-models

Many people (including myself) feel that moral education can not be done by giving lectures in the class room. The only way to learn moral values is by being close to people who practice good behaviour. However where would you find such people within school premises.

A school has large population of children, some of whom show traits of good behaviour. These children are soft-spoken, honest and cooperative. They like to help, without being visible. You will find them taking humanitarian view in an argument. They are willing to give-up their entitlements for others when needed. The future role-models are there, right within the the school. Most often neither the schools notice them, nor the children are aware of it themselves.

This particular school doesn't want to wait for a chance to run into good-folks. They want to create role-models within the school. So the house-captains and elected students are frequently put on the spot for their good moral behaviour. Other students are encouraged to interact and follow them. The school is creating role-models for good moral behaviour within the school.

Consider the changes happening in society out-side the school. Each day we read people linked to commercialization, quick recognition, frauds and violence. The scene is bleak. Yes, we do read about a few who have great character. However, they aren't accessible to children everyday. 

Children of good moral values exist within every school. Schools should recognize them and high-light for what they do. This requires a deliberate effort from the school-side. And it is good to see, some schools doing so.

fullstop ?

I wonder if English as a spoken language is going to be extinct in schools. I don't mean to say that it is not spoken any more. But the way one speaks - a comma or a full-stop, an  exclamation or a question, is lost on todays children. When I dictate notes (and I dictate slowly with all the nuances) children often ask if there is a full-stop here or is it a question.

Children are not used to inferring the punctuation from the way English is spoken, and it is not entirely their fault. We are not making children aware of the nuances as we read to them. In the class we hardly read English as the rich prose it is suppose to be. As a result, children are failing to recognize the clues that come embedded in the speech.

A list is items separated by comma or quote-unquote means high-lighting something - all this can be understood when one speaks with a flair. The English we speak in classrooms today is mostly text-book English used to dictate notes. And much is lost in this kind of diction.

I hope we bring back a more sophisticated way of speaking English where punctuations become obvious from the way one speaks. Also, we should cultivate listening to English with all its nuances. Otherwise English will become a flat language, where children need to be told - yes, there is a full-stop here.

One way traffic...

This is how it typically plays out in a class. A teacher asks a question and one of the students answers back to the teacher. A teacher does sporadic one-to-one communication with a few of the students in the class. The rest of the class is hardly party to the such transactions. The lesson is done. For that matter, this may well be a one-on-one tuition.

When there are 30-50 students grouped together in a class, there are some advantages. A teacher can exploit this number to expand the communication. Some change in attitude and approach can make the communication multi-lateral.

To start with, let the student address the answer to the class, instead of talking to the teacher. Acceptance is greater when one of them is talking to them. Next, let others add on to the answer one by one. Let them re-phrase and re-interpret the answer. Often a teacher will be able to generate the required points solely from such student-to-student discussion.

Lastly, when a student asks a question, bounce it back to the class - does anyone know the answer ? give some clues so that the answer can be (almost) obtained through collective discussion. Finally, rephrase the answer the way you wanted it and make them commit it to the note-book.

Increasingly I find that students are trained to address the teacher, and the teacher alone. A one-way traffic of communication. Making communication multi-lateral increases class participation, builds consensus and grows vocabulary for many more children. And your work as a teacher is done, by the students themselves.

On moral grounds...

In a book that I recently read, there was a discussion about how children are more willing to listen to moral arguments than subjecting them to rules. This reminded me of occasions where such a persuasion indeed worked for children in my class.

When a child is talking loudly or interrupting the class, teacher's natural reaction is to say - keep quiet, or that such a behaviour is not allowed in class. Or, one may quote the rules like - you are not allowed to talk in the library. After multiple use of the rules, they become in-effective. But really, such a behaviour is unacceptable not just because it's outside the rules. It is also unacceptable as it is unjust towards others who are doing their work.

As it happened, I had made this very case on a few occasions. I stopped myself from pointing out that unruly behaviour is out-of-line. Instead I said that it is morally unfair to others. And I got better response from the children. Typically, they looked around, and for the first time looked at the impact of their doing and they calmed down.

I think children can distinguish between boundaries defined by the rules (which they often don't care about) and the self-discipline that gets imposed from such moral arguments as being unfair to others (which they can't refute).

Teachers don't use this approach to resolve a situation in the class often enough. Neither do we do so in life outside the school. But we should if we want to build sensitive citizens and a fair society for tomorrow. A child's mind seems open for such an appeal.

Group work menace.

Making children do group-work has one headache.  Of course, children like to work but making groups can be a long diplomatic process. They want to work with some and not with others. Then there is the girls-boys divide. Teachers have their own wishes. Teachers want well-balanced groups with mix of talents. There is no easy solution to this.

I braced for long-drawn negotiations as I announced the group-projects in the first class. I asked some kids to chose their group-members. It took some time for trading the members with each other. In the end we got grudging but well-balanced teams. Ready to work together.

In the next class however, I was in for a surprise. The entire class unanimously said that I should make groups as I wish ! They didn't want to wait to find out. They refused to go for lunch till we made the groups. This was unheard-of. I made the groups and they just accepted their partners. Naturally I asked. It seems, this class has been polarized for a while now - amongst girls-boys, and even amongst each other. So everyone in the class could see that there was no possible nice way to group themselves.  In one remarkable moment, everyone agreed that they all should accept the groups I make - and work together.

Sometimes intense differences can lead to cooperative behaviour in such surprising ways. In the face of intractable, children are able to see and accept the Greater Common Good.