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.

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.