Neither Drones, Nor Slackers

There is this dilemma about teaching. If you teach too explicitly you end up brain-washing kids. The fear is they will end-up drones. On the other hand, if you teach them abstract (at a high-level) then the kids may never get the point. They may end-up being slackers. So how does one "not" program them yet convey the higher principles of learning.

Consider English writing as an example. If we dictate the work too closely then they may never learn to write well on their own. And if we give them high-level guide-lines then also they may never learn to write well. So how do we proceed to educate them in creative writing ?

I think that if you do enough of  high-level work, then children eventually figure-out the core principles of good work. i.e. They get it ! However, you need to do a variety of work with them so that they start seeing the high-level organization of the activity.

I have been doing 'writing skills' for age 9 kids, where I lay-out very high-level principles of good writing and set them off on some writing of their own. Today, I got the first convert in my class. One student complained to me that the English teacher asked them to do the character sketch but asked them to look into the book and copy. "It was unfair for teacher to give such a short-cut, when we wanted to do the character sketch", the student said. "This wasn't  much fun as it is in your class". So the kids are learning the high-level message in my activities. And when they do, they are disappointed by the drone-work -that is neither fun nor education.

The lesson is, do a variety of high-level academic activities and kids will assimilate the core academic principles, may it be creative writing, listening or doing science experiments.

Do 3H Work...

What is 'good' work ? How do we expect kids to identify good work ? The short answer is, we don't. No where in our schooling do we openly and explicitly tell children how to identify good in their own work, or in the work of others. What we do instead is give them a number (actually a ratio of numbers) that we call, marks. And from this single number, we expect students to infer what is good/bad work and also better themselves. Really, does anyone think this will work.

I have decided to teach children (Age 8-10) how to identify good work. And it is not that difficult a thing to learn.  The answer is -  Do 3H work ! If your work has the three 'H's then it is surely a good work. The three H's are - Hand, Head and Heart.

Your work should show that you have used your Hand well. That is, your presentation is neat and your hand-writing is good. And don't smudge your mistakes but nicely cross them. If you watch out for these few things, that means you have used your Hand in your work.

You should use your Head as well. Think before your write. Write exactly what you think. Children sometimes ramble or write too less. So thinking what to write before you start writing is worth it. And it shows if you have used your Head in your writing. There are better words, new ideas and freshness in your writing when you use your Head.

Lastly, the work should be done with Heart in it. As one class IV boy put it eloquently, "Do work with your heart and soul in it", no kidding ! Work done without heart is - 'time pass'. And it shows, if you have done the work with heart or not. Surprisingly, I found that children are good at identifying if the work was done with Heart in it, or was it a causal work.

So if your work has above three H's then it is a good work. I now routinely ask children to look at their own and other's work. And they guess if it is 3H work or not. Mind you, they are very critical, even of themselves. And 3H work gets a round of applause in my class.

The mantra is - Do 3H work !

Education formula, revisited

What happens in most schools is "we teach+they learn". Though as I said before, there is lot more focus on "we teach" than on "they learn". The assumption is, if we do these rigorously then it will lead to better education. Hence "education = we teach + they learn". Most of the education edifice is designed to mandate this. However, after looking at what actually goes on in the classroom (and outside it), I think this formula is plain wrong.

The right formula should be "education = we coach + they want to learn". Coaching is not same as teaching. And learning is not same as 'want to learn'.

Consider "they want to learn" part. We take it for granted that good teaching will lead to good learning. Well, only if they want to learn. We hardly follow any formal methods which promote this "want". In fact, there is no thought given to promote "want of learning". On the contrary, schools do their best to destroy urge to learn through homework, exams, punishments, rewards or by simply boring them 8 hours a day for 10 years. If you pause to reflect, school is hardly a place where you would get an urge to learn. Thus we need see how to transform a class-room where urge to learn is created.

Consider "we coach" part. When someone wants to learn then the correct model is not to "teach" but to "coach". 'Teaching' evokes a taste as in case of  "let me teach you a lesson'. Coaching and mentoring, on the other hand, requires different approach and methods in the class. A teacher should act more like a sports-teacher - training and practicing. This is not what teachers do or are trained to do. So in order to be a coach and mentor a teacher will have to shift his/her mindset in first place.

We have invested enormous time, effort, money and thought in the "education = we teach + they learn" empire. It's not leading to education, much less getting the best from each child. It will not be easy to shift the focus to "education = we coach + they want to learn". However, unless this shift happens, schools will remain places where students get degrees and not an education.

The education formula

It is common to think that Education is about teaching and learning. That is to say that "education = we teach + they learn". Naturally, much of the schooling is geared to make this formula work. There is grand edifice for making teachers teach (BEds/CTET etc) and another empire to make children learn (SSC/CBSE/Grades etc).

Even with this view of the education, lot more attention is paid to "we teach" part than is paid to "they learn" part. We evaluate teachers, enforce portions, mandate teacher-training workshops and  tests etc. There is a lot of talk about how to teach better. The question - "Are you a good teacher ?"  is like a hanging sword.

This has created a mind-set that "bad education" implies "bad teaching". If only we can improve teaching, the education of child will improve. This belief is confirmed every time we run into a bad teacher. 'My child is not learning because of bad teachers' - is commonly held view. This is no doubt true, but only half so.

We have neglected the "they learn" part of the equation, to the extent that students (and parents) don't realize that learning is also a responsibility. Yes, we do make exams, attendance and notes mandatory to ensures that the work is done. However work-is-done isn't same as learning is done. So we are kidding ourselves that, by making rules we will force children to learn.

If you were to believe in the formula  "education = we teach + they learn" we need to accept that for a good education there has to be both, 50/50. That means we should see what is happening to "they learn" part. If the students are not learning, then parents and students themselves have some responsibility. Is that accepted ?  Unless we look at both parts of education, it is unlikely that we will improve it.

PS : In the next post, I will suggest that this formula "education = we teach + they learn" is not quite correct either. 

It's not about models...

This needs to be said again, and again. Science is not about working models. Science is not about making posters and charts. Teachers and parents have conspired to take this convenient short-cut and spread the idea that making look-alike models is doing science. This is absolutely not true.

Recently, we had a science expo where students were suppose to demonstrate experiments. As expected most students got zealously down to making models and charts. Some went high-tech with electronics, robotics and building circuits with flashing lights.

My class (age 10-11) decided that there will no models or printed charts from the internet. On the contrary, we decided to do interesting cognitive experiments on people to show how brain works. By doing some simple, tricky experiments on the students, I convinced the class that this was exciting and interesting.

We actually planned to do measurements on the people - how fast is their response, how does our taste-buds work, what is the highest frequency sound your ear can here, how long it takes to replenish the photosensitive pigments in the eye.

We could put-up almost two dozen such experiments. Kids were super excited about experimenting with adults - parents - who visited their stalls.

Later on I heard from multiple people that of all the projects, my class students were most animated and excited to do the experiments and explain the results.

So contrary to current fashion of creating models, real science can be done through simple and thought-provoking experiments. What's more, I find that students enjoy these even better.  

Two plus two equals..

What distinguishes us from other animals is our ability to infer things. We can figure out things we have never seen before using what we already know. Or can we ?

In a recent exam we had asked students to give two examples of "liquid waste" and "deficiency diseases". We hadn't actually used these terms in the class ever. We were surprised to see that most students failed the question. When one knows 'liquid', 'waste', 'deficiency' and 'diseases'; can't one get 'liquid waste' or 'deficiency diseases' ?

This was depressing. Science is all about inferring, extrapolating, discovering things. Making a wise guess. So where did we get de-railed ?

The answer may be in the way we teach languages rather than sciences. We are teaching words and grammar rules. Marks in languages are given for correct answer to questions on chapters. Is this what language is ?

Words are not just entries in dictionary or text-book, they have wordy-ness. One needs to learn how to extrapolate or transform words to new meanings. Being good in language should mean you are expressive, imaginative, innovative, eloquent and engaging.

In languages, as also in science, two plus two can become more than four. It would need a different kind of teaching.

Stay crazy

One day as I entered the class a group of children pounced on me, How would I teach if my class was reviewed by the principal or an inspector ? It seems the previous class was reviewed by the school big-wigs. This got them started.

Children then told me how some teachers react to class inspection. With their mannerisms, language and how they even dress differently. They scold less, become more considerate. Of course this was in strict confidence they told me. Children can easily see through all this. So how would I behave, they were curious to know ?

Usually, I am little on wild side when I teach. This is deliberate. I make a noticeable entry. I clear-off the space for me to roam around in the class, I often sit at the back of the class and play with words as often as I can. There are times, when my class isn't sure if I am serious or not. They have to guess double meanings. All this happens as I teach serious stuff like circuits or joints in our body, and children take down notes. The study goes on in such light banter.

Think of the image we have build of The Teacher - little sense of humour, thick glasses sliding down the nose, scribbling on blackboard with the back to class, indifferent. I deliberately contradict this. I want to show children that its all right to be crazy. Just a little crazy. The schools are becoming too conformist. So much so that you can replace one teacher with another even at a short notice and life goes on as usual.

Their question got me thinking. What should I do if my class was under inspection. Of course I would continue to teach just as I always do, I said. May be I would pretend to be even more batty on that day. This thrilled them.

Let us break some rules - at least those which bring smiles in class.