Formulating Answers

Though I teach lower grades (ages 9-10 yrs) I often run into teachers of senior classes. One thing they have said more than once is, how older children don't seem to write enough in their exam papers. Children either don't see the need to explain themselves or lack the capacity to do so. I am of the opinion that they lack the capacity to explain, express, elucidate, support, define, reference, articulate or elaborate their thoughts (if you see my point). Further, if children can't explain well, then how do we know if they have really understood it. This may have roots in how we teach them in the lower classes.

 We teach a topic and ask them to read the chapter and write answer. This is basically a cut-and-paste exercise. Sometimes we may even question them in class. And to avoid any further trouble, we unconsciously select those who are likely to answer it correctly. There is of course one correct answer - the text book answer. Once a text-book answer is given the game is over. So where is the space for expression, explanation, elucidation, articulation and elaboration. Year after year of this practice is partly why children may become dysfunctional when the time comes to writing long answers.

Children need to come-up with a variety of answers. Even same answer could be put in a variety of ways. There is no such thing as "The Correct Answer". Another child may put the same answer so wonderfully. The game is never over here. The answers get progressively more articulated as many children answer. The answer combined from all these variations and nuances is often correct and better than the text-book answer. Children need to listen to all these variations and synthesize their own answer from all these answers. This is an essential route if they are to have the power of expression

When I ask a question, I tell the class that there is no wrong answer to this question.  There are many different ways to express the answer. Then I ask kids to tell me in their own words (usually in one-girl-one-boy sequence). Typically, I gather 10-12 answers before I ask them to combine these and write as one answer. So this is what we should do. Ask fewer questions, but spend more time in gathering answers from many children. Then ask children to combine an answer and write that down.

This obviously develops expression and listening. Also I find that children enjoy this more than just writing text-book answers, because they participate in it and they are thinking on their own. Further, this is less taxing for a teacher - you just have to listen and high-light children answers ! You are only a moderator of the discussion rather than dictator of text. And children write their on version of correct answers.

If we were to follow this in all grades, then children will develop ability to express themselves with flourish, flow and nuances.

Time-pass

Ask anyone and they will agree that hardwork is boring, it's no fun. Let us just have a free-period they will say. Ironically, there comes a time when students crave for work and abhor time-pass. And we should make good use of these episodes.

We had series of events in school for a while now. Concerts, Presentations and Sport-days. Day one is fun, as children are happy to be out-of class-rooms and no-studies. These events, which require all classes to come together, invariably take-up a lot of time. Moving four hundred kids to do anything takes time. This creates opportunities for time-pass. You are either part of the drill or you are waiting out-side for your turn to come. That, mostly you are waiting. Soon children look bored and wasted. By the end of the day they look tired and rater disappointed. They sure don't want to go back to the class-rooms. But neither do they want this time-pass. Some of them even feel angry that so much time was whiled away.

Many children come to me and say they would want to go back to the class and study something. They were missing the class-work. This has happened more than once. These are the times when we can show them the difference between hard-work and time-pass.

I have been saying this in my classes, that you feel happy when you do hard-work. And however much you may want to enjoy, if  you do time-pass you will feel miserable at the end of the day.

I am glad that some of my classes are realizing this rather counter-intuitive thing. And are being vocal about it. Time-pass makes you unhappy at the end of the day, meaningful and engaging hard-work makes you happy at the end of the day.  

Dedication...

I have been promoting in my school that students should work without erasures. I find that children are addicted to erasures these days. Some teachers are listening to this. A Class-I teacher asked me to step-in her class where she is been practicing this for a while. So I sat through a number-names activity for couple of periods.

Firstly, age 5-6 yrs children should be considered entirely different species compared to middle school children. It's harder to teach kids this young; at least I don't have that talent. The task was to write five number-names (between 1 to 10). The teacher started by giving out worksheets and pencils. And a bowl-full of erasures were also kept in a corner, just in case someone wanted one. All were ready, with their pencils in hand.

As they got into the work, what struck me the most was how very dedicated they looked as they wrote. Each one was almost carving each letter systematically on to the line. No one looking here and there. The slow children took longer time, some children had wonderful hand some didn't. There seemed much larger spread in their abilities to write number-words. Yet, they had one thing in common, they were serious about getting it done well. They all were writing with absolute dedication.

I wished I could achieve that kind of focus on 'task at hand' in my middle school children. May be as children become aware of their own standing in rest of the class they tend to take the tasks lightly. Sometimes they do focus however as in this Class, the ability to put your mind to a single and simple task was amazing. One would want to preserve that attitude as children grow older. So that is what I learned in my visit to Class-I.

What about the erasures ? A few children did walk-up to the front to borrow the erasure, but most didn't. They were willing to work more diligently rather than rush for an erasure. Not having an erasure handy, may be, helped in focusing on the task. I don't know if this is wishful thinking, time should tell.

Update : This great dedicated teacher left the school recently. So the experiment couldn't go for long. Alas, that is how teaching and learning proceeds these days. 

Being Indian...

Early in my teaching life, I used to get upset when kids would bring their work saying they have "finished". Now I know why. Because most often, when you looked at their work, it is far from finished. It is poorly done and not enough efforts was put-in. In fact that is why it got over so early. So I came to dread this word - Finish.

One day when a child said "I am finished", I joked and asked, "Are you from Finland ? then why are you saying I am Finish". I send the child back to edit his work. But they are smart kids. This prank worked for a some time, then another kid submitted his half-done work and said "I am done". Well I then asked "Are you from Denmark ? then why are you saying I am Done ?" and I send him back. I began to ask, 'Are you Indian or not ?'

It is important that children see their work as not "done" when it could be improved, till the period bell rings. Too often children don't re-visit their own work. Their first thought is their last thought. They even think it is unfair to ask them to revise. We teachers are equally happy to just get submissions done. But while checking the notebooks or papers, we wonder, 'why, he/she could have done better'.

Calling children - Finish and Done was my way to send them back to review their own writing. Then one day, a kid in the class said, we should instead say Improve ! for we are Indians. I couldn't have said it better.

Now in  my class, kids are reluctant to say 'finish', because others send them back saying don't be Finish be Indian. Some even say 'we are improving' when they are done and stare at their work, touching it here and there. So this has gone into the meme that - to be Indian means to Improve !

PS : No offense intended to Fins or Danes.

Trivial Pursuits..

Schools are places where aims are so high and noble that we are in pursuit of these.  Teach children beauty of science, grandeur of maths and legacy of English. Students should excel in Sports and Arts. They should become law-abiding citizens and should have good moral values. They should have discipline and respect elders.

To achieve this is of course not a small undertaking. Policy makers, schools and teachers device elaborate schemes to ensure that every one is working towards these aims, full throttle. There are exams, re-test, remedial classes, workshops, counseling sessions. If a Martian were to view this, it will appear mind-boggling enterprise to it.

In this grand venture, we have forgotten that - God is in details. Students are taught atomic theory, Algebra and Shakespeare, yet they haven't learned how to write well. They are unable to focus for extended period or write in clear hand. These are the details which no one is focusing on. They sound trivial compared to the grand goals listed above.

I strongly feel that we need to spend a lot more time on details every day. If children can learn to deliver details perfectly, the larger picture will emerge. For age 9-11 students, I have focused on writing skills. This means they focus on margins, indents, handwriting, structure of a write-up, the word to use, the flow of what you write. What you write is not as important as How you write. All the silly rules that a good copy-writer would use, we try to follow. We do writing exercises every week for one hour.

The benefit of this is not limited to English writing. It forces children to focus on a single task, it builds the stamina, it high-lights the "trivial". My hope is to get them to write well and for longer stretches. This is hard work for them and that is my point. Ability to focus on a task single-mindedly, even for an unpleasant task, is what is often needed in life. It is true of so many high achievers in a variety of fields.

We hope, foolishly, that by dumping a lot of home-work, three hour exams and demanding high marks, automatically will build these abilities in kids as a bi-product. We are demanding a lot of work from students, all of which comes out with a poor quality.

We need smaller amount of work, but with demand on greater focus and high quality. We need to explicitly teach, how to focus on details and how to deliver quality work. We need to focus on trivial pursuits.

PS : There is a documentary on design called "Objectified" in which VP of design for Apple products, Jonathan Ive talks about design. And he intensely and obsessively talks about focus on details, trivial details.

How to cook a story...

Very few of us can simply sit down and produce a good story or an essay. Even best of the writers do their home-work. They prepare the ground and gather their thoughts. So why aren't we teaching children to prepare the ground before they do creative writing. In fact, most good work, whether it is writing, singing or cooking, requires good amount of preparation.

In this respect writing a story is similar to cooking. It has four steps.

• Step 1 : Think about what you want to cook (write). Is it going to be pasta with red sauce or pasta with white sauce ? Think of a theme that appeals to you.
• Step 2 : Gather ingredients which are needed to make the pasta. Shop for words, verbs, adjectives that may go in to your story. Collect them together at one place.
• Step 3 : Chose Pots and Pans which are appropriate to cooking and serve the pasta. Paragraphs are like pots and pans, they each make a point which is different from previous yet they add to a story. So put your ingredient words in appropriate pots and pans (paragraphs).
• Step 4 : Follow the recipes , cook the story well by using the ingredient words you have gathers those pots and paragraphs.

 I have decided that children should spend as much time (if not more) on preparing to write as they would spend in final writing. So henceforth we will think a dish, gather the ingredients, collect pots and then cook a story.

Taking play out of drama...

Concert time is a period of high-stress for teachers and children alike. While annual school concert is suppose to be a showcase of childrens talents that is enjoyable to all, it usually ends-up being a very formal, put-up show-off of moral hectoring. One week before the concert, all activities are suspended and children are driven to meet rapidly changing external demands on the performance. I have seen this happening at a range of schools. The play is taken out of drama.

Children are natural actors and can readily provide expression for the sentiments of a story. Empathy with the characters in drama comes naturally to them. However, we don't let drama grow on them, instead we make them rote-learn the lines, saddle them with unmanageable costumes and props. Endless rehearsals only wear the children out. In the end, children just become puppets to the scripts we wrote, the dances we set and the props we designed. Then we encourage parents to clap for them. The common sentiment at the end of the concert is - Thank god, its over.

We are wasting this great yearly  opportunity to bring out the best from our children spontaneously. It need not be this way. Let us remember what is important in a concert - the creative presentation of children through, songs, dances and plays. Then let us remove the props and dresses, the rote-learning and dictated dance moves and poor mimicry of public songs. Often times, this actually kills creativity of children. Let the performances be as bare-bone as possible. This makes for a great concert which is original, creative and done by the children themselves. Let us put the play back in the drama.