Posts Tagged ‘schools’


September 22nd, 2009

Education reforms – adding to or reducing anxiety?

For most people “change” is an alarming concept. It signifies the end of continuity or familiarity, the start of a journey into the unknown. If change is difficult for adults then it probably has a magnified impact on children who carry the baggage of their own expectations, in addition to the baggage of expectations and insecurities of their elders – so unreasonably thrust upon their tender shoulders. I can see how changes to the education system can result in feelings of fear and anxiety in children and in everyone who are stakeholders in their journey into the real world. After all, India’s education system has virtually not changed for decades and students have mastered the “Art of Performance” through rote learning and teachers the “Art of Delivery” through chalk and talk. Marks in high 90’s are common practice and is symptomatic of how the system has been mastered. Thus, there is bound to be resistance towards any significant changes to this system.

Over the last few weeks, I have been reading with keen interest the various aspects of Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposed reforms to the Indian education system, including the abolition of the Class X external exam, assessment & grading system,  and his proposal to introduce an all India exam for admission into the science stream; amongst other things. While most of us would agree that the system needs review and revamp and it is high time a well thought-out action plan was implemented to weed out the malaise that infects the K-10/K-12 system, there is significant resistance to the changes from almost all quarters. I have also had the opportunity of speaking with a number of principals, who too, are not enthusiastic about the changes proposed by Mr. Sibal. Why is it that we are resisting? Some of the objections that I have read or heard are akin to clutching to the last straws and do not withstand any degree of scrutiny.

Evaluating the arguments, it seems to me that the resistance is not against the changes, but against the lack of insight into how the proposed reforms will be implemented and more importantly, how the system will work post reforms. Change, in any context, needs to be undertaken with great sensitivity; and in most successful implementations significant time, effort and money is expended to educate the affected stakeholders on their standing and understanding of the new system. Buy-in from the main stakeholders is a prerequisite for achieving any significant degree of success.

Unfortunately, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s has not articulated his vision of what the system will look like once he has implemented his full range of proposals/ initiatives. Nor has he provided an insight into how the individual components of reforms fit into this vision. To assuage the fears of the parents, teachers, administrators and students, Mr. Sibal should start communicating with the nation on what his proposed changes will mean for them, instead of their receiving piecemeal information in the form of selected passages provided by the media.

Mr. Sibal and his band of Merry Men in the education ministry, should also reach out to as many principals and education professionals by holding discussions and by articulating the many benefits they see from the reforms and by addressing common concerns.

It seems to me, that the changes proposed by Mr. Sibal are well intentioned and if implemented well, could result in a significant improvement in the teaching learning practices adopted in our schools. However, I am concerned that the implementation process is not robust and significant areas still need to be addressed before we can be made comfortable with Mr. Sibal’s vision. At the moment, Mr. Sibal is adding more stress to the lives of the children and parents instead of his claim of trying to reduce it. My suggestion to him would be to defer the implementation of making 10th class exams optional from academic year 2010-11 to say academic year 2014-15. This would give schools, administrators and regulators adequate opportunity to implement a holistic model and to cater to the needs of the new reality and to address its shortcomings.

Change cannot merely be brought about by a mere sound bite or stroke of a pen; it needs to be understood before it can be embraced.

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Posted in Education, National Curriculum Framework, News | No Comments »

June 19th, 2009

Knowledge creation – a hostage of our education system

A few days ago I was reading an article by an eminent Indian educationist and came across a reference to a 1991 report “Learning without Burden” and its conclusion that “the problem of curricular load is rooted in the system’s inability to distinguish between information and knowledge”.

An analysis of this statement reveals its various components (Note that the analysis is based on the above statement alone, and not on the original document. I can barely wait to lay my hands on the report and read it cover-to-cover

The malaise: Curricular load of the Indian student is high

The source: Inability to distinguish between information and knowledge

The breadth: System-wide

What intrigued me about the statement was the insinuation that the nearly the entire population of India (constituents of this system – policy makers, the schools, teachers, curriculum designers, examiners, parents and students; past and present) has failed to do something (in this case distinguish between information and knowledge). Quite a LARGE problem, I would say!!

The other issue that struck me was the source of the problem itself – our inability to distinguish between information and knowledge. This is a life skill that we practice every day if not at every conscious moment, and therefore should be the one skill that we are most proficient in. What troubles me more is that this deficiency is aggravated at the very institutions which should be responsible for honing a child’s skill to master this competency. If we are not teaching our children to gather and organise and analyse data into information and skills to make informed and competent decisions (knowledge), then what exactly are we teaching our children?

While acknowledging the fact that a considerable proportion of us (including people in the workforce) do give more weightage to the data and information rather than the conclusions / interpretations that can be drawn from the information, I do not think that this is the main cause of the problem being faced by Indian education. At best, it is a manifestation of other more severe issues that should be addressed on an urgent basis.

I think that one of the biggest issues facing teaching learning in Indian education is the excessive emphasis on 2 events is a student’s life, to the absolute exclusion of all other events and achievements- the 10th and 12th class board examinations. Schools / parents / teachers and community at large recognise the importance of these two milestones in a child’s life and have developed processes that would maximise the probability of scoring big in these exams.

* Parents are known to discourage all activities that would impinge upon study time which would result in a compromise of even one mark. The period before the board exams are one of the most strenuous for most parents, I personally know of parents who stay awake late at night with their kids administering regular doses of tannins and caffeine to induce insomnia in extend the hours of study.

* Most teachers also are resistant adopting alternative teaching practices. In a fact finding interview, on teaching practices and the development of creative skills in students, some teachers replied that “they have never felt the need to acquire such skill” and that they did “not think that there was any relevance of promoting creativity in a classroom in so far as performance in the examination was concerned”.

My observations, while may be a bit simplistic, provide clear direction on where the problem lies and the vice like grip it has on the choices of the various stakeholders of the Indian education system.

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June 12th, 2009

Goodbye textbooks, hello world!

Yesterday, I came across a very curious bit of news – California has announced a ban on textbooks in schools. One of the reasons for such a radical move was to save money for the state exchequer, as textbooks were too expensive and that California spent $350 million on textbooks that it could no longer afford.

I dare say, if I were to meet Mr. Schwarzenegger, I would tell him that the $350 million that he hopes his government will save, would not result in a radical change in the financial situation of the State of California.

Nevertheless, a seed had been planted in my mind; and when that happens, additional information on the subject does come my way, without me necessarily actively seeking it. So I was not surprised when I discovered soon thereafter that the State of Virginia had decided to go with some open source online textbooks in its schools.

Hmm… it was now time for me to find out how wide and how deep this trend actually was – and I decided to actively seek out further information. I have been acutely aware of the differences in reading styles between GenNext (who can’t seem to read from a traditional book) and myself (belonging to the antiquated GenX and who cannot read anything but text on a piece of paper). Within this context, I mulled over another discovery that Barrett, the Honors College (in Arizona State) had proposed the use of the Kindle DX (a wireless electronic reading device from Amazon) to be used in a pilot group study and that the roster for the study group was filled up at an extraordinary speed and as soon as the students came to know of the use of the device in the class.

UK also seems to have made significant progress (probably in the last 10 years) towards a paperless classroom with an estimated 20% of the learning resources in primary and secondary schools being purely in digital form. Further, it has been estimated that in the next 10 years, this figure will reach 40%… interesting statistics to say the least. Casual discussions with teachers and educationists also revealed that many schools around the world had moved away from using textbooks in primary grades.

While these trends do not in any way suggest that paper based textbook has outlived its usefulness and it will soon come die a natural death; it does clearly lay down the path that teaching-learning methodologies / philosophies and aides are taking. Such trends are less noticeable in developing countries like India, where digital penetration is low and the digital divide is quite significant. However, the sizable Indian middleclass and the affluent do have the option and the opportunity of taking the same route their cousins in developed countries are taking.

This brings me to another discussion that I had with friends a few weeks ago, where my opinion on the topic was the minority opinion of “one”. At that time, I had raised the possibility that, we may in the future see a world, where children may not necessarily have to enrol into a school for their learning and technology would enable the learner to attend any school of his/her choice and study from a teacher of his/her preference. In this argument, I was opposed by my friends and colleagues; on the basis that a child needs a teacher and peer interaction that a school provides, for his/her overall development. I do not disagree with these needs of children, but contend that, in the world where children choose their environment of study separate from the four walls of what we today call a school, these needs of children would be addressed in another social setting.

Are there any takers out there who would agree with me on this discussion?

I have a recollection of someone telling me some time ago that education needs to be rescued from the 2, 4, 5 of the current system (2 covers of the textbook, 4 walls of a school and 5 days a week). Developments in some quarters suggest that we may have made some headway towards this direction, but the practice is far from pervasive. However, recent and emerging trends clearly show the direction in which education is headed.

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Posted in Education, News | 1 Comment »

June 1st, 2009

Differentiated instruction – Redefining teaching and learning

As a parent of a 3-year old son who is an articulate communicator and natural inquirer, I am currently facing a dilemma. If I put on my educationist lenses to view the issue, the dilemma assumes very serious proportions.

My son, who will turn three in a fortnight, goes to a preschool where kids are organised by age grouping with March 31 (DoB) as the date cut-off for determining the age grouping – a logic that pervades enrolment procedure for subsequent grades as well. Since he was under the age of 3 on the cut-off date, technically he will continue to be in the 2-3 years grouping even after June (when he becomes over 3 years of age). There is a huge developmental gap between a 2 year old and a 3 year old. 

It is not that this problem has just dawned on me; it was a concern I had expressed at the time of enrolment, but my mind was put at ease by assurances of differentiated learning within the same class. From training and experience, I understand the implications and benefits of differentiated learning so I decided to be patient and see how differently he and similar children in the grade would be taught. But now patience is running out as I haven’t seen much of the differentiated instruction in action during the past 2 months that he has been going to school. 

My dilemma stems from the fact that I do understand the working of schools and the issue of teacher training in differentiated instruction and assessment in schools, but how do I reconcile that as a parent of an ever-eager-to-learn soon-to-be-three-year-old.   

As I search for sorting the dilemma, I ask myself, using the powerful words of Karen Morrow Durica: 

Is it truly easier for all to sit and learn?

Should 8-years old all share the same ability and concern?

Does everyone learn better when there is silence in the room?

Do 50-min periods give all the time to bloom?

Is the only way to learn about geometry from a book?

Are having 5 neat paragraphs how each essay should look?

Does every brain work at its best at 7:45 am?

Do practice tests for seven weeks make everyone thrive?

Does every learner need a break at exactly the same time?

Are projects better if each one must have the same design?

Does only certain literature make someone a better reader?

Do only sports, or math, or speech make someone a leader?

Can everyone show what is known by way of written tests?

Does giving “points” inspire everyone to do their best?

Does compliance to school rules define a better student?

Is it possible the misfits are as able, bright and prudent?

Appears if we look closely at the structures we embrace-

Creating hardship for some students, making school a hampered place:

We’d understand that many problems seem to be our fault-

How we do school is often for the convenience of the adults.

If teaching were as simple as using the one best way to teach everyone, “one size fits all” kind of approach,  it would be considered more of a science. However, there isn’t just one best way to teach everyone and that’s why teaching is an art.

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Posted in Differentiated Learning | 1 Comment »

May 19th, 2009

Inquiry process in classrooms

The inquiry approach to teaching-learning is departure from the traditional teacher-directed strategies. Once a teacher gets somewhat comfortable with the process, the next battle for her in the classroom is how to structure it into an effective teaching-learning strategy.

While questioning and searching for answers are extremely important parts of inquiry, effectively generating knowledge from this questioning and searching is greatly aided by a conceptual context for learning. To facilitate the inquiry process, teachers/schools adopt the inquiry cycle and the students’ go through the different stages of creating and refining their inquiries with the teacher’s help. The process might end up in the creation of a product or the construction of an understanding. This process of product making or answer building is an iterative process which goes through verification, validation, sifting and sorting till a clear picture emerges. In this journey of constructing meaning, a child works on his own or with a small group of peers necessitating social and communication skills. The teacher provides the appropriate resources and provocation, structuring the activities to support the inquiries.

One of the schools that I work with has developed and adopted the following Inquiry Cycle for their elementary students:

 inquiry-based-learning

The inquiry approach to learning is complex and dynamic; it looks different in different classrooms. As the process unfolds, it is rarely linear but cyclic or back and forth, very much in sync with the way the brain functions. Therefore, it has been called “a human approach to knowledge acquisition”.

Suffice to conclude in the words of Gordon Wells, “Inquiry is not a ‘method’ of doing science, history, or any other subject, in which the obligatory first stage in a fixed, linear sequence,… is that of students each formulating questions to investigate. Rather, it is an approach to the chosen themes and topics in which the posing of real questions is positively encouraged, whenever they occur and by whoever they are asked. Equally important as the hallmark of an inquiry approach is that all tentative answers are taken seriously and are investigated as rigorously as the circumstances permit.”

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Posted in Teacher Training | No Comments »

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