41. Does Education empower ?

I completed my schooling in Trivandrum  in the 1970’s. In those days, reading comics was  a passionate  past time for school-going children. One could hardly come across children without  their own personal collection of comics particularly in middle class families.

The house I lived during my schooling was pretty spacious and was  adjacent to  a compound  where a Badminton court was set up. During holidays and weekends, children from the locality would crowd in my house with their personal collection of comics which they keep exchanging and relish reading them before their game of Badminton. It was a give and take punctuated with love and affection.

In the mid eighties, my sister narrated an incident. A colleague’s family with their children visited their  uncle living in a flat in Mumbai. There, the children befriended  other children living in the block of flats where their  uncle lived. It so happened that  a kid living in one of the flats offered to give a comic book  from his personal collection to read to the children visiting Mumbai for a small  fee for each comic book. When the children rushed to their mother for money, she was quite stunned and could never come to terms with the fact that children in Mumbai are (in her own words) ‘money-minded’!

A couple of months ago, I was taking stock of  the list of Online publications submitted by  me for free reading. Around that time,  a friend of mine commented  that these are days the youth in their twenties  are eager to make  a lot of  money ... and those in their thirties never ever part anything for free. Only those in their  forties would ever show any willingness to offer something for free!

Why do children and the youth display a pronounced acquisitive instinct? Why do they  become ‘money-minded’? Why does our education system fail to address this issue? I was pondering over such material issues when I came across an article about  the effects of education miles away in America. It was entitled ‘Class Divide Widens in School’ (Sunday Times, Trivandrum, dated 30 December 2012). Given below is an extract:

“One of the assumptions on which modern society is built is  that education is a great equalizer; that poor kids with access to education will be launched on a life of upward mobility. In  India, stories of poor children who through sheer brains and hard work earned places in elite institutions and went on to become multi-millionaires, is the stuff of legend.

This belief was borrowed from western societies, especially America. However, worryingly, recent evidence points to the reverse impact that education is having: its role in enhancing class divide; of keeping the poor, poor while making the rich, richer: In an article in The New York Times, Jason DeParle writes about “the growing role that education plays in preserving  class divisions. Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance...”

Well ...Education  no doubt is  serious business...Any comments?

40. Some trainee observations to Ponder Over

These are   some observations  made by the trainees of my college (2011-12 batch) after their first and second spell of Practice Teaching. Its worth  pondering over !

 *  In a school in the city, there were children from Juvenile Homes. Some  of them had a  criminal record and were  prone to violence! The trainees did not really know  how to tackle them.

* In another school  a particular trainee was asked “ Do you consume beer”? It appeared that the students consumed  beer regularly!

* Some trainees reported   that Constructivist practice did not work in  the Social Science class and they  found that lecturing method was more suitable in the secondary class!

*In  a  particular school there was  an unexpected announcement that part  of the four floor school building has caught  fire. All the students were directed to rush out immediately. Within seconds , a trainee who was teaching in the third floor dashed to the ground floor.  In fact, he was the first to reach the ground floor!  Only on reaching the ground floor did he realize that it is was  a ‘Mock  Fire Escape  Training’ planned by the Fire and Rescue Service. The trainee had no idea, that what he was expected to do, was to get the students to fall in line and move  along with them quickly to the ground floor!

*Some trainees stated  that during Practice Teaching, they realized that a mastery of the subject they teach is essential to teach effectively.

* A  teacher candidate, who  till joining the BEd course was  teaching at  the Primary Level realized that  at the Secondary Level to teach  a single period one ought to prepare a lot unlike at  the Primary level.

* In  a particular school, instead of distributing sweets on their birthday,  the students are expected to plant a tree in the school campus.

* The Supervising teacher of a leading school in the city reprimanded the trainees for giving home assignments!

* The Supervising teacher of a particular school was extremely cooperative and did handover his Laptop to the trainees to  prepare  materials for teaching the students!

* During the thirty day Second Spell of Practice Teaching,  six days were wasted owing to general Strike followed by  suspension of classes!

*In some schools, there were children in Standard VIII and IX   who did not know  the  English or Hindi alphabet.

*A particular trainee affirmed that they  all  had  engaged in  Practice Teaching    with the seriousness it deserves and did not as  a teacher educator  had warned, turn the  Teaching Practice in to a ‘Cheating Practice’!

* A trainee who was assigned a Girls’ school in the city  to teach, observed  that, many students were  attracted to the male trainees. And once,  it so happened that  a male worker employed  by the school  had ignored  some girls and did not smile at them. This hurt the feeling of  some children!

* A particular  trainee, quite naively  confessed that some of the students they taught were  really smart. It so happened  that a  student had asked  the trainee whether  he  had a Facebook  and  the trainee  quite innocently replied “ I’m afraid I don’t have one ...perhaps  you could look  for it in the  School Library”!

Now... do we really  train our trainees  properly ?  Any comments??

39. Changing perspectives in teaching

                                                  

* Teaching is not only about an intellectual engagement with others but also a cognitive and affective engagement with self through regular review and renewal of methods and approaches.

*Passionate teachers are aware of the broader social context in which they teach and have clear sense of identity and believe they can make a difference to the skill achievement of their learners.

* A teacher requires scholarship, educational knowledge, intuition, imagination and the ability to improvise.

* The colonized mind set still prevails in India. It is high time we made a sincere attempt to shed the cache of theories which govern language  teaching in India.

* We have oft heard the slogan Energy for all, Shelter for all.  Now  the time has come for a new slogan : English for all !!...for it is the language that gives an opportunity to children living in hamlets that  are still not easily accessible by  road.

[From notes made during the  7^th International and 43^rd Annual ELTAI Conference]

 If  we expect a transformation in teaching shouldn’t we teach those teachers now teaching in schools in villages, how to fully exploit the potential of  Web 2.0 technology?      

Any comments…?    

38. Another X’mas, Another Message

 

My college celebrated the x’mas season today (22 December 2011) as Communal  Harmony Day. Religious leaders representing the three main religions- Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, were the invited guests. The General Lecture Hall where the programme was conducted and the college corridor adorned a festive look.

Fr. Noble V. Jacob:

“ Remember ...rationality  has got its own limit...Try to be a human at least  for a minute...Its this,  which will save our  great nation...”

Imam Jamaluddin Mankada:

“ Today more and more students get educated...but, more and more criminals  are on the rise... Ones  goal in life seems  to have shifted from the ideals of ‘Bapuji’ to ‘3G’...Education  will achieve its true objective only when it  guides a person from knowledge to self-knowledge...”

Swami Guru Njana Thapswi:

“ Towards the end of his life,  Sree Narayana Guru who preached ‘One Caste, One Religion,  One God for mankind’ consecrated a temple with a mirror as ‘idol’ to symbolically suggest  that one should know oneself to perceive God...It is a law of Nature to bestow one with what one deserves...and so  it is meaningless to force children to take up Engineering and Medicine as the only two professions worth pursuing...”

Well..., another message for the Curriculum Committee!! [Please  read Post # 27 in this Blog]

Any comments dear reader?

37. Who is likely to be the best ?

·      * A poet becoming a teacher

·      *A novelist becoming a teacher

·      *A dramatist becoming a teacher

As a student of the English Literature  Course offered  in H. H. The Maharajah’s University College, Thiruvananthapuram in the late 1980’s, I had the good fortune to be taught by  a  popular  poet, a renowned  novelist and an acclaimed actor-cum-dramatist.

Each one of them,  I must admit had their own unique approach to teaching.

I did however perceive an edge  in the dramatist!  Naturally too, for what does a dramatist,  who is also the director of a stage performance do? He would try several tricks up his sleeve to get the best out of a potential actor. And while teaching... how can  a dramatist be any different?... Won’t he try to get the best out of a student?

Well... do you  agree with me?