By Birkarnelzelzit Thiyam
A wooden boat will never sink in an ocean or a pond until it got a welcoming hole for water in the boat. An educated boat will never sink in the ocean of modern era. By the word ‘educated’, it does not have any concerns with only those owners of PhD. Degree holders but heavily with those high school students who produce electricity form potato. Have you even felt yourself as an educated homo sapiens when you looked at the marks that you got in any of the exams? If yes, then you are pretty smart. But that’s not the correct perspective to propagate. The most educated man is the man who have the hunger to learn more the most and apply the most. Sitting at the corner and studying all the research works of Einstein won’t let yourself come under the umbrella of educated humans until you pen down to apply something of his to yours’ personal life first. To divulge all the thumbs up, the main question lies on how to educate a human. The main difference of how things are in my society and of those in the Europe is nothing but the concern of the perspective of learning. We are learning the learned things and they are learning to learn new things. This is a society where ‘chalk and talk’ teaching method stands on the victory stand and rest methods goes to the drain. When the Europeans students bring their own laptop to their classrooms and get instant access to everything, we got the chance to see and touch the computer once a week during computer class and if current goes away then once in two weeks but fees will remain the same. Leaving all these nightmares behind, as a one step ahead plan we need to think about how things must move forward. As far as the article by Sonia Jackson goes, the system must be running smoothly with her concept in the three methods. First is the spaced learning, learning method in which the condensed learning content is repeated three times, with two 10-minute breaks during which activities such as physical activities are performed by the students. The combination of learning and physical games. The second is Flexible Friday, teacher try to help each student to study and learn what is the most difficult for him/her personally. Somebody repeats, somebody learns. It makes him/her more convenient for students as now they can focus on one thing while in school. And the last is Engagement, students are urged to engage with the real world, analyse everything that happens in different life spheres. This type of things is just a mare idea in our society. When a teacher is supposed to cover only 20 students, here they cover 200 in a go. The main difference between the schooling here and for whites there is nothing but the projection of the contents. Most of us here study for earning and there they focus on life skills, team work and most importantly learn to learn. To talk about the syllabus, it is something which is very different when we compare with the Americans way. Students do not need to carry a lot of books to the schools. There are few books to be followed, but many of those books are kept in the school itself in lower grades. But in the case of India, the situation is very pathetic and so different. Even a lower grade student carries a lot of books and notebooks to school every day. In Kindergarten and first few grades in USA, they prepare the children for future learning by teaching how to learn. But I learn how to sing and dance blindly in my times. I never know what is the meaning of ‘one’, but scored good grades in maths test. They taught ‘one plus one’ equals to two but never taught me why it became two. For the same in USA, they learn maths by guessing the count of candies in the Jar. People may ask, why you compare us and them? They are having a lot of resource. Then my reply would be don’t you have candle in India to teach the students. It’s all about using the available resource properly. In my society, kids are not allowed to keep a lot of money in their pockets just as a mark of bad behaviour developing syndrome. But in USA, teacher give the grade one student a dollar every week and teach them how to invest the money to make a profit, financial discipline is taught right from the early age. The main reason why they do this is a part of their economics subject. In India we solve problems in practical exams for economics.
Time has come for the word ‘educational revolution’ to take its shape. Instead of spending huge money on projects for saving natural resources, we better spend more on human resource as it is the supreme.
The writer can be reach at birkarnelzelzitthiyam3073(at)gmail(dot)com