Can the teachers really make education better?

I am just taking stock of the current situation asking the question "can the teachers really make education better?".   I am reflecting on the following threads and keeping it short for now -

• In the current economic rat race people live in, teachers compare their life standards with that of the other professionals.  A need for two wheeler, own house, mobile phone, their own children's education and marriage expenses dodge the teachers. 
• There are several senior, expereinced teachers who have wealth of teaching experience that were responisbile for current generation of professionals.  There are several teachers who are unsung heroes making a difference in their villages, small towns but get a fraction of the salary compared to the city contemporaries. 
• On the other side, there is technology playing role but somehow centered toward educating people over technology, and oriented towards exam preparation.  This will lead to self-learning but will not teach the value system that the traditional education system brings in.

My dream for India is to become a dreamland for all the teaching community where education gets back that respectable treatment and non-commercial. 

Dimensions of Experience A Student Needs

I woke up this morning and asked myself, "WHAT EXPERIENCE OR DIMENSIONS OF EXPERIENCE A STUDENT NEEDS TO GO THROUGH THROUGHOUT HIS SCHOOLING"?

The following answers flashed:

1. A Learning Experience
2. A Leading Experience
3. A Loving Experience

Dimensions of Experience - For Students

Learning should help the student expand his references of knowledge, understanding, and do things on his own as he grows.

Leading his own life, the student gets the essential survival skills, effective decision making, and also learn to initiate something for his family, his society and this country.

Loving experience during schooling is through loving and respectful treatment from his teachers, various mentors, enabling connections that builds the student in a positive psychological mould.

And I went on to ask, "TO WHAT EXTENT OF LEARNING, LEADING, LOVING, THE STUDENT NEEDS TO GO THROUGH?".

The following answers flashed:
1. Unlimited Learning Experience
2. Unconscious Leading Experience
3. Unconditional Loving Experience

Needless to explain why unlimited, why unconscious, unconditional.  But if you insist on why, my answer would be - this world is abundant.  If I were to start again and be a student, this is what I would long for. Every teacher, every parent, every caring person can give this unlimited, unconscious, unconditional experience to the student.

CBSE's Open Book System for Analytical Skills

CBSE is planning to introduce Open Book system for the board students from next year.  This will help the education system moving away from 'memory based' learning to 'analytical thinking' based.  From what is called as Pre Announced Test (PAT), the students would know the passages from where the questions may be asked. Unlike the current system, students will not get a direct question - answer match from the books. 

Its a welcome move and this is how students can assess their analytical skills. It will be a good idea if this can be introduced even from junior classes partially. 

When I was a student, I broke the chapter passages into very basic questions and tried answering them. This helped me master some touch concepts even during my academic projects.

May be much more innovation is needed to take the academic load off the students and kindle the students' creativity and potential to the best. 

Dr. Haim Ginott

“I've come to the frightening conclusioin that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

Identity for the teachers

Identity for the teachers.  What is identity?

Each one of us believe that we support our family. We work. We do something.  We are here for something. We relate to each other. We are an authority. We do something for someone. We give something for someone. We receive something from someone.   We are all these, because of the identies.

We are a brother, husband, father, teacher, neighbour, engineer, philanthropist, social activitst, a book reader, a sponsor, a driver, an author, a poet, a cleaner, an artist and thus carry all these identities.  Above all, we carry a name.

These identities create beliefs.

Similarly for teachers, certain identiies influence them to believe.  A science teacher teaches science because she is one. A head master is strict because he is one. A primary school teacher does not look beyond because he is one.

An useful identity for teachers is "I am the architect of the future".

Hold on to this identity and see things transforming for better.

Our children are labeled

Accept the fact that our children have been labelled.  Either we as parents label them or the teacher label them.  I had been to my kid's school for the parents teachers meeting.  The class teacher had some observation and we responded. There was another parent to whom the class teacher was explaining the "labels" she has framed on the child. The body language and the language of the parent was shifting between supporting the teacher's view and then to advise the child.  The label the child gets during his / her formative days help construct beliefs, experiences, thinking models and the future itself. 

Talking of skills, we are in a world of peer pressure. We decide what skills our children should get based on what the other kids do. The kid cannot really differentiate (and also the parents), what is needed for her for that age.  A karate class on one side, a music on the other, a language class here and regular school there. What do you build or dump in your kid, finally?

Talking of disabilities, I believe there is nothing like disabliity. Every one has a different neuro structure.  We have been designed in a certain way. The moment we label a kid with a 'disability' tag, the tension mounts.  I would say 'anger' is a disability for the man kind. I would say 'worry' is another disability. Because both these emotions disable us from being a better human.

So, lets get off the tag, "disability" atleast for our kids.

The book "Our Labelled Children: What every Parent and Teacher needs to know about learning disabilities" is in my wishlist.

I touch future

I dedicate this blog to all the teachers and students community because they together constitute the future.  The world is better because of the teachers. The world is better because of the students.

Lets teach by living the principles.