Education: Priorities and a Plan

If you were given charge of designing an educational system, how would you go about doing it? What would it be in an ideal situation? What are the factors that will be detractors from the ideal situation?  What will be the priorities ? How will you ensure quality? So I let my imagination take off into a new world, a world that is shaped by my experiences. 

The educational system that I envision will involve both aspects of learning, learning for earning and learning for living. To enable this, the system will include professionals, who we call as teachers today, as well as mentors. These mentors will be teaching social and life skills. 

In an ideal situation, would like to see all of the children in a given community, irrespective of their socioeconomic background, be able to attend the same school. Would like to have an extended school and support for the students whose parents do not have the time or the background to teach and coach their kids. While this may be ideal, the major detractor will be the free market driven system of individual's choice. The next detractor is that of the widening gap between the rich and poor. Combination of the freedom of choice and the widening of the gap feeds on itself and leads to a polarized society. Sooner or later, the Society, Government and other Institutions will have to come to the realization that such a polarized society will unsustainable and thus start acting. 

In terms of priorities, they can be across many categories - a) Geographic b) Subjects/Curriculum c) Economic and Social etc. Geographic priorities will include larger level of funding for non-urban areas and socially deprived urban areas, to help motivate the relocation of great teachers and mentors. In the case of subjects and curriculum, will include the academic and vocational aspects. In the case of economic vs social, will ensure that both aspects are balanced. 

Now how do we ensure quality? With the extent of globalization that is happening, the difference in expectations from students are starting to blend and become uniform. With this set as guidelines, would like to set up a local school council. This council could include the local administrators, teachers, parents, community leaders. And the council will review the class of entering students's capabilities and their capabilities after they have gone through the school year. 

School Standardization: One size does not fit all.

Students spend about 12 to 15 years of their prime formative time in schools. This is substantial, not just from the point of view of the total time spent, but also it is the time where they learn the elements of becoming and being individuals. Hence the institution of schools and its role in education is critical. When we refer to school, and start thinking about it, it soon becomes very clear and apparent that the use of the word school implies much more than the physical entity. It is not only about how new the building is, how clean the facility is and whether they have plants and flowers. While these physical elements help enhance the aesthetics and the environment, they are just one of the contributors to the institution of school. 

As I look back, how has this institution of school shaped me? In spite of the economic hardship, my mom enrolled me in a private school, as she thought that the quality of education will be better. This decision from my mother helped me join a school that focused not only on academics, but also had some elements of cultural programs like debate, dance and drama. This extra curricular activity, for example acting as King Solomon in a drama, indirectly boosted my confidence. Also, by going to this school, I was able to gain some great friends, whose parents taught me to succeed in school. Through my friends, I learnt about the opportunities that were available for further studies. Thus the fact that my mom enrolled me in this school opened doors to me, to be self confident, to learn from others and to be open about future opportunities. 

From my vantage point today, as I look back, I can certainly identify some areas of improvement in my schooling. It would have been nice to have had an opportunity to learn life skills such as swimming, music. It would have been nice to have had more practical / applied learning environment. 

What should the future schools look like? What should be the priorities for schools? Should they be compared based on the academic scores / ranks? Are there non measurable attributes that are equally important as those that can be measured like the scores in a standard test? 

As we look forward, with a set of guidelines at the national or international level, every school should come up with a set of priorities and learning outcomes based on the local situation in which the school is located. The school should have a participatory team to help decide on the priority, with representation from school administration, teachers, parent representatives, local leaders and mentors. The priority should be to help add value to the students to become life long learners and good human beings, contributing to the formation of a harmonious society. 

Bringing learning to life

We have all had those teachers.. teachers who made us really enjoy the subject that was being taught. What made these teachers different? What was the source for their effectiveness? Was it related to the teaching methodologies they employed? Was it related to the love they had for their subject? Was it related to the way they carried out the experimentation? Teaching and education is such a complex, multi-dimensional domain and as such it is certain that the answers we all come up with will be varied. 

By teaching and education, I am referring here to the teaching of the letters, math, science, arts and not that of other aspects of getting educated for life. It is unfortunate, but education and teaching has been limited to the teaching of letters, math, science and arts. Will write in detail about the changes needed in one of my future blogs. Now to the question of what makes a teacher a good teacher.

I had been fortunate to learn from some of the great teachers. The paramount feature that was a common thread in all of these teachers was their love for the subject they taught. Be it Chemistry or Tamil, they really loved it and would keep on talking, illustrating and acting out the subject matter they taught. As my Tamil teacher taught, I could see the king, the poet, the peasant and all the other characters. As my Chemistry teacher taught, I could see him moving between the electrodes to give way for the sodium ion that was traveling between them. 

Being a visual learner, my learning always improved with visualization of the abstract concepts. As I reflect now on who had been good teachers, naturally they fall into the category of those teachers who brought learning to life. Some of my other friends did not have problem grasping abstract concepts and they thought this kind of teaching to be too dramatic and did not appreciate. Hence they would not be agreeing to the same set of teachers as good teachers and they would have their own set of attributes they liked.  

What are your views? What were the attributes of the teachers whom you consider good? Please share through comments. Looking forward to hearing from you and learning.     

Intelligence and Learning

What is intelligence? Do you really have to be intelligent to be an expert learner? Are there multiple types of intelligence? These have all been questions that have crossed my mind multiple times. Other than hearing about incidents such as Super 30, in which an Indian Mathematician Anand Kumar, trained 30 students from the most rural and poor background and placed them in the elite Indian Institutes of Technology,  have not really thought about this or read about this. Just had an opportunity to read and learn more about how intelligence is defined and its role in learning, as part of What Future For Education Coursera Course being taught by Dr. Clare Brooks. 

It was very interesting to learn from Dr. Gordon Stobart, an Educational Psychologist and author of the book "The Expert Learner" that intelligence is not something that one is born with. There has been an increased use of a new word, ability, in the educational community and this is a cover for the term "intelligence". Whether you call it intelligence or ability, both refer to the measure of learning and not the causal factor for learning. Interests may vary from person to person and whatever be one's area of interest, the ability of that person to become a "natural" in the area of their interest depends on whether that person comes from a privileged or deprived background.

Relating to my own experience, I had an interest in mathematics and was fortunate enough to be trained by my friend's mother, from my very young age. This lead me to being good in math, and I kept hearing from my relatives that a person good in math could be a good engineer and this was how my educational and career path got shaped. I saw the progression of small multipliers of positive reinforcement leading up to further opportunities to learn. 

While in college, I was exposed to how my classmates perceived what intelligence is. Students who followed procedural methods of solving the problems were considered to be meticulous, while students who had asked questions of why were considered intelligent. Apparently I was classified in the former category. The way I found out about this was through an incident where one of my classmates indicated that he would not be asking me the question to understand "the why" of a particular concept. That was quite a judgement that was made about my "intelligence" and little did my friends or I knew that "intelligence" is acquired and that it depends on the background, exposure and training.

Since intelligence is a measure of learning, I believe the relentless and deliberate practice and learning is critical to becoming an intelligent person. For this one has to be a life long learner. This thought has been shaping up my journey. Even though I was formally trained in Engineering, learnt and applied manufacturing and quality principles when the need came up. The latest example of continuous learning is my taking the Coursera Course, What Future For Education. 

Learning: How do we enhance it?

In US and in many of the countries in the world, the academic gap between affluent and poor kids is widening. This is what attracted me to start volunteering my time to bridge the digital divide between the affluent and poor kids. As I started volunteering, being a novice in teaching and in learning theories, quickly realized that learning is not just about the learning of knowledge. Having been trained in engineering with very little humanities study, decided to take the time to learn more about the different aspects of learning and enrolled in What Future for Education, a Coursera Course being taught by Dr. Clare Brooks. 

With respect to my own experience as a learner, I have learnt to know and to do in schools, whereas my learning to live together and to be came from my parents, friends and society. Based on my experience as a learner, I am excited to learn via the Coursera Course, as it helps combine the class room with students from all over the world. I am excited and looking forward to learning from the guided episodes as well as through the thoughts, comments and experiences from other students participating in this course. 

Having gone through the first week and spending time on "How does one learn", I have already learnt a lot. Learning encompasses a wider field: Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to live together and Learning to be. Teachers, curriculum developers and administrators should appreciate this fact and structure the learning environment based on this approach. It was also very illuminating to learn about the impact of students background in their learning and the different ways in which they learn. Current teaching / schooling is largely based on "normalization". Current teacher to students ratio hardly enables the attention / tuning that is needed for different students, be it their learning style or the impact of their social background on their learning. 

As I go through the next 5 weeks of the "What Future for Education" course, I am hoping to learn on ways we can help address the resource issues on enabling customized education. How can we have the benefit of teachers as facilitators and yet tailor the learning experience based on the needs of children? In what ways can we weave in both "learning to live together" and "learning to be" with those of  "learning to know" and "learning to do" ? 

As we move from more traditional approach to constructivist approach, I believe the order of instruction can be changed. Currently, in most of the schools, theoretical aspects are discussed first and then this followed by select experiments. Rather than this, I think it will be better to start with an experiment, where a group of students will work together, and derive the natural laws themselves. This will help in creating a curiosity bug in students minds. 

On Learning

How does one learn? How did I learn? I started a journey in time, a journey to my past, starting from my school days, thinking about my successful and unsuccessful learning experiences. 

One factor that had certainly influenced my learning a subject was the passion with which my teacher taught. Be it Mathematics, Chemistry or Tamil, I spent more time on subjects that were taught by passionate teachers and that had a lasting impression and influence on my career and profession. 

The other factor that kept me engaged, and on my toes while learning, was the informal challenging quiz or question during the class. This sort of questioning made me apply what I just learnt to a new situation needing a solution. I found that this sort of exercise helped in my learning to stick. In a similar way, in Mathematics, I found that applied or word problems helped me understand the concepts much more than straight application of rules. 

I also found that I had been successful in learning subjects where I can apply reasoning or logic to arrive at a solution rather than the ones that are based on rules. 

With respect to the situation that lead me to unsuccessful learning, I can think of two situations. I was trying to learn another language without any immersion. Basically, the learning style was to memorize the words and answer questions. I did not go very far on this one.

The other instance I was unsuccessful in learning happened when I tried to learn swimming as an adult. During one of the classes, I drowned and my fear kept me under water for a long time (at least, it felt that way), until the teacher pulled me out. Since that day, the fear of water had kept me away from learning how to swim. As an extension, I guess fear is one of the factors that block me from my learning. 

How was your experience? What helped you to learn successfully? What lead to your unsuccessful learning? Please share your thoughts.