By Aristotle Lyngdoh
Education is the pillar of growth and strength of society. It also determines the direction for the future development of the society. Education is the medium by which a person can express his/her creativity. Sadly education today has become a livelihood for teachers. This has compelled some writers to express their views and concerns on the education system prevailing in our state and with valid reasons. There is today a general consensus on the need to bring reforms in the entire system, but how. As it appears, this consensus is guided by various perspectives, some of which are personal or subjective. The teachers look at education as something related to their own welfare; the management and the government too has its own perspectives and agenda.
It is important therefore to reflect on the views expressed by various writers who strongly advocate for the welfare and future of the children. Eminent educationist, Dr Flurette G Dkhar, Prof. NERIE, NECRT while addressing a gathering as Chief Guest during the inauguration of Sure Foundation Academy (A project of the Church of Jesus Christ Mawlai) on February 18, at Mawlai Mawiong, Shillong, emphasized on the need to revamp the teaching environment and turn it around from being teacher centered to child centered. Dr Dkhar spoke from the perspective of a researcher and from looking at global standards. Interestingly, it is a Biblical truth she has rightly pointed out whereby in Psalms 139:14 King David said, “ I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works; and my soul knows very well”. This reinforces the fact that every child is unique and hence our teaching methods must meet those special needs of each child. This is true even in the case of monozygotic twins. Even if they are alike or identical there is a uniqueness within them.
The uniqueness of a child is not only in physical appearance but it extends even to other realms of human domain such as senses, mental and cognitive differences. Some are fast learners while others are a bit slow, but still the child is fearfully and wonderfully made. If we understand this universal truth, I believe any reformation that may happen sooner or later in this sector should focus on the uniqueness of each individual child by fostering policies and strategies to bring out this innate creativity in every child. It is the creativity of a person that will contribute to the betterment of the society. Most of us have forgotten the purpose of why we send our children to school. The reason we send our children to school is primarily for them to learn and discover and to learn to socialize. Creativity should be nurtured right from an early age or the pre-school age. This includes the overall teaching environment such as mode of teaching, sitting arrangement, classroom management, books and exercise books. In other words, making all resources available to children.
The school is in fact the land of discovery for children to begin their journey. But the sad thing is that we have substituted this process of discovery by imposing a monologic learning on the children. Therefore, when children fail to discover, they cannot develop and this ultimately shatters their potential to express their creativity. This in turn has made the students dependent on someone or something else even when they are old enough to manage their own lives. Dr Flurette rightly pointed out that the failure of the educational system in our state including northeast is because of this prevailing system ‘the teacher- centered pedagogy’. What exactly does this term teacher centered pedagogy mean? According to her it is an imposed learning. A teacher is directed to and compelled by the curriculum to complete a set of lessons within a particular period. Further, the teacher has no option but to pressure the children to learn these things so that they will get stars at the end of the year. Hence the system itself is trying to make this wonderful uniqueness of a person uniform by centering the whole learning on the completion of certain prescribed lessons from books written by some scholar. Thus creativity has been restricted right from an early age.
Another example for imposed learning is that children are forced to learn that the alphabet A stands for apple when as a matter of fact many families in Meghalaya, especially in the rural areas have hardly seen or tasted an apple. The truth is that a child of three has already learnt something that has not been taught. Teacher centered pedagogy will also make the student competitive with back door tactics. Today students can easily complete project works and assignments but the very purpose for that has been defeated because the copy-paste option is readily available. The student may have completed the task assigned by the teacher but what did he/she learn? In this way our education system is producing numerous graduates who actually learned nothing at all.
On the other hand the child centered pedagogy is the methodology where the uniqueness of the individual student is emphasized and nurtured; where a teacher no longer imposes a set of lessons but is there to help and guide the child to express and discover their own ability and potential.
The classical system and teaching method beginning from micro level to macro or from bottom to top is gone now. Today the child can see the world very clearly without the process of imagination and it is meaningless to teach the child that the earth is round for it might contradict the natural process of learning things. The reality is that children learn a lot through the media and televisions but these are not included as part of teaching curriculum. The child is forced to memorise theories and definitions developed by people of the past. But if the children learn the things around themselves from polity to economy, environment and others, they will definitely experience the joy of learning which will ultimately compel them to apply their mind and thought process to explore more.
The future generation should be self-reliant and independent and this can happen only when the creativity of an individual is unleashed and this becomes a priority of the educational system. When creativity flourishes, there will be no dearth of resources and those who can create will build a world for themselves and for others as well.