By Patricia Mukhim
The one-day deliberation on Reclaiming Education, organized by ICARE recently threw up some interesting facets on education in Meghalaya. For one, the state has been functioning without a curriculum. It only follows a syllabus. Now ordinary mortals would tend to believe that there’s not much difference between a curriculum and a syllabus. That’s where experts come in. Dr Flourette Dkhar, Associate Professor, North East Regional Institute of Education (NERIE) clarifies that a curriculum essentially lays down the vision and mission of education that a particular state outlines for itself but drawing the larger objectives from the national curriculum framework (NCF) of the country. A syllabus only outlines the chapters that are to be completed from each subject!
If one were to encapsulate problems that threaten to derail education in Meghalaya then one would think of this quote by Einstein, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” In education it is somewhat more complex. The classroom is designed as if everyone is of the same size, has the same needs, can grasp and understand complex problems at the same time as if they have the same intelligence, same mental breadth and same confidence levels. What about the quiet ones who won’t speak up, are unable to understand an algebraic problem and go home with a load of anxiety, cannot sleep well, lose appetite and go through a lot of internal trauma. Can the teacher in a class of 35-40 or even more at times, be able to recognize such problems in one or two students in the class? Isn’t it more common for a teacher to enter a classroom and ‘teach,’ using a monologic, one- way, top-down, talk method and expect the students to have understood it all?
Yes we have technology today but those tools are being used in 19th and 20th century learning environments. The pedagogy, teaching styles and classroom management techniques have not changed much since we were in school. Education in our case has never been about the students; it has always been about the teachers. It is not learner-centred even today. Hence we have images of larger than life teachers, many of whom were so intimidating, so patronizing and so insulting at our inability to understand, what for many, is a simple problem, that many students just dread their classes. That age is over. Today students confront their teachers and question them, often at great risk of being called rebels. That’s because the 21st century student does not need knowledge from the teacher. Knowledge is a commodity that can be downloaded. What the student needs are life skills. He/she needs to know how to deal with the world outside the classroom – a life that is no longer controlled by the school environment, where there is no supervision. The internet can’t tell them what lessons they can learn from reading of World War II and its brutalities. That’s where the teacher comes in – to bring the human aspect of teaching.
Today students need space for research, for independent and critical thinking skills. These are the very things we should be encouraging in our learners but which our syllabus does not tell us to. These days we speak a lot about collaborative or cooperative learning and there are visible results that students learn better in small groups where they discuss and come up with several answers to one problem. Unfortunately, when we were growing up if we dared to talk to each other in the classroom especially during examinations it was called ‘cheating’
How a student deals with and confronts problems in his/her life is something that the education system has been unable to teach. Are students challenged to solve problems through a series of reasoning techniques? Is there space in the classroom for that? Isn’t that what the curriculum should include? Students need a higher level reasoning and research skills, not the “drill and kill,” variety that has gone on for donkey’s years.
Primary education is the biggest challenge for Meghalaya. Speakers at the conference who have experience of how village schools function speak of the large scale corruption unleashed by politicians themselves who appoint unqualified people just because they are influential vote-catchers. These unqualified charlatans then sub-let their teaching post to someone even lesser qualified then themselves and then we expect these to educate our children? How immoral are those who steal away the dreams of these children even before they can dare to dream big! Why do we blame these kids when they don’t have the appetite to come to school or when they drop out of such cruel factories that murder the mind and are called classrooms!
Mr Toki Blah of ICARE said that primary school students are the least empowered lot because they have no vote and are too small to be used for proxy voting. Their parents are too scared and powerless to speak up against the school administration or against specific teachers so they carry their pain in their souls. It is time for the community and for community based organisations to hold the schools to account. Tribal societies are called that because of the strong community ties. Of what use if the community if people have to suffer the tragedy of badly run schools, individually and silently?
We have blamed the government enough for the failure of education but have we really done anything as a society/community? No we haven’t! Parents are deeply upset by the weight of the school bag. They are traumatized that their 11 or 12 year old has to complete their homework up to 11 pm at night when they should be sleeping and having sweet dreams! A parent speaking at the conference pointed to Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which says that every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. Our education system has stolen leisure from the child!
Today we are doing everything wrong; pushing the child to achieve and that achievement is all about marks! Parents grieve that their child is “weak” at Maths and we know what that means, don’t we for we ourselves know no better than to push our kids into an unforgiving, destructive and brutal rat race. Most of us want our kids to achieve what we ourselves never could. Is that really fair? But when will parents learn? They won’t learn until the system changes itself and learning is made into a joyful activity and there are many more avenues for children to opt from than just the conventional courses that are so mechanically designed and which have become sacred cows by now! And also obsolete!
In an article on the number of things that are obsolete in the 21st century classroom (author unknown), the writer lists out computer rooms, isolated classrooms, not having wifi, banning phones and tablets, teachers that don’t share what they do, schools that don’t have Facebook or Twitter, unhealthy cafeteria food, starting school at 8 o’clock for teenagers, traditional libraries, putting kids in the same class because they are born in the same year, standardized tests to measure the quality of education etc. Imagine how many obsolete things we still consider as important to our children’s lives!
Tony Wagner, the author of the Global Achievement Gap says: “Isolation is the enemy of improvement”. He proposes open classrooms where teachers should be able to walk in and learn from each other, parents should visit often, with so called Extra Open Schooldays (where all parents are encouraged to visit classrooms anytime during the day). Isolated classrooms are therefore obsolete. Further, Wagner says teachers who work silently, don’t tweet, blog and discuss ideas with people around the world are obsolete. Teachers are no longer working locally but globally and it’s their job to share what they do and see what others are doing. If a teacher is no longer learning then he/she shouldn’t be teaching other people.
Coming back to a public movement for education in Meghalaya it is time to push for such a cause with our governments and politicians and to root out unqualified teachers who have been pushed into the classrooms through the backdoor. Isn’t it ironic that teachers can come out into the streets for their own welfare but they have never, ever, spoken up on behalf of their students and their incapacities! But how can they do so, when teachers themselves are largely the bane of education! I salute those teachers with a passion for the vocation but such are a tiny number, Alas!