By Patricia Mukhim
Come November and examination fever grips students, teachers and parents. Students are cautioned not to waste a minute of their time because when the day of reckoning arrives (report card day) if they don’t make the grade and make a good grade at that, then they have to reckon with their parents who will sulk, give their kids a drubbing of their lives and cut down some or all of the allowances the kids were bribed with before the exams. This part is of course for students coming from affluent urban homes. For the kid in rural Meghalaya or the ghettos of Shillong, a failed report card means having to drop out of school so that there is an extra hand at home to look after the smaller siblings or better still the kid can earn something for the family by shepherding sheep and cows. There are no long term calculations here as to what the child stands to lose in the long run by dropping out of Class 3 or 5 because rural folks are not used to planning too far ahead. In any case, life has been the same for them for decades. It’s a cycle of poverty and destitution barring for a few that somehow manage to climb out of the deep and dark poverty hole.
The question that arises here is why the fear of examinations. What is expected of students during an examination? The answers are complex. It leads me to a counter question. Is an examination a test of the students’ ability to retain what was taught or the teachers ability to break the lesson down to the point where students are excited about what they learn and happily store that in their memory bank. Should examinations only test students? What about the teachers’ capacity to communicate? Remember, no teacher is evaluated once appointed, especially in Deficit and Government funded schools? Shouldn’t teachers be evaluated too?
Enough has been said about what students learn and how they learn. I recently came upon a book called TeacherVision and some of the pointers in the book tell us that we really are at a point when the old teaching methods need to be discarded because they have not worked or worked in the breach. The book speaks of a series of Laws or Learning such as:
Law of readiness. Students learn more easily when they have a desire to learn. Conversely, students learn with difficulty if they’re not interested in the topic.
The point is how to get the student interested in the topic and what other pedagogy can the teacher adopt especially in a class with 40 or more students. This is something our education system has to find ways to deal with.
Law of effect. Learning will always be much more effective when a feeling of satisfaction, pleasantness, or reward is part of the process.
There are teachers who use storytelling techniques to get the attention of students and then launch into the lesson. This never fails to work.
Law of relaxation. Students learn best and remember longest when they are relaxed. Reducing stress increases learning and retention.
Do teachers really care to know if students are under stress? Do they reach out personally to such students? This is doubtful under the present classroom arrangement where the personal touch is missing; where the teacher is doing the bare minimum just to complete the syllabus and complete her/his time of 4-45 minutes and no interaction thereafter. It is here the role of class teachers is so important.
Law of association. Learning makes sense (comprehension) when the mind compares a new idea with something already known.
We already know that it is easier to remember things when we can compare them with what we already know. From there it is just a continuous learning curve.
Law of involvement. Students learn best when they take an active part in what is to be learned.
This is where role play is so powerful where that is possible. Not all subjects and lessons however lend themselves to role playing hence teachers need to constantly unlearn and relearn their teaching techniques.
Law of exercise. The more often an act is repeated or information reviewed, the more quickly and more permanently it will become a habit or an easily remembered piece of information.
I am sure we are all familiar with this law. The more we learn about a topic and find out more about it and also do some exercises on that topic the more easily it will remain with us..
Law of relevance. Effective learning is relevant to the student’s life.
Last week I had written about how rural kids cannot relate to what is written in their textbooks because the things mentioned there such as the kind of food that provided protein, namely cheese, eggs, milk butter are things their parents cannot afford and things they have not seen or handled – such as cheese. Hence what protein can there be in a rural person’s diet. It would be good to explore that.
Law of intensity. A vivid, exciting, enthusiastic, enjoyable learning experience is more likely to be remembered than a boring, unpleasant one.
This goes without saying. A classroom cannot be a staid, serious space where laughing and joking is considered out of bounds. The more humour one can bring to the classroom the better is the student response. I know a boring teacher when I see one. Students too switch off when such a teacher enters the classroom.
Law of challenge. Students learn best when they’re challenged with novelty, a variety of materials, and a range of instructional strategies.
This needs no further elaboration. What can be touched can be remembered. It’s pointless talking about fossils or ferns if students have not touched them or even seen them. Nature rambling therefore is an integral part of education.
Law of feedback. Effective learning takes place when students receive immediate and specific feedback on their performance.
Do teachers leave enough time for interaction? Students learn better from one another. Get the fast learner to sit and teach his/her peers. Nothing helps like collaborative and cooperative learning.
Law of recency. Practicing a skill or new concept just before using it will ensure a more effective performance.
For instance, when learning mathematics it would be good for the teacher to resort to the mother tongue and to cite immediate examples from the neighbourhood. Bringing money to the classroom and making children do buying and selling is the best way to teach profit and loss and percentages.
Law of expectations. Learners’ reaction to instruction is shaped by their expectations related to the material (How successful will I be?).
Its important to communicate very clearly to students what they will gain out of learning Science, Mathematics, or English or Social Science for that matter, rather than just launching into teaching ‘subjects’ on the first day of school when the teacher enters the classroom.
Law of emotions. The emotional state (and involvement) of students will shape how well and how much they learn.
Much has been spoken about the role of emotional intelligence and emotional IQ in aiding the teaching learning process. Like Prof Sanjoy Mukherkee who teaches values and ethics in Management at IIM Shillong says, human emotions need nurturing else we will produce heartless automations. Positive and noble emotions are born in a classroom with a teacher who has empathy and can show the light.
Law of differences. Students learn in different ways. One size does not fit all!
This need not even be reiterated because we all have our own learning capacities. So perhaps the measurements used to test our ability to reproduce what we have learnt are themselves faulty. One student may have learnt one thing from a class; another one might have got a different idea so can a system that measures just the capacity of a student to learn by rote a good yardstick? I am not sure why we have failed to figure this out and labelled our students as ‘failed’ thereby consigning them to a future of hopelessness.
One area that needs immediate remedy is to make the classroom dynamic and interactive. Students have the right to ask questions. No question is a ‘stupid’ question. Critical thinking happens when students are able to ask questions to their teachers and their peers without any sense of fear or of being judged. Those that don’t ask questions have either not understood the lesson taught or have just switched off both their emotional and practical brain…the right and left brain.
Nobody ever said that teaching is an easy vocation. Sadly those that enter this profession do so as a last resort because they can’t find a better job or a government job. That and appointing teachers on the basis of political string-pulling or on the basis of religion is what what haunts education in Meghalaya and will do so for a long time.