By Iasaid Khongjee
It’s hope-inspiring to see the headline in this paper titled : “Meghalaya likely to adopt bookless education system”,(ST July 23, 2024) especially when it comes from the education minister of the state. It’s a historic move in the right direction. Though disagreeing with the “bookless education,” the “open book exams,” is key to the much-needed change.
The emergence of social media and other information platforms like YouTube has taken the learners by storm. Everywhere, parents and teachers nowadays grumble that their wards do not read at all; but this is not surprising. We are an integral part of modern development; thus, lamenting the inevitable is futile. The ball is now in the court of all involved in the business right from the policy makers, the planners, and down to the implementers who are the teachers.
The following are
the snags which need
an ironing out:
Rote memorization:- Here it’s still a common practice that students are fed with notes, denying them the idiosyncrasy of problem solving, much against the diversity of human ecosystem multiplied by individual potentials. One wouldn’t be wrong in saying that this is a systematic killing machine. At times I asked myself if this was purposely designed to make us lag behind others. Till date we never had a mechanism that will induce reading. So, under the prevailing condition, we can say that the system itself implicitly suggests that no student needs to buy books, but why do they? One can’t help wondering what makes us so comfortable examining our very writings reproduced by students during exams. This is a simple question which any sensible person can grasp. When will we stop tantalizing unrealistic, facile, fleeting, short term winnings before the young ones? I found it’s interesting and meaningful chatting with people who learned on their own in any trade. For them the environment such as guides, books are only a suggestion to the secrets of the mind; for them, learning is an evolution – subsequently, we see a transformed individual. Through this prism we know why our moral, social, environmental values keep on failing us. At the bottom lies the, “all we know, are the acquired values,” not intrinsic to us. We were being led into alienating the inner values involved in us. In majority of institutions students know the essence of the nature better than about themselves! But the values we practise! Right now, we need a living, organic knowledge. In this frontline, we can now say- “the minister realized the dire need to arrest the culprit”.
Being aware of the ramifications of the above. With the exception of few, this is still unknown to parents. For them just seeing their wards with the notes in their hands, or texts in front of them, or hearing them speaking some English is convincing enough that they are learning. But, is education only about these? Surely not, the result day tells it all. For those passing the exams, it’s time for celebration; the others have to whine; and the cycle of hope and hopelessness goes on while the law of diminishing returns has already been evolving to manifest. In the end, after we’ve done the studies, we realize we are unemployable; but we can’t go back to restart again as the age has advanced (for those seeking white collar jobs). What a waste of resources!
Rigmarole of Inspections : While writing this, I was informed of the inspection due on August 30. We the teachers suddenly were to familiarize ourselves with the sort of questions we’re about to face from the experts. That’s a great thing indeed! But I would suggest that the admins be asked first as to whether the school has any learning objectives in place to guide the teaching-learning, learning outcomes, and the assessment of learning. It’s a matter of surprise also that suddenly the RUBRIC assessment and Blooms’ Taxonomy have become topics of discussion, and up to the point of seeing them in lesson plans. For these, I have a congenital problem of not believing in whatever appears in writing for I’ve seen that anyone can do the writing for anybody. Further, if we say we have such a philosophy of ours and that they are in line with the NEP, we must do some rethinking. To answer this only one question would suffice: – “Does the education system provide the mechanism, and do we the teachers have the time to do all the above under pressure of the rat race? No amount of inspection will ever reform this fate. Unless and until the school admins are true educationists, nothing will change. We the teachers also have to place ourselves on the learning curve. The notion of “teachers are born”, demands a re-examination.
A ray of hope on the horizon: In the midst of the darkness looming large over us, the breezy air came blowing and it oozed out of the quintessential wisdom and gut of the minister of education. It is the “Open Book exams” as he mentioned. It’s the starting point of all discussions on the topic, it’s the key into all the paradigms of education. Where shall we the implementers start from when it comes to effect? Here it goes- Last time I happened to meet a Professor at NEHU. In the course of the conversation, I said – “it is more difficult to set the questions than to teach?”, to which he also said the same thing. Why do we need this: –
1.The goal is to get a child involved in reading and comprehending the content read. This is a must.
2. Questions be set in such a way that any verbatim answer becomes impertinent to the question. Not understanding the question only leads to irrelevant answers. So, reading, and comprehension are the basics of learning.
Based on this, what we have to understand is – even getting a partially correct answer deserves a pat on the shoulder (forget the grammar and vocabulary)- after all, there’s only one truth under the sun; under this, truths differ only in degree, not in kind. This shall motivate and sustain the motivation, and once it has started, negative feedbacks are unwise. After they acquire the interest, we can go for more challenging tasks such as -analysis, correlation /applying the previous learning experiences, or applying the known principles to solve a novel problem. Building a relationship between more than one component is what demands the higher level of mental activity. Then we can lead them on to the prediction or extrapolation and so on and so forth as the subject and the context dictate.
Now that the stage is set, the remaining task to attend to the subtle workings of the minds and hearts like never before, lies in our hands. A floodgate of opportunity was opened for us to become involved in those evolving humans. Hoping there’s no turning back from here!
(The writer is a school teacher)