By Patricia Mukhim
This article is an outcome of a conversation between two 10-year old kids I overheard at a social gathering. We were all having lunch seated at different tables when I overheard one boy tell the other, “School is boring. Why do we have to learn Maths and Science?” The other boy responded as expected. “I like the games period,” he said. My curiosity was piqued when I realised that one of the boys was a genius at fixing Rubik cubes. Unable to stop myself from intruding, I asked the one who was bored, why he thought Maths was boring. He pointed at his pocket and said, “A calculator can do the job just as well if not better so why waste time counting?” I butted in and said, “Look guys, a calculator can do the arithmetic part but Maths and Science are what we call subjects that promote inquiry training.” “What’s that he asked?” I told him that inquiry-based learning means we ask questions and investigate why things happen a certain way. It’s getting away from assumptions and relying on evidence for our claims. The genius looked at me with curiosity and said, “Hmmm…You’ve got a point there.” Having done with our lunch we went our way but I couldn’t forget that little conversation. How I wish I could eavesdrop into other children’s conversations if only to learn what goes on in their little heads.
The problem today is that the old teaching pedagogy is outdated but teachers being adults find it hard to shift gears and get into a new mode which is more about educating children by engaging them in a question answer format and allowing them the space to express themselves in a non-judgmental ambience where they can be wrong but not made fun of. In fact, that’s one thing to learn in school – that there can be many answers to one question. What’s important is how a child arrives at that answer. Science and Maths both help in inquiry-based learning which means we ask questions and investigate why things happen a certain way. It’s getting away from assumptions and relying on evidence for our claims. But would it not be more engaging if before teaching Mathematics or Science the teacher prepares the students by asking them if they know why they need to learn Mathematics and what it really is? Similarly with Science too. This at least gives the student the basics of how he/she can learn to understand concepts even later in life.
But teachers being teachers are so used to talking and lecturing that they have lost the capacity to listen and to provoke the children to speak up and air their views. Not being able to listen and listen with empathy is why they lose their students and why students lose interest in the subject. A good empathetic teacher will get every child interested in his/her subject. This brings me to the point of this article which is that the call of the day is for educators not teachers.
So what’s the difference between a teacher and an educator? Teachers focus on imparting knowledge and skills in a formal educational setting, while educators take a more holistic approach, addressing students’ intellectual, moral, and social growth in various contexts. An educator explores the potential of a child and encourages that potential to bloom and flourish. It may not be in the direction that parents want. But it’s what the child loves and cherishes and wants to excel in. All too often that potential is crushed under the weight of parental expectations. Every parent wants their child to progress in a certain trajectory they have marked out and if the child should fall between the gaps then he/she has had it. There will be recriminations galore about how the child has failed the parents. If that child does not find solace in school from his/her teacher, where does he/she go to for support?
The reason for this piece is also because we are mourning the passing of Br. Eric Steve D’Souza – a man who spent his best years teaching at St Edmunds School Shillong and elsewhere and turned out many achievers not just in studies but also in music, acting, sports and what have you. Br. D’souza or Dasu as he was fondly called was loved by all his students and they are in every part of the North East, the country and the globe. He had the rare ability to track what each student could excel in and gave that kid the extra push through a one on one interface. Educators like that are born once in a lifetime and that is the tragedy of our times. Dasu has touched so many lives in ways that cannot be recounted because each encounter he had was different from the last one. He had that rare quality to address each student’s problems right where it hurts. That takes an unusual perspicacity, patience, empathy, and the time to follow through with each student. For a teacher to not try to fit square pegs in round holes is an exceptional calling. Many of us don’t have that prescience. Perhaps that’s a divine gift and one wishes that all teachers especially in these challenging times are bestowed with that genius.
How lovely it would be if kids were to look forward to attend school because being there is not a compulsion or a burden but a pleasure – the pleasure of opening up hearts and minds instead of having to keep things in those dark crevices of their minds and then resort to substance abuse because they can’t handle the mental pressure. I recall talking to a number of adolescents during the pandemic when they were all bundled inside their homes and attended online classes. What they missed the most was not their classes but their mates. That social connect was broken during the pandemic and it played havoc with the mental health of quite a good number of kids. Unfortunately, after the pandemic we all got back to business as usual without taking time to reflect together on that critical juncture of our lives and give it due closure.
In North East India we are battling a very critical phase of history. Too many young people are consumed by substance abuse. Every so often we encounter a young adolescent who walks around with glazed eyes and is unaware of his external environment. His mind is floating elsewhere in a happy place until the effect wanes off and he is brought back to base with a thud and sees all his problems confronting him and then he needs more drugs until there is no end. This issue should actually trigger a special meeting of all educators and heads of institutions to brainstorm on the reasons for substance abuse and reduce those trigger points at home or in school. We need a road map to tackle substance abuse, else we are losing the best brains to this disease. What must change in our social structure to combat this biggest challenge of our times?
As a country have we been producing too many teachers but too few educators? Do our children today actually need a teacher to impart knowledge or skills when they can learn so many things on the internet? Should the entire education system not be put on its head to churn out educators who can win the confidence of our teeming youth population, currently groping in a nowhere land?
Clearly education needs a complete makeover and I am sorry to say that will not come from prescriptions advanced by the National Education Policy 2020. I say this because an education that prescribes a single and uniform model is ill suited for this country. Education should be nuanced towards the cultural moorings of the learners. If we miss this point and our leaders are unable to point this out to an arrogant central government then the future of education will remain bleak even as more and more students drop out because they just don’t fit in. We really need to fix education or we will lose our youth to cynicism and dystopia even while the state will have to deal with their combative belligerence.