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Dhaka     Friday   29 March 2024

Education is the only game changer!

Patricia Mukhim || risingbd.com

Published: 13:17, 9 February 2021   Update: 13:31, 9 February 2021
Education is the only game changer!

Education is the most debated topic during these Covid times and “online classes” have become the buzzword. Some call it the new normal.

When you ask a parent if their child has got the results, their rather insipid answer is that their kid/s never really had an exam because they could consult their books and that is no exam; it’s a faux exam. So what do parents actually want from their children?

Isn’t it enough that the kid understands what’s been taught and that consulting the book for answers is not cheating? As a teacher for at least two decades I can safely say that some students don’t know where to find the right answer to questions even if they had a book in front of them.

There is no doubt at all that parents, teachers and students have experienced the most devastating impact from the Covid lockdown and that’s because all three categories of humans have had to do things differently and that’s something the human mind does not easily lend itself to. But one wonders if the pandemic would help to reconstruct the whole paradigm of what constitutes education. Far too many people in this country have a fixation for marks.

Parents assume their children should be in a particular space mentally but the kid is spaced out into some other zone and wants something very different from what his/her parents do. There is this huge gap between parents’ expectations and the kid’s ability to meet those expectations. And I have a fair guess that this twain shall never meet until parents learn to respect the child’s potentials and stops pushing him/her to achieve the impossible.

I have rarely met parents who would say they want their kids to be ethical humans with respect for the rights of others; children who will not discriminate on the basis of community, ethnicity, religion or other such divisive factors that are currently emerging. If children are brought up to not differentiate between those that speak a different language or practice a different faith I am sure they will become wholesome adults who will not pin the blame for their own failures and under-achievement on someone else.

Children with low self esteem often grow up to become pugnacious adults that believe in ‘might is right.’ What they cannot achieve by fair means they will do so by manipulating the system or by blaming the system for their failure. We have too many of such drop-outs who then become part of groups that destabilize society or develop delusions of grandeur about themselves. Soon they try and find ways to catapult themselves to the political eco-system which they believe is the ultimate success in life and the quickest way to wealth creation.

They have neither vision nor inclination to do anything for the state and its people but limit their focus on serving their constituency only so that they are elected and re-elected. But then that’s what the average voter in Meghalaya wants.

But let me not digress further. Let’s get back to education. There are certain components in the education system that cannot be compromised. They include teachers that are trained to communicate unequivocally. Communication is completed only when the receiver of that communication has understood what is being said and can execute a task based on what is comprehended.

Very often, in the classroom if teachers stop in their tracks to ask questions on the lesson taught they will find students fumbling for answers. That’s because the student has not understood what’s taught and we don’t encourage a system of questioning by students. Most teachers take this as an affront.

So the student goes through the lesson without having understood what was taught. After a while the student would accumulate a series of such lessons that he/she has not understood and will begin to hate the subject or the teacher or the school.

There are many qualities that institutions ought to be looking for in a teacher but that’s a tall order in a country where the availability of trained teachers is abysmally low. However, there’s no harm in listing out some of the qualities that are desirable in a teacher. I would rate ethics very high.

An ethical teacher will do his/her work irrespective of whether the principal is supervising his/her work. Only a motivated teacher will be able to motivate students. And if we want students to develop into emotionally intelligent beings who can handle their emotions and their lives outside their classroom then we also need emotionally intelligent teachers.

Many students go through their school years without learning social responsibility. And what does social responsibility mean? It means being accountable for every action in society; it means being involved in building a better society; it means having empathy and compassion for the less fortunate and being involved in activities that help build a better society. It’s important to inculcate this spirit of social responsibility in the formative years because in this age of technology and addiction to gadgets children have become detached and engage with the virtual world more than the real world. And this to me is scary because we cannot escape the travails and challenges of the real life.

Unfortunately, teachers in our country have very little opportunity for building their capacities once they have joined the profession. In any case there’s too much to do and unless they are freed from their daily teaching and correction chores for a week to attend a refresher course it is possible that teachers too will burn out and become demotivated.

When a teacher has lost the passion for teaching but sticks on to the job because there’s nothing better to do then believe me, no teaching will happen. The teacher is just doing a job and the students have to put up with him/her. It’s a lose-lose situation. That’s why refresher courses are so important. So is the task of unlearning and re-learning new methods of making communication more effective.

Heads of institutions too have to understand that teachers are not automatons that can work at the same pace all the time. They have their highs and lows; they have their challenges at home and in society and more often than not perhaps teachers too need counseling as do parents.

The biggest hurdle for any child is when he/she is unable to have a decent conversation with the parents and every conversation ends up in a dramatic blame game that goes something like this – “Did you study today? Have you completed your homework? Are you prepared for your test tomorrow? Make sure you get full marks in maths; and mind you if you don’t do well you can expect a spanking when you come home; look at so and so …how proud he makes his parents…what about you? Do you even care for your parents? This sort of blackmailing goes on day in and day out and I can imagine how frustrated the child becomes. If only we have more stable and pragmatic parents who don’t expect the unattainable from their children perhaps life would be better.

One of the worst things about education is for a child to have passed out of school without having developed the critical faculty of questioning. If students don’t question they are not going to learn what life is all about and how to live it; how to negotiate the politics all around them and how to integrate into society as contributing citizens.

Teachers must bear the responsibility of helping to develop critical thinking skills and to integrate academic success with other avenues of growth such in the performing arts, media, leadership activities and sports, etc. With the internet providing all information the role of teacher is that of a mentor and facilitator nudging the child gently to follow her heart. But for that we need innovative teachers who can make education a joyful and interesting pursuit.

Source: The Shilling Times.

 

Dhaka/Mahfuz