A blog to share ideas on improving the quality and quantity of education in our society, because the lack of quality education is the root cause of all problems of mankind.
Few months back I signed up for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Design Thinking Action Lab from Stanford and it being more of an action lab rather than a theoretical course, it was a fun experience. During the course, I happened to pick up the problem of getting school dropouts to continue their education. My motivation to address this problem was a young 15-year old school drop-out, Anand who was assisting the carpenter building furniture for my home. So talking to him about why he dropped out was the starting point and the rest I will share in the Prezis I submitted as assignments for this course.
Here is the Empathy Map that summarizes my talk with him and defines the problem statement for the course
Here is a summary of my experiment to get Anand to educate himself using a smartphone
And last, here is a summary explaining the complete process of designing an affordable and meaningful self education learning program for a high school dropout
Have you ever wondered how the whale and porpoise trainers at Sea World get Shamu, the 19,000 pound whale, to jump 22 feet out of the water and perform tricks? They get that whale to over a rope farther out of water than most of us can imagine. This is a great challenge - as great as the ones most of us face as parents or teachers.
Can you imagine the typical managerial approach to this situation? The first thing you would do, would be to get that rope right up there at 22 feet - no sense celebrating short comings. We call that goal setting, or strategic planning. With the goal clearly defined, we now have to figure out a way to motivate the whale. So we take a bucket of fish and put it right above that 22 foot rope - don't pay the whale unless it performs. Then we have to give direction. We lean over from a nice high dry perch and say "Jump, whale". And the whale stays right where it is.
So how do the trainers at Sea World do it? Their number one priority is to reinforce the behavior that they want repeated - in this case, to get the whale to jump over the rope. They influence the environment in every way so that it supports the principle of making sure that the whale won't fail. The trainers start with the rope below the surface of the water, in a position where the whale can’t help but do what's expected of it. Every time the whale goes over the rope, it gets positive reinforcement. It gets fed with fish, patted, played with, but most important, it gets positive reinforcement.
But what happens when the whale goes under the rope. Nothing - no electric shock, no constructive criticism, no developmental feedback and no warnings in the personnel file. Whales are taught that their negative behavior will not be acknowledged.
Positive reinforcement is the cornerstone of that simple principle that produces spectacular results. And as the whale begins to go over the rope more often than under, the trainers being to raise the rope. It must be raised slowly enough so that the whale doesn't starve, either physically or emotionally.
The simple lesson to be learnt from the whale trainers is to over-celebrate - make a big deal out of the good and little stuff that we want consistently. Secondly, under-criticize. People know when they have screwed up. What they need is help. If we under-criticize and discipline less than is expected, children will not forget the event and usually will not repeat it.
In my opinion, the most successful businesses today are doing things right more than 95 percent of the time. Yet what do we spend the majority of our time giving feedback on? That is right - the 2, 3, 4, maybe even 5 percent of the things we don't want repeated and never wanted to happen in the first place. We should set up the circumstances so that children can't fail. Over-celebrate, under-criticize... and know how far to raise the rope.
Here is a video snippet from the popular TV series Two and a Half Men. Please watch this...
Isn't this kid brilliant? He knows its more important to remember his locker combination and he can find out the information that he's being asked to memorize whenever he wants to! And when he asks the meaning of a word, and he's told to find out himself from the dictionary, he immediately gets up to go do that. Because its RELEVANT to him, he wants to know what the word means and will go find it out himself!
We're in an Information Age, where there is so much information available out there for us, that its impossible to know it all. We need to accept that we need to know, not everything, but where to look for anything and everything. And our brains have been wired/programmed for automatically retaining the most frequently and recently accessed information. Why then should we learn what we do not need to!
Important information such as our credit card/ATM PIN, maybe bank account No., an emergency telephone no., all these need to be remembered. But why what year did this happen or what year did that happen? Don't get me wrong, there are some things which we should remember, but then if they are that important, they will be repeated, or we will find out repeatedly and when the pain of finding out becomes more and more, our brains will automatically register it, realizing its importance.
How many of us remember our friend's or even our family member's mobile number. We don't, because we don't need to any more. There was a time when we did need to, but now we don't. Years back, I knew all my friends' telephone numbers on my fingers, never memorized them, but dialed them so often that I still remember them. Back then there were no mobile phones to store the numbers, and one had to dial in the numbers everytime to call someone. Today I don't even remember my brother's mobile number, who I call quite frequently. But I still remember his old mobile number which I used to dial to call him, few years back.
When I look back at my years of education, I realize there was so much I had crammed up, and I barely use a fraction of it today. Wouldn't it had made more sense to start working after high school, learning on the way, what I needed to, when I needed to!
Two 7th grade students committed suicide after failing to clear the annual examination. A 12-yr old hanged himself because, inspite of having secured good marks, he was unhappy with his performance.
In response to the above, the State has asked the Centre, if the Right to Education Act 2009, can be put into force with immediate effect. Clause 16 of the RTE Act '09 says "No child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education". [Elementary education is from grade 1 to grade 8]
There are some serious issues on this clause. Though it takes away the pressure from the children, it also takes away the pressure from the teachers and the system to actually educate the children who did not learn in that class. It just provides the student a free pass to the next class, even if he/she has not learnt enough in the current class, even if he/she has failed to understand the basics, failed to form the pre-requisites, the foundation for the next class. Once there is a gap in learning, this gap would only widen, and these children will be just pushed up the classes, only to realize after the elementary education levels, that they're failing and they will eventually drop out.
Where is the accountability on the teachers and the system to educate the young ones? What are the measures that will be taken to ensure that the students who had a gap in learning in this class, will fill this gap before moving on to the next level?
What kind of mindset must the kids be in, when they commit a suicide after failing to clear the annual school examination? They have just begun their lives and they take a decision to put an end to it. Was it because the parents told them something or was it just pure peer pressure? Obviously these kids care about others, care about what others think of them. And the world loses such priceless possessions. I don't think any child will take such a grave step, if a teacher talks to them privately and discusses where they're facing difficulties and how these can be sorted out. I don't think any child will take such a grave step, if teachers and parents give them the confidence that they will not be given up on.
Better still, such evaluation, discussions and corrective actions should be taken at smaller intervals and not wait till an annual examination to realize something is gone wrong. Better still, an entire class should be paced such that each and every student is on board. If it means that the teacher has to take extra classes after normal schooling hours for that student, let that be it. Or if it means that the entire class is slowed down and has to cover up for more hours during the academic year, so be it. Let the teachers be compensated for the extra hours put in, in the form of overtime or incentives. But bring that accountability to the table. The teachers have to take the responsibility or else give up the job.
Allowing the "supposedly failed children" to be promoted to the next level, is not the solution. [I say supposedly failed children, because I believe its not the children who have failed, its the system. Why then should the children be made to feel guilty] Free pass is a short-sighted response to stop student suicides. These children will now commit suicide after failing Std. IX or X board exams, because they will simply not be able to clear them. Then bill will be passed that they should be allowed a free pass till 12th or graduation, but by then graduation won't be enough to get a job and then these young adults will either resort to unlawful professions and become a threat to the Society or do what they would've done earlier, commit suicide.
Its time we started looking at the broader picture, and come up with long term solutions rather than impulsive, short-sighted fixes.
I am not a big fan of the grading system, but I do understand that it is important to assess whether the learning objectives are being met or not. However, that does not mean that we fail and ditch those students who come in the way of achieving this objective. How can we forget that, after all, these students are the objective.
The goal of the evaluation system should be to identify the flaws in the system and improvise rather than eliminate the participants who were unable to match upto it. Its the failure of the teaching mechanism and not of the students. How can we blame the students for the failure? How can we ditch them, when we should actually be trying harder to make sure that the learning objectives are met.
And yes, it makes complete sense to make these assessments, evaluations at as short intervals as possible rather than having full syllabus examinations at the end of a year or term. Because by then, it's too late to figure out that the students aren't learning and hence the easiest way out is to blame the students and "Fail" them.
Every class/session can have a feedback session at the end of it, a checklist cum summary of what was covered/discussed. The best thing would be letting the students summarize it. If anything uncovers to be doubtful, it can be clarified then or in the next class before proceeding to the next topic. In fact, if the idea of collaboration works, even if a few students are clear on the topic, they will ensure that the others are clear as well. Education will spread like a VIRUS :-)
It is extremely important, however, for the teacher to not give up on the few "slow" students. For it is not their fault, that they did not understand as quickly as the "quick learners". It's just that the mechanism adopted by the teacher was suited to some while it wasn't suited for them and hence they cannot and should not be termed as slow. Over a period of time, students get used to a particular style of teaching. Over a period of time, students and teachers get tuned to a common wavelength. And this can only happen if the teacher has the patience and a strong intent to ensure that each and every student should learn in this class.
It is the strong intent that will drive the teacher to assess, while teaching itself, whether the students are understanding or not, and to try something different, make things as simple as possible, to adopt different ways for different students. And if such is the strong intent of the teacher, EVERY student will automatically develop a strong intent to learn and WILL LEARN!
What is the end goal of any form of education? That the participants should learn... learn the objectives set at the start of the course/class/session. How we set the goal for the participants sets the tone and governs how effectively the participants learn.
If we set the goal for the entire team rather than every individual, the participants will work towards ensuring that the entire team learns. However, in our current way of "teaching", we pitch them to do better than others, encouraging them to compete against each other rather than work collaboratively to learn, rewarding them to do better than others rather than help each other out.
I recently had the priviledge to perform in a group dance at the Sangeet of my friends' wedding. More than the function, I actually enjoyed the dance practice and rehearsal sessions. I am not a great dancer myself, yet I had an awesome time. And same was the case a couple of years back at the Sangeet of my brother's wedding. And when I reflect back on these sessions, I understood why they were so much fun and why I still remember all the steps, even the steps of the dances I was not a part of :-)
It was a team learning exercise. I picked up a few steps quicker while others were quicker in some other steps. But we all were helping each other, because the goal was to put up a good show, to mesmerize the audience! And that would have been possible only if all of us ensured that all of us are on the right track. We slowed down for others to pick up, it was like "Catch Up Mode On". When someone missed a session in which the choreographer taught us a step, he/she was brought up to speed in no time by the others.
Why can't we do the same in all forms of education!
Collaboration is always win-win whereas competition brings out a winner but also a loser. Yes, it could be debated that competition pushes an individual to perform better, but we need to reflect on whether it is an effective way to achieve the end goal of education i.e. all participants should learn and not just a select few.
We need to achieve the right balance of collaboration and competition when setting goals for the participants in any form of education. Consider a team sport such as football, cricket, hockey. It's a combination of both, collaboration within a team, competing against another team. So when it comes to education, let us set the goals for the entire class, let the entire class work as a team to learn and then the class be evaluated as a team as well. Let the class as a team compete maybe against another class or even better, the subject being taught. Lets conquer the subject! I still remember the dialogue my favourite teacher Hussain Sir used to tell us before exams - "Bete, phod dena exam" or "Smash the paper".
I am not a big fan of the grading system, but we still need to evaluate to ensure that the objectives have been achieved. However the intention of evaluation is not to "fail" anyone, but to improvise. I'll come back to that in more detail in a later post. But suppose, after evaluation we realize that the objectives haven't been met and we have to try again, the entire team will try again. This will reduce the fear of failure as well as make everyone realize that for one to succeed, one has to ensure that all succeed and not otherwise.
A very well said dialogue from the movie 3 Idiots goes like this..."Dost jab fail ho jaaye, toh dukh hota hai, but dost jab first aaye toh aur zyada dukh hota hai" i.e. "When your friend fails, you feel sad, but when your friend comes 1st, you feel even more sad". This sounds funny and as much as we enjoy laughing it out, this is the truth. This is what competition does. And this is what collaboration can overcome.
As I said a few weeks ago, the revamped education system, I call it Education 2.0, this is the first part in this series, where I try to highlight the importance of trying out things, making mistakes and learning from them.
Lets go back to when we were born. What were the first things we learnt to do as a child. Crawling, walking, running, riding a bicycle to name a few from a logistics point of view.
How did we learn to do these things? Lets start with crawling. I'll just try to think what must be the child thinking... "i feel a strong need to move from one place to another to grab something. Let me push myself in that direction, so i push my head forward and fall flat on the face... ouch! my nose hurts and I start crying, some time passes by, my nose hurts less and mom pampers me a little ofcourse. let me try again... what are these things sticking out (hands), let me try using them, accidentally bent my leg and came on 1 knee which turns out to be easier to push myself...now what if a do the same with my other leg... wow! my stomach is off the floor :-)"
Ok, so the point is we took our time, tried out things, made mistakes and learnt from them.
Why can't the same way of learning continue for the rest of the life... Here is what parents have to say about their kids learning how to crawl. I have taken these from a few blogs here n there
...my son was 5 months when he started "trying to crawl" he would get up on his hands and knees and try to pick up his hands and just fall flat on his face but after about a month of trial and error he is now 6 months old and can crawl...
...My son started crawling at 4 mo.'s, but my daughter started crawling at 7 mo's....so it varies on the child....both of my kids did the on the knees rocking & throwing themselves forward also....BUT...then they would drag themselves around by their elbows & one leg pushing off & one leg straight out...eventually, they got the idea that it is hands & knees & they got somewhere, it just happens as per their own time...
...a significant minority of babies never crawl... My daughter never crawled and is now walking at 11 months...
...don't get into the trap of comparing your little one with other babies. I did it myself and know how easy it is to do. Just enjoy her\him and unless there's something obviously wrong......like not crawling by a year and a half or something......don't worry about typical ages. Your baby might not crawl until she\he is a year old but she\he may be talking much earlier than other babies...
And this is what happens when the child learns to walk as well...
See! when the child is so young, parents are so adjusting with their pace and accepting of the fact that their child is unique, but as the child grows, parents forget this and expect the child to be "better" than others in school, college, life!
Why cant the same way of learning continue for the rest of the life. All of us eventually learnt to walk, sooner or later, and we are PERFECT at walking and many other walks of life where we make mistakes and learn. There wasn't any competition when we learnt to walk, everyone supported us irrespective of the time it took us to learn to walk and were patient when we kept falling and enouraging us to get up and try again.
