Globally teachers' day is celebrated on Oct 5, while independent countries have their own set of dates just like we in India have September 5 as the dedicated day. I had all along in my school, taken it as an opportunity for a holiday or to please my teachers with a smile and a wish, I mostly forgot about this courtesy in college. It was while in various jobs that I realised the need to thank the many who taught me , through formal education and those through matter of fact informal education.
My many sincere thanks to the academicians. and to the many other who taught me several good things in life.
In all, academic inadequacies were brought out in several walks of my personal and professional life. Two things stand out where despite all the best efforts and qualifications of the teachers, they have not been able to elevate the students.
1. Horses for courses: There was never an attempt to understand the learning nature of the students in order to teach them the subject. It was always a standard approach and routine and hardly an attempt to understand the students. Let me explain why.
Children learn through Auditory measures, visual measures and through kinesthetic measures. A standard approach to all students in teaching methods will not work. A basic screening of the inclination of the students would have done wonders to many of my friends and later me too .We were classified as duds who have reached the peak of their learning curves. Attention was reduced to the many who were pleading to be taught differently.
It is true that experience comes after knowledge. That is what most of us have learnt or at least taught. However, there are several times in our life that we experience something and then start exploring why we it happened. We do before we understand. Students with a kinesthetic sense of learning fall a lot in this category because they are "doers". Similarly Visual learners always need an image. While Blackboards and charts help there is a certain image of things that students need to create in their minds.
Did my teachers really understand my friends and classmates to teach us the way we can excel? The answer could lie in their approach to teaching. Just as we have preferences for learning the teachers needed to equip themselves with the skills of understanding the students and imparting knowledge through the appropriate method. Unfortunately this was missing.
2. Ettu Surakka kootukku Udavadhu: This is a saying which means " Bookish knowledge wont help in practical life". How true! My recent experiences with academicians and research scholars to impart us several practices has resulted in many a disaster. Their lab/ experimental and test condition methods do not work on field. Real life practicalities do not apply to bookish transfer of knowledge. The difference in the results of the lab vis a vis on field is drastic. While the foundation of what is preached is acceptable, the metrics of the lab situations cannot work for the formulation of a business.
I have always wondered what it would take for academicians to understand industry and actually work there practically . This will definitely bridge the gap between what they counsel and what happens on field.
I am not giving any scope for those who have the experience of education - industry alliances. Several companies do so. But what I am speaking about is real life sustenance with lab results, especially where mass production agriculture etc are concerned.
Ponder over this: There are many schools emerging with several teaching techniques. But please, can someone tell me who has assessed what the right style of learning for the student is. Has anyone been given a note at the time of admission in those great learning schools of today as to what category your child falls under and what they school will do or what u as parents need to do at home? It is always a postmortem of things with numerous deficiencies being cited. Are teachers and counsellors - doctors to judge biological deficiencies of our children and classify them as learning "disabled"? No. Let the qualified doctor do that. There are enough and more techniques today to assess what your ward wants. Let there be a system or a school or teachers who are willing to learn those so that their students can learn.
It is high time they did and practiced on their students too. After all what the student becomes in future is also a reflection of who his teacher was,
