Independent thinking and doing while also finding avenues to connect and collaborate is needed in education.
By Maharshi Sanket
Education can change a lot in the world. However, I believe its ability to make a difference in the world is conditional. Education should be defined individually. By leaving the process of defining education to the whole community, we end up promoting singularity and not independent thinking and questioning which is what education aims to achieve. For all this, our perception of education needs to change. Education should no longer restrict itself to the boundaries of the classroom but break the boundaries of schools and take an exploratory path to define itself.
One might argue that this would not encourage collaboration and hence would affect the social skills that a person needs. I have a different view on this. The collaboration in classrooms is limited to a few projects and to children of a similar age group. The structure of a school does not make it a place for holistic education and instead, a place for walls built by those who have little or no stake in it. The child has his/her skin in the game. Why should someone else decide for them? We might think of young children as people who do not understand what they need but isn’t it ironic that children by themselves learn many things they want to independently with little or no intervention by a teacher/ parent? Climbing a tree isn’t part of the curriculum but many children learn to and some don’t. They instinctively know what they want.
Children in most schools are dreaded by teachers for their notorious and noisy nature but have we wondered why does this happen only when classes take place? Children, if they are interested in something they like generally do not sit dreaming about something else, looking out of the window, or having a chat with a friend about something completely unrelated.
Education reforms are of no use if they enforce a new structure and build walls. The goal of education is to break walls, not make them. This is what science is all about-questioning. And how can art be taught? The walls make young ones prisoners of someone else’s jail built in their mind. We need to free them from these jails located across the country in the form of schools.
What is more important is facilitating independent learning by providing the resources a child wants when he/she demands it. These resources could be as simple as giving 1000 rupees when a child says he/she wants to set up a stall, make sales, and have fun. That’s what makes education a pursuit that children don’t hate but love. Unfortunately, this love for learning is something that doesn’t get the love of education ministers, teachers, and policymakers.
We need a more holistic approach that gives space, time, resources, and freedom to children to experiment, learn, and play. Our schools do not seem to offer that. And what sort of a system is it where children need to pass entrance test after entrance test in order to enjoy the pursuit of learning? Children by nature love learning, they don’t need to prove it to anybody. The reason they are having to prove it is because the learning atmosphere that is being given to them doesn’t incline towards the natural mindset of a child. By making it unnatural, the child doesn’t feel comfortable in such an environment that keeps them imprisoned for someone else’s misunderstanding. That is the reason we get to see so many children crying to go to school. Unfortunately, their cries don’t seem to make us introspect this whole system that the child is put into just because ‘everybody else does it’.
I think schools should be a part of history and instead, I propose we build more learning spaces where age isn’t a factor, there are facilitators to provide assistance to a child only when the child asks for it, and provide resources. Children by themselves can invite guest speakers depending upon their interests. Each child can start his/her ‘project’ and could either choose to work independently or choose to collaborate and work together. So if a child wants to build a boat with a motor he/she will learn so much by doing just that. The child will learn about how batteries function, why a boat needs to be of a certain shape, why does a boat not sink in water, and even the history of boats…
This idea might frighten a few who read it but I myself have experimented with this sort of learning though I did make ‘visits’ to my school. I explored art, writing, places, people, cultures, and selling when I was not ‘visiting’ my school. I am glad my parents understood that and that the school I went to was seldom cooperative. I hope we only read off schools in books about history and that they become museums for the next generation to see.
Loved it.