The two legs of Education

"Education is not the amount of information put into your brain runs riot there all through your life undigested. Its character building, men making and assimilation of Ideas" -- Swami Vivekananda.

From the above quote we can deduce there are in essential 3 purposes of education. Unfortunately all the three have become a rare commodity. My idea in this post is not to brood over these ideals, since in our context we only can have ideals in books but not lives. My pursuit is more mundane here.

In the current system we have rote learning. What I observed in most of the instances is whats there in the text book or more so in notes. When I was recently speaking to my daughter's teacher in school, I made the following suggestions:

• Make her read through the text book completely: -- What I observed is they are either read important sections of the lesson in the school or important points in the lesson. This would make them think too focussed in getting marks rather than that of "Learning for Joy"
• Don't give notes: -- Giving of notes makes you lazy. Note preparation by the student is fine since it would impart very good of culling or sieving the important information from hoard of other information which is not so important or if they note the important points they should able to make the story around in the examination. This would also improve their imagination. But if the teacher gives notes its the end of every imagination and it would end the world for them.
• About Question Papers :
• They should not be from the notes:
• They should not be from the Questions with in the text book
• They should rather be from other sections of the Lesson 
• At least some of the questions must be thought provoking and imaginary like for example: 
• You have "hinge joint" at elbow and knee. What happens if the joints were of "Ball and socket in nature"?
• What happens if earth stops moving (revolving / rotating)?
• These would not only test their understanding but also their insight into the concept.
• Language Skills: -- At least make 2 periods / week make comprehension compulsory or at least make it as mandatory exercise at home
• Do not give rote home work: -- There is no point in a kid writing the answers for or the passages repeatedly. Once they understand we should leave it to their imagination and give credit for their expression also. 

I could understand the institutional reaction w.r.t. the parents anger for their kids not getting the marks. But I would suggest the following things in this regard:

• Educate the parents and bring them awareness regarding the virtues of educating rather than becoming literate. I believe we only need to convince them.
• Make changes in the Examination pattern and grading.
• Orienting the kid/teacher regarding intelligent/smart learning rather than rote learning. I can write a lot on this but not here or now unless there is need.

Coming back again to the legs of education. What are they? why are they important? How to impart them? Lets see....

They are: Application and Extension. The former one comes after application of the concept that is learnt. The kid learns in geometry that a straight angle is 180 and sum of angles in a triangle is 180. Then if he is able to identify whats angle A given B/C following sum then it becomes application.

And if he can himself tell the sum of the opposite angles in triangles is equal to the angle remaining with in the straight angle by extending the line then it becomes the extension.  

Nurturing both these things must be the fundamental aim of education. Unfortunately arguably both these skills are "God Gifted" or "Must be there in the Kid". I beg to differ at least till the extent that we must strive inculcating essentially these skills as part of education. Depending upon the CPU/Hard Disk the kid might respond (Look at the factors discussed in my previous post: Every Child is Unique). Now not just arguing but I would put forth comprehensive thought behind my saying:

• We can prod the child since childhood (probably we do it unknowingly till some time from the moment they took birth) for not just imitate, but whether they can use the acquired skill at different places. For eg. 
• where do you see the right angled stuff at home. 
• how can they measure milk / any liquid once they learn volume for solids. 
• Can they see  "evaporation" from any live example round
• We should also make them extending the thought by "probable / improbable" questions..  Like what I enunciated earlier while giving eg. in case of Question Papers.
• We need to nurture the passion for questioning till they understand / apply and extend. Fortunately if your kid is endowed and is passionate about the surroundings, and is relentless with questions please do not discourage him by brushing aside. Who knows probably he might be the next Einstein. Admit if you do not know the answer and find out the answer and let him know or else take him to somebody who can answer him. Probably he might get inspired too!!!. At the same time your admitting would give him good character by way of admitting and striving for answer too.

These things are not tough. The only thing is we do not meditate and apply ourselves for this cause. The thing I tell repeatedly to my kids is -- "If you read for 40 minutes think for another 40 minutes". You just need to take the pain of observing the things around and make all the possible questions for your kid. Fortunately lot of times we get the material for putting the right questions from a bit of higher classes with out much work from our side. 

What I see is parenting is the most toughest part and the most responsible part of life for everybody. We must not only cherish the moment of becoming parent but all the way of making the kid equipped too..