Evolving the Education System

A few recent events have compelled me to think harder on a previous post of mine about a change proposed in the education system in India from 2011. This post was my first reaction to the decision while also highlighting the realities associated with education on our country. While it is easy to pass a rule, but bringing in a change in the mindset is going to be the hardest. I have been guilty of becoming an infrequent blogger, but from time to time there has been a reason to come back. This time it has been after a friend told me that my post had been used as a topic of group discussion in one of the premium management institutes. It was totally by chance that I found out, thanks to KP. That sort of woke me out of my slumber and made me want to come back, to learn more and write more.

Before each post I spend a lot of time reading and listening to other related resources. I have done so this time as well and will try to bring them all in here as well as I can. There are various problems that I was discussing in the post about No board exams, including my own disagreements with the way I was educated. Doesn't really mean that I don't acknowledge that what I am today is due to my education and the ICSE board is certainly one of the most respectable boards from my point of view. My comments are on much broader lines based on the kinds of problems I faced when I studied certain subjects, of what I would have rather done versus what I did, of the fact that I believe I realized my strengths much later in life after I had made choices, of how my confidence was higher only after I had figured out very many things. So I am not criticizing a single board but the entire system. How the system assumes that one kind of learning suits all and how you are drilled down with a bunch of subjects read out of a text book, learned by memory in which you understand some part of it and just remember the rest so you can score in the exam. After having completed my studies and in my present life, I find I hardly remember several things I learned in school. I find no application of many of the things. I only remember those topics which had seemed interesting but are just in my memory to tell people things like - I know laughing gas, its nitrous oxide!! Now who even cares about that?

So what has effectively happened, is a lot of the learning is irrelevant to my job and my daily life. I tried cramming several things initially and then it just became too much. I always wanted to stay out of the race and never could. Finally I chose to be an instructional designer after having a taste of it and reading related information on the net. I am glad about this one decision though as I came in to this field by complete chance when I had no idea where I was going after having done a BSc and MSc. Sounds silly doesn't it? Well my parents wanted me to do science and I did. I chose computers as a subject and somehow got in here and I am glad of not having to be an engineer writing a small piece of code who's greater application I have no clue of (no offense to coders there but that's what happens in jobs) or even the customer.

Bringing changes to the education system?

Process-based learning
So what are the kind of changes should we be comprehending to the education system? Maybe to get rid of the term 'system' in the whole thing and introduce 'process' instead.
I like quoting Harold from his post:

Some of the processes that readily come to mind are critical thinking; analyzing data; researching; communicating ideas; creating new things; etc.

These are the skills that should be taught to students Reasons backing process-based learning are mentioned in Charles Jennings blog. Quoting from there:

Dr Ebbinghaus’ experiment revealed we suffer an exponential ‘forgetting curve’ and that about 50% of context-free information is lost in the first hour after acquisition if there is no opportunity to reinforce it with practice.

The rate at which the Internet has caught up has made information available free and faster at all times. So we can reduce the load on our brain from 'remembering' facts which can be Googled at any point and time, and spend it in learning techniques for solving problems, interpreting information, improving communication, reusing data rather than trying to reinvent the wheel where possible, and making innovation and creativity the main goals of our existence. You may note that the previous line has dropped the word learning at the end and quoted on existence. I would like to take a step back and explain why I said this. Enhancing learning is our goal as instructional media professionals, but the bigger impact of 'learning' in our lives is what we do with what we learn. We can learn just for the passion of it but until it is put into good use it remains passive and is almost the same as having learned by rote. If we can use the learning to improve the existing 'system', it would make a huge difference.

Problem-solving
I consciously chose to mention problem-solving skills as I read how problem-solving skills are important to each one of us. When people are trained to be engineers they solve loads and loads of problems to crack entrance tests. I've noticed that engineers are hired as programmers, because their degrees certify better problem solving skills than people who have studied the very same subjects and curricula in pure-science streams. So we're talking about people who are trained to solve problems based on certain facts given. These are called structured problems and they usually have a correct answer. But the irony about problems is that there are several kinds of problems. The CSPS site talks about unstructured problems where facts are vague and you don't necessarily have a single correct answer, but multiple options based on which you need to take decisions. This is how our real life day-to-day problems are designed. It would be ideal if schools could assist students in the process of thinking through such problems and letting student discover the outcomes. It is also important to reinforce and be realistic here as several problems do not have immediate answers and how one can choose one path over the other knowing the pros and cons of each option.

Help Students Identify their Talents
After relating some of my own story, I find this point to be so very critical to education as a whole. Teachers should be trained to identify the strengths of students and curriculum designed to help students identify them. Without this you would always have only some all-rounders topping the class and the rest biting the dust. They would eventually get branded as 'average' students for no real fault of theirs. The problem more often is that they do not know where their strengths lie. If one can identify their strengths and focus their energies in those areas supported by a more flexible curriculum at school, it would make the life of several students much easier and they would shine much better in areas of their strengths. That way we would have many more happy students who would love going to school rather than the opposite.

Focus on doing more than rote-learning
Provide students ground to explore possibilities about the subject they are learning about. Give them space to explore and discover, to feel and analyze, to give what they read about a thought, to discuss and collaborate, to work as a team and try experimenting. This kind of learning will not only increase their interest level but help them complete the learning cycle for a topic. Thus curriculum should not prescribe text books from which to ask questions in an exam. Text books limit information to no end and I used to quite hate them. I used to like that the ICSE board occasionally gave questions that students would love to rate as out-of-syllabus, but there was no big deal with them because all you needed to know were basic common sense techniques and simple concepts you had already learned. So help students 'use' their learning and not expect to see a dumb-xerox of what they read in a text book, in the exams. Don't spoil them, but encourage them to be independent and proactive learners. Don't try to control what they learn but teach them how to learn and how to use what they learn.

After revisiting Harold's blog right now I see some recommendations made to the University of New Brunswick. Now these are interesting.

Education for under-privileged children: Helping them catch up
I also came upon this recording from Hole in the Wall Education which is an initiative by NIIT. Their take on educating poor children in India brings in a whole new perspective into the effectiveness of informal training, self-learning and short elearning modules to educate children of poor parents for free. Since the children face several challenges to complete their education, there is a high dropout rate and these children are unable to cope with the bulk of the syllabus in schools. So informal learning and the Internet can save the day for such children and help them learn and grasp basics easily. Here is where process-based learning and problem solving can be of great use. You can teach kids the processes and then help them apply it to various situations. Teach them the techniques and they will be able extrapolate them to other applicable areas. If these kids run after the existing curriculum, they will never be able to learn for the next generations.