Speech of Mrs. Anu Aga Let us
briefly look at the school system evolved through the
ages. In primitive society family education was adequate
to pass on the necessary knowledge and skills and parents
taught the basic skills of hunting, food gathering and
child rearing. The learning process was spontaneous with
parent ad child unaware that it was happening. Slowly
primitive man started to control his environment for his
own purpose. He developed fire to keep himself warm and
to cook his food - he learned to make clothes,
vessels and the wheel which helped him to transfer his
burden. The people who acquired greater skills become
artisans and younger generations worked and observed and
learnt from them - and this was the beginning of
apprenticeship. Apprenticeship
separated children from their families for periods of
time and gave birth to the concept of school. Schools
became institutions of learning and teaching became a
profession. Teachers were supposed to impart skills and
knowledge and also transmit values and beliefs. Another
social function that schools were expected to perform was
to prepare the youth for a particular work role. To
ascertain whether a student has acquired the necessary
standard for carrying out his work role, school
certificates became necessary and this led to
examinations. Unfortunately
over the years we have forgotten the main purpose why we
started an institution called “school” and have
over-focused on certification and are obsessed with
examinations. Before
preparing for this paper I asked a few educated mothers
what they meant by excellence in education. Most of them
uniformly expected excellence to be judged by the marks
obtained in the final competitive examination. What is
education? Is it the ability to do brilliantly in
examinations? One of the best definitions of education
that I like is: “Education is what has been learnt
has been forgotten.” Teaching
is essentially a transformational activity which aims at
students taking charge of their learning and making
deeply informed judgements about their lives and the
world around. Based on this judgement all their choices
and actions will emerge. In this
definition of education, mistakes are not seen as
failures. in fact trial and error is viewed as proof of
trying. Students are encouraged to take risk and if they
are not successful, they are not labelled as
“dumb”, “stupid” or as
“failures”. Teaching
is a human activity. Intellect does not each intellect.
People teach people. No matter how factually accurate and
time tested our data, true learning emerges only when we
honour the human factor. If we can emotionally reach out
to a child – her interest in learning will be
created. My own daughter’s liking for science
started because of her love for the science teacher. The
teacher may not have been the most knowledgeable but she
touched my daughter. This is an example to prove that
most children want to know how much you care for them,
before they care as to how much you know about the
subject matter. |