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Saturday, June 02, 2007
Education
My friend Muralee had this in his Home page,
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Education in India favors the top 10 % in the class. In the process it breaks the confidence of the rest 90 %. Economy would have grown faster if teachers were trained to to focus on the middle 80 %
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I think our problem is the reverse. We do not train or encourage the top 10% of a class. It is more oriented towards the 30 to 80% range. The curriculum is dumbed down to make it more inclusive in the process denying information to the ones who have already mastered what is taught.
I have had friends who had mastered the math texts up to 9th standard when they were in 6th standard. They still had to waste time on the drab lessons which they had already mastered. (And more over, teachers insisted them to write steps for even simple calculations making their life needlessly difficult )
And yes, none of us enjoyed the 10 th standard where after being given a taste of the true science and math in 9th, we were asked to do much much smaller portion for studies in 10th just to make sure that every body passes. The entire year was such a waste.
It happened again in the Engineering, with the mechanics and Mathematics being just a repetition of what was taught in 11th and 12th. It was done with the intent of helping only the average guy.
Looking at what is happening now in our state (Kerala), The teachers are forced to pass every one in lower classes (and in higher classes too) so that when they are in higher classes the effective knowledge of the entire class room is below what it should be for that class. This impacts what could be taught in that class effectively cutting off higher concepts from being elucidated. Effectively denying information to the kids who display a higher ability of learning.
I feel that we would have been in much better shape if we had encouraged our top
10% better. May be we should have some thing like the montessory system of education that lets each child mature according to his or her own pace rather than being shackled to the pace of the average. ¶ 8:24 PM 0 Comments
--
Education in India favors the top 10 % in the class. In the process it breaks the confidence of the rest 90 %. Economy would have grown faster if teachers were trained to to focus on the middle 80 %
--
I think our problem is the reverse. We do not train or encourage the top 10% of a class. It is more oriented towards the 30 to 80% range. The curriculum is dumbed down to make it more inclusive in the process denying information to the ones who have already mastered what is taught.
I have had friends who had mastered the math texts up to 9th standard when they were in 6th standard. They still had to waste time on the drab lessons which they had already mastered. (And more over, teachers insisted them to write steps for even simple calculations making their life needlessly difficult )
And yes, none of us enjoyed the 10 th standard where after being given a taste of the true science and math in 9th, we were asked to do much much smaller portion for studies in 10th just to make sure that every body passes. The entire year was such a waste.
It happened again in the Engineering, with the mechanics and Mathematics being just a repetition of what was taught in 11th and 12th. It was done with the intent of helping only the average guy.
Looking at what is happening now in our state (Kerala), The teachers are forced to pass every one in lower classes (and in higher classes too) so that when they are in higher classes the effective knowledge of the entire class room is below what it should be for that class. This impacts what could be taught in that class effectively cutting off higher concepts from being elucidated. Effectively denying information to the kids who display a higher ability of learning.
I feel that we would have been in much better shape if we had encouraged our top
10% better. May be we should have some thing like the montessory system of education that lets each child mature according to his or her own pace rather than being shackled to the pace of the average. ¶ 8:24 PM 0 Comments
