The way ahead

 I have held the pain of learning by classical pedagogy as a splinter in my heart for more than 26 years now, that more than one fourth of the highest lifespan an average human being can be expected to live out.

Although I have obsessed over the nature of learning, worked with NGOs in the field of education, worked with companies who claim to make educational games, spoken to intellectuals about my ideas of the central focus that history of science should receive in education, ran my 'edtech' startup, there is precious little that I have done to systematically chalk out my thoughts, in an elaborate expansive manner so that there can be a plan of action drawn from it.

So the purpose of the blog is just that. To systematically put together my ideas on education so that they get consolidated and eventually I can draw a plan of action from them.

So first things first, how did I start obsessing over the nature of education in the first place ? Simply put it was out of boredom and disgust, which is absolutely normal to almost all school going kids of the world.

A classroom, whether it is in an avant-garde school in Europe, or a school that believes in rote learning and discipline, In India or China, or in MIT or Stanford (although mois is very proud younger brother of a PhD from stanford ) is really not the right setting for a mind to satisfy its curiosity. Now of course Society does not always need minds that have had their curiosities satisfied but merely people who can work the machines, make plans and manage the churning of the mills that run our society. 

Even then, even for picking up new skills the classroom to me has never felt like the correct setting for the same. The human mind is naturally jumpy, creativity and self motivated. It is very hard for a human mind to be put into a square room, pour knowledge into it and expect it to retain the knowledge, puke it out in exams and then reabsorb it to be used for the rest of their lives.

Is there really any surprise that people who have got good marks in biology know nothing about the fundamentals of human physiology, how the lungs, heart and the digestive system are fundamentally interconnected.

Or folks who have scored a very high percentage in maths exams in boards cannot see its fundamental value in being a playground for the mind, a universe which exists largely so that we can improve our logical thinking.(Will not get into the practical v/s theoretical value of Math  right now, maybe something for later)

The notion that classroom education does not add much value is not something that I need to belabor upon, its a fairly common thought and almost mainstream as of now. The popularity of Indian movies like 3 Idiots are a testament to how much traditional education is looked down upon even in a country whose economy pretty much depends on the products of traditional education, i.e IT engineers.

So now comes the big question, if not this then what ? The entire world cannot just dump traditional education and move on to something that could only be a fad till it really proves its own worth.

While I cannot talk about a whole system as such and would much rather not glower upon the ills of the current education system, there are some thoughts I have which I think can form the pillars of such a system.

Deep empathy for the young growing mind. This means to be able to feel the impatience, curiousity and creativity of the young mind. Not only these aspects but also the fact that young minds like to engage in play much more than adults. They like to take flights of imagination much more than adults.

And if you look at it, is it so hard to understand ? Play is not something that is limited to the human species. I have seen dogs and cats play. You can find several videos on the internet of lions playing with each other. 

Play according to me is something that is deeply rooted in survival instinct, it deserves far more respect than what modern education systems give it, that is merely a break from the pressures of studies or as something required to build the body and teamwork. 

Play according to me is a simulation of the challenges that the individual might face during its time on earth. Lions crouch and fake attack their pride members out of play, dogs will happily keep biting each other lightly and try to win a jestful duel. However the behaviors that they engage in are pretty much a preparation for real life. To learn how to fend off attacks or to catch a prey.

In human beings play gets reduced to an entertaining activity at best, not only that we restrict our concept of play to physical play only. And we know we that the defining characteristic of human beings is not physical prowess but mental prowess. But when it comes to the mind, we have very few places where we let our mind 'play'. So the lack of opportunities for the mind to play is a basic thought that that should drive the new system of education.

Because the idea of play is very less associated with the mind and more with the body, it stands to question what does play even mean when it comes to the mind.

Play to me is open ended imagination, open ended conversation. The conversation could be about anything, it could just be about joking around, it could be about movies, or food or anything at all.

Someone would say that's just chit chatting, how will it lead to anything that is of value in terms of knowledge. The core idea behind this thought is that the human mind is ever curious and ever so creative, any open ended conversation between kids has enough fire power that can be directed to a meaningful engagement. So there is also an underlying assumption that there needs to someone who needs to guide the conversation to something coherent. This could be someone equivalent to the teacher of today, or even some slightly elder student. The idea is not to give answers but to guide in the direction where answers can be found by the curious collective. Again implicit in the end of the last sentence is that the search for knowledge is a collective activity rather an individualistic one. 

So conversation is play, and play makes you stronger, in this case in your thought process.

So conversation or play needs to be a pillar of the new system. What else needs to be the core of the system ?

An open conversation can then be structured into logical argumentation when it comes to logical thinking. The logical argumentation then can be structured like argumentation in a court of law.

Like imagine a student putting up a 'case' on the notice board to prove a 'pattern' that she has recognized. What do I mean by pattern, something like "The sum of all angles of a triangle add up to the same value", then she could be fighting in favor of her case whereas someone else could stand in opposition giving counter arguments. The judge would be a senior, who would moderate the discussion and admit or reject arguments purely on the basis of the merit of the arguments rather than his her own knowledge of the subject. The audience could be comprised of other kids who could watch and learn something from the process or who are merely interested in the discussion. So the proof of why all angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees is no longer something that is mandatory to be understood and reproduced for an exam but something that comes across as a self driven investigation powered by logical thinking and done in a social setting. One theorem proved like this is better than knowing how to prove a hundred others that you don't care about. It is the process of knowledge that children should get to relate to and enjoy rather than scarfing down tidbids of knowledge and information that they cannot connect to.