‘Quality in Education’ Q&A - 2

Q. Why are many middle-class parents are getting increasingly dissatisfied with traditional urban private schools in India?

A. Many are in fact questioning the very relevance of schools. Factory model of school education is questioned and De-schooling is gaining ground and has come a long way since the days of Ivan Illich.

Unfortunately, the parent community is not concerning itself with basic issues like Learning Vs. Schooling.  In Indian cities, schooling is considered as a means to asserting social and cultural power.

Assuming that schools should remain relevant for at least some years to come, we may look at the nature of issues that cause dissatisfaction with the present school system.

There are specific issues and there are system related issues.

It is possible that some child-specific issues may get automatically resolved when appropriate systemic changes are made, other issues may still be there.

It may be possible to resolve some child-specific issues irrespective of systemic changes.

Some issues may not get resolved unless there are systemic changes.

We need to differentiate between issues that are contingent upon systemic changes and those that are not.

While attempting systemic changes we need to proceed cautiously because;

i) our school systems are struggling to accommodate conflicting objectives

ii)we have to have contingent plans ready when we are trying to tweak an established system (which already has some proven merits) particularly because 'young lives are at stake'.

Many of the problems echoed by parents are 'self-limiting.' These problems are very much likely to go away by the time children reach the end of VII std. Not because they are going to get good teachers but because the children would have developed sufficient cognitive skills. A case by case analysis can address and alleviate fears.

One can understand the anxiety of parents living in a world changing at the speed of thought. Human beings can and do adapt to these changes very quickly. But they can not evolve that fast. Human embryo does not yet mature @speed of thought and still needs 9 months plus to develop and human children still need the time-frame proposed by the likes of Jean Piaget, to develop cognitive skills. (So patience, my dear parents, patience!)

I understand the need parents feel to shape and fashion their children in tune with the life-style in vogue. The schools need to adapt to these aspirations, but certainly not at the cost of fanning egocentrism in children (and in parents).

Ad-vantage negative

This is an old trusted and tried technique of advertising copywriters. In an ostensible attempt to appear honest, a negative aspect of the product is brought out. This helps in establishing credibility in the minds of readers. In the same vein, riding the wave of credibility built earlier, a tall positive claim about the product is made and it gets smoothly pushed down the unsuspecting throat of the target.

"Our new township offers the most stunning bargain for state-of-the-art housing in the priceless prime locality of the city."

That is obviously difficult to swallow. Compare this with:

"Yes, the project no doubt tags along the highest EMI in the area (true) but it no doubt offers the most stunning bargain for state-of-the-art housing in the priceless prime locality of the city.(made to appear true) "

Digital Photography

Photography is not really an area of expertise I fancy but it certainly interests me. I have handled 2-3 types of cameras (is it the correct plural form?) though that hardly suffices to call me an amateur photographer.

Of course now every other guy or gal wielding a mobile phone is an amateur photographer and at times I too yield to temptations of clicking a shot or two. These photos are low res and with all sorts of limitations but if the subject /object photographed is potent enough, one can coolly console one’s discerning mind to a gratifying complacency.

That in short, is my brush with “digital photography.” Nevertheless that doesn’t stop me from subscribing to email posts by dps or webshots pro-tips for that matter.

I have my humble philosophy in the matter. “Everything is picturesque and everything is photogenic.”

दिल की नज़र से दुनिया को देखो
दुनिया सदा हि हसीं है

And I agree that photography, like drawing and painting, is a humane attempt to perpetuate that which is going to whither away with time. A mere chemotherapy in a bid to an incremental extension of life.

But it is also a way of expressing your viewpoint. The way you frame and appreciate life, which you want to share with others. It certainly helps you freeze the moment at least till the life of the photograph (or digital data) but more than that it also records the unique way of perceiving you registered at the moment of clicking the photo.

(Photo Credit : Kaustubh on Nokia N-72)

To 'educate' means 'to draw out'

Open-ended questions is an important evaluation technique. It is employed in many fields like education, counselling, mediation, sales, investigative work, therapy and journalism . The oft repeated question on reality TV shows "How do you feel" is a classic example of unavoidable open-ended question.

In an earlier post we had discussed Constructed Questions which may be considered as a special case of open ended questions.

Multiple choice questions are closed-ended questions that expect a short or single-word answer. As opposed to this, an open-ended question elicits a comprehensive answer forcing the student to delve deep into his/her own knowledge bank and express himself/herself fully.

"What's the make of the pen you are using?" is a typical closed ended question. A corresponding open ended question could be, "Isn't that an interesting pen ?"

Open-ended questions are intended to be less leading than closed-ended questions. This makes both answering and evaluating them a matter of some expertise. This page explains how open-ended questions can be used by maths teachers. An interesting paper can be found here, which illustrates the creative and graphic use of open-ended questions for basic maths.

Open-ended questions play an important role in evaluating students. "To measure how well a student performs, teachers have to be able to examine the process, not just the final product." Open-ended questions make students construct their own responses and the answers they give reflect their thinking and understanding.

Sadly, in an attempt to make school education more accommodating, open-ended questions are getting neglected thereby potentially stunting the expressive abilities of students' minds in their formative stages.

The medium and the message

Many of my friends frown upon the use of the term "vernacular." It is a term generally used in India for denoting the linguistic medium of schooling when it is other than English.

Regardless of the various shades of meaning and connotations with which the term is employed, it might be interesting to look at the etymology of the word. It is the language of Verna - "home-born slave" (Not servant, mind you, but 'slave'). A word of Etruscan origin.

The word is no more used in respectable and politically correct discourse. But many of us continue to do so, especially those, who think it elegant and royal to flaunt colonial legacies.

It is fashionable these days, to scoff at schooling in regional languages as "low quality education." Time and again N number of experts and educationists have preached to the contrary. But unfortunately the vernacular mentality of the neo-colonists has been propagating lies among the innocent.

I'd like to draw your attention to a UNESCO study titled "The importance of mother tongue-based schooling for educational quality" under The Quality Imperative, by Carole Benson (2004)

The study addresses various myths like :

The one nation—one language myth.

The myth that local languages cannot express modern concepts.

The myth, which holds that bilingualism causes confusion and that the first language must be pushed aside so that the second language can be learned.

The L2 as global language myth.

The myth that parents want L2-only schooling.

"Instruction through a language that learners do not speak has been called “submersion” (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000) because it is analogous to holding learners under water without teaching them how to swim;" quotes the paper.

'Tinker, tailor, soldier...'

Image via Wikipedia

It all started with a hurried blog post on our other blog. (My true intention was to test whether the "read more" tag was working.)

A "Yateendra" commented to point out many errors in the text and in also styling the format. Since his profile was not accessible, I searched for a possible Yateendra and wondered if he were the "Yateendra Joshi," who writes the Editage blog and is the author of 'Communicating in Style' - the book praised by John le Carré, well-known British spy novelist, as "A gem. Courteous, unfrightening and essential. A perfect companion to Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage for today’s communicators."

With any mention of John le Carré, I am invariably reminded of his 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy', the first one of his books I had chanced to read. Eventually I read the other ones, but this remained as one of my favourites. The title is an adaptation of the famous rhyme. You can read the various versions of the cherrystone rhyme here.

It seems that the rhyme has inspired many an author. Another work I chanced to refer was P. R. Wilkinson's "Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors."

Entries in this compilation are arranged under a highly original scheme following this old rhyme 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief' with the additional categories 'at home' 'at school and 'at play'.

This also illustrates how the consciousness of a region is a storehouse of its trades and the thesaurus aptly illustrates how these find expression in the language the people there use.

The Last Lecture

Reading or buying a book prompted by some impressive review is not exactly my forte, and even less so after reading a review on the net. But after reading the author's interview as part of Editorial Review of this book, I decided that I'd read the book if I came across it. The name Randy Pausch meant nothing to me but the whole thing started with his video Cover of The Last Lectureon time management and it also led me to the review of the book cited above.

Strand Book Stall also mentioned the book in their newsletter at about same time and it caught my attention. When I went to Strand, at least two other customers were asking for it. I did buy it but wondered whether I was getting drawn into some systematic propaganda.

But when I started reading it, an unpudownable spell unleashed itself on me and it still lingers after so many days. I'd unhesitatingly recommend it to anybody and everybody.

The last chapters appear to be preaching and are bit irritating at times but just so. Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, attended the last lecture, and wrote the story . His craft has made the book intensely readable, and has done full justice to the author's intensity of feeling.

Despite its grave background, the narrative is never depressing. Certainly a collector's item, with a capacity to recharge your dampened spirits on every re-reading.