What Education means to me?

"Education is not the amount of information put into your brain runs riot there all through your life undigested. Its character building, men making and assimilation of Ideas"— Swami Vivekananda.

From the above quote we can deduce there are in essential 3 purposes of education. Unfortunately all the three have become a rare commodity especially in Indian context. Even without brooding over these ideals and confining ourselves with respect to learning Science, I feel that 2 fundamental things are that are lacking in our education system are Application and Extension.

The former one comes after application of the concept that is learnt. For example, the kid learns in geometry that a straight angle is 180 and sum of angles in a triangle is 180. Then if he is able to identify whats angle A given B/C following sum then it becomes application.

And if he can himself tell the sum of the opposite angles in triangles is equal to the angle remaining with in the straight angle by extending the line then it becomes the extension.  

Nurturing both these things must be the fundamental aim of education. Unfortunately arguably both these skills are "God Gifted" or "Must be there in the Kid". I beg to differ at least till the extent that we must strive inculcating essentially these skills as part of education. Depending upon the CPU/Hard Disk the kid might respond (Every Child is Unique – because of the Socio-cultural, genetic, psychological and perceptional differences they might have).

I would like to put forth my thought behind nurturing application and extension:

n  We can prod the child since childhood (probably we do it unknowingly till some time from the moment they took birth) for not just imitate, but whether they can use the acquired skill at different places. For eg. 

o    where do you see the right angled stuff at home. 

o    how can they measure milk / any liquid once they learn volume for solids. 

o    Can they see  "evaporation" from any live example round

n  We should also make them extending the thought by "probable / improbable" questions..  Like what I enunciated earlier while giving eg..

o    You have "hinge joint" at elbow and knee. What happens if the joints were of "Ball and socket in nature"?

o    What happens if earth stops moving (revolving / rotating)?

We need to nurture the passion for questioning till they understand / apply and extend. Fortunately if your kid is endowed and is passionate about the surroundings, and is relentless with questions please do not discourage him by brushing aside. Who knows probably he might be the next Einstein. Admit if you do not know the answer and find out the answer and let him know or else take him to somebody who can answer him. Probably he might get inspired too!!!. At the same time your admitting would give him good character by way of admitting and striving for answer too.

These things are not tough. The only thing is we do not meditate and apply ourselves for this cause. The thing I tell repeatedly to my students is -- "If you read for 40 minutes think for another 40 minutes". You just need to take the pain of observing the things around and make all the possible questions for your kid. Fortunately lot of times we get the material for putting the right questions from a bit of higher classes without much work from our side. 

What I see is teaching is the toughest part and the most responsible job too. We must not only cherish the moment of becoming a teacher as a job, but all the way of making the kid equipped too.

I see the following effects of integrating technology when combined with learning:

•  All the 3 kinds of kids (Audio, Video and Kinesthetic) can be effectively be taught
• The depth of understanding improved dramatically with the aids
• The gap between the “Intelligent” and “Not-so Intelligent” has come down. And this is the most important take away in my perception.

I see that Lot of innovation is happening around "Quality" Science education, the ones I really liked were Science and Engineering Program for Teachers (SEPT) program , and the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP). If any teacher visits this blog item please visit those sites. They are enriching as well as empowering.