Help your Child find their Spark

 

‘A’ For Ambo, ‘Z’ For Zhadd…

When I went to school I learnt A for apple and Z for zebra, neither of which I could relate to. I did not know what an apple tree looked like or which season it grew nor did I know about the zebra, what it ate, or how many hours a day it slept. Nothing in my learning years even allowed me the potential to ask these questions. My results depended on my ability to rote learn what was taught in class and reproduce. The better I was at it the more attention I received. I realized rote learning was like a sorting machine that would sort us into smart, not so smart and failures.

Later, on the other side of the desk, as a teacher I learnt more than I ever did as a student. I realized that not so smart in my classroom would never equate to “not so smart” in life and living. Every teacher gauge their students’ performance and ability based on their ability to grasp the information being taught to them. We make assumptions about their future performance. I was pleasantly surprised to meet some of my average students five years later, to see that they had metamorphosed into sound intelligent creatures that exuded confidence, had the ability to handle an intelligent discussion and of course, seemed anything but average. I wondered what brought about this change. Was it age?  I also met other students who had seemed very promising in class but years later seemed like they had missed out on something. The only difference between these students was hands on experience.

This gave a new meaning to the term ‘environmental retardation’. If such small differences were making such important changes there must be something more to learning than we first presumed. What environments are we creating in our classrooms that brings down the level of intelligence by a few notches to be later enriched by experience?

Pedagogy is not much different now then what it used to be.  How do we distinguish between someone who is learned from someone with no education? Is it their ability to read and write in English? What is the aim of education?

From a much larger perspective, education is a process that teaches every human being skills and knowledge to survive in their environment. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic the goal of education is also to include norms and cultural achievements of a community that will help a person live fruitfully while pursuing their definite goals and desires.

For this to happen the child should have a strong base of concepts that are there in their environment before they begin to relate to more abstract and foreign concepts. This ability allows the child to questions, connect, deduce, induce and evaluate.  Thus good concept development works as an important foundation for future learning, creative thinking and mathematical inductions.

Role of language in primary education is to make sure the child comprehends and relates to the concepts in their environment. While A for apple definitely works for a place with apple orchids does it work for our Goan children? 

Native language revolves around native concepts. Thus an Eskimo will have 100 words for snow and for us, snow is just snow. Similarly Rain for Goans is best understood in Konkani or how else would you describe makdanchem kazaar, allmeacho paus, mirgacho paus, ghogeanim paus, xhirxhirop in English.  We rob the child this flavor of rain and confine its understanding to only heavy or light.

The functions of concept development does not end with description but the ability to induce and deduce and thus question and criticize.  Amongst the main sources of environmental retardation is lack of simulative environments. While functional English is an important tool for jobs it nevertheless hampers a border analyzes of who we are as a people and how we can evolve. 

So when we look at education systems we have to ask questions regarding the philosophy of the system. Whom should education benefit? The individual or the community or both. Who should thus be responsible for the role of education? If education is state funded then who should make the decisions. The tax payers, the politicians, educators, academicians or professionals. 

While this debate has been argued across the globe what is being left out of the debate on the MOI issues in Goa is the relevance of the current curriculum.  In today’s world we have the opportunity of cross cultural research. MOI is not important if it does not incorporate the child’s development. Exciting research in the benefits of bilingual learning indicates conceptual transfer, enriched understanding through translation, metalinguistic awareness and bicultural knowledge.

Nobody seems to be interested in the course structure instead MOI is become a religious, political, social and class issues.

The end-----------