Links and blog roll

Some miscellaneous interesting/inspiring/comment-worthy links:

1. Follow up to Mitch Resnick's talk (that I discussed here) :
2. Engineers quit jobs to teach kids
3. Fun algebra class

Also there are some interesting reads in my blog roll! I try as much as possible to find things like this. If you have a blog or know of a blog that belongs in that roll, do send me a comment! 

Technology as a tool for learning

I watched a video some time ago of a 2 year old kid who keeps tapping on a magazine and pushing it around. The kid was clearly confused that the magazine was not really doing anything. It was not moving, there were no funny noises coming out of it. The magazine was not worth paying attention to. "Where's that iPad!"

Kids are surrounded by technology and there is a need to understand that their world is different from ours was when we were their age. It is important to create a learning environment for them that will allow them to express themselves in a better manner.

Mitch Resnick of MIT says that kids should be taught how to code at a young age in his talk. He says that children must learn to code in order to use code to learn.

I have experienced in the past and continue to experience even today that I understand a concept better when I have coded it. This maybe because I spend a long time in trying to split the problem into simple language - essentially into the program's pseudo code. When I taught people to code I often asked them to think of the computer as a stupid machine that needed to be told in an extremely simple manner how to do a task. This enhances the understanding of a particular concept in leaps and bounds.

This of course does not mean that kids begin to be trained as software engineers in kindergarten. Children can be provided with a means for them to express themselves and learn through doing rather than reading textbooks. Honestly, textbooks no longer have an appeal to kids who play with tablets and game stations. I saw some textbooks recently in which there was a lot of colour and figures and even cartoons. Yes, the ones from NCERT that are subject of a lot of controversy. Controversy or not, they are far off from the dull textbooks that I used in school. But they do not do much towards providing interactivity.  And this is the point of my argument.

Everything boils down to interactions. What can be lectured about for hours can be demonstrated in 20 minutes and learned through doing in less than that! The easiest way to do this today is through technology. Right?

Translating this to children who do not have access to computers or even a TV is tough. There are three aspects to the problem: (1) introducing rural and urban poor children to technology, (2) encouraging these kids to use technology to learn, (3) to teach children to code so that they can use technology to implement their learning and expand their knowledge further.

 Towards the first aspect, some projects have seen small successes with solar powered projectors using cheap parts from used phones, torchlights and computers etc. (low cost and sustainable) and as gadgets get cheaper, people will gain access to them as is seen from the ubiquity of mobile phones today. Again, this projector idea is a means to get information as a sort of virtual teacher across to students. Yet the role of a teacher is beyond providing children with information. The teacher is also someone who evaluates the progress of a child and guides him/her to what he/she should do to improve. The interactive nature of a teacher's presence is absent here.

The second aspect of the problem - the use of technology is still a tricky matter. There have been some examples of cheap used computers being donated to children in rural areas. But with selfish and greedy software manufacturers constantly withdrawing support for primitive software, access to the internet becomes a challenge. There is the issue of lack of electricity in many places, poor internet connections and so on. Of course many more issues to this problem than this simplistic example that I provide.

The third aspect of the problem requires that people work towards creating software and creative solutions that help children learn coding. Scratch is a great idea, but how far it can go for these rural/poor settings where a computer for each kid is still a far cry, is a question. Finally, there is also the question of the use of English on the net and in these kind of software. This can be a serious hurdle for many.

Teachers - not the problem

To a thinking teacher who understands the importance of his/her job and puts in his or her life's effort into teaching, it must be tough to listen to people berate education, schools and teachers for the society's ills. Headteacher of a London school, Kenny Frederick writes about how teachers must stand up and defend themselves against this.

The truth is poor education is the cause for a lot of society's problems. In India's case, it is the lack of literacy in the first place. But the problem is not caused by teachers themselves but poor policy and management by governments. Yes! I am making a sweeping statement.. deal with it! This is a universal phenomenon. Public schools in the U.K and the U.S are constantly under attack because of poor pupil performance. While the U.S tries to solve this "by throwing money at the problem" which studies have shown does not help, the U.K debates merit-based pay for teachers (bringing forth backlash against government representatives from teachers).

On a universal scale, it is evident that large scale reform must be conducted on education policy. This does include allocating more money towards recruiting better teachers and training them frequently to adapt to changing requirements in education. Updating and improving school curricula and textbooks, ensuring that kids stay in school, equality in classrooms. The list is gigantic. Most solutions are close to utopian and discussions are few and far between. There is rarely any consensus. But it is clear that these solutions go beyond spending large sums of money. This is good news for developing countries. There is still hope for us!

India's story however goes one step below this in having to build and maintain infrastructure for schools in rural and remote areas, improving health and nutrition for children, stop private institutions from making education a market. I do not intend to oversimplify the issue, these are just a few important areas to focus on. There are many more issues and people do not really know all the reasons for our issues. There seems to be no lack of data and there is some analysis. People seem to be discussing this as well.

Coming back to my point: teachers should not have to bear the brunt for the large scale failure of our education system. It is unfair to them. Also, there used to be (and as far as I know still is) an idea that you become a teacher just because you found no other job or just because it was comfortable is absurd. I know for a fact that (most) teachers devote their whole life to their profession. Their work follows them home. They attach emotion to being present for their students every day. They take personal responsibility for any student's failures, yet they are most often not appreciated or acknowledged for any success their students may enjoy. There are some individuals who are not like this, but they are not the reason why we have a failed system.

So teachers, do stand up and defend yourselves. You are doing all you can when the odds are stacked against your work. At the same time, make your voices be heard. Everyone thinks that they are qualified to hurl insults at the education system, no one knows how to improve it and solve its issues. If teachers spoke up about their personal experiences with teaching maybe some solutions can emerge.