ASHU TIWARY
In these times of unprecedented challenges, it becomes imperative to equip our children with the competence to confront changes.
Asking questions is a uniquely powerful tool that is an important part of learning. There is both an art and a science to asking questions.
Until a couple of years back, in schools across our country not much emphasis was given to encouraging the art of questioning.
It was an unwritten norm that questioning was always the prerogative of the teacher! How dare a student question the teacher. It was looked upon as a challenge to the so-called holders of a teacher training degree.
The situation in colleges was certainly better than that of schools. Nevertheless, the emphasis that “questioning” deserves was somewhere missed out in the rat race for getting the answering right.
Not so anymore. The sooner educators understood this, the better. The New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 outlines the vision of a new education system in India. The NEP 2020 replaced the 34 years old NPE (National Policy of Education) 1986.
The policy aims to transform India into a vibrant knowledge society making both school and college education flexible, holistic and multidisciplinary, and suited to the needs of the 21st century.
Encouraging open ended questions helps to promote a deeper thinking. The art of questioning develops communication, creative thinking, rationality and a host of other skills.
On the part of educators, it becomes imperative that when preparing to teach they compose adequate questions.
Institutions need to shift from being teaching centric to becoming learning centric: from being knowledge centric to becoming skill centric. Until a few decades back information was power. Today, information is cursed. What is needed is wisdom: wisdom that comes from experience.
Our education system has to revamp to practical orientation. I am prompted to discuss another facet of education. To build a strong nation we need to build a strong culture among school students. This can be introduced in schools, when children are of mouldable age. Instilling values in children as they grow becomes a community responsibility. Children learn from people around them. A strong moral character is the foundation of acceptance, growth, healthy relationships and success.
Values are instilled by intentionally emphasizing on them. Values are transmitted to children not only from the way parents act and speak, but also from the way educators deal with them and the behaviour and actions of the role models in society.
At the end of World War II, a letter found in a Nazi concentration camp addressed to teachers read, “I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, children poisoned by educated physicians, infants killed by trained nurses, Women and babies shot and burnt by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education. My request is : Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled Psychopaths, educated illiterates.”
Reading, writing, and arithmetic is important only if they serve towards making our children more humane.”
Let us not destroy our country by destroying the education system. The NEP 2020 may help us become catalysts of change.
(Ashu Tiwary is the principal of Motilal Nehru Public School, an ICSE school in Jamshedpur)