Dear Friends and Family....
We Wish you a Wonderful Xmas and Happy New Year !!
Hope 2012 brings all the Joy and Prosperity that you ever dreamed and wished for.
Live Long and Prosper !!!
With Warm Best Wishes
-From our Family to Yours.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Build Child's Attitude or Grades
One student quoted from the 3 idiots movie "Life is a race..if you don't run fast ..you will be overtaken." The stamina to run in life is good grades. He wants to be 1st in class and make his parents proud. In his previous schools he wasn't doing great because their main focus was not academics.He also thinks that schools in USA and Australia are great and India needs lots of improvement in terms of education system.
There was another kid who felt if Schools followed Gurukul system then it would be a better place for education system. (In a gurukul, shishyas/ students reside together as equals, irrespective of their social standing, learn from the guru and help the guru in his day-to-day life, including the carrying out of mundane chores such as washing clothes, cooking, etc.) Not sure how many kids will be ready for this kind of education system, when the world is technology driven. We could definitely take the true essence of Gurukul system and use it in the current education system, but going back to Gurukul method of teaching is something left to choice.
There were students who wanted grade system to be eliminated since it can take the pressure out of them. They want to learn things on their own and not be told by teachers how it should be done and their request is, " No! spoon feeding please!"Guess these kids know that there are many venues for one destination, and they want to choose their path.
On these same lines one kid quoted an interesting quote by Clifford Stoll that ;
"Data is not Information;
Information is not Knowledge ;
Knowledge is not Understanding ;
Understanding is not Wisdom."
Teachers were asked if they would appreciate a " 1st rank Student or a student who was a Good Painter but mediocre in studies ". The teacher's opinion was that she will appreciate the 1st rank student and make sure the mediocre gets a better grade as well. One teacher was asked how she would feel all her kids in her class got B/C grades while the next class kids scored A grade. She said she would accept her mistake and discipline herself and teach the same discipline and improve their grades. In my humble opinion teachers should not give so much importance to grades and feel sorry that their kids were only B grade students. Instead they should portray or high lighten the strength of each and every kid.
As parents we were quite divided in our views. There were parents who thought that, if you don't have good grades then you don't have a head start. Grades determine who you are going to be, which esteem colleges you are going to be in and which corporate offices you are going to lead.They also agreed that there are few exceptions to the rule, like Steve jobs, Bill Gates, Sachin Tendulkar and few more who defy grade system.
Myself and another parent's views resonated quite well. We think, attitude, self respect, integrity, discipline and being a good Samaritan / Citizen are the most important things, in today's child, along with education which transforms to knowledge could help the child to see the world in different perspective. Questions raised by judges " Would you like your child to be a 1st Rank holder or 20th rank holder" My take was, every child is special in his or her own way and we have to nurture that specialty in them and mold them accordingly. A 1st rank student might be a book worm, master of only one, but the the 20th rank kid might be " Jack of all trades and master of none"...but he is street smart, agile and has the capability to adapt to any situation.
Teachers were asked if they would appreciate a " 1st rank Student or a student who was a Good Painter but mediocre in studies ". The teacher's opinion was that she will appreciate the 1st rank student and make sure the mediocre gets a better grade as well. One teacher was asked how she would feel all her kids in her class got B/C grades while the next class kids scored A grade. She said she would accept her mistake and discipline herself and teach the same discipline and improve their grades. In my humble opinion teachers should not give so much importance to grades and feel sorry that their kids were only B grade students. Instead they should portray or high lighten the strength of each and every kid.
As parents we were quite divided in our views. There were parents who thought that, if you don't have good grades then you don't have a head start. Grades determine who you are going to be, which esteem colleges you are going to be in and which corporate offices you are going to lead.They also agreed that there are few exceptions to the rule, like Steve jobs, Bill Gates, Sachin Tendulkar and few more who defy grade system.
Myself and another parent's views resonated quite well. We think, attitude, self respect, integrity, discipline and being a good Samaritan / Citizen are the most important things, in today's child, along with education which transforms to knowledge could help the child to see the world in different perspective. Questions raised by judges " Would you like your child to be a 1st Rank holder or 20th rank holder" My take was, every child is special in his or her own way and we have to nurture that specialty in them and mold them accordingly. A 1st rank student might be a book worm, master of only one, but the the 20th rank kid might be " Jack of all trades and master of none"...but he is street smart, agile and has the capability to adapt to any situation.
Just as Oscar Wilde puts it " Education is an admirable thing, but it is good to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught"
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were high school or college dropouts, but they turned out to be billionaires and true visionaries. They are the enterprenuers, who had the god given gift which cannot be taught or graded. If you are a free thinker, then the last thing you want to do is to spend time learning and memorizing facts at school. They are unique,thought out of the box and are quite successful.
Admist all this discussion something interesting was shared on a lighter note.
There was a survey of a particular batch of students, who passed out of a college. The top rank students started teaching in a school stated by above average students. These schools were funded by corporate heads who were only average students in college. These huge corporation were funded by below average students, since they had political background and ended up running the nation. There were quite a few who failed miserably, didn't know the meaning of education and so ended up as the underworld Dons, who just had the perfect capability to govern the politicians, corporate and so on and so forth.
I totally agree with this fictional story which is a day to day affair in modern India's education system. The passion for teaching has been slowly eroding from teachers, there are very few who take up teaching profession out of passion. These days education and education system has become business like. Some kids in school said that. my parents have invested money in me, now i must give them back their investment in the form of a 1st rank.. So this will enable the parents to put a higher price tag on their kids during their wedding ? This opens a whole new can of worms or Pandora box.
Definitely, education is quite an investment. I can't fail to comment on the amount of media attention the schools these days want. Every school is racing to showcase on the newspaper, some event or the other that happened in their turf. Bigger picture looks Hunky-Dory, but what about the core values. When we are racing for media attention, are we forgetting to give healthy attention to the kids at school? When schools are taking pride in achievements 24 /7 they are setting anti intellectual environment
There are quite a few authors who resonate with this idea that grades are not the prime most important thing to a child's development. Here are couple of them that i find it interesting...in a child's independent thought process.
From Andrew Clements Book : Frindle
"He really just likes to liven things up at school -- and he's always had plenty of great ideas. When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he's got the inspiration for his best plan ever...the frindle. Who says a pen has to be called a pen? Why not call it a frindle? Things begin innocently enough as Nick gets his friends to use the new word. Then other people in town start saying frindle. Soon the school is in an uproar, and Nick has become a local hero. His teacher wants Nick to put an end to all this nonsense, but the funny thing is frindle doesn't belong to Nick anymore. The new word is spreading across the country, and there's nothing Nick can do to stop it.
From Andrew Clements Book : Report Card
True or False?
Fifth grader Nora Rose Rowley is really a genius.
True.
But don't tell anyone.
Nora always gets average grades so she can forgo the pressure-cooker gifted program or Brainiac Academy.
But when Nora gets one hundred percent fed up over testing and the fuss everyone makes about grades, she brings home a terrible report card just to prove a point.
Pretty soon her teachers, parents, and the principal are launching a massive effort to find out what's wrong. But can Nora convince them that tests alone are a stupid way to measure intelligence?
Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of twelve books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities as well as to parent groups and corporations.
Kohn's criticisms of competition and rewards have been widely discussed and debated, and he has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores."
All said and done, grades will gauge the kids at school, but Corporates seek a multi-faceted talented individual, who has an A+ in attitude, integrity, discipline along with the desired technical skills. Attitude in life is most important. If grades can boost a positive attitude in a child all the time...then i am all for it. But it is going to put my child in the rat race, without knowing where his or her potential is. Then it would be an absolute waste of time going through the entire educational system and coming out not learning what the kid aspires to learn. Every kid should be given the opportunity to pursue excellence in the choices they have made, success will follow them eventually. Well, what is success anyway? We need another panel of discussion for that.
- Janhavee
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