Nurture values, skills and attitude: Dr. Kalam

Updated on: Thursday, December 09, 2010

The second edition of iDiscoveris School of Tomorrow, an XSEED annual international conference on innovative education, witnessed thought leaders and educationists engage in high quality and stimulating dialogue that could pave the way for progressive change in school education.

Held simultaneously across New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai, the programme was seamlessly integrated live across the four cities using Internet and videoconferencing technology.

Prof.Peter Senge from MIT Sloan School of Management, one of the worldâ€™s foremost researchers on teaching and learning for understanding, Prof David Perkins from Harvard University, distinguished author and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India Gurcharan Das, presented stimulating keynote addresses that was simulcast across 4 centres.

Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, outlined his vision for the kind of citizen India needs to emerge as knowledge super power and detailed out his expectations on the values, skills and attitudes that need to be instilled in the formative years.

Prof. David Perkins feels, "As educators, we all want learning that matters, learning that makes a deep difference in students lives. And of course much of what students study from kindergarten to graduate school does matter. However, a lot of it doesnt. Whereas traditionally we educate for the known, today's world also asks us to educate for the unknown, preparing learners with the knowledge and perspectives, the communication, learning, and thinking skills and attitudes for thriving in the 21st century. Here we envision the opportunities and challenges of educating not just for the known but the unknown."

Prof.Peter Senge highlighted, "The world has moved out of the Industrial Age, and so has the business world. Our educational system, however, has not. We must abandon Industrial Age assumptions about schools. This requires centering learning on the student instead of the teacher, discouraging "homogeneity," and getting away from rote memorization. In short, it means treating schools like living systems instead of machines. Attempts to improve this 'living system' must therefore be wholesome interventions and not just patchwork solutions."

Gurcharan Das shared, â€œIndia has become the second fastest growing economy in the world with one hand tied. The tied hand is a metaphor for the lack of good education to our children. Imagine what would happen if the other hand got untied. India would be formidable if we were able to educate our children!

Speaking on the occasion Ashish Rajpal, CEO, iDiscoveri Education, remarked, "India is on the threshold of emerging as a knowledge superpower and progressive education will play a key role in shaping young adults into custodians of tomorrows knowledge economy. Hence the need of the hour is to present a simple and a powerful vision for what schooling can be, a practical understanding of what exactly to do inside the classroom to bring this vision to reality, and a collaborative mindset between education, business and government leaders to sustain this change over a period."

Nurture values, skills and attitude: Dr. Kalam

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