Teaching treasures

Updated on: Friday, September 30, 2011

“What is going to be the future of schools?” This was enough to inspire Mrs.Premalatha Panneerselvam, Ms.P.Hamsa Priya and Ms.Jacqueline Vardon of Mahatma Montessori Matriculation Schools, Madurai, to participate in the international school leadership summit conducted by the University of Iowa, USA, earlier this month.

Only when you look at teaching “not as a profession but passion”, it motivates you to explore innovative possibilities in learning and teaching, says Mrs.Premalatha, Secretary and Correspondent, back after spending a fortnight at the High School and other Under-Graduate Schools under the University in Iowa city.

Visibly buoyed by what she and her team members saw and learnt, she was struck the most by the “discipline among students.” “Other than during lunch time, there was always pin drop silence in the campus. Any classroom we peeped in, we would find students displaying utmost concentration in their work,” adds Ms. Priya, Principal of the CBSE School.

“There was absolutely no distraction, even when we walked into their classrooms. Students seemed to be minding their own business, totally immersed in the work they were assigned to do,” echoes Ms.Jacqueline, Principal Matriculation School.

If the much “focused” students stole their hearts, the sheer size of the beautiful buildings, the sprawling greenery around, the infrastructure and facilities available from neat and student-friendly classrooms, modern laboratories, well-equipped gymnasium and wellness centre, playground, library with majority of funding and control coming from local public, left them in awe.

The other aspect that surprised the trio, part of a 17-member team from India, was the absence of prescribed text books. “There are only worksheets, no burden of homework and everything is done in the school itself. Learning is not done by-the-clock. It is a student-driven interactive and accelerated curriculum, which helps in identifying a child’s aptitude and honed appropriately,” gushes Ms.Priya.

“Though many of our private schools too have revolutionized the concept of teaching, still much of it is superficial. We still teach our children to be memory boxes,” notes Ms.Premalatha.

Adds Ms.Jacqueline: “Our society does not allow the children to be independent. We have a very programmed learning where we want them to stick to age-old stereotypical professions like medicine or engineering. Neither is reading much encouraged. There we were surprised to find 200 subjects to choose from, both conventional and unconventional.”

Students also have the option of dropping out of a chosen subject and enrolling into a new one, if it doesn’t interest them. The quantity, quality and variety of books in classrooms and libraries is stupefying, chips in Priya.

Our children have lot of theoretical knowledge but lack in its practical application. We found the activities to be all hands-on and related to real-world work there. An array of technology tools and access is always available and varied learning styles are honored,” chips in Ms.Premalatha.

Armed with new found enthusiasm and valuable inputs from the trip, Ms.Premalatha now wants to share it, not only with other city schools but also try and bring in some changes in her own group of schools: “We need lot of community support. The stakeholders in education need to cooperate and work in synergy. Even then it will take us years to reach that level but at least we should all try to pursue the dream of providing the best education system to our children.”

When we are living in a world that demands continuous learning, setting up such an “ideal school”, with all members of the community -- students, teachers, administrators, parents, school staff, and business and community members – actively involved, is perhaps warranted.

Good schools should provide every student with excellent teachers, latest resources, first-class learning opportunities and positive opportunities. With such an enabling environment, students will learn to use their mind and develop their personality.

The job of an educator is to initiate students to see vitality in themselves. When one looks back with appreciation to all the brilliant teachers, one realizes that the curriculum is necessary as raw material, but it is the real warmth and dedication that makes up the vital component.

As parents or teachers, we all need to remember that children can not be trained by force or harshness but by what amuses their minds. It must be remembered the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts alone. It is to teach them to think.

Teaching treasures

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