Textbooks and Cultural Heritage

Usually during lunch, I watch my favorite TV programs. One such is `Heritage Heroes’ telecast by BBC World on Saturdays. This afternoon’s episode featured local communities that have begun to renovate their ancient monuments or centuries old buildings. There were examples from Nepal (Kathmandu Valley), New Orleans and Saudi Arabia. Any person seeing the program will be impressed by the passion shared by these people in restoring their symbols of culture. (Next Sunday’s episode will include an old engine that is going to be re-used after a long time in Britain).

I think that it is very important for our young people to know about cultural traditions from different countries, in today’s context, where communication and travel have shrunk the world to a global village.  It is good that our children in India study cultural aspects of different countries in their social studies curriculum in school [I remember reading Greek and Roman Civilizations when I was a school boy way back in the `60s].  But then, it is more important for our youngsters to know about their own ancestors and how they lived.

This is exactly what Heritage Heroes and other such documentaries seem to aim at. I think that in India, we have reached a stage, when our youngsters need to watch NatGeo or Discovery to know about our cultural heritage. The main reasons for this odd state of affairs are our quantity oriented K-12 curricular materials and lack of time for today’s parents to interact with children. However, Indians in countries such as Trinidad and Tobogo, still strive hard to preserve culture and traditions alive, as evidenced in the following photograph taken from day before yesterday's edition of a Trinidad based newspaper:

A few years back when I had to give science teacher development workshops as part of my work at Macmillan India Limited, I used to ask the participants, “Have you seen a village craftsman who makes cartwheels? If you have seen them, do you know as to why they heat metal rims to red hot, plunge them in cold water for a moment, and then immediately fit them on to cart wheels?” From my experience I was convinced that none of the teachers (including those who were brought up in villages) had either seen a cartwheel maker or were able to respond to the second part of my question in reasonable detail. In other words, such wonderful crafts have vanished into oblivion even in villages, one of the `rewards’ that we reap due to technological development. (I nostalgically remember how my friends and I used to come across potters, cartwheel makers, groundnut oil extractors, weavers etc. at work, on our way back from school).

Government officials in Bhutan seem to reverse this odd trend, by encouraging local village craftsmen according to an article in Bhutan Observer.  I think it is a very good example to follow.

Our school curriculum and textbooks should guide children to `think globally and act locally’ by not losing grip on our rich cultural heritage and traditions.

  

Knowledge, Skills and Values: Core Components of Curriculum

Everyday, a young boy, about 12 years of age, delivers my morning newspaper. He comes without much fuzz, places the paper at the gate, and bicycles away. When we look at him, he casts a pleasant smile. This morning, when I paid the monthly bill, he gave me the receipt. The receipt contained the newspaper agent’s name and his phone number as well, in very neat handwriting, which is a rarity, in `fast’ cities such as Chennai. I admire his pleasant manners and dedication to work. He had written in good English, which meant that he is studying in some school.  I wish that he comes up in life in flying colours, thanks to the newly introduced Right To Education Act, which I hope is implemented fully and justly all over the country.

This morning's incident took me down my memory lane to the year 2005.  We had some carpentry work going on in the school where I was working. As I walked along the corridor in front of the biology lab, during morning teabreak, I came across a teenager cutting a piece of wood with a chisel. As he was doing his work, he was singing a well-meaning Tamil song with a lot of happiness gleaming through his eyes. As I went near him, he politely stood up. I patted him on the shoulder, and told him as to how I liked his dedication to work and respect to elders.  I added that there was no need for him to stand up. Immediately, he told me that he was taught to give respect to elders, by his parents. Later that morning, I came to know from someone that he never attended school.  That very afternoon, my colleague, who was handling "Guidance and Counseling" to students, was happy to organise a meeting, in which the boy could explain as to why he liked his job that much, to our Grade 11 students.  It was a very informal sharing of ideas.  (I had always liked inviting people from wide range of occupational backgrounds to deliver lectures, present their success stories and enable my students get their doubts clarified). At the end of the informal interaction, we came to know from our students that they learnt a very important principle: dedication to work.  I wish RTEA paves way for quality education to this boy in some alternative schooling system, so that his financial support to his family would not cease. 

Two years back, I was attending a group discussion in which there was a young girl, in her early ‘20s. The venue was the conference hall of a large university in New Delhi. When the discussion was at its peak, the girl, politely moved out. Within seconds, she got completely engaged in rescuing a stray dog that entered the compound, from the security guards. When the organisors of the GD told her that she might loose the benefits of taking part in the GD if she didn’t return, she replied, “No problem, I prefer to be outside the GD and do something more important”.  I respect her standing for principles.

When we were young, mothers used to teach values to children by setting themselves as examples.  We used to have moral education periods in the school curriculum. Even today, all Syllabus Boards require schools to allot a minimum number of periods per week, for value education. But unfortunately, many schools don’t follow the guideline, and replace these periods by English or Mathematics. Parents too seem to endorse the trend.

School inspection authorities should visit schools without giving any advance notice, take time (at least a week) to observe what happens in schools, give them a transparent and candid feedback with guidelines to improve and ensure that the guidelines are followed in a consistent manner.  

I think that it is a moral obligation on the part of schools to impart not only education that empowers children with practical knowledge and employable skills but also value based attitudes so that they can be happy and make others in the community happy.

English medium sections in Corporation Schools

This morning’s edition of THE HINDU carries a news report according to which 25 schools began introducing English medium sections and 15 schools will be doing so this year. This is a commendable move.

We all know that today’s parents prefer sending their children to private schools to government or corporation schools. Although they think that private schools impart quality education, if we look deep into how these schools function, we can easily understand that many of these schools `seem' to perform well due to better physical infrastructure, which they acquire by means of donations from parents, extra coaching facilities, educated parental community etc. and not because of teachers' qualifications, curriculum or any evidence based exceptional school processes. Many private schools admit children after interviewing parents to ascertain their educational qualifications, although this practice is against the very foundation of `Education for All’.

As far as building repairs in schools are concerned, our government agencies can follow what Trindiad, an island nation in the West Indies does. In Trinidad, `Education Facilities Company Limited' takes care of all repair and maintenance problems occuring in Government Schools.  Their website is very user-friendly with instant messaging system which can be used by school principals.

Chennai Corporation’s move will pave way for healthy competition between private and Corporation schools in today’s context where most parents seem to prefer private schools mainly because of the medium of instruction. The move will take schools one step forward toward the aims of our Government's Right to Education Bill and Dakar Summit's Education for All.

Stakeholder Myths and Rethinking Education

Past Sunday's edition of THE HINDU (Newspaper published from Chennai) carried two very down to earth and thought provoking articles: "The six myths about Engineering you should know" by Arun Karuppaswamy (in the OPEN PAGE column) and "RETHINKING EDUCATION When less is more" by Aruna Sankaranarayanan (in the MAGAZINE section). Both articles seemed exceptional to me.

Arun Karuppaswamy lists 6 myths in the minds of parents, about Engineering as an academic discipline, and explains as to how this can hamper career prospects of their children, in simple English. He makes a very clear and valid point about the importance of basic science. Other myths that today's parents have, are as follows:

1. If knowledge is imparted to children at an earlier age, they learn better ("My kids begin writing alphabets    in Lower Kindergarten itself").

2. Private schools are always better than Government schools.

3. Schools which collect donations and exorbitant fees are better than other schools.

4. After-school coaching classes will equip children to face Board Exams in a better way.

5. Computer aided teaching is always very effective.

6. Value Education is not as important as Maths and English in the school curriculum.

Aruna Sankaranarayanan explains as to how our K-12 schools are pressurizing children to learn too much and too fast. She gives a snapshot account of what is happening in most of our schools in cities such as Chennai. Today it is the norm than exception for parents to send children to coaching classes after school hours so that they can acquire `rank' in the Board Exams. Schools can sort many of the problems outlined in her article out if they counsel parents.

Functioning on myths is not confined to parents. Many school managements also seem to run their schools based on myths as listed below (My points of view are given in brackets):

1. Graduate teachers are not as efficient as Postgraduate teachers.
2. Teachers who are near perfect in maintaining records and lesson plans are better than others (Actual teaching can never be evident from any lesson plan or other similar documents).
3. Principals with MEd or PhD are better than principals with a BEd.
4. Principals with MA or MSc are better than principals with BA or BSc.
5. Principals need to spend all their time in administrative and mentoring activities without classroom teaching (I don't understand as to how a Principal can display teaching skills and act as a role model, if he/she does not teach).
6. Principals who are young and look physically tough are relatively effective.
7. Principals need to distance themselves from teachers always.
8. Principals who are innovative and research oriented may not be effective in the long run.
9. Principals who carry their homwork in datacards are not as efficient as principals who carry papers and files in their briefcases. 
10. Retired principals and teachers cannot be active at work. (I can recall an incident that happened last year:  A Chennai based group of schools had advertised for the post of Principal.  I applied for it, as usual, after visiting the school's website.  As there was a conceptual mistake even in the website's homepage, I mentioned it along with the correct way of presenting the concept, when I emailed my application.  Although I did fulfill their eligiblity requirments, I did not even receive an acknowledgement of my email from them.  I was 59 years old at the time of application.  The Chairman of that Group of Schools was much older than me).
11. Caucasian principals are more effective than others, in managing International Schools.
12. Computer assisted learning is more effective than activity based learning.
13. Coaching classes will enhance the popularity of the school.
14. Teaching English in the formal way right from KG will enhance communicational skills of children.
15. Good looking teachers are relatively effective. 

Textbook publishers should get away from the following myths:

1. Manuscripts written by experienced authors are always good.

2. Commissioning editor's selection of authors is always effective.

3. Glossy cover pages, color photographs and drawings make a book a better learning material.

4. Offering adds-on such as lesson plans can increase customer base irrespective of textbook quality and cost.

5. Number of pages in textbooks is more important than quality of content.

Although our syllabi and textbooks (Private as well as Government owned) in general, are not up to the mark in terms of quality, schools can make up for the deficiency by cutting down on quantity and concentrating on quality aspects within their own schools, at least up to the middle school level, so that children get a firm footing at the formative stage. But this requires effective school based curriculum development, teacher training and counseling to parents.

Public-private partnership in education

I read an article “Public-private partnership in education” by Prof. Jandhyala B G Tilak of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, in this morning's edition of "THE HINDU" (published from Chennai). The writer explains the new model and analyses the possible pros and cons of the Public private partnership in education as proposed in our Eleventh Five Year Plan. According to the proposal, 2500 schools are to be set up by 2014. Each school will have about 2500 pupils out of which 1000 should be admitted from deprived sections of the society. These pupils will be charged a token fee. This seems to be in line with the recently introduced Right to Education Act.  This is a welcome move in the right direction. 

As the writer says, there is also a shortfall in the proposal: Autonomy given to each of these schools in filling the remaining 1500 seats. As the government will not have a say in regulating this part of the admission process, schools may continue charging donations and unreasonably exorbitant fees, just because parents are willing to pay, irrespective of whether the schools impart quality education or not. 

We need to develop an effective system to monitor quality issues in schools, on the lines of  National Accreditation and Assessment Council. I think that the Schools Education wing of the Quality Council of India should be geared to handle issues in a more focussed manner than at present, as after all, the characteristics of quality in K-12 education is very different from what they are in manufacturing industries.

Role of language in children's magazines

I remember reading Aunty Wendy’s column `Young Folks’ League’ (in the Illustrated Weekly of India) and stories in the then very popular Tamil monthly `Kannan’, during my childhood days in the ‘60s. The contents were highly educative as they were written in very simple language.  Hence children enjoyed reading them to the core.   

Today, many newspapers publish supplements for children. One such is the ‘yOuNG WorLD’ published by THE HINDU on Tuesdays. Usually the supplement carries contents, which are of interest to children. But what I find odd is the language used. Sometimes it is ambiguous and/or grammatically incorrect.

Let me give two examples of excerpts from today’s supplement to show as to how the language can be simplified and made more readable by children:

1. The 1st page carries the following passage: Put away your books and get ready to have agood time. The holidays are here. It is necessary to take a vacation because your body, mind and soul need time to rejuvenate. Some people like to travel to foreign  lands, while others enjoy visiting places close by that are familiar and easy to get to. There are yet others who just want to chill at home with their favourite books and music. Whatever, be your style, just sit back and have a great holiday.

2. Page 10 carries an advertisement by http://www.heymath.com/. Its brainteaser column lists the following question: In a nuts and bolts factory, machine A produces nuts at the rate of 100 nuts per minute and needs to be cleaned each time for 5 minutes after producing 1000 nuts. Machine B produces bolts at the rate of 75 bolts per minute and needs to be cleaned each time for 10 minutes after producing 1500 bolts. If both the machines start production at the same time, then what is the minimum duration required for producing 9000 pairs of nuts and bolts?

The passages can be simplified and made more child-friendly as follows:

Put your books away and get ready to have a good time. The holidays are here. It is necessary to take a vacation because your body, mind and soul need time to refresh. Some people like to travel abroad, while others enjoy visiting places, which are nearby, familiar and easy to reach. There are yet others who just want to chill at home with their favourite books and music. Whatever be your style, just sit back and have a great holiday.

In a nuts and bolts factory, machine A produces 100 nuts per minute. It needs to be cleaned each time for 5 minutes after producing 1000 nuts. Machine B produces 75 bolts per minute and needs to be cleaned each time for 10 minutes after producing 1500 bolts. If both machines are switched on at the same time, how much time will they take for producing 9000 pairs of nuts and bolts?

I think that simple, grammatically correct and appropriately punctuated language is of paramount importance when it comes to publishing any material for children.

Cost Effective Educational Technology For Wider Outreach

On 18 April, there was an interesting report on how Microsoft India and a Bangalore based firm Education Innovative Concepts have come up with trend setting technological breakthroughs by developing their `Windows Multipoint Server (WMS)' and `NextPC', respectively, toward a common goal:  To take the benefits of Computer Aided Curriculm to more number of children at about 50% of the cost that is being invested by school managements presently.

Such developments have a great potential in reaching children in rural areas as well and let them participate actively in the learning process.  Perhaps this will pave way for more community participation in school processes, which has always been a worrying issue to school managements, NGOs, and other education providers.

However, it is important that technology aided classroom strategies do not replace replace activity based approaches unless they are not advisable or not practically possible in any given classroom situation.

Links: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/multipoint/default.aspx and http://www.ieconcepts.in/NxtPC.aspx    

Ethics in academic advertising

A few days back, I was taken aback to find my profile in http://www.linkua.com/panamalai-r-guruprasad-tutoring_11421C.htm when I was academic-browsing. The web developers have illegally used my name and profile to advertise online tutoring of English, without my knowledge. In my 34 years of professional experience, I have never liked to offer private tutoring, coaching classes, online classes etc. As the website doesn't display any email address, I have asked the web-developers to delete my name and profile using the `Contact us' option in the website. I wish such website developers function with basic manners and ethics at least hereafter.

Quality Accreditation in Schools

I happened to read a newspaper report “Quality Council of India introduces accreditation standard for schools” in THE HINDU dated 22 December 2009.  I gather that one school in Chennai has gained accreditation of the QCI and many others schools would follow.

It is good that some agency has come forward to monitor and evaluate quality standards in our schools.  But then, how effective is this going to be?  Is it just one more fancy idea that is going to catch up with increasing number of schools in an increasingly market oriented consumer society?  Are we talking about quality without adequately analysing the many issues involved in school education?

Although there have been many education commissions which have given guidelines to improve quality of education imparted in our schools here in India, nothing significant seems to have taken place in this direction.

I think that the most important ingradient of any quality oriented school system is an appropriate curriculum, which is by and large reflected in teaching resources used in classrooms.  These resources are developed by textbook publishers and multimedia companies, based on recommendations and draft syllabi that come from syllabus boards. I don’t think that the status quo will really improve unless radical changes are brought in at syllabus development and textbook (and digital media) production levels even though schools may be interested to join the quality bandwagon just because it is a new concept.  Most schools in India function on illusory concepts of what quality in education really means.  However there a few Government schools and NGO run schools that seem to function very effectively without any `elitist' aspirations. I had the pleasure of working in PREPARE (Green Valley Schools), an NGO that works from Chennai, with quailty objectives.  Although exceptionally effective systems do function, these are just a drop in the ocean.

[Just before writing this post, I tried to read the school quality standards as identified by the QCI by accessing http://www.qcin.org/, their official website. But to my disappointment, I could not get to the details of their “National Accreditation Board for Education and Training” in spite of using a clicking option provided in their homepage. I experienced same result when I tried to click their “Feedback” option at the right hand top corner of the website. I tried to access other websites, to confirm whether my computer system and Internet connection were okay and confirmed that they were okay. It took nearly 10 minutes to navigate to other pages of the QCI website before accessing the NABET].

http://teachers.net/gazette/APR09/guruprasad/

When can a Curriculum tick?

What do we need to implement quality curriculum in a given school situation? This article attempts to answer the question to some extent. 

As a mentor, I used to present math lesson problems as follows to teachers and ask them to let me know the method which  they would use to solve them:

1. Two pens cost Rs 27 each and two pencils, Rs 13 each. How will you find the total cost?
2. There are 38 oranges in one basket and 42 in the other. How will you find the difference?

Most often, participants' response would be as follows:

1. I will add Rs 27 and Rs 13 and get Rs 40 by using the conventional method (using place value)
2. I will subtract 38 from 42 and get 4.

Very rarely would teachers come up with `of the box' responses as follows:

1. I will add Rs 20 and Rs 10 which leads to Rs 30. Then I will add Rs 7 and Rs 3 which leads to Rs 10. Therefore the total  is Rs 30 + Rs 10 = Rs 40.
2. I would keep removing one orange from each basket simultaneously. This will eventually lead to one basket empty and the other,  with 4 oranges. Therefore the difference is 4 oranges.

Sometimes, when we take any cylindrical or cuboidal pill or capsule, it gets stuck at the throat. What I do in such situations is to keep the pill or capsule on my tongue in such a way that its longer axis is parallel to tongue's axis. When we drink water or  any other appropriate liquid by keeping the material in this position, chances of its blocking the throat or food pipe is largely reduced.

I think our K-12 curriculum fails to teach such scientific methods of doing things.

In India, we have witnessed phenomenal changes in school education in the past 40 years. Syllabus boards raised the number of lesson concepts to be taught at each class level. Textbook publishers followed suit, as this was an opportunity to increase the number of pages in their textbooks. Authors welcomed the move as this paved way for more income.

One of the first steps to achieve quality curriculum would be to reduce quantity. Our textbooks should be written in such a manner that will help children integrate lesson concepts, wherever applicable, in their day-to-day experiences.  In 1956, in the United States, physicists from the MIT and high school physics teachers teamed in to develop Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) Physics Curriculum, one of the best curriculums ever developed in the history of physics education, for use at the Grades 9-12 level. The first PSSC PHYSICS Textbook came out in 1960 followed by several editions including those published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training in New Delhi. Films, teachers’ guides and paperback support materials accompanied the textbook. In the ‘60s, science teachers in our government schools were also trained to use the PSSC Curriculum in Summer Science Workshops. In an interview published in the Chennai based newspaper "THE HINDU" dated 26 November 2009, Nobel Laureate Dr Ramakrishnan mentioned that he studied PSSC Physics Curriculum material during his Pre-science Course.

I had the pleasure of using PSSC Physics Textbook as a reference material during my student days and teaching it later, in different countries. This was one of the best textbooks to have used very simple and cost effective laboratory equipment (which could be designed by teachers themselves) to teach concepts such as refraction of light. I remember how my Grade 12 students enjoyed learning “Alpha Particle Scattering” when I used a model from the textbook, in a remote village in Ethiopia in 1982. The textbook contained excellent multiflash photographs like the one below, to explain difficult concepts such as wave motion.

The lesson concepts in the textbook gave due consideration to students’ day-to-day experiences. Our textbooks should be written in such a manner that will help children integrate lesson concepts, wherever applicable, in their day-to-day experiences.  Instead of copying illustrations and examples blindly, our textbook authors shoud do extensive research into best classroom practices, analyze them, apply in theiro own classrooms and then write textbooks.  In other words, textbook writers should have had excellent experience as teachers themselves before writing textbooks as indicated in my letter to the editor of a local newspaper.   

A few decades back, when technology crept into the school system, a math teaching software package known as LOGO was introduced in North American Schools. This package didn’t last long because it overlooked basic principles of child psychology. While children enjoyed using the mouse to learn math on a virtual screen, it was never like how they enjoyed doing `real' math using `real' paper and pencil. But still our schools continued to use the package. I think that computer assisted classroom processes should support activity based ones instead of replacing them.

If we aim for effective curriculum, we should invite all practising teachers to express problems and recommend changes based on their classroom experience. The process should include several workshops in which relevant activities are carried out by teachers as well as pupils.

When developing any effective syllabus, important dimensions such as available resources, contextually relevant education research evidences and best practices should be considered. In terms of priority, educational resources and child friendliness should top the list of essential requirements. Once the revised syllabus is approved, it should be circulated to all schools for implementation. The syllabus should then be finetuned according to the outcomes and then finalized. Textbooks and other teaching learning materials should be produced accordingly. This should be followed by stringent quality assurance methods to monitor the quality of textbooks and other teaching learning materials including digital ones. Such a curriculum can tick.

Reference:

1. http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/pssc/
2. ‘I absolutely believe that scientists should be paid more than they are currently’, an interview published in THE HINDU dated 26 November 2009, p15cf.