EDUCATION – A NON ZERO SUM GAME
It’s time to go back to school again,
Have some fun, with young friends,
Play ‘n’ learn, Play ‘n’ Learn,
It’s not boring to Play ‘n’ Learn
Play ‘n’ Learn, just have some fun…
…….cause’….
Our education system is in Emergency,
But if we see knowledge as the new currency,
All the kids in the class getting tired and bored,
Let’s come and fill the lives with rays of hope!
Every year we witness the same old story.
Some students do their best, and it’s their days of glory.
But many fail and fall into a slippery slope.
Shunning budding dreams, as if there’s no scope?
With focus on children and their urgent needs,
The nation can support in both words and deeds.
Classroom as a platform to unleash creativity,
For all the superstars, it’s an opportunity!
Why not cover syllabus in prime-time TV ?
And make daily learning way more fun & easy!
Let the teachers be this season’s new celebrities,
From fear and boredom; students need to be freed!
Textbook poems can be sung like it’s an open mike,
The kids would love to learn and in no time memorize.
Science learnt by experiment and watching animations.
Simulating engineering as if in a play station!
News channels! The student nation wants to know,
How statistics play a role in elections and polls!
Why not all get together; better make sure?
That children learn how to earn, making future’s secure?
Kids in uniform from all nearby schools,
Learning history in the theaters, and the show’s house full!
Make them realize how really lucky they are,
There is far more mindful peace & lot less mindless war!
But how can we ever dare to think too far?
When kids are pitched against each other, right at the start?
When classrooms create less of joy, dishes out more scars,
Petty competitions, damn this is getting bizarre!
Education should be a non-zero-sum game,
All the players in the game shall collectively gain!
Locked in a classroom it cannot sustain.
It’s time to run massive education campaigns.
Let farmers come in with their plants and plows,
Teach us how to make those green vegetables grow?
Do you know the journey of the items in the grocery store?
Farmers play a central role for a better tomorrow.
Study clinics shall be run by educated ones for free,
Where students can come and clear their doubts at ease!
With focus on children and their learning needs,
Merging science, commerce, arts and make the system complete!
With daily dosage of much needed motivation,
And formulas announced in every railway stations,
Let us convert this fear of examination,
Into a worldwide knowledge celebration!!
Educators thinking they are very smart and elite,
But damn! They are losers in attention economy,
Unless we learn to be creative and funny,
Intelligent but boring, it’s such a pity!
Hence THIS looks like a job for me,
So NCERT, just follow me,
We need a little play & learn for science, you see,
A non-zero sum game is what we need!
Hence THIS looks like a job for me,
So CBSE, just follow me,
Competition kills the drive to learn in many, you see,
A non-zero sum game is what we need!
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Inspired by:
‘Vidhya Mahima’ Sanskrit poems:
न चोरहार्यं न च राजहार्यंन भ्रातृभाज्यं न च भारकारी ।
व्यये कृते वर्धते एव नित्यं विद्याधनं सर्वधन प्रधानम् ॥
Cant be stolen by a thief, cant be snatched by kings, Cant be partitioned by brothers, Nor is it heavy. The more you expend, the more it grows; The wealth of knowledge is the supreme of all wealths.
अपूर्वः कोअपि कोषोंयम विद्यते तव भारति
व्ययतो वृद्धि मायाति क्षयमायाती संचयात्
Wonderful is this wealth of knowledge, the more you share the more it grows, and on segregation it diminishes…
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More links to dive upon…
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/04/treating_education_as_a_zero-sum_game.html
http://ebhle.org/ebhle/ ( Pl download Vision.ppt)
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Please share your ideas and views on the comment:
What should be at the core of the curriculum assessment and implementation: competition or co-operation ?
Why do different fields of subjects get alienated from one another as we progress towards ‘specialization’?
Can there be synergism in the merger of different subjects, (especially between disciplines of arts and science)?
Bearing in mind that all of the varied subjects were developed by human beings only, can we integrate the different streams and make education system both enjoyable and enlightening ?
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Certainly, cooperation and not competition is the best way to learn. Learning takes place when pursued leisurely at ones own pace, sans all constraints of examinations. Some of my suggestion for change in curriculum :
1. Inculcating habit of reading books has been on decline in information age. Curriculum can have a component of book review where a student is to be given freedom to review a book of her choice after reading it. It does away with prescribed syllabus and for a while allows student to explore and realise his interests.
2. Continuous internal evaluation instead of grand exam after one full year. It is being tried in most schools now.
3. Lot of activity based learning instead of same set of home work problems for all. Success of this depends a lot on teacher training.
Thanks Somanand for sharing your views and suggestions. All the three seems easy to implement yet effective in bringing about the much needed changes.
1. True that book reading is taking a backseat, and leaving it on students to select their book of choice would certainly help in their self-exploration, so going to give a book review sharing in the next session…
2. By continuous internal evaluation, do you mean to say by school community itself or by student themselves ?
3. The current school curriculum does have lots of activities prescribed as a part of the syllabus, yet generally none of them are being carried out by the teachers…so yeah teacher training plays a pivotal role in the success of these measures…