Pushing too much on children makes them unable to learn...the
backlog is always there and they are always lagging. This makes them lose
confidence and they are unable to learn even the easy bits. If only the powers that be would place emphasis on
quality and not on quantity, it would make a huge difference. If only they
would ensure that however little is taught, it is taught well
and learnt well, education would be a success story.
I
used to go to a hostel for tribal children run by our organisation. There was
one boy in the 6th class who had a beautiful maths notebook-- all problems
solved, very neatly written with good remarks from the teacher. These were
problems on addition / subtraction of fractions. During the course of my
conversation, he admitted he could not subtract a two digit numbers from
another. Then how did he do the problems in his book? He said he copied them
from his friend.
I
said I would teach him. I went to the blackboard and started. Now all his
friends came up and wanted to join in. So I made many columns on the board and
gave numbers at random. They all noisily solved them, and in the process taught
this boy how to subtract. He
learnt it within that one hour I spent there.
At
an appropriate age, different for different children, they learn very easily.
Earlier on, it's a terrible task, and they never learn. I noticed this with my
two children and the ill effects of this forced teaching is still felt by
one of them even after 23 years .
The
Montessori system addresses this by keeping together children of different ages
– say 4-6 or so and letting them learn at their own pace.
But all
this requires committed teachers who understand how to judge learning outcomes.
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