Reflections from examination hall
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This is second note on my reflections form examination hall. The first one in Gujarati can be found here ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I witness a yet another exam. Two questions out of 4, 20 marks, 30 minutes...! Our education culture ensures 100% presence during exams and does not encourage similar attendance during classroom or other similar learning sessions. I wonder why that is so!
Exams happen because learning has happened. Learning is an end; exams just a mean to assess the magnitude of the end i.e. learning. Students are asked to write exams so that learning could be assessed, remedial actions be worked out, and learning could be reinforced. The original concept was learning-driven, and not-evaluation-driven. The idea of exam was only meant for assessment of learning. Currently, this is lost. The current system seem to have reversed its very objective. The current exam-centric system inadvertently discourage learning.
The current system is set keeping exam at the center, contrary to the learning being at the focus. Courses are set and curriculum are made keeping exam in consideration. Curriculum are completed so that exam can be conducted. Moreover, once the exams are conducted, there is no way to feed the findings back into the learning efforts. Students are only informed their marks. They are not informed about their deficiencies, strengths, or areas of improvement. In current system, learning is a by-product generated in the quest of marks in exam.
This exam-centered approach also create power imbalance. Exams make teachers powerful and students powerless. This is reverse of what it should be. A student is not asked what he/she needs to or wants to learn; he/she is told what to learn[1]. Students do not decide curriculum, they have no say in pedagogy or in the examination settings. Student do not have a say in what to learn, how to learn, and how he/she will be assessed. This needs to be changed. This very system needs to be questioned, discussed and deliberated.
Industry-driven institutions need to be changed. Industry-driven institutes will not develop courses and curriculum that promotes experiments, creativity and freedom. They will never put students at the center of learning. Education needs to be freed from employment. Education-for-employment model of courses and institution is suffocating us. Employment-because of-education will free us. This needs to be emphasized.
Teachers need to ask students what they want to learn, and must not tell them so. Students need to be encouraged to think, reflect, experience, experiment, and explore, and then to allowed to ask teachers the whys, whats, and hows of learning. That would bring power-equality in education. That would free both students and teachers from their enforced roles, and ultimately will bring joy in relationships in teacher-student relationships and at institutions.
[1] As a response to my invitation, ‘what do you want to learn today? I receive stunning silence most of the time in my class. I feel surprise at this. Why, even for a change, student cannot take chance and decide what they want to learn, I wonder!
Wonderfully put in words Sir. What you said is seedhi sachchi baat, but this simplicity of wisdom is so much lacking in our systems today.
ReplyDeleteThis answer also came from taking a pause & trying to see exams, education & employment in the larger picture. Taking time to pause & ponder is something that we have forgotten to do in the rat race of getting "there". It's then that we act mechanistically, both teachers & students. And machine cannot think like humans. Let's become more humans who reflect on things, big & small.
True, Manas! I take time to pause and ponder as a teacher. Even if I cannot change the system, I can start few of us thinking about change. Keep doing your bit!!
DeleteRight in the feels!
ReplyDeletevery true sir, now the education institutions have become so much like industry they try making their profits only with the money given by students , and its much more in medical field ,I totally agree on it.
ReplyDeleteand I would like to tell something on the question you had asked that " what do you want to learn today?"you are asking it in the class and class don't give any response ,
that is also due to the education system only that they have not given freedom to students to even choose what they wanted to learn in the class room , thats why students had also never thought on it.
Lovely feedback, Purvi. Take charge. Break the mould. Let the change begin from you. I do my bit you do yours!!
DeleteTruely said Sir. But i think our education system will take a lot of time to the make changes that are needed to be done.
ReplyDeleteSir few lines on your Reflections...!!
ReplyDeleteकुछ पन्ने इतिहास के,
मेरे मुल्क के सीने में शमशीर हो गए…!
जो लड़े, जो मरे वो तो शहीद हो गए…!
और जो डरे, जो झुके वो वज़ीर हो गए !!