Interaction With Teachers, Srinagar

Evolution of Enlightened Citizens: Role of Teachers

I am indeed delighted to meet my fellow teachers from Jammu & Kashmir. My greetings to all of you. I would like to share with you some of my experiences.

Education with Value System

The best part for a person is his or her learning period in childhood is at School. The prime learning period is 6th to 17th year of age. Hence, the school hours for children are the best time for learning, and need the best environment and mission oriented learning with value based educational system. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "Give me a child for seven years, afterwards, let the God or devil take the child, they cannot change the child." That is indeed the power of the teacher. For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. During this period of education, it is essential to have a one hour class every week to discuss about good human beings, present and past, and what makes a good human being. I would like to recall my student days in St.Josephs Collage, Trichy. We used to have a moral science class taught by Rev Father Rector. He was the highest in the hierarchy of the Jesuit teaching system. He used to teach us for one hour every week about great spiritual leaders, religious leaders and good human beings in the society. I am convinced that what I learnt in that class of moral science stands by me even today. Reintroducing such courses in our education system will ?Elevate the young minds?. As an example, this class can discuss the personalities from Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and other great Human beings such as Kalifa Omar, Buddha, Confucius, St. Augustine, Mahatma Gandhi, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and moral stories linked to our civilizational heritage.

Between the age 5 to 17, the children spend about 25000 hours in the school. This is a prime time where the children will be shaped and developed for a better future. In this young age apart from learning lessons, the character system and value system that they learn from their teachers from the surroundings also play a critical role. It is essential that the schools should have teachers who are themselves enlightened and are committed to teaching. This will result in the evolution of enlightened citizens of the future.

Education models

I would like to discuss a few models of education which I have come across in the country, that can promote creativity among children, reduce the dropout percentage by creating sustained interest in learning. I would also like to tell you how a tele-education programme using latest Information and Communication Technologies can be made complementary to the present education system and can be used to enable good teaching and have a wider reach in remote areas.

M.R. Raju model ? minimizing school dropout

Prof. M.R. Raju lives in his native village Peddamiram close to Bheemavaram, Andhra Pradesh. The life of Prof. Raju is indeed a great example, how a famous nuclear scientist working in Los Alamos Laboratory, USA left his job and came to his village and decided to transform Peddamiram and its surroundings, with the support of his family members. With his assets he started the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical Trust in that village. In a decade, he and his team supported by volunteers from various institutions from India and abroad, have brought great change to the people in the village. Particularly he targeted character building and upliftment of the children in the age group of 3 to 5 years. The village has 100 children in this age group, out of this 50 belong to the high income group who study in private schools. 30 are very poor and they study in Balawadi School run by the State Government. The other 20 join the school being run by Prof. M R Raju. In this school the parents have to pay a fee of half a days wages per child/per month. For girl students they have to pay Rs.10/- per month. The emphasis in this school is on, playful environment, nutritional support and caring love. This experiment is being repeated in many other schools.

The parents are periodically invited to the school and given training on the need for providing nutrition to the children through proteins, leafy vegetables and eggs. The children are given training on cleanliness and hygiene. For example they are taught about importance of washing hands before eating. With this training they become teachers at home for hygienic practice and they will not allow any of their members to take food without washing hands. When the teachers interact with the children they always talk to them as a scientist. This technique is promoting creativity among the children. When a child is shown the letter ?B? and asked what he understood by this letter, the child says it is looking like a spectacle. Similarly when a sketch is started with some features such as eyes or lips the children are able to draw a full picture. This shows the creative ability of the students. These students once trained in Prof Raju?s school for three years learn to enjoy studies and they do not become dropouts later. This has totally transformed the village atmosphere and the dropout rate of the children in schools has come down substantially. A confident young population is emerging in the village and the surroundings. This method of training has been researched by child psychologists and educational theorists which is being practiced by Prof Raju and his team during the last 10 years. This approach makes the child a willing learner before entering the school and makes him to participate in the school learning process when he joins the regular school.

Azim Premji Model ? Computer Aided Accelerated Learning

The Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with State Governments and multilateral agencies has started a child friendly school initiative in Karnataka. Recently I visited one of the schools - a Government Secondary School at Nagasandra village near Bangalore, which has been sponsored under this accelerated learning programme. The principal aim of this programme is to ensure that all children come to school, learn during school time and complete five years of schooling. Dropouts are identified and brought to the school. I saw that the Scheme was effective because of the commitment of the teachers, village elders and the members of the school committee and the success rate of the programme is high because there is a committed Head teacher. The programme encompasses a series of interventions that strengthens practices in the classroom and provides support to educational administration and community empowerment to manage the educational process. The initiative includes setting standards regarding facilities like classrooms, water, sanitation and services like safety, physical and psycho-social health.

The focus was on gender sensitive curricula and materials for literacy, numeric ability, knowledge, attitudes, skills for life and learning processes. The initiative also addresses the issue of effective home school relations and quality assessment methods. The programme is either output driven or input driven based on the region of experimentation and goes beyond cognizant learning and memory test. It emphasizes on intellectual, technical, physical, creative and spiritual learning. This holistic phenomenon of learning once ingrained in the primary stage where there is a happy learning process and a non-threatening evaluation, has led to voluntary learning by the participants.

A Tele-Education model for long reach

I would like to narrate another learning model through the tele-education mode piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President?s Virtual Institute for Knowledge), which we have established recently for establishing knowledge connectivity through the VSATs installed by ISRO. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provides seamless one to many connectivity through multicasting mode in a collaborative environment as well as two-way connectivity is established. In this platform, I can give a presentation and address the remote locations, where the multimedia delivery is possible and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any informational website from Internet to all the remote locations and can also delegate the remote expert to give a lecture to all those who are connected. We have also established the Digital Library and digitized around 2 million pages. I can search for a particular page and push the page to all the participants through this tele-education. It is an integrated solution provided and makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all and interact with them in a seamless and cost effective manner to multiple of locations. This model may give solution to augment the education system.

"What can I do for you"

Every one of us has gone through the various phases of education from the childhood to profession. A scene appears in front of me. It is, a child, a teenager, an adult and a leader. How each one reacts to one situation? The situation is human need. The child asks, ?what can you do for me?? The teenager says, ?I want to do it alone?. The young person proclaims, ?let us do it together?. The leader offers, ?what can I do for you?. So, the teachers have got a tremendous responsibility to transform a child into a leader ? the transformation of ?what can you do for me? to ?what I can do for you?. That will demand a teacher to be a visionary with an inspiring capability to give the leadership.

Learning about a noble leader

In 1947, at the dawn of freedom, we had the best of leaders in science education, in technology, in history, in politics and in industry. On 15th August 1947, my high school teacher Rev. Iyyadorai Solomon took his class students including me to hear the mid-night freedom speech of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. We were all thrilled when Panditji spoke that the mission was accomplished. On the next day that is on 16th August 1947 I had a great experience. An experience of best of education I can think of. In the Tamil newspaper, on the front page, two news items appeared. One item was India achieving freedom and Panditji's speech. The other news item and the most important one, which has been embedded in my memory, is about Mahatma Gandhiji walking barefoot in Naokali, removing the pain of riot affected families. Normally as Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi has to be the first to unfurl the national flag on August 15, 1947 in Red Fort. But he was not there at the Red Fort, instead he was at Naokali. Mahatma Gandhi was an embodiment of nobility, elevated thinking and concern for human beings. What an everlasting positive impact in the mind of a schoolboy!

Prof Satish Dhawan as a Teacher

I would like to share with you another phase of my experience with a teacher Prof. Satish Dhawan. I joined Defence Research and Development organisation in 1958. First I worked in Delhi with the Ministry of Defence. Later I moved to Aeronautical Development Establishment at Bangalore. There with the advice of the Director, I took up the development of Hovercraft. Hovercraft design needed the development of contra rotating propeller for creating a smooth flow. I did not know how to design a contra rotating propeller though I knew how to design a conventional propeller. Some of my friends told me that I can approach Prof. Satish Dhawan of Indian Institute of Science for help in designing the ducted contra rotating propeller, who was well known for his aeronautical research. I took permission from my Director Dr. Mendiratta and went to Prof. Satish Dhawan who was sitting in a small room in IISc with a background of lot of books and a blackboard on the wall. Professor Satish Dhawan asked me what is the problem you would like to discuss? I explained the problem to Prof. Dhawan about my project work. He told me that it is really a challenging task and he would teach me the design if I attend his classes in IISc between 2.00 p.m. to 3.00 p.m. on all Saturdays for the next 10 weeks. He was a systematic teacher. He prepared the schedule for the entire course and wrote it on the board. He also gave me the reference material and books I should read before I start attending the course. I considered this as a great opportunity and I started attending the classes. Before commencing each class, he would ask critical questions and assess my understanding of the subject. That was for the first time I realized how a good teacher prepares himself for teaching with meticulous planning and prepares the student for acquisition of knowledge. This process continued for the next 10 weeks. I could get the integrated concept of design of the contra rotating propeller with this foundation. Prof. Dhawan asked me to design the contra rotating propeller for a given hovercraft configuration. That was the time I realized that Prof. Satish Dhawan was not only a teacher but also a fantastic development engineer of aeronautical systems. After completing the design, Prof. Dhawan reviewed our design. Then we went for fabrication of the ducted contra rotating propeller using Andaman Padacuk. This material was not readily available in the market. Prof. Dhawan talked to the Chairman, HAL and helped me to get the material from them. After getting the material, I proceeded with ADE fabrication team using multilayer sandwich construction and assembly. Once it was assembled, I went to the test bed and started testing. I started facing some teething problems, particularly the clearance between the duct and propeller tip at the maximum velocity point. Whenever required, Prof. Dhawan was with me to witness the test and find solutions to initial problems. After reaching the smooth test phase, contra rotating propeller went through 50 hours of continuous testing. Prof. Satish witnessed the test himself and congratulated me. That was a great day for me when I saw the contra rotating propeller designed by us performing to the mission requirements. This was the first design in my career which gave me the confidence to design many complex aerospace systems in future. The hovercraft could fly smoothly at a height of 100cms from ground level carrying two passengers. I was the first pilot for this hovercraft and I taught all the features of the hovercraft to my Director. (This partially fulfilled my earlier ambition of becoming a pilot of a flight vehicle). Through this project I not only learnt the techniques of designing the contra rotating propeller but also learnt how to beat the problems and make the system work in spite of many failures which occur during the development stage.

Conclusion

What kind of leadership will be required to develop the schools we need for the 21st century? Educators today must exercise moral leadership if our schools and educational institutions are to meet the challenge of the 21st century. They must develop a new vision for schools and schooling, a vision of an educational environment in which students can grow more autonomous through very act and process of learning. We cannot lecture students into autonomy. Autonomy must be developed and acquired through a process of action, in the case of schools, the art of learning.

Such an education to the students through the teachers will provide the nation, committed leaders who will transform India into a prosperous, peaceful, secure and happy nation.

I wish you all success in your mission.