This is in continuty of my previous blog Why kids are killing themselve, who is responsible
One of my British friends read my blog “Why kids are killing themselves” and told me that even in UK number suicide cases among teens have increased and given me a link to read.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3399528.ece
As in my previous blog I was discussing about my observations on kids behavior, not going to far my own 5 & 2.5 year old sons know name of as many animals that I was not knowing most of them when I was doing my secondary schooling. May be level of education has grown and our kids now are much smarter. I gave few more thoughts over it and figured out; they know more animals as they see them on television, they have got many colored and attractive pictures of them, while at my time these sources were not there I learned about animals mostly by actually seeing them around. We may all agree that electronics media has become major source of learning for our kids, which should not be a problem as finally our kids are learning faster than us.
But when I explored more and observed few grown up kids in surrounding I found kids knowing name of many animals but when you talk about behavior of animals their knowledge is much lesser as they hardly get opportunity to observe and experience it.
I might be confusing you here. Take simple example of things taught to Pre-primary student A,B,C,D,E,F,G very good, child is bright quickly learn that like a poem. Then what we start teaching him P for Postbox, I for Inkpot, N for Nib, W for Well, child find it difficult to learn as he has not seen any of this thing anywhere around, when he asks we either show him a picture or do a favor on him give him a nice definition. When no option is left for child, he memories it and his first step of memorizing theory start, which continues in all over his education. If we really realize will find how confident our kid is when he says D for Dog or C-Cat but how confused he is about telling I for Inkpot.
Nobody has Inkpot at home, nobody uses Nib pen now, nobody goes to fetch water from a Well then why we are teaching history to Preprimary school child, why don’t we teach him M for mobile phone, T for TV, V for Videogame?
One day I was attending a session on robotic a new concept of education in India, they say our kids are very smart now they are very good in using electronics devices, which are nothing but kind of robot for us. We should start giving him education about robot functioning from very early age. But my opinion here is different our kids who are using high end technology and accessories don’t try to explore simple mechanical thing, which could give them experience about basic physics and environment. At my time we had very less options of toys and resources to play with, which used to give us opportunity to create something for ourselves so that we can play with it. Whenever we had few peace of papers we made airplane, boat and various other things, it may be a very normal thing but here we got the learning of inventing something using basic sense of physics and mechanics. I still remember I had a small toy boat which had a small lamp.
If we fill the lamp with little oil and lit a fire on it, water stored in upper compartment of boat used to start boiling and steam used to out from rear pipes of the boat and boat used to float in the water with the pressure of releasing steam from it. It was very good example of steam and pressure. Even there are n numbers of example I have when we used toys made on mechanical concept but kids now are living in the age of battery operated toys which has small electronic circuit inside that it is just impossible for a normal human to under its logic of functioning.
So what I find problem here is the basic concept is getting weak as kids are learning more of the theory and fiction. As I earlier mentioned it’s not only the education system bit it’s the surrounding also. What I believe you get very few percentage of your total knowledge from your school and education but maximum learning happens from surrounding and the learning which happens from surrounding is very strong and make us confident. A simple example is that what would be the difference in learning if you read few books on village culture, look at few pictures and video of them or you actually go in village stay there few weeks. Or just think of first language you learnt without getting instructed and going to school but from your surrounding, see how comfirtable you are with that.
As our kids are spending most of their time with electronics and find it much more entertaining than spending time with nature/surrounding/friends/society, the image about world created in their brain is actually very different from ground realities.
I will continue to write - keep reading and give me your suggetions. I am not very good in using impressive words in writing - but I assume you will be able to understand, what I am trying to mention here
