Saturday, March 1, 2008

Welcome

Welcome!

This blog is a place for discussing practical approaches to make quality education -- defined as something that teaches for understanding -- available to students of different levels smartness and affordable to families belonging to different socio-economic backgrounds.

The six posts (excluding this one) of this blog identify and analyse the problem in detail and build and discuss the solution. The oldest post - Introduction - is the starting point. If you are pressed for time please go to the Summary directly.

You can help!

You can help by exploring the posts and posting your comments. You can help by asking questions or suggesting changes. You can help by spreading the word. Please do.

Thanks much for visiting.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Q&A

















  1. There has been a lot of research done to find how students learn, and several theories on learning have been proposed. Some of them, like the Constructivist theory and the theory of Multiple Intelligences, stood the test of time and are being widely followed. Based on their own experience and based on their knowledge of theories like this, many educators now know and believe that approaches like making students practice hands-on, asking them thought-provoking questions, making them work on tough problems, encouraging them to study in groups enhance their understanding of the subject. There are many great teachers in Indian subcontinent who, with the limited resources they have access to, have already been following such approaches.

    So, the answer is no: there is nothing new about this solution in the sense that it neither introduces new learning theories nor new methodologies of teaching. However, based an unbiased analysis of the problem in Indian context, this solution proposes a two-step approach to make quality education - something that teaches for understanding - available and affordable to a large audience: Here are those two steps: 1. Bring a cultural change in the way people look at education: create a culture around teaching and learning for understanding. 2. Commoditise education: make the business of education competitive by creating opportunities for education entrepreneurs.

  1. The simple answer is no. This solution begins with a clear understanding of smartness. It understands that each student is smart in multiple ways and IQ is not necessarily a true measure of a student’s smartness. That understanding is the core of everything that this solution does, let it be designing lesson plans or teaching and learning aides. Thus, the teaching approach of this solution caters to the needs of those students also who are not considered smart in traditional sense.

    However, one must realise that it is physically not possible to ‘make’ all students equally smart; we can only make teaching cater to various levels of smartness. In other words, it is possible to reduce the disparities in students’ levels of understanding but not to totally remove them. The good thing is reducing those disparities itself opens the doors to a world of opportunities to students with average smartness.

  1. Strong understanding of the fundamentals is an absolute must. If a student shifts to this paradigm without such understanding he will have some groundwork to do before he can feel comfortable in a class that teaches for understanding. Once he strengthens his understanding of the fundamentals he can catch up with the rest of the class. However, he will have to work harder to fill any knowledge gaps as they are exposed.

    The take-away from this is that the minimum knowledge requirements of a particular class must be clearly specified and the students should be required to clear those requirements to get admission to the class. Also, the solution should make the learning-aides available to the aspiring students to clear such requirements.

  1. Learning is a life-long process. When a person revisits a concept he had learned a few years back he understands it at a completely different level as a result of the experience he had gained with that concept in that period. However, his experience feeds to his knowledge only if he had learned ‘how to learn’ when he was a student. And, that is exactly the goal of this solution: teach a student how to learn. Being inquisitive, trying to understand the connections of the concept to the real world, relating personal experiences to the concept - it is easy to make practices like this part of a student’s learning style when he is young but very difficult when he enters college and finds himself facing fierce competition to get into a professional college or land in a career.

    So, the main focus of the solution will be on elementary education initially and will eventually expand to higher education.

  1. Nothing, actually. However, he might enjoy a different line of job altogether if he has a strong conceptual knowledge; he might like more challenges and enjoy working on projects that affect the environment and human lives. The learning style he had developed as a kid is what controls how he reacts to his job. If he finds comfort in his job it means that there is no conflict between his learning style and the demands of his job.

  1. As discussed earlier, it is physically not possible to remove the disparities in students’ levels of understanding; they can only be reduced. Such disparities eventually produce candidates eligible for different types of jobs. They also contribute to different learning styles, which essentially control how the candidates react to their job duties. So, this solution will not result in a scarcity of people fit for jobs that require only skills. Moreover, it makes a different set of candidates - candidates who are not smart in the traditional sense - eligible for such jobs, thus benefiting students of all levels of smartness.

  1. If a person is strong in conceptual knowledge but lacks the skills required to do a job efficiently and effectively he won’t be as good as a person who has less knowledge but strong skills, in that job. It might be true that he is in a wrong job; if that is the case his learning style will eventually force him out of it. However, he cannot be really productive even at the job he likes if he lacks skills.

    A student needs not just concepts or skills; he needs concept-based skills. Practicing lot of simple problems is the way to gain skills and practicing substantial number of tough problems is the way to gain concept-based skills. A person with ‘concept-based skills’ will be able to perform as good as or better than a person with strong skills, maybe after spending some extra effort to hone his skills, in a job that requires only skills.

  1. Right now, based on conservative estimates, there are about 9-crore - many of them qualified - unemployed individuals in India. The United Nations Human Development Report in 2000 said that brain drain represents an annual loss of $2 billion to India. Now, what happens if this solution produces a lot more qualified candidates? Will there be more candidates looking for jobs and will the loss due to brain drain increase further?

    Not necessarily. A well-trained individual, due to the nature of the projects he takes up, creates opportunities for others either directly or indirectly. Also, a considerable number of those individuals will be entrepreneurial in nature and create lot of direct opportunities. The stories of IITians are the best example.

    Also, over the last few years the impact of brain drain has reduced considerably due to the availability of more challenging and highly paying opportunities and due to improved living standards in India. India’s current GDP growth rate is about 8.8%. Indian economy is predicted to continue to grow at this rate or above to become one of the top 4 dominant economies of the world by 2050.

    So, this solution will not result in increased unemployment rate or brain drain. On the contrary, it creates more opportunities and prepares India in its journey to become a dominant force in the world.

  1. Wayne Gretzky, ice hockey’s all-time great player, said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been." It is true that there are about 10-crore students going to government schools right now. However, as discussed earlier, most of these students are from low-income families in rural areas. In urban areas, a hopping 65% of the students go to private schools. The number of students in rural areas shifting to government schools is also increasing rapidly every year. Reversing this trend is not going to be an easy task for the government, particularly when it keeps failing to reach its minimum investment goals and when most of its investment goes to schemes like mid-day meals. (The mid-day meal scheme might be a good programme and might justify the huge sums government invests in it every year; however, core issues like teacher education and equipping schools with labs and libraries also require huge investments, significantly more than what the government invests right now.)

    Public education will continue to be available, however. Government schools will not disappear. They are here to stay. Nonetheless, the trend towards private education will continue as it becomes more affordable and as the living standards of rural families improve. However, no matter how fast the economy develops, income inequalities continue to exist and those who cannot afford to pay for education will continue to go to government schools. Some of them can benefit from the after-school learning program discussed in this solution, as it costs less than full-fledged private education.

  1. Focus and innovation are the keywords. A firm focus on making quality education affordable to low-income families drives innovation to make it possible. Innovation affects business models and management practices, and gives rise to lean processes and disruptive products and services.

    Focus and innovation make a firm search for alternatives to conventional approaches. Sharing a lab or other resource with another school instead of owning one; hiring part-time employees wherever possible instead of full-time employees; using price-driven costing methodology instead of cost-driven pricing methodology - these are a few such alternatives.

    Also, by following the franchise model, schools can cut down on their spending on creating lesson plans and instructional materials.

  1. This is definitely a big problem. Students who go to their teachers for tuition after school hours might be worried that their teachers might reduce their marks if they go to tuition elsewhere. Unfortunately, their doubts are not misplaced. Some teachers might be teaching for understanding and they might also be charging a low price. In that case, they become regular competition, which is OK. The after-school learning program that this solution creates only has to perform consistently well on both fronts: quality and affordability, to win the competition. As it consistently does that, and as students and families recognise that understanding is more important than marks (as a result of the efforts of the other components of the solution), it becomes easier to deal with the rest of the teachers who concentrate only on marks.

    Initially, only a few students might feel comfortable going to the after-school learning program without any fear. As they start benefiting from the program, a trend emerges and more students will be inclined to catch up with it. Once the program gains a strong foothold the teachers who cut marks for students who do not go to them for tuition will understand its strength and accept the reality.

  1. Commoditisation does lead to price wars, which is OK because it ultimately benefits the consumer. However, companies that fight only on price and not on quality will eventually lose the battle. The franchise model of the solution ensures that schools and institutes that offer the after-school learning program stick to standards of both quality and affordability. Performance of schools and institutes will be reviewed periodically and recognition of those that do not meet the standards will be revoked.

  1. Teaching a student mathematical and scientific concepts in a language that is not understood by anyone outside his native state is not advisable at a time when the world has transformed into a global village. Doing so severely impacts the ability of a student to communicate in a language other than his native language. It is important that a student becomes proficient in his native language but using his native language as the medium of instruction is not and should not be the only way to make him gain that proficiency. A comprehensive discussion of the approaches a school can follow to make a student proficient in his native language when he is not taught in that language is out of scope of this solution. This solution primarily focuses on using English as the medium of instruction. However, the after-school learning program will be available in regional languages as well because most government schools use only regional languages as mediums of instruction.

  1. There are only a few thousand students going to IITs, IIMs and other premier institutions compared to about 10-crore students going to government schools in India. Maintaining standards similar to those in premier institutes in government schools is an extremely expensive process. Also, it requires a lot of commitment on government’s part, which, going by recent examples, is not a small requirement. For instance, former prime minister Sri P.V. Narasimha Rao introduced the concept of government residential schools in the state of Andhra Pradesh. These schools were an immediate hit and the concept was adopted nationwide. These schools are now in dilapidated state with insufficient funds. Instead of helping these schools with more funds the government talks about starting new concept schools in every constituency.

Philosophy

The only purpose of education is to teach a student to think.

Summary

The roots of the problem of students lacking conceptual understanding lie in the cultural and social settings of our country. They become strengthened with time, with the effect of the problem becoming compounded in magnitude and cyclical in nature. (Think of students, who never gained conceptual knowledge nor understood its significance, becoming educators.) The problem is decades old. Tricks and quick fixes will not work. There are no shortcuts. A cultural change is what it takes. This solution identifies some key objectives to create a culture around teaching and learning for understanding.

Education in India is heavily corporatised and quality education is not accessible to low-income families. Commoditising education is the only solution. And, that happens when more opportunities are created for education entrepreneurs. This solution proposes a few steps in that direction.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Solution

INTRODUCTION

A good solution never ignores the conditions that are responsible for the problem that it aims to solve, nor does it demand for new conditions where it has better chances of succeeding. On the contrary, it uses those conditions as the foundation and builds itself on that foundation. Also, a good solution is inherently adaptive and doesn’t prove itself obsolete with change in external conditions.

The conditions that are responsible for the problem of students lacking concept-based skills (hereafter referred to as “the problem”) give rise to some minimum goals that the solution must strive to achieve. The following table lists those goals against the corresponding conditions.

#Condition Responsible For The ProblemCorresponding Goal Of The Solution
1Lack of a clear understanding of the distinction between skills and concept-based skillsSpread awareness about concept-based skills.
2Obsession with numbersMake it a part of assessment to test and reward conceptual understanding and concept-based skills.
3Strong commitment to misinterpreted beliefsTrain students to focus their practice on developing concept-based skills and their competition on gaining conceptual understanding.
4Incorrect understanding of what smartness isMake learning interesting and enjoyable to ALL students.
5Lack of proper infrastructure and resourcesFind innovative ways to make resources and infrastructure available economically.
6Inefficient teacher-training programsStrengthen teacher-training programs to make teaching learning-focused.
7Nature and ability of studentsSet a trend around developing concept-based skills.
8LogisticsFind innovative ways to teach students to develop concept-based skills while accommodating the current state of logistics.
9Economic aspectsMake education that teaches for understanding affordable to families with low-income levels.

DISCUSSION

This section discusses the goals of the solution identified above.
  1. Spread awareness about concept-based skills. This is THE most important goal. This goal is similar to setting the direction of a journey. That is why success in achieving this goal is critical to the overall success of the solution. Some of the actions to achieve this goal are listed below.
    1. Conduct talent-search programs, science fairs etc. for students at regional, state and national levels.
    2. Conduct workshops, seminars etc. for teachers.
    3. Use media (print, radio, television and electronic).

  2. Make it a part of assessment to test and reward conceptual understanding and concept-based skills.It will be a futile attempt to try to change students, teachers and society to make them lose their obsession with numbers. Instead, that obsession itself could be used to make them interested in gaining conceptual understanding and developing concept-based skills. The following is a list of actions in that direction.
    1. Create standards and benchmarks to test the conceptual understanding of students and measure their concept-based skills; work with schools and government to use these standards in their assessment practices. (These standards must not make it difficult for a student to excel in an exam that measures only theoretical understanding. On the contrary, they should make it easier. In other words, it should be easy for a student with strong conceptual understanding to excel in an exam that measures only theoretical understanding.)
    2. Building on action 1.a, conduct regional, statewide and nationwide exams to test the conceptual understanding of students.

  3. Train students to focus their practice on developing concept-based skills and their competition on gaining conceptual understanding. A student finds it more meaningful to work on a lot of simple problems than a few tough problems with the belief that his understanding of the subject increases with increase in the number of problems he solves. (He, because of his obsession with numbers, considers a good score as the measure of his understanding of the subject.) This belief does sound intuitive. However, the fact is the student’s true level of understanding comes under scrutiny and his knowledge gaps are exposed only when he attempts to solve tough problems. In other words, a quick review of the relevant theory and learning the required formulas might help a student get started on solving simple problems, but a solid understanding of the concepts involved is a prerequisite to start working on tough problems. The problem, however, is standard text books do not cover the concepts in enough detail and a typical student finds it beyond his ability or an unnecessary effort to visit reference books to gain conceptual understanding. Also, according to the Constructivist theory, students construct new knowledge by ‘experiencing’. In other words, they learn by doing. The following actions are based on this background.
    1. Create learning aides that supplement the standard textbooks and help students gain conceptual understanding.
    2. Design simple practical experiments, which students can do on their own or in groups.
    3. As a follow up to action 2.b, work with schools to increase the participation of students in the exams.

  4. Make learning interesting and enjoyable to ALL students. This is something great teachers are naturally good at doing. Opening with a story, asking questions that make students think, using analogies--great teachers always focus on what students learn and not just on teaching them. They make students involved in the learning process and thus make learning interesting and enjoyable for them. The following are some of the actions to realise this goal.
    1. Study the practices of great teachers in different geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds and design generic teaching strategies based on those practices. (The purpose of this study is not to reinvent the wheel. The best practices that are intuitive or famous may not work uniformly across disparate learning contexts. Finding the association between the best practices and a learning context is the main purpose of this study.)
    2. Design (and produce, if necessary) audio-visual and other forms of learning aides.
    3. Similar to action 3.b, design simple practical experiments to explain abstract concepts. Using these experiments, design lesson plans that are learning-focused.

  5. Find innovative ways to make resources and infrastructure available economically. Computers were really expensive when they first came into existence; it was impossible to allow exclusive access to a computing resource to a single user. The concept of time-sharing helped with this problem. Time-sharing allows a computing resource to serve the needs of another user when it is waiting for input from a different user. This concept could be used to deal with the problem of lack of infrastructure and resources. The following actions are based on this concept.
    1. Create a pool of qualified instructors and make them available to schools as consultants.
    2. Create a culture of sharing labs and other facilities on time-sharing basis.

  6. Strengthen teacher-training programs to make teaching learning-focused. This is another critical goal and motivating the candidates to become great teachers is a big part of it. Dealing with the limited availability of good resources is another one. The following actions address these goals.
    1. Conduct workshops for aspiring teachers and work with training institutes to increase the participation of their candidates in such workshops. (The chief purpose of these workshops is to give a chance to the aspiring teachers to interact with great teachers and benefit from their view of teaching.)
    2. Define standards and conduct certification courses in parallel to the existing teacher education programs. (It is not wise to rule out the inherent liking of candidates for ‘certificates’. Instead, that liking could be used to make them walk the extra mile to become a great teacher.)
    3. Similar to action 5.a, create a pool of qualified trainers and make them available to institutes as consultants.

  7. Set a trend around developing concept-based skills. Setting a trend around something is the first step in the long journey of making it part of a culture. The following are some of the actions in that direction.
    1. Building on the actions of goal #1, create a trend around developing concept-based skills. (Students of low-ability could be trained, with some decent effort, to gain skills. Such skills, even though not backed by conceptual understanding, will eventually provide them with a variety of career options. However, students who have a decent ability but are unmotivated due to a variety of reasons are hard to train and this solution does not target such students.)
    2. Continue action 3.c.

  8. Find innovative ways to teach students to develop concept-based skills while accommodating the current state of logistics. Very few issues in life require dealing with an all-or-none type of approach and teaching is certainly not one of them. Completing the entire syllabus with a firm focus on making students understand and learn is undoubtedly a Herculean task and a typical teacher might not be able to deliver on it, despite her best intentions. Experience will sure help and picking only a part of the syllabus to teach for understanding in early years helps gain a positive experience. A similar approach benefits the students also. The following actions are based on this background.
    1. Building on action 4.c, design lesson plans that take into account the syllabus and time issues.
    2. As a follow up to action 5.b, work with schools to increase their interest in sharing resources (labs etc.) with other schools.

  9. Make education that teaches for understanding affordable to families with low-income levels. Even if all the conditions discussed so far have been addressed successfully, the income inequalities in the society still affect the quality of education a student receives. This section analyses such economic aspects of the problem in detail.
    1. For four decades now, the government has fallen behind its set target of spending 6% of GDP on education, with the highest it had ever spent never crossing 4.3% of GDP.
    2. Household expenditure on education has been consistently increasing. Currently, on average, a typical household in India spends 4.5% of the per capita consumption expenditure on education, up by over 60% since 1999. This spending is considerably more in the southern states.
    3. On average, about 65% of the students in urban areas go to private schools. Although this number is considerably small in rural areas--about 20%--it is going up every year. For example, about 30% of the students in government upper primary and secondary schools in rural areas moved to private schools between 2002 and 2006. Economically backward areas too are catching up with this trend pretty fast. For example, the district of Mahbubnagar of Andhra Pradesh has half of its school going children in private schools.
    4. Across the country, private schools are expanding at a rapid rate compared to government schools. For example, over the last ten years, private schools in Andhra Pradesh grew at an average rate of about 9.5% per year, whereas government schools grew at a rate of only 2.5%.

  10. It naturally follows from these observations that more and more families will buy into the concept of private education and will continue to spend more money on education. There is only one problem: there is no standard fee structure across the 2-lakh private schools that are spread all over India; the ‘popular’ schools charge almost arbitrarily and the fee hikes are common.

    Consider, for instance, the district of Hyderabad, which has about two thousand unaided private schools. Of these, some are International schools, which charge a few lakh rupees a year in fee. The Concept schools, IIT Foundation schools and other types of corporate schools charge in thousands. Thanks to the unequal income distribution in India, the effect of such schools--either positive or negative--chiefly impacts rich and upper middle class families, and maybe some middle class families that try to ‘catch up with the trend’. However, the impact of the remaining schools, which form a major percentage of the two-thousand in Hyderabad, and similar such schools across India that cater to the middle class, lower middle class and poor families is highly substantial and these schools are the subject of discussion here.

    Standardising the fee across the country for these schools is not a practical solution because such standardisation needs to be done through strict regulations and, if history is any evidence, enforcing such regulations is not easy in a vast country like India, largely because of corruption and bureaucracy.

    Although these schools are different in many aspects, they are all similar in one aspect: they are all in business; they are all for-profit organisations: they have a service to offer and they want to offer it at a price that makes them profits. Now, if they are in business shouldn’t the rules of business apply to them? Since the price of a product or a service is always what the consumer is willing to pay for it, shouldn’t it be the case here too? It should; there is only one thing that is preventing it from happening: Unlike food, travel or consumer electronics, the business of education is not commoditised. The following are some of the actions that make it possible. (It might be hard for a conservative reformist or an educator to see the terms like business and commoditisation linked with education. It will be harder for people with a Marxian view. However, facing reality is more important than sticking to a comfortable point of view. Confronting reality is the fundamental responsibility of a reformist. Wishful thinking is considered a sin, and not just in business world.)
    1. To support action 5.b, create a business opportunity around the concept of sharing labs and other facilities.
    2. Design an economical after-school learning program and create a business opportunity around it.
    3. Leveraging the benefits of above actions, create a model school that teaches for understanding at an affordable price and still makes a profit. Develop a franchise opportunity around that school’s concept.

GETTING STARTED

Create an organisation with the following objectives:

  1. Create a culture around teaching and learning for understanding.
    1. Study the practices of great teachers in different geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds and design generic teaching strategies based on those practices.
    2. Create standards and benchmarks to test the conceptual understanding of students and measure their concept-based skills; work with schools and government to use these standards in their assessment practices.
    3. Design lesson plans that are learning-focused, taking into account the syllabus and time issues.
    4. Design (and produce, if necessary) audio-visual and other forms of aides that supplement standard textbooks and help students gain conceptual understanding.
    5. Design simple practical experiments, which students can do on their own or in groups.
    6. Conduct workshops and seminars for teachers and aspiring teachers.
    7. Conduct regional, statewide and nationwide exams to test the conceptual understanding of students; work with schools to increase the participation of students in those exams.
    8. Conduct talent-search programs and science fairs for students at regional, state and national level.
    9. Use media to spread awareness about concept-based skills.
    10. Create a trend around developing concept-based skills.
    11. Create a pool of qualified instructors (teachers and teacher-trainers) and make them available to institutions as consultants.
    12. Define standards and conduct certification courses in parallel to the existing teacher education programs.

  2. Commoditise education to make it affordable to families with low income.
    1. Design a program to share labs and other facilities on time-sharing basis and create a business opportunity around it.
    2. Design an economical after-school learning program and create a business opportunity around it.
    3. Create a model school that teaches for understanding at an affordable price and still makes a profit. Develop a franchise opportunity around that school’s concept.

Problem

STATEMENT

Students lack concept-based skills.

DESCRIPTION
  1. The type and quality of career opportunities are limited to students who lack conceptual understanding and concept-based skills. They generally end up and find comfort in jobs, which, at best, demand only skills and generally involve monotonous routines.
  2. The number of PhDs in Engineering that India produces in a year is less than what a mid-sized university produces in the US, in the same period.
  3. For a country that has one-sixth of the world’s population, the number of Nobel laureates India had produced never crossed the single-digit mark.
  4. A country that had invented the number zero, India is now busy playing the role of a ‘Service Provider’ to the developed world.

ANALYSIS

This section analyses the conditions that are responsible for the problem of students lacking concept-based skills.

  1. Lack of a clear understanding of the distinction between skills and concept-based skills
    1. A skill is what helps solve a problem efficiently and effectively under familiar conditions. A pilot managing a smooth landing under familiar conditions is an example of skill in action.
    2. A concept-based skill is what helps solve a problem efficiently and effectively under unfamiliar and complex conditions. A pilot managing a smooth landing under unfamiliar and unfriendly conditions (turbulent weather, computer failures etc.) is an example of concept-based skill in action.

      Although pilot training programs involve computer simulations to simulate the environment where the pilot experiences the extreme conditions such as the ones listed above, they can, at best, teach behaviours and rote learning tasks. It is finally the responsibility of the pilot to visualise and gain a conceptual understanding of aviation. Good training coupled with flying experience may eventually help a pilot back his skills with conceptual understanding. However, the only trouble is that no one wants to afford that luxury, not even the pilot himself.

  2. Obsession with numbers
    1. As has largely been the case with Indian education system, assessment typically rewards reproduction of textbook material.
    2. Parents as well as government consider the ‘numbers’ as the most important criterion in evaluating the performance of a student or a school.
    3. Teachers, given the environment they work in, are naturally inclined, motivated and indirectly constrained to concentrate primarily on ‘numbers’.
    4. Naturally, most hardworking students find pleasure in getting into the relentless battle to win the ‘most famous student of the class’ award and concentrate only on ‘numbers’.
    5. They lack motivation to gain an understanding of the concepts, as there is no apparent incentive for walking the extra mile.

  3. Strong commitment to misinterpreted beliefs
    1. abhyAsam kUsu vidya: It is a common belief in India and everywhere else in the world that practice makes one gain knowledge. It does sound intuitive. However, persistent focus on abhyAsam alone results in skill-learning, which is only a tiny step by the student in the direction of becoming a true vidyArdhi, one who is after ‘Knowledge’.
    2. spardhayA vardhatE vidyA: People also believe that competition helps develop knowledge. It is true. However, the spardha among students in modern India has been for the top slot in the class and not for true vidya. It happens because of the importance society gives to the ‘number one’ position.

  4. Incorrect understanding of what smartness is
    1. In a typical classroom, where the teacher plays the role of a knowledge dispenser, students who can naturally absorb that knowledge are considered ‘smart’. Such a classroom focuses only on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, which are only two of the multiple intelligences that each student possesses, according to the theory of Multiple Intelligences. In other words, not all students are smart in the same way and each student is smart in more than one way.
    2. Students who do not have their linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences developed sufficiently face difficulty in learning in a typical classroom where the teaching is not customised for their properly developed intelligences. This makes them view learning as an uninteresting and boring task.

  5. Lack of proper infrastructure and resources
    1. Helping students gain conceptual understanding and develop concept-based skills requires more than a piece of chalk and a blackboard. When a major percentage of schools in India lack basic facilities like drinking water, electricity, own buildings and toilets, equipping each school with any infrastructure to help students enhance their level of understanding is only a daydream and a distant one at that.
    2. Only a teacher who believes in conceptual understanding and concept-based skills, and has such understanding and skills himself can motivate the students in that direction. Unfortunately, finding such teachers is not an easy task, particularly when the management is not specifically looking for them. Also, given their limited availability, it is generally expensive to hire such resources.

  6. Inefficient teacher-training programs
    1. The mushrooming growth of teacher-training institutes, which always face a scarcity of qualified trainers, severely impacts the quality of training they offer. These institutes, at best, train candidates to take the ‘result-oriented’ approach to ‘complete the syllabus’ on time.
    2. Lack of motivation in candidates is another critical factor that affects their quality as teachers. Most of the aspiring teachers enter these institutes only to go out with a ‘certificate’ and, a certificate is the best they get out of the training.
    3. Resistance to change in candidates is yet another important factor. Even if an institute focuses on the importance of ‘making students learn’ and not just on ‘teaching’ it is tough for any candidate, who had ‘earned all his degrees’ in an environment that primarily focuses on numbers, to adapt to this new paradigm and internalise its significance.

  7. Nature and ability of students
    1. By nature, people prefer going with the trend. Most students--thanks to their parents--don’t get to think beyond the trend. And, unfortunately, learning to understand has never been an apparent trend for a typical student.
    2. When a student is genuinely of low ability it is really tough for the teacher to help him understand the concepts. Similarly, students who are strongly unmotivated are another strong bet.

  8. Logistics
    1. The syllabus in Indian schools is so big that teachers hardly find time to concentrate on anything else but complete the syllabus on time.
    2. Also, the high students-to-teacher ratio adds to the problem. It is difficult for any teacher to spend time thinking about enhancing the quality of students’ learning when he finds himself spending his time away from instruction in activities like evaluating the answer sheets of his huge class.

  9. Economic aspects
    1. Only rich and upper middle class families can afford the currently available education that teaches for understanding. The best that the low-income families, particularly those in rural areas where the monthly per capita consumption expenditure budget of a household is only Rs 625, can reach is a local private school.

Introduction

Dmitry is a well-trained commercial pilot. He is known for his perfect takeoffs and smooth landings. It is without any effort that he employs his well-honed skills on any regular day. Fortunately for him, days have been quite regular except for one day: the day he last piloted an aircraft. That day was anything but regular: the weather turned wild, the computers crashed suddenly and one of the engines got shutdown. The flight was packed. Fortunately, it was not their time to go; the co-pilot acted fast and correctly and everyone onboard got saved with minor injuries. It will be quite sometime before any of them gets airborne again.

Three months after the incident, a counseled Dmitry sits across the committee investigating the incident, trying to understand and explain why none of the skills he gained in his long and intensive training or his years of experience came to his rescue. Let us hope he finds his answers soon.

-*-*-*-

A visibly worn-out Sadavisan sits outside the claims office of a famous healthcare provider in Chennai. One can easily make out that he is in the middle of a deep thought. And, he is. He has been trying to understand what went wrong, how the 'gut feeling' of a surgeon who performed hundreds of similar operations in the past proved incorrect, and how the misfortune of his five-year old could be justified. He has long and hard days ahead.

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Syam and Mohan are childhood friends. They are both equally educated in some of the famous institutions in India and abroad and they have always been considered equally ‘smart’. Syam is right now working as the in-charge of day-to-day operations in an automobile manufacturing company in Germany. He is good at his work and is well respected. Mohan is right now leading a team of scientists in a similar company in Detroit to develop automobiles that emit less carbon monoxide, consume less fuel and are safer to drive. They are both happy with their jobs.