All those whoever are truest ...............are closest of relatives

A KISS is a mysterious proposition. 
Its of no use to one, yet absolute bliss to two with a contraction of the mouth to an enlargement of the heart. 
A course of procedure craftily devised for the mutual stoppage of speech at a moment when words turn futile.
© RISHIKESH KB

വെറും പാട്ടല്ല ശാസ്ത്രീയ സംഗീതം എന്ന് എനിക്ക് ബോധ്യപ്പെടുത്തി തന്നത് 14 മെയ്‌ 2015 ന് വിട പറഞ്ഞ നെടുമങ്ങാട് ശശിധരൻ മാസ്റ്റർ ആണ്. ശാരീരവും ശരീരവും ഒരുപോലെ സംരക്ഷിക്കുകയും, അർഥവും ആത്മാവും അറിഞ്ഞ് ലയഭക്തിയോടെ പാടണം എന്നും ഓരോ പഠനത്തിലും അനുഭവപ്പെടുത്തി തന്നു. പക്ഷെ അജണ്ടകൾ ഇല്ലാതെ നിസ്വാർഥനായ് ജീവിച്ചത് കൊണ്ടും, സംഗീതഞ്യൻ എന്ന ജാട ഇല്ലാത്തത് കൊണ്ടും അദ്ദേഹത്തിലെ അറിവ് പൊതുസമൂഹം കൂടുതൽ അറിഞ്ഞില്ല, വേണ്ട വിധം അംഗീകരിച്ചില്ല എന്ന് തോന്നുന്നു. പ്രണാമം ഗുരുവേ.
© RISHIKESH KB

Teaching Methodology: The Chalk, Walk, Talk’ Days Are Gone

 Researches in education equate schools, academia and our present educational system as a byproduct of the industrial revolution offshoot of the 20^th century. They critique such institutions not very different from a ‘factory’, which goes through three phases of processing.  Input (admissions), throughput (teaching-learning), and output (student pass out’s). They account the 20^th century pedagogy as mere transmission of‘facts and procedures’; with the teacher being hired for ‘chalk, walk and talk’or retelling; and our student’s merit being tested through examinations of memorisation and recollection (read, remember, recollect and reproduce). This forces us to pause, ponder and pose a series of questions. The question pertinent here is: will such a teaching-learning methodology cope with the demands of the 21^st century? More importantly, will the 21^stcentury teacher create an impact and gain the same reverence continuing with conventional modes of teaching?

Today, what we learn, how we learn, from whom and where we learn is changing. Learning today is not just confined to the four walls of our classrooms, textbooks or the syllabus framed.  Diana Oblinger, Vice President of EDUCAUSE summarises her research that those born after 1982 have a different relationship with information and learning than their previous generations due to their access to internet and computer aided technologies. Her description of such students are known variously as ‘Net generation’ learners,  ‘Millenial students’, ‘Generation Y’ and ‘Digital Natives’.  These ‘Screenagers’ are undeniably different.  The bottom line is that these students learn and comprehend in a way that is foreign to many of us, and, as a result, they often feel disconnected from traditional teachers and schools of yesteryears. 

In today’s world, the multimedia pervades almost every part of our life.  Students live in a world of digital, audio and text.  Marc Prensky also describes the array of media the students are exposed to in his paper ‘Digital Natives’.  By the age 21, our students will have spend 10000 hours playing video games, send 200000 emails, watch 20000 hours of television, spend 10000 hours on cell phone, but less than 5000 hours reading.  It’s all electronic and digital information mediums with instant gratification. The 21^st century learner is also a multi-tasker swayed by the electronic gadgets. The youth of today can instant message on their laptop, talk on a cell phone, play a video game wirelessly with a friend down the street and chew bubble gum – all at the same time. He also has multiple options of learning and looks at internet as the global source of information, especially with ‘google’ adding up a new era called the ‘AG’ – After Google! Mobile, Ipod, Social networking sites, blogs… further adds to this knowledge pool. Thus a 21^st century learner has many possibilities and learning traits that conventional educators may not be familiar or comfortable with. We live in a fast-changing world wherein producing more of the same knowledge and skills will not suffice to address the challenges of our future.  The hyper-text mind of the 21^st century learner faces the conventional 20^th century teachers with a wealth of information and traits, mostly technological and digital.  

Though the criticism that expresses dismay on the nature of today’s student attitude towards learning stands partly valid, we cannot ignore the fact that the students of every generation sought change or maturity – intellectual, social and physical. Now, technical and technological as well. Here again, the question is, how can a teacher adapt to cope with these changes?  John Dewey, a well-known educational reformer, says it best, ‘If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.’

Educational success today is no longer about reproducing content knowledge, but about extrapolating from what we know and applying that knowledge to novel situations.  With the rate of information growth continuously accelerating, we must discard the notion that a student is dependent solely on the teacher; and that the schools can teach everything every student need to know to be successful in their field of choice. Learning today must therefore play less emphasis on the amount of material memorized, but synthesize knowledge with leverage on research, questioning, making connections, thinking through issues and solving problems through collaborations with an integration of technology.  Moreover, ‘Anywhere, anytime’ learning is another catchphrase we hear often. To have anywhere anytime learning, the teacher too must be available anywhere and anytime. Its here technology yet again comes handy.

Learning is now a lifelong process of coping with change; and teaching is no longer that of dispensing facts and theories. Educational institutions of the present day have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, using technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don’t yet know will arise. How does a teacher foster our motivated, well informed, techno savvy learners and prepare them to overcome the unforeseen challenges of tomorrow? How in this 21^st century can teaching-learning be bettered? How can one be a better teacher?  I believe the ‘Learnability’ (openness and willingness to change) of both students and teachers must become the hallmark of the 21^st century teaching-learning. To survive in the present environment of change, ‘learn to learn’ must become the core content of learning; wherein everyone must become partners and facilitators in the learning process.  Let each one teach one.  But a lot would depend on how a teacher generates curiosity in the minds of a learner and make the learning process more engaging and enduring. Be a transformational teacher from an instructional / informational teacher. Explore and exploit the possibilities of learning using technology. Change the ‘Chalk, Walk, Talk’ to guide our students to ‘Learn to Learn’. Change from a ‘Sage on Stage’ to a ‘Guide on Side’ – be a facilitator, a learning enabler. Redesign our ‘Marks driven’ curriculum to ‘Research driven’. Appreciate the novel 3 R’s of learning: Rigor, Relevance and Relationships with the conventional 3 R’s: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic; and above all, groom our students for their life than grooming for examinations. Let’s make our learning ‘learner centric’. Let’s forget not the life beyond the campus.  As Fredrick W Robertson observes, “Instruction ends in the school room.  Education ends only with life”. 

Today, knowledge, understanding and technology are fluid and dynamic. They evolve and change; which brings with it both challenges and opportunities. To be a better teacher, we must change and learn as our learning horizons and landscape changes. To navigate these changes and transitions, the teacher should be no different from a learner. It’s said, the highest quality of knowledge comes from teaching. I add, the highest quality of being a quality teacher is that of being a quality learner – a lifelong learner.  To quote Alvin Toffler, ‘The illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn’.  
© RISHIKESH KB

What shocks and startles @ Kolkota:

• Ideology – Kali and Karl Marx still harmonically coexist with their armours and arguments.
• Time – No matter on road or at office, every Bengali has and takes time, likes discussing and debating random subjects of interest, making them fairly intelligent and socially responsible.  But however late one reaches office, do they religiously leave at sharp 04:00 in the evening.

• Traffic – Noone beep, honk, or hoot in unending traffic. And the traffic rules can change every 2 hours. If you don’t want to follow rules, create one of your own. Park your car banging the next one in front to make people say ‘Aamar Obbhesh Hoe Gaeche’!
• Street – Selling cotton apparels or leather items, Making Laddu or Roti, Nail cutting, tooth picking-plucking, hair cutting, to astrology, to doctors health check up...all on road. Everyone has a space and everyone finds their space. It’s thus a city of inclusiveness - a city of joy. From red street to park street, its a celebration of absolute democrazy !
• Chai – Have one ounce two rupee Chai in Mutki, and see people having Jilebi, Chai & Cigarette @ 05:45am. Also Chai with Paan full mouth. Only the Chai gets sipped in and the Paan gets spit out.
• Women – Faces are round and beautiful with assets (clad in Jamdani cotton or Dhakaai silk sarees) to correspond and turn around. Features confident to look at you even when you don’t look at them. Call girls (@ night @ Park Street) even are interestingly so.
• Good names – ‘what is your good name’? (as if we also own a bad name).  If it’s a boy... Motka, Bhombol, Or Thobla. And if girls….its Tia, Tuktuki, Mishti, Or Khuku. Well…. the popular pet names in Bengal gives an option to choose either. The good or the bad.  
• Cleanliness – Let litter and loiter on roads, let beg or hug on roads, let cockroaches and encroachers rule the Kali @ Kalighat, or the New Market for their living, but be sacrosanct dipping oneself at the dirtiest ever Ganga in the early mornings or evenings.

• Transport – Find four wheelers (especially Jaguar and Audi) exceed two wheelers on road with yellow Ambassador as the city lifeline; alongside the Tram, Metro, and the man pulled Rickshaws’ to co travel on the Sarani. Expect the unexpected from the ‘No Refusal’ taxis to return the exact balance as per the meter. And Kilometres long city ride @ at 5 rupees in Tram.
• Food – On street or off street, find people in BMW, Audi, Nano and Rickshaws’ having the same. And among cusines of Chaats, Macher Jhol, Sandesh, Roshogulla, Chom Chom, Darbesh; find Bongs take immense pride in their large selection of delectable mishti.
• Water – It seems for months the city is underwater and every year for the last 200 years the authorities are taken by surprise by this !

• Vintage Mansions - Being a city of palatial palaces, find them retained vintage status (with zero maintenance) by the mindsets of Nouveau Riche Bengali Babu’s who still aspires cultivation of English etiquette, manners and customs. Also find the botched Didi whitewashing the city with white and blue once overshadowed by the redness of red.  

Kolkota on the whole provides a perfect mix of the cacophony of the new age metro with a culture that is reminiscent of yesteryear's British Raj bridged by the Howrah. Feel the invincible presence of the immortal ideologies of Tagore, Paramahams, Vivekanand, Bose, Aurobindo, Mother Teresa... .. and so more. One may be in this city to get transported to enjoy the finer things in life, be it literature or films, music, or cuisines. Live with and enjoy with the lively and lovely people who loves to say ‘Aikhane Ei Shob Cholte Thaake’ !

Love it or hate it, one definitely won't forget this city on the Hooghly.

© RISHIKESH KB