Smart People Make Smart Classes

Smart Classrooms are technology enhanced classrooms that foster opportunities for teaching and learning by integrating learning technology, such as computers, specialised software, audience response technology, assistive listening devices, networking, and audio/visual capabilities.

Smart Classrooms or Smart Teachers? 
Question: Do “Smart Classrooms” by themselves improve learning, or are there other ways to improve learning ?

Smart Classroom - image courtesy Indiamart.Com

As people make a place, so a classroom is what the teacher and student want it to be. No amount of technology and what we call IT solutions, will ever be able to replace smart teachers. The best of classrooms need the best of teachers to make learning fun and also ensure quality delivery. All the hardware and software will soon be out-dated and you will be the scapegoat for the marketeer who will continue to sell you the illusion of smarter classrooms!

Teachers make the world of a child better, as beyond just learning, many students imbibe the values and mannerisms of their gurus. Technology maybe the tool, however the teacher alone is the effective delivery agent for quality learning in the classroom.

We often hear people say 'money alone cannot make the difference', any amount or money spent on teaching aides and infra-structure will never be able to replace a good teacher in the classroom. The challenge lies alone in finding the best teachers and taking good care of their need for resources, comfort and well being. 

The challenge lies in finding the best teachers and taking good care of their need for resources, comfort and well being. 

In the ancient times the 'guru' or the smart teacher was supreme and the 'shisha' or student would do all to win the favour of the guru, go any length to give 'Gurudakshina'. Wikipedia refers to Gurudakshina as the tradition of repaying one's teacher or guru after a period of study or the completion of formal education, or to spiritual guide. This tradition is one of acknowledgment, respect, and thanks. It is a form of reciprocity and exchange between student and teacher. The repayment is not exclusively monetary and may be a special task the teacher wants the student to accomplish. This system was based on the philosophy that the 'guru' or the smart teacher is the real catalyst for learning and he alone could make the real difference. Here it was not the smart class but the smart teacher who brought about the transformation, the teachers' role in the life of the student is indeed paramount, and thus the 'gurudakshina' philosophy laid emphasis on the fact the the teacher must be very well looked after.

Image Courtesy: Blogs.msdn.com

Innovative teachers do not rely on technology and are not excessively dependent on the smart classroom. Smart teacher is one who is innovative and makes learning fun in the simplest of locations.

Many years ago, when I had the opportunity of being part of a Train-the-Trainer workshop, our group was put up in a very basic lodging away from the nearest village or town, in the Australian outback and this is where I had the privilege of experiencing how it is the smart teacher alone and not the smart classroom that makes effective learning a reality. We had no classroom or training area, no power, no tools, no powerpoint presentations and even no chalk and blackboard! We however had one of the smartest trainers to lead us for the five day training period. I personally transformed into a trainer and was able to conduct and help deliver over one hundred training workshops and empower thousands of youth leaders and teachers all over the world. Thank you to my 'guru' whom I have not mentioned here in name, am sure my thanks will reach her always.

When we look at the needs of the modern world, it is good teachers who make the difference.  Most schools in India are funded and run by the government. However, the public education system faces serious challenges including a lack of adequate infrastructure, insufficient funding, a shortage of staff and scarce facilities. In 2012, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) found that, in rural India, the number of children in the age group of 6-14 years attending private schools was 28% only. James Tooley in his study states 'The schools studied were found to be providing good quality education in the English medium, at costs which were affordable to the poorest of families. These schools were run with minimum resources and teachers were hired on contract.' Despite the fact that the teachers were paid much lower salaries compared to government school teachers, these schools delivered better as the people had to perform. 

No amount of technology and what we call IT solutions, will ever be able to replace smart teachers.

The need of the hour is smart teachers, with the poor skill building environment the challenge is more of finding the smart teachers and not of smart classes. The smart classes will also need smart teachers to deliver! The low wages paid to the teachers as well as teaching not really being the preferred profession make smart teachers almost hard to find. As a school management professional, I work for helping schools deliver affordable quality education, and the key for our success lies in the schools valuing the human resource at a premium and keep over 60% of their operation cost for salaries alone. As we go down to lower fee paying schools, this cost may even go up to 75%. An good school needs the smart teacher and their technology is that of mind and heart and not of brick and mortar tools.

Example of a school operating budget

Good teachers are hard to get as teaching beyond being a sought after profession is also an underpaid one. Add to this the woes of poor training and learning environment and the woeful lack of innovative programmes for training teachers, you will find out that the way to make a good school is by having smart teachers and not merely having smart classes. People make a place, teachers make a schools and students are the blossom of a garden to learning. The school experience is the key for the personal and social development of a young person, we need an environment with a heart and a soul and not simply a brick and mortar campus.

Smart people make smart choices, and smart schools have to go beyond smart classrooms! The reality is that effective teaching goes much beyond developing subject matter expertise. From my experiences in education sector great teachers share two common characteristics: an extraordinary sense of humility; and, a strong commitment to continual improvement, based upon a fundamental motivation to inspire student success.

The author of the article Sandeep Dutt is the Chairman of The Fabindia Schools and takes the onus of the content and the opinions expressed are his alone. You may please email the author on sd@ebd.in for comments if any. Follow us on Facebook www.Facebook.com/EbdEdu and our Twitter handle is @brewknowledge.

Real World Learning

Why do we have school trips? Why do we encourage visits to places of interest for our young people? Why do our parents and friends travel for leisure? Exploration and adventure are an integral part of our lives. Today the world has become smaller as we all travel to learn and experience real world learning. A trip on a train will help us understand the difference between speed and velocity. Climbing the mountains will demonstrate the fall in air pressure as we move up the dizzy heights. Floating on the salty sea will explain what is density and how saline water offers us the buoyancy!

Best we get out of the classroom and learn in the theatre with the sky above and earth below. Education is not a drill, but an experience and this is how real learning must be. We need to push young people to think out of the box, for this it is imperative that we get out of the box (classroom) too! 

At my school, we were indeed very lucky to have the mid-term break and this for me personally was the best form of learning. Team Building, planning, logistics, cooking, survival and most of all the need to push ourselves beyond the comfort zone made us find ourselves. The challenge always lies within, today when I catch up with my school friends and the hundreds of young people who have been on treks with me, they all are most thankful for the learning they experienced from the trips out of school.

Study is only one of the four corners of the edifice of learning, add to it skills, service and sports and you will be able to deliver quality education. 

Challenge for us is to find opportunity to help deliver good education and this can only happen outside the classroom. Study is only one of the four corners of the edifice of learning, add to it skills, service and sports and you will be able to deliver quality education. Personal and social development is the key outcome of our education process. As we want the young people to grow up and become responsible and caring individuals, we must look at the real world and be able to demonstrate what is the outcome of learning. Away from the rote learning and into experiential learning is the preferred approach to ensure that the purpose of education is achieved.  

It is not a hidden truth that many school dropouts and those who have grown up with informal learning have achieved greater heights and have found themselves.

The journey to school, stories retold and the moments we shared with our peers outside the classroom will live with us lifelong. Look back and reflect, in your grip of nostalgia the sports field, the school trip and the fun you had while growing up will be on the top of the mind. Yes, you will perhaps forget what you were taught in many of the subject classes, but you will remember the most caring and interesting teachers. The school trips and the adventure out of school will live with you always. You will remember an outing to a sanctuary or a bird watching trip and this will be far more useful and real, as compared to watching the film reel or video of the same. We need to experience the ‘real world’ and not rely on the ‘reel world’ when we develop a curriculum for learning and education delivery.

It is not a hidden truth that many school dropouts and those who have grown up with informal learning have achieved greater heights and have found themselves. Bill Gates lives today and Edison as well as Einstein were great physicist and inventors. Many of the adventure buffs and those who have taken the course of adventure travel have been very successful in life. The world today has space for people who follow their heart and use their passion to deliver excellence in whatever they do. You do not have to live the drudgery of exams and syllabus and make a life. Self learning and learning at ones own pace is today gaining ground too.

As experimental learning and innovative teaching takes centre stage, I am sure that the real world learning will take precedence over the rote learning the mass education programmes tend to adopt. Assembly lines only produce a prototype and the earning of an average worker is pittance as compared to the innovator, the thinker and the creator. Real life and the creation of nature must be understood, lived with and dwelt upon to offer good quality of education. No school can be built with brick and mortar, the institution of learning must be a place for our minds to wander, explore and flower.

Today, we have the concept of a gap year, the long adventure journeys and the outings the schools and peer groups experience. This must become a part of any learning environment, as travel becomes more affordable and possible, real world learning will become a pleasure many will be able to experience. It is not the distance covered but the need to move and explore that is needed. We do not have to go for miles, let us look in our backyards and see how we can help the young people find themselves, and this is where success will ultimately be found.

Please do appreciate the small example in real life I am tempted to share here. In my three decades of being a youth leader and volunteer I have had the opportunity to accompany young people on adventurous journeys all over the world. We use to start our planning months in advance, the physical conditions, the benchmarks and stamina levels made us run for weeks and months to be able to  qualify for the school summer camp. The days and nights spent in making our lists of food, first aid, equipment, and items of personal use were real challenges and then came the medical tests too. As I look around and try to track many of the students and those who were part of this real world learning, am happy to see that most of them have indeed achieved great heights and are doing very well in their lives. When we meet they simply say that for them the opportunity to go beyond the walls of the school were indeed what  made them self sufficient and confident and helped them find themselves. 

Life is an opportunity and must be lived to the fullest, get up, get out and get going on the journey of exploration and adventure!

Photos: Courtesy Neha Parmar Photography

The author of the article Sandeep Dutt is the Chairman of The Fabindia Schools and takes the onus of the content and the opinions expressed are his alone. You may please email the author on sd@ebd.in for comments if any. 

Follow us on Facebook www.Facebook.com/EbdEdu and our Twitter handle is @brewknowledge.