A Pedagogy for Confidence

Most people believe technology or government policy will rescue education. However, education will not change till the outdated last mile of education changes. Good pedagogy?must inform parent, teacher, technology, and management decisions to effect results.?

BELFAST is a movie worth watching, especially if you are interested in how children think and develop. A child lives through both traumatic and endearing everyday events around him and learns to make sense of them. Through his experiences and conversations with those around him, including heartwarming grandparents, he learns to understand the world around. Gradually he finds the stomach to face the realities that await him and his family.

Courage is the most underestimated by-product of a good education. It is built by failing, often repeatedly, and then figuring things out, for oneself. Thus building the habit of approaching all future problems with the confidence that persistence will yield a solution. For this to happen, education must get learners to not just watch or listen, but do something that’s useful and interesting and be encouraged to reflect on it. Thereafter practice, get feedback, and improve. One need not just rely on dramatic real life episodes - as in Belfast - but this process can be built in to everyday formal education. In a quality education setting students experiment, discuss, question, cooperate or disagree, perform, get applauded (or not) - and more. Thus they build muscles of confidence for real life as adults.?

Traditional classrooms or methods - online or offline - are not like this. Its mostly about being a passive spectator, being told what is the right answer, and then being expected to recall it for exams. While it may be about knowledge, it’s usually not about learning. It does not build problem-solving skills that are applicable in real life, and it reduces the act of learning to a chore - one that a child does not embrace by choice. For most its about being fearful or bored most of the time.?

Talk of change is in the air. In India, much said around New Education Policy (2020) making school education more useful, engaging, and inclusive. Edtech has attracted over $4B in the past two years and spawned half a dozen unicorns, it is now the most desirable space to do a startup. In public discourse and private conversations it appears the two arrowheads of change are education technology and policy. Yet there is reason to believe that our children, or education, may not yet be better off.?

Policy and technology have made promises before. Ambitious policy initiatives like the National Curriculum Framework 2005 and National Education Policy 1986 were launched with great enthusiasm. While it seems like it showed up yesterday, Edtech has been ringing the doorbell - first schools, now homes ! - of Indian education for close to two decades, in various avatars of software (e-books, recorded video, live video, animations, gamified practices, online assessments) and hardware (tablets, TVs, smart devices, robotic kits). Yet there is no widespread evidence or talk of change in student capabilities or learning outcomes.

The reason is this:? policy can re-set the rules of the game, however, changing the rules of the game does not automatically make the players more skillful. Technology is essential to level the playing field on educational opportunity, and go beyond human-only teaching-learning efforts. However, if most of technology is replicating the old way, albeit in a ‘digital form’, it is unlikely to achieve very different results. What is needed is a better way, and a new set of skills to match it.

Learning about triangle geometry by playing with 3D models, figuring out that triangles are super stable, and then applying the learning by studying use in bridges, towers, and other constructions. Learning about simple machines by observing real life problems and solutions, and then inventing one's own to solve specific problem could be so much more exciting, and useful, than just reading about them from a book. Learning social sciences not just by memorizing dates and events, but exploring how history explains current day events, like the horrific war in Ukraine and India’s abstention at the UN vote.?Similar approaches for languages, arts, or computing, exist - should one know how and choose to make the effort.

Teachers have a remarkable and different role to?play in this kind of pedagogy. Orchestrators of the learning symphony, not just information transmitters. Conducting experiments in class, not just lecturing. Encouraging students to ask questions, instead of repeatedly asking themselves. Letting the child speak first without fear of being wrong or ridiculed, and adding their perspective and information only after. How teachers converse with students is at the heart of the reflective thinking process. Thereafter ensure rigor, practice, excellence, and performance - for all children - not just ones in the front row. Finally, assessing skills and competencies - not just facts. Indeed, this is a new profession!

This kind of methodology, or pedagogy, builds lifelong skills of learning. A pedagogy for confidence. It is happening in islands of excellence or innovation - mostly elite ones, often in name - but is far from widespread. Why?? Parent demand is essential. Mainstream parents must understand, appreciate, and demand this more. Performance in the high stakes exams and entrances is important, but unless the foundational education is not right it is unlikely you will get those grades when it matters. And even if you do, employability and success in the workplace is far from assured. Once parents have a more informed view of quality, schools will ensure that teachers have the skills, training, and resources to be able to do this.?

If our children are to be creative and characterful contributors to the pressing challenges of this century, the process by which they came to understand the world around them may make all the difference. Policy can encourage and incentivize this kind of pedagogy. Technology can enhance the course in a million ways. But unless the last mile of methodology and teacher capability is altered - nothing material?will change.

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