SKILL DRIVEN LEARNING V/S RESULT ORIENTED EDUCATION

With reference to my earlier post ‘Education v/s Educating’, let us spend some time on discussing the differences and pros and cons of both, the skill driven learning and result oriented education.

Today education is mainly driven with the prospect of a desired result in view or at least in expectation, without keeping in view or disregarding the importance of skill. The most common and obvious reasons for this, are the lack of opportunities, unequal distribution of resources to develop opportunities in various areas and the intense competition in prelevant areas of opportunities. With such a scenario it would not be completely wrong to say that education should be imparted while keeping in mind the desired result. But when we look deeper into this, what we find is a completely wrong approach. If this was true then every family should be churning out IAS officers, engineers, doctors, or MBAs. But that does not happen. Why? The result oriented approach of education directs you towards a certain stream or course of education which you may not be good for or which may not be good for you. This pushing attitude does push the kid towards a certain goal but in the path, kills his/her ability to learn, explore and fight, there by also killing the inherent skill of that kid. What we get after attaining a result is another generation ready to push their kids down the same path of result oriented education.

Skill driven learning is the other option, where you really identify, analyze, nurture and grow the interest and skill of your kid. This brings out the desire to learn and explore, there by giving the ability to discover and invent new avenues in any area of interest. ‘Expertise’ itself is a word that pertains to skill driven learning rather than result oriented education. In result oriented education once the result is achieved there is no importance or motive of learning further, while in skill driven learning as the level of skill enhances, the desire to garner more skill enhances, there by giving birth to expertise in a specific area.

This also brings us to another question. Many of us may debate that skill driven learning has no practical relevance as long as it does not give a desired result. I would love to differ on this view. While on one hand, I, to a certain extent, agree with the view, but on the other, I strongly believe that the meaning of ‘desired result’ is itself a very debatable topic. Let me give an example. If someone finds that his kid has excellent abilities in mathematics, for him the desired result would probably be a PhD or some big degree in mathematics and then a teaching job. Quite rarely would someone even think that, for a kid who is good in mathematics, what could be the other options to nurture his skills and also earn a living out it. This view limits the meaning of desired result.

It is not only the preconceived and unidirectional mentality but also the ignorance and the fear of trying something new, which plays an important part in the way education, is perceived. Also I believe that there is no set standard or rule which can be implemented generically in all the cases. The strength to think out of the box, to experiment, to dare oneself is required to make learning possible and not just to educate, and this applies for the parents, teachers, students and also the administrators of institutions, alike.

Seems like there is a long way to go, but isn’t the journey always more enjoyable than the destination. As someone had said, "Life is a journey, not a destination", hope to see you soon at some other time in this journey of educating and learning.

Education v/s Educating.

"Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught", said George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, an English statesman, writer, and politician.

Education is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the world today. Somewhere down the path of building this educated society, learning has lost its meaning and relevance and has been replaced by an orthodox and monotonous mode of education. Today, mostly if not all, education is about passing a few exams, getting a few certificates and reaching a certain level of 'education'. This way of education is governed by the scope of result in view. I would not be wrong in saying that education is, mostly, just a means of attaining a preconceived & desired result. It has no bearing or relation to the learning involved in the process of educating.

Looking for examples, let’s look around us or within ourselves. Let us talk about a few of them. Today middle class forms a major chunk of India's population. Generally in a middle class family, the kid is expected to perform well in studies at least, so that he can get into some conceived good stream like science, thereby getting into engineering or medical or some other job yielding course. Talking about engineering, be it any engineer - IT, computer, electronics, electrical, mechanical, chemical, civil, etc., you would find him in the IT industry. There are many more examples which we all know and see everyday. It makes no difference if the person has the knowledge on what he has been educated, unless he/she is able to land up an earning. To a certain extent I would say it’s practically correct. But the result of this is another generation following the same concept of education and the 'success' related with it. There I find a problem.

Do we really understand what these problems are? Probably most of us do. But we do not know the way out and feel it safe to go with the wave. There are a few things which will certainly work towards breaking this tradition of education and move it towards learning or really educating. I believe that proper communication, freedom to think, skill evaluation and skill based actions rather than result driven actions are some of the steps towards learning and educating.

We will talk more about these later and also I look forward to your inputs as well. Some of us may also debate on the benefits of skill driven learning and those of result oriented education. But I will take some more space to discuss on this and certainly at some other time.

Online student-teacher interactions

To add vigour to educative environments, they need to be all pervading in a studentś life... However if it come at the cost of intrusion into personal space, the issue becomes tricky as posted in the headlining link.

The simplest solution matter to this seems to be moderation during registration at the schoolś end. The benefits of this to me are:

• The forum becomes official, so to say.
• The teachers have official visibility for the good work they do as educators.
• The guardians have official sanction to let their wards roam free in these forums.
• The students get the interactive feel incorporated into their learning experiences that makes online networking so irresistible/entertaining.
  

PS: We shall discuss more on the terms ¨educative environment¨ and/vs ¨personal space¨ later.