education-reform on S Anand

The three Rs

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:13:08 +0000

Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic are the 3 ‘R’s that are taught at school. I was thinking about their relevance today.

Reading continues to be relevant. The volume of information available today is more than before. So you need to read faster AND smarter. (If there was one good thing that came out of my IIM coaching classes, it was the ability to read fast, and making it subconscious.)

But I wouldn’t say the same of writing. In the last 10 years, I have typed several hundred more pages than I’ve written. So have all my friends.

Yesterday, I was at a bank with a relationship manager as he was taking notes in paper and pen. I do the same on occassion. I looked at his notes later. I could not understand a single word. “Don’t worry, sir, I can read it. I’ll type it out and mail you,” he said. And he did.

Writing seems to have become a device for personal memory, not communication. He’s faster at writing than typing, perhaps. Or note taking is more convenient on paper. But for communication, he still prefers a typed format. So do I, and most other people.

Perhaps writing will fade. Perhaps not. I don’t know. But what I do know is that typing has become more important than writing. Yet, writing is taught more at school than typing.

(A broader aspect of writing, though, is expressing oneself. That will remain important, of course.)

The third R is aRithmetic. When I was 12, I could multiply four-digit numbers in my head reasonably well. I could recite 50 digits of Pi. I could do long division. Today, I can’t. Nor can my friends. Nor have we needed to. A good feel for the numbers has helped, but not the actual mechanics of the calculations.

We had an undergraduate course in statistics that taught us how to solve a linear regression problem. That skill went completely unused. I’ve never since used regression without a computer. We had a graduate course in statistics that taught us how to INTERPRET the results of a linear regression. That was worth it’s weight in gold.

This is not a critique of the three Rs. Rather, an attempt to re-interpret them. It’s about comprehension, expression and computation. Two decades ago, it was reading, writing and arithmetic. Today, it’s reading, typing and computing.

Computers will grow more powerful. It may be worth planning for it. Teaching the ability to use them can go a long way. A tool like Excel for general purpose computing gives incredible power in the hands of people. It’s worth training children for that.

If I oversimplified, I’d say children must learn typing and Excel.

Over the next few years, this is something I plan to work on. Making sure schools and parents do this. Any suggestions or leads you may have are welcome!

Comments

Arun 7 Feb 2012 12:05 pm: I find the 3 Rs to be redundant but still useful for cognition. I find any computer input device to be limiting because I cannot doodle or sketch if I need to while mapping an idea. Paper offers freedom to graphically detail a problem in ways that cannot be replicated easily or effortlessly on a computer (or a tablet for that matter). Somehow whiteboards the best way to communicate to a team than Powerpoint. Agree about aRithmetic. We almost never find ourselves without a computing device . But should we be completely reliant on them? What if you are marooned in an island? :D Today, I would simply add a fourth R - ‘Recursion’. Implying the art of programming, the lack of which has become a serious handicap.
Somnath 23 Jan 2012 7:04 pm: You don’t need to teach typing I guess - kids these days have computer at home if not at private schools. My 1.5 year old has seen me type and has taken to imitate that. Over time they will learn typing out of necessity. Excel I agree you need to teach as it might not be seen as necessary - not Word or Powerpoint though as they will pick it up out of necessity due to school work. Having said that I still carry a simple ball-point pen and a paper whenever I get in a meeting or on my desk to take notes. No technology can get in that as I see it as obstructive.
Ken Jones 22 Feb 2012 6:59 pm: Anand, I stumbled across your site 4 years ago and have always loved it. I agree that Excel is a wonderful tool to teach. It has the beauty of being as simple or and fantastically intricate and complicated tool you can make it. And these days you can link it to all the xml you want. I have always thought that logic - especially as it applies to programming - is very useful. However, I feel that there need to be more visual tools to assist in its education. Kids are able to follow nested loops and if/then stateemnts if they have an easy way to navigate the logic initially. I became very interested in the way Montessori teaches mathematics at an early age. But I have yet to see effective tools like that for logic education at a young age ( 4-10)
Judy H 23 Feb 2012 6:55 am: I have noticed for a long time that my handwriting has gone to hell ever since I’ve had a computer at my desk. I had nice handwriting, and now it looks awful and feels cumbersome as well. I have heard that school districts have stopped teaching cursive writing to children. Imagine! Not that I disagree, how much really free hand writing does anyone do anymore? Maybe this will free up time to teach them things they really need, as some noted already: logic, analytical thinking, problem solving, and common sense. My background is in math and statistics. I spent many years working with people in other sciences who had a tough time working through a problem, or setting up an experiment, in a logical and thoughtful way – planning and executing, learning from the result, and setting up the next iteration. These types of skills, along with communications skills (getting your point across as well as listening), are critical for success in life. I don’t think Excel has entirely taken away the need for learning arithmetic, but I would like to see kids get an answer to a problem and know whether they have gotten the right answer (so some time of quick estimation method is needed). I emphasized it with my kids – you can easily use a calculator, but how do you know you got the right answer? Does the answer you got make sense? To round out the basic public school education, I would include lots of other topics, but mostly to expose kids to what is out there – literature, geography, philosophy, anthropology – to make them more curious to explore on their own. Every thing is at your fingertips these days, I love it! Why are we still forcing kids to read books they hate? I would rather let them gravitate toward what thrills them – Lord of the Rings instead of Huck Finn, or Tolstoy instead of Shakespeare, whatever turns them on.
Rajesh Bhura 14 Mar 2012 9:35 am: Anand, what do you think about the utility of tools like abacus for teaching aRithmetic to children? Spandana who is 9 yrs old has been going to this UCMAS class for 3-4 yrs and i am still to find true value in this. i know i am deviating from the main discussion but wanted to know your and the views of others pls. http://www.ucmasindia.com/mental_arithmetic/aboutusnew2.html
Karthik A 12 Feb 2012 3:37 am: I feel that logic (aRgument) helps increase flow for children and sometimes, like sleeping a problem over, helps in generating leaps of logic (intuition or conceptualization). We need to teach these in place of writing. Long back I remember my grandfather telling me that they used to have logic as a subject!
Ravi 10 Apr 2012 10:40 pm: http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_future_of_book.html This is from Umberto Eco, one of the foremost and important intellectual of our times. This is his area “Semiotics” - the science of signs. Somehow I remembered this discussion and thought it would make sense to post this here.
Ravi 20 Feb 2012 9:44 pm: The three R’s are going to be relevant as long as civilization exists - their forms and formats will undergo constant shifts and changes. All these three R’s are at some level only abstractions. If you think about it, reading was always a tool of internalization of concepts and communicating and creating within, writing was for externalization and communication without, and arithmetic was just a name given to the abstract name for the reliazation of the natural phenomena through a number line. By writing, if you meant translating your thoughts on a paper using a pen/pencil - yes that is receding; but the act of translating your thoughts onto something has not changed. In fact, if a medeival saint who perhaps wrote on “tala” leaves using a stylus magically appeared in 1950’s, he would be flabbergasted by the meaning “writing” had acquired; same surprise that our grandfathers would express watching our kids type on computer screens and tablets. Arithmetic, however if narrowed down to doing math in the mind has definitely as an academic discipline has taken a violent beating at the hands of xcel, the ubiquitious calculator; but the concept of numbers has not. Neither will till the civilization exists.
deepan 24 Jan 2012 8:12 am: Programming is still a subject that scares many. Misguided Focus on syntax rather than on logic and problem solving ,makes the learner diffident .Excel offers an easy way to dabble ,solve problems and experience sheer joy of working smart.
Shankar V 24 Jan 2012 9:21 am: I agree with Somnath. Note taking is still paper and pen in my case. I tried using the evernotes, the onenotes and the sticky notes. I simply lose my way there. With a notebook, it is all chronologically sequenced and I know what I am looking for the moment I open the pages. But writing skills other than personal note taking is almost dead. And we still have schools teaching “cursive writing” skills to kids. :)
Rajesh B 26 Jan 2012 6:04 am: Good points. A redefinition of the 3 R’s is definitely called for. But, I would still add typing and excel as auxiliary skill sets, and spend lots of time on the basics. Excel, typing are more “skill sets” to have. At very young ages, it is very important to build the mind to be able to process stuff, rather than be able to “know” stuff. Kind of like the difference between academic education and vocational education. No offence to excel, but it clearly falls under “skills” category. As in, if we can make our kids more receptive and intelligent, they can figure out excel without much difficulty. Writing (in the communication aspect, not the putting pen to paper aspect), Reading and arithmetic all play a role in shaping the mind. Comprehension, articulation and analysis (not necessarily just computation) are important bits in piecing together a keen mind. I would look at all of schooling as the phase where the mind is made better. And not really worry about pure “skill sets” In computer terminology, till age 16 or 18, work on the RAM. The apps can come later. If your RAM is cranked up really well, loading apps is very easy. And the hard-disk generally is sound enough for the basics as well. Most of the students that I interact with (all in the 21-30 age group) have good apps, hajaar heavy hard-drive, but are running on a 128 MB RAM. I would want entire schooling to focus on improving processing ability and stamina. Everything else can come later. We can (and probably should) de-emphasize writing, and supplement it with typing. We are essentially working on articulation. As far as arithmetic goes, we should de-emphasize computation and increase the role of context and analysis. Include logical reasoning type questions in the pedagogy in order to combine analysis and comprehension skills. We should definitely expand the role of reading. But I am a little old-fashioned so would want to keep original frameworks. My biggest fear is that we introduce an app in the hope that it will improve processing power and somewhere down the line it becomes a task in itself and loses all value. This is what has happened to our ability of multiplying two 2-digit numbers mentally. Originally, it was a way to teach kids to have an intuition about size. Now, it is a cr*p vedic maths module with no basis. Pardon my language, Anand. I do not know if I have communicated clearly here. When you (Anand) were asked to do 47 * 74, it might have been to tell you that it is somewhere close to 50 * 70. And to help you to process and remember at the same time. Now, it is a template and there is no-one who discusses how this is close to 50 * 70.
Amlan 17 Feb 2012 3:12 pm: Products like the Livescribe smartpen will merge the worlds of writing and computing.
Ravi 10 Apr 2012 10:44 pm: I hasten to add that this was a lecture in a 1994 symposium when Steve Jobs was still disillusioned about Apple and was making movies and not dreaming his “i” devices :-) yet the discussion is useful and the cross-references to historical and intellectual motifs are invaluable.

On teaching

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:00:00 +0000

This vacation, I took a session each for class XI and XII at my school, Vidya Mandir. The subject was Computer Science (the only one I can teach with some confidence), and the topic was networks.

It was an experiment, in two parts. The first was to understand how students of this generation interact with the Internet. (I'm twice as old as them, so I guess they qualify as the next generation.) The second was to see whether I'd leave them far behind, or they'd leave me far behind.

I began the class with a series of questions.

How many of you have...	Expected	Actual
Access to a PC and the Internet (home or nearby). I was expecting ~80%. Every single one of them raised their hands. Every single one.	80%	100%
Chatted online. I was expecting ~70%. Every single one, except for one girl, raised their hands.	70%	100%
Used a bluetooth device. I was expecting around 60%. I got nearly everyone, but the remaining were wondering what that was.	60%	100%
Video-chatted. I expected ~50%. Got ~80%	50%	80%
Uploaded a photo or video. Again, far more than expected.	40%	80%
Own a blog or website. This is where the surprises started. I thought that at least one in 3 would have a blog. Turns out I was wrong. There were very few.	30%	5%
Written a web application. Not one soul. Some thought they had, but no...	10%	0%
Contributed to an open source project. None at all.	1 or 2	0%

It was an eye-opener. On the one hand, everyone has an Internet connection. (In fact, the announcements following the morning prayer began with the Principal warning about the dangers of chatting with strangers online.) On the other hand, they're doing little of the cool stuff.

Some of the discussions I had after class did lessen my concern a bit. There are, as always, a few that are very interesting in hacking, and are playing around with a lot of interesting things. But still, on average...

As for the other part of the experiment, I spent an hour talking about what goes on behind the scenes when they search on Google, taking them down to some of the elements of HTTP. My slides are below. I do suspect I left a fair number of them behind, but there were a handful that were with me right up to the end.

Computer Networks: An Introduction

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: http)

But I learned something that I did not expect. I spent a lot of time at the staff room, and talking with the teachers. The best way I can summarise what I learnt is through this Calvin and Hobbes strip.

Somehow, I thought the bulk of the discussion at the staff room would centre around students. Or, at the very least, around education. It was eye-opening to listen to a two-hour-long argument on the political reasons behind the tea at primary school staff room being better than at high school's.

I remember my first book on acting defining a modern-day magician as "an actor who plays the role of a magician". The modern-day teacher is, in similar vein, an employee assigned role of a teacher. Teaching is their profession, not passion. Not that they are disinterested, quite the opposite. But oh, it could be so much better!

I read a speech by John Taylor Gatto titled "The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher". He gave this speech on being awarded the New York State Teacher of the Year award in 1991. He teaches six lessons at school, he says.

The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business.

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons... But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.

The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command... As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study.... Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth... A monthly report, impressive in its precision, is sent into students' homes to spread approval or to mark exactly -- down to a single percentage point -- how dissatisfied with their children parents should be.

In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues... Students are encouraged to tattle on each other, even to tattle on their parents. Of course I encourage parents to file their own child's waywardness, too.

I smiled a bit when I read this. It had been a while since I'd been in school, and I was lucky to have been in very liberal colleges. But then I went back to school and saw it for myself. The organisation that comes closest to the school is the military... or the prison. Not exactly the best place to foster creativity.

I began my class this time by saying, "Look, I might be wrong in what I tell you. Usually, it's not deliberate. Quite often, I simply may not know. Or I may mis-communicate. When in doubt, Google and Wikipedia. Let me repeat: this is the single most important thing that I can tell you. When in doubt, Google and Wikipedia."

At the end of the class, a few came over and said, "But how do we do that? Our teachers are asking us not to waste time on the Internet, and to stay away from Wikipedia!"

Sir Ken Robinson gave a TED Talk on Do Schools Kill Creativity? Do watch it. Apart from being one of the funniest 20-minute talks ever, it drives home a strong message. Schools aren't quite organised to foster creativity. When they were created, that wasn't the intent.

Teaching as a profession, I imagine, does not pay as much as many others. So there's little interest for practitioners to enter the field. I can therefore understand and appreciate that it takes a long time for new knowledge to enter the curriculum. But also sad is the way the curriculum is treated. It isn't treated, as Gatto says, as choices among the million things of value to learn. It is treated as a Bible that defines knowledge.

It is easy for teachers to fall into the trap. If it contradicts the curriculum, it is wrong. If it is not in the curriculum, it is irrelevant. Since I know the curriculum inside out, I know all that is required to know. It's not that I refuse to learn. Just that there is nothing more to learn that is relevant.

As an institution, schools aren't going away any time soon. Nor perhaps should they. But in the interest of knowledge and creativity, I can only hope for two things.

Students: keep learning what you like outside of school. It may be your only hope.
Everyone else: drop by to your old school or your nearby school, and offer to teach one class any subject you have a passion for. You'd be surprised at how well you'll be received, how much you know, and how much you can learn by that interaction.

Comments

Kannan 13 Jan 2009 12:22 pm: I am not suprised with results at Vidya Mandir.There is big disparity between metro city(upper mid school) and rest of the state.
Karthikeyan 13 Jan 2009 11:03 pm: Thanks for sharing your experience at the school. It gave an idea about how’s the next generation educated? It’s high time that we need to bring in the right kind of education to all irrespective of which school they belong.
Anish 14 Jan 2009 9:50 pm: On slide 14 did the definitions get interchanged?
Sasidhar 15 Jan 2009 5:09 am: Nice. I’d love to go back to my school and do a session like this.
Sounds like good fun.
Amandeep 15 Jan 2009 11:40 am: Really enjoyed reading this article..maybe i will try and go back to teach….
som_nath 21 Jan 2009 11:43 am: Simply true though my father is an university teacher and i have seen him in class (practicals) too :)
PS: RTed to Twitter
Sachin Gopalakrishnan 23 Jan 2009 12:35 am: I can think of atleast on reason for not a single student contributing code or writing a blog. It’s TABOO in India for students who concentrate on anything beyond course work!

I would know, i had wasted time for atleast half a decade (during graduation)until i landed a job due to those wasted years and gained my redemption.
bootcat 3 Apr 2009 7:15 am: ungal ezhuthukal ennai kavaruthu annae . naan , deepan , verizon la work panuren . naan oru made in chennai , currently in chennai . tamilku indha alavu net a pala “service” kalai ezhupeerukeenga . ungalai paaraatiyae aaganum . keep the good work going annae . neeram kadachuthunaa reply pannunga . eppadiku , bootcat aka deepan prabhu

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 12:00:00 +0000

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991. (The first part of it is sarcastic. This man is speaking passionately of things he despises in the education system.)

The first lesson I teach is: “Stay in the class where you belong.” I don’t know who decides that my kids belong there but that’s not my business.

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor.

The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me).

In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer’s measure of your worth. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged.

In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues. There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time.

It is the great triumph of schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best parents, there is only a small number who can imagine a different way to do things.

He concludes:

School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.

Comments

You are in prison | s-anand.net 21 May 2010 12:01 pm (pingback): […] If you’re a well-paid professional in an India IT services firm, your freedom is limited.(This holds if you’re a student, too.) […]
Sai Suren Kumar 4 Sep 2012 5:25 am: Nice one sir… there is only a small number who can imagine a different way to do things.

TEDTalk by Sir Ken Robinson

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on education is brilliant and funny. Some quotes that struck me:

If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue, despite all the expertise that has been on parade the last four days, what the world will look like in five years’ time. And yet we’re meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

If you were to visit education as an alien and say “What’s it for?”, I think you’d have to conclude, if you look at the output, that the whole purpose of public education throughout the world, is to produce university professors. Isn’t it? They’re the people who come out on top, and I used to be one. (So there!) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn’t hold them up as the high watermark of all human achievement – they’re just a form of life.

In defense of cheating

Wed, 27 Mar 2002 12:00:00 +0000

In defense of cheating. About how the school system should be changed to encourage co-operation.