There are three core values to achieve good learning: Learning Independence, Inner Sense of Discipline, and the cycle of excitement.
The core of our life as a student, employee, employer or political leader, is independence. We cannot live as slaves, we cannot be slaves to our job, slaves at home, slaves of our friendship, or slaves of a society. Humanity will never accept this.
Independence
Imagine the day we are born, we came with a cry. Our mother suckled us, gave the warmth of her heart, and sang a lullaby to lull us into sleep. The first touch of sound, love, food and everything was given by one lady and that lady becomes an inseparable part of our life, our mother. She is the embodiment of love, care, knowledge and excitement for us. This is an inseparable relationship. And that happened because of the love, care and support through which we gained happiness.
As a child our life was filled in happiness. Father, mother, relatives, friends, whoever came to our home brought something for us. They hugged us, kissed us and everyone was trying their level best to keep us warm and happy. So we enjoyed the most important period of our life when we were at home as a child.
Then one fine morning, our parents took us to a place called school where they said your happiness is going to multiply. We believed it. We were so proud and happy on the first day we went to school. We made new met friends and teachers. But we soon realised the freedom we had, the happiness we had, is reduced or lost or differentiated. How was that lost and how were you differentiated against?
We have challenges and we have to learn something that doesn’t give us happiness. We are also tested on the ability to remember, reproduce and tested with the ability of our friends. That made you hate schooling and you waited for a holiday. This happened because the freedom to learn which belongs to the child was denied.
You can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink the water. It is the freedom and choice of the horse to drink or not. Similarly, a child should be given the freedom to learn in his/her own way. I advise every teacher to bring a real life touch to your teaching.
As a child, had I been allowed to do that I would have gone out and explored the world. I could have learned context wise and I myself would have learnt the concept. There is no need to teach a child the concept in a classroom. And, this should be well known to the teacher that learning is the job of a child and he/she should be given that freedom through real life and finally he/she can acquire a skill in real life and how to manage the real life. If these two things are ignored, and the freedom of learning is curtailed, learning would become a burden for everyone.
Inner Sense of Discipline
If a child is taught to be disciplined in a certain way, he/she will remain disciplined only as long as he/she is under observation. The moment he/she believes that he/she is not under observation he/she will start behaving in his/her own way. A child should have an inner sense of discipline that would mould his/her character and he/she should be allowed the freedom to do that.
So, inner sense of discipline has to happen through happiness of doing it oneself, behaving oneself, experiencing oneself, connecting oneself and building his/her own character and outlook and attitudes of life.
Moral education must be linked through real life experience and the child will build an inner sense of discipline. Allow the child to commit mistakes and he/she will never forget it.
Cycle of Excitement
Happiness and excitement go hand-in-hand. If there is no excitement we will sleep. If watching television excites us, we will watch it more. If going to a particular restaurant excites us, we go there again and again as long as the food excites us.
How can learning be made exciting? If you let a child explore, it will kindle excitement in him/her. A child will start exploring and if his/her excitement is ignited he/she will go exploring into all deepest areas of things.
When a student says, ‘Don’t take over my freedom,’ that is learning independence.
When a student says, ‘Don’t take my right to experiment and improve,’ that’s inner sense of feeling.
When a student says, ‘Don’t take my right to explore and feel things,’ that is cycle of excitement.
These are the three core values of learning and are fundamentals that a teacher should know. If these three fundamentals are not there, then talent will go unnoticed like an imbalanced chair that would fall and get destroyed.
