Schools should provide in-depth concept learning and help to develop character and career of children. A good school should be like a beautiful rose flower with strong aroma. Like a rose flower, born in a rose plant with thorns, a school should be strong with rules and regulations. And, how will a school attain it?
So, if a person wants to develop a strong career, the very first thing required is a strong depth knowledge. Nobody wants to hire a person who doesn’t have a strong knowledge. If you are an engineer, a doctor, or a manager, it is not your emotional mind that is required; on the other hand, what is required is a mind that has the ability to travel into the depth of a situation. This is where people fail and do not get promotion. They just blame the management and complain that they have worked for 30 years without a promotion.
Why doesn’t the management offer promotion to certain employees? It is because they do not find the employee intelligent enough to go into the depth of a problem and solve it. Where does the problem lie? It lies in the process. Most people are like ships that sail on the surface and do not go deep into the water. And as you go deep into the details of the process you will find the problem. That type of depth of a knowledge and its applicability is required in schools.
Knowledge building is called the intellectual capital of a school. And, if a school does not provide children with deep knowledge; then, that is not a good school. If schools do not have teachers with the depth of the knowledge, then that school cannot have children with strong intellectual capital.
Along with knowledge and intelligence capital, children need one more capital. It is called the social capital. Social capital is the ability to connect with others, to collaborate and work together. If we consider who helps win a football match, it cannot be merely because the team has world famous players. The famous players will play for them to become famous and not for the team to win. For a team to win, it requires ten players who carefully observes the ball, passes the ball among each other, and scores a goal. So, team work, working together, collaborating, building strength, and covering weaknesses are important. Unless this social capital is not developed in a school, that school cannot provide an outstanding education. Thus, knowledge capital and social capital are an amazing combination that provide children with the application of deep knowledge and a strong sense of teaming up.
A good school needs one more capital and that capital is the ability to decide independently and collectively. It is a part of social capital but I would like to call it the risk management capital. Risk management capital is the ability of any child to decide for himself/herself. Like in a football match, when the ball comes to you, you should decide which way to pass it. Similarly, in the macro application of a subject, the child must have the ability to decide on a given situation. So, the blending of knowledge capital, social capital and risk management capital will help build a good school.
Because the knowledge capital is very important, shall schools have eight hours of learning every day? No, nobody’s intelligence works like that. It is only donkeys who can work for 24 hours. Less hours of classroom learning, is the best for children. After 30 minutes of intensive learning, children should be given one hour to play. So, five hours of learning will require 10 hours of play. Why? To relax the brain. Yes!
The most important capital of a school is the feedback-linked play. When a child comes back to the classroom after play and the teacher asks him/her, “Child, you just learned the concept that mass X velocity is force. Did you find it when you played?”. The child replies, “Yes sir. I had a stone to throw away from the playground. It was a small stone. I tried to throw it outside the courtyard. It didn’t go because its mass was less. So, I needed to run again and throw it. In three throws from different lengths it went out. If I had a bigger stone, in one throw it would have gone out.” So, whenever we get in touch with nature, we are able apply our learning to the real world. We use the skill connected to the concepts we studied. But how many schools allow a child to play after the learning session?
A very important question is: Should students be given homework? No, not even for 10 minutes. For, home is a place where the child has to practise the concepts learned. They would come to school the following day and discuss with their teachers how they had practiced the concepts learned- chemical concept, concept of health, planning concept, and measuring concept, to name a few.
The driving force of deep learning of a concept is preparing oneself for standardized examinations. However, effective learning shall never happen when one fears examination. Any school that cultivates the concept that you learn because you need the best marks, you are forced to explore the concept merely for the purpose of scoring marks. Never put a child into learning just because he/she has to pass an examination. Examinations are just to test the level of a child’s understanding and not a score of his/her performance. So, schools should not differentiate children based on their scores; schools should not differentiate children as good learners and bad learners; and schools should not break the children’s mindset. Not only examinations but also stage performances are not meant for competitions. All children should be given equal importance at every stage of their school life. This is the only way to take away the fear from the minds of the children. Once, the fear is gone, the child is free to explore, and test what has been explored. This is the only way to develop a good school.
