Homework for summer June 12, 2009

Summer is a time to enjoy time off from school and nourish the soul with life-enriching experiences. It is a time to spend more time with family and friends than at school, more time outdoors than indoors, more time amidst nature than disconnected from it. I have been looking forward to spending long, bright summer days with my daughter.

In the US, many children get almost three months off from school during summer. I read a statistic recently which said that counting all the vacations, holidays, weekends and the number of hours in a school day, children in America spend only 14% of their time in the year attending school. They spend close to 33% of their time sleeping and the rest 53% at their home and communities. This statistic made me wonder about what I could do to help my daughter be in touch with some of her schoolwork during summer. Going back to school for first grade in September and realizing that she has forgotten many concepts that were fragile in her mind and having to re-learn all of them again would not be a good thing, not just for her academic progress but also for her self-esteem.

Montessori children spend a large part of their school day doing “real” work and practicing their academic skills. As a result, most children in the lower grades don’t get any home work from school. Moreover, Montessori children learn many concepts through real life experiences and play. Hence I knew that it was imperative to use every day life experiences and play to enrich her learning during summer, so that her joy of learning is not compromised. At the same time, I also knew that there were some things that she needed to learn which can only be done through repetition and practice. For example, in order to progress in math, it is very important that the basic math skills and operations become second nature for her. For this, she needs to develop mental math skills. As she starts to write more elaborate stories and experiences in her journals, her handwriting needs to become more refined. She is a prolific reader, but it is also important to make sure that she is comprehending more and more of what she reads and building her vocabulary by understanding the meaning words that she reads.

My daughter loves to learn new things, be it  a new sport, new song, new concept about the world around her – you name it and she will have a million different questions about the things around her. But if it was left to herself she’ll probably not spend time practicing and refining some of the skills that she has newly learned. Her teacher had informed me that her favorite thing is to try new things. She would rather not spend time repeating what she had already worked on.

So, my thinking was that I should help her realize the value of practice and the importance of learning something really well, when it comes to academic skills. I popped the question to her about spending an hour a day during the summer doing “homework”. She knows what “homework” is – it means doing school work at home. To my surprise, she was thrilled with the idea. So, on the last day of her school, we visited a store nearby which sells many curriculum materials to schools in our area. We browsed the shop and I let her choose journals, workbooks and hands-on math materials that she could work on during summer.

The next day (yesterday) I marked a few pages in the different workbooks and journals that she could work on. She seemed very proud to be working on these. She wouldn’t move on to anything else until she finished her “homework”.  Today, before I could come back from the gym in the morning, she had woken up, picked up her journals and workbooks, chosen her homework and started to work on them. When I went to talk to her in her room, she even complained that I was “disturbing her” and not allowing her to “concentrate” on her work.

I’m not certain how long this motivation to do her “homework” regularly will continue. I’m sure that as the summer progresses, I’ll have to find ways to re-motivate her. As is the case with her fascination to try new things, this many be just one of her new fads which may wear off after a little while. But so far, I’m very happy with how happy she is, to be doing her “homework”.

What kind of basic education would I choose for my daughter? May 9, 2009

I recently watched the documentary -” Two Million Minutes”. The time between the moment a student enters ninth grade to when they graduate out of twelfth grade is about two million minutes. The documentary compares how a a few students in India, China and U.S spend these “two million minutes”.

While the documentary doesn’t make any conclusions at the end, it  seems to drive home a message that students in India and China are spending their time more fruitfully. It seems to say that compared to Americans, Indian and Chinese students seem to be  more serious about careers in math and science and are hence better off. It seems to conclude that America is not doing enough to compete with the rest of the world in the areas of math and science.

Ok, I agree that given what I know about education in USA,  the country can do better in preparing it’s students for math and science careers. But given what I know about education in India, I strongly feel that there is absolutely no need to put the Indian education system on a pedestal and say that it is better than the US education system. How much time the students spend on academics and whether they chose a career in math and science is not the only measure of a successful education system. An education system should be measured with many more outcomes – how well-rounded the students are, whether they are able to critically think about issues and make decisions, whether they are able to problem solve, able to think out of the box, whether they are confident, compassionate, responsible and so on.

First of all, I would like to note that I’m very passionate about developments in both India and America. I am a first generation Indian American who lives in America currently and who has plans of living in India in the future. I received an engineering degree in India and after a Masters and a ten year career in the engineering field, changed my career to one in Education after getting a Masters degree in this field. While my daughter is currently getting a K-12 US education, she will in all probability continue her education in India in the future. Given this background , I would like to think of my opinions on both these education systems to be quite objective.

Given what I know about both US and Indian K-12 education systems, if I was given a free choice without any other constraints to choose between these two systems for my daughter, I would any day go for the US education system. Following are the reasons why:

Firstly, I feel that my daughter will have a better environment in the US to explore her interests and pursue a career inline with her interests. She will have an opportunity to explore many options other than math and science – humanities, arts, sports and what not. She will even get opportunities to be competent in more than one field. I know that in India, unless parents work hard to swim against the tide, the society and the environment will put enormous pressure on the children to pursue a career in science and math even if the children are not interested in these careers.

I feel that even if my daughter decides to pursue a career in math/science after doing K-12 education in America, it will be out of her own interest. There is a huge difference in outcomes when someone pursues a career out of passion as opposed to when someone pursues a career because she was pressured to do so. Research studies have shown that people perform at their peak when they are pursuing something out of their own interest.

And secondly, there is the question of how well-rounded my daughter will be if she does K-12 in the U.S. My daughter will grow up in an environment where creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork etc are encouraged in a non-competitive environment. Research studies have shown that these skills are critical to success as an individual. I also feel that these skills are critical for a successful democratic process in a country. There is a reason why the American democracy is as sophisticated as it is today. If the Indian democracy has to reach this level of sophistication, it is crucial to instill these skills in it’s citizens. Research studies have also shown that a non-competitive environment is crucial for developing competencies at their best. The K-12 education environment in India is extremely competitive which puts a lot of pressure on the children to be the best, which in turn could bring-down their performance.

Apart from these academic skills, I also feel that my daughter would have a much better chance of growing up to be a social-minded, compassionate, confident and responsible individual if she completed her education in USA.

While the documentary “Two million minutes” has made a good attempt to bolster the importance of math and science education in K-12 schools in America, people should not confuse this attempt to mean that the Indian education system is better than US or that US education system is inferior to Indian and Chinese education systems in all respects. All these education systems have a long way to go and success cannot be measured on one dimension alone.

Any thoughts?

Montessori dilemma March 31, 2009

I’ve been a proud Montessori parent close to three years now. But each time I gain new insights on why a certain part of the Montessori curriculum has been designed the way it is, I can’t help but be amazed at the breakthroughs in child development that Dr. Maria Montessori uncovered so many decades ago.
It is not so uncommon to find many of Dr. Montessori’s innovations being incorporated in traditional and even other progressive schools today. This may be one reason why Montessori curriculum may not seem very impressive to some folks. It is important to remember however, that every single detail in the Montessori curriculum had a reason and a purpose and was integrated very closely with everything else that the curriculum offers. Due to this reason, picking parts of her curriculum and pedagogies and connecting them to other non-Montessori methods of teaching may not have the same intended effects as within a Montessori setting.

One of the common reasons that I have encountered among parents as to why their children are not in a Montessori school, is because they feel that Montessori schools are very unstructured. In a Montessori classroom, they encounter (or they have heard of) many young children spending a good part of the day involved in washing dishes/tables or scrubbing the floor and other practical life activities. I had earlier read about how this is a part of the effort to develop the whole child and not just have the child indulge in academic activities the whole day. I was quite happy with this reason for having my daughter scrub tables until I found out about how such activities can be even more beneficial, after I read Dr. Angeline Lillard’s book – Montessori, The Science behind the Genius.
In her book Dr. Lilliard has put together evidence from rigorous research in psychology to prove many of the principles of Montessori education. From her book I gathered that there is evidence to prove that “movement stimulates cognition” or “action stimulates thought”. It is pretty obvious that thought stirs up action in us. That’s what we encounter everyday – we think of something and act on it. But the other way around is true too. Research has shown that even the youngest children – the infants – showed better mental development if they were more action oriented. For example, in a research study, children who learned to crawl earlier than their peers were cognitively more advanced than their peers. Hence, as Dr. Lilliard describes in her book, when children wash tables, it is not so much that the table becomes clean, but that the child is involved in a purposeful activity employing her hands in service of her mind. Such practical life activities help the children in improving concentration, in educating their movements to be geared towards a purpose and in learning to carry out steps in sequence, among other obvious benefits like learning to care for their environment.
I’m a pretty happy parent now, not only did my daughter learn how to scrub tables – which is pretty useful skill to have to help her mom around in the house – but through that activity, her cognitive development benefitted too which finally culminated in her school work as she grew older.

Another common reason that I hear from parents as to why they don’t want Montessori education for their child is, that it is too academically oriented. Wow! First of all I’m amazed that Montessori education can give the impression that it is developing children to be the least academically oriented (by having the children scrub tables the whole day!) and also the impression that the curriculum is too academic. It is understandable why many non-Montessori parents think that the curriculum is too academic. Although it has not been proven scientifically, it has generally been observed that children who go through a Montessori curriculum turn out to be more advanced academically compared to their peers in traditional schools (yes, in spite of spending a good part of the day scrubbing tables). Dr. Montessori believed that children are lot more capable than what traditional school perceives them to be. She felt that the environment and the pedagogies with which traditional schools taught children was dumbing them down. All Dr. Montessori did was to create a curriculum to develop the child to her full potential. By giving freedom (within limits) to the children to choose the activities they indulge in each day, children pick activities that interest them. And believe it or not, they become interested in academics on their own. And add to the formula, a wealth of stimulating materials that engage both their body and mind and a well-trained Montessori teacher. It’s hard to see how they cannot develop to their full potential.

I’m just glad that I came to the realization that my daughter should go to a Montessori school, soon enough. Once you start experiencing the benefits of Montessori education, you tend to get addicted to it.
Being involved in the field of education myself, I’m planning to spend the next few weeks reading more about Montessori education and how it connects to my experiences with my Montessori child. I hope to write more about it as thoughts flow.

An encounter with a government school classroom in India March 23, 2009

When I visited India in August, I had an opportunity to visit a government run school in a village at the outskirts of Bangalore and observe a multi-grade (I and II) classroom in action. I had decided to observe the classroom to get a first hand experience on what kind of pedagogies the teachers use to motivate and help the children learn. As I sat down to observe, I really didn’t have any expectations on what would happen in the classroom. I was pleasantly surprised by a few strategies that the teacher used to teach the children but was very disappointed by many of the happenings in the classroom. In this blog, I describe some of my key observations in this classroom. While this blog is not a reflection of all the government classrooms in the state and the country, I feel that there are significant number of schools where the teachers teach this way or even worse. But I would imagine that there are definitely government school teachers who have developed sophisticated methods of teaching due to their own motivation and interest. I did encounter one such teacher in another government run school, which I’ll describe in my next blog post but this teacher whom I’m going to talk about now was clearly not one of them.

There were about 40 students in the classroom, half of them in each grade I and II. All the children sat on the floor, most of the times even without a floor mat. Everyone wished me good morning. I wished them too and went to the corner of the classroom and sat on the floor. To me it seemed like the most comfortable way to sit but the teacher in the classroom was adamant that I sit on a chair and offered me one.
Although I assured the teacher that I was just here to observe the classroom for my own interest and research purposes, the teacher didn’t seem convinced with my explanation. She perhaps thought that I was a government official who wanted to make sure that the classrooms were running smoothly. Because, all through the next hour and a half, she put in extra effort to make sure that the children appeared to be learning.

Following are some activities that she did with the 2nd graders

She started with a lesson on the place-value of different digits in a number . As she wrote a number on the blackboard, the children were asked to speak out the value in the tens place and the value in the units place (all in Kannada). For example, if the teacher wrote 23, the children said “2 in tens place, 3 in units place 23”. When she wrote 65, they said “6 in tens place, 5 in units place 65”. They had to use the same phrase every time to describe the place value and only change the numbers.
Next the teacher started a role play activity, where the children stood in two different lines. As she announced a two-digit number, the child at the front of the line on the left said the digit in the tens place and the child at the front of the line on the right said the digit in the units place.
The next activity was with the sticks. When the teacher announced a two digit number, the children had to separate the number in the tens place and units place and put that many sticks in two different containers. All through this activity, the teacher worked with each child individually at the level that he/she understood the concept.

Some observations from the above activities were as follows:

I liked the fact that the teacher conducted multiple activities to teach the same concept. Also, in some of the activities, the teacher “tried” to teach every child at his/her own level of understanding of the concept.
The teacher was only interested in showing off that her children knew what she had taught them. She created a very performance oriented atmosphere rather than a learner centered atmosphere.
One of the boys who knew the concepts very well, kept helping the other children in the background to answer the questions that the teacher asked them. As a result of this, even when the children didn’t understand the concept, they answered the questions through the prompts from this boy.
When a child was asked a question in one of the activities, and he/she didn’t know the answer, the teacher shouted the same question to the child two or three times as though that would elicit the correct answer from him/her.
One of the children seemed very depressed and wouldn’t answer the teacher’s question. The teacher, instead of finding a way to engage her, shouted at her and started to work with another child.
Although it appeared as though the teacher was teaching the concept through many different activities, finally there was a lot of rote learning that was incorporated even into these activities. For example, the children had to use the same phrases each time, to describe the place value of the digits – i.e “2 in tens place, 3 in units place 23”. It was not clear whether the children understood what this phrase really meant. For example, After chanting this phrase, when some of the children were asked a question “What is in the tens place?”, the children couldn’t answer it.
Some activities were not well thought out. For example, in the activity with the sticks, the children could easily confuse the number of sticks to represent the whole two digit number. For example, for number 23, they can confuse 5 sticks to represent the number 23.
When the teacher was working with one kid individually, many of the other kids seemed quite disengaged with the activity.

After the work with the II graders, the teacher decided to work with the I graders. In order to keep the II graders engaged during that time, she asked her favorite II grader (“the boy who knew all the answers”) to lead the class. She asked him to tell a two digit number to each child and he/she had to write the number on the blackboard. After that, the child had to say the place value of each digit.

The teacher then started to work with the I graders. She had the children sit in a circle. The idea was to work with each child individually at the level that he/she understood numbers, while the other children observed.
First she called out a few children one by one and had them place 1 to 10 in the correct order.
She then asked a few children as to which number is greater than which?
She had a few children place the numbers in the reverse order.
She then had a few children do this activity – place any number between 1 to 10 in the middle. She then asked the child to place the number that comes before and after 3 in their correct spots.
The teacher had some of the children do 1 digit addition.

Following were some of my observations during these activities with the I graders:
Like with the II graders, the teacher shouted at the children if they were not able to get the answer, as though that would help them get the answer immediately.
One of the children was intentionally left out of the activity. Other children kept saying that he hasn’t had a turn but the teacher seemed to intentionally ignore their pleas.This led me to think that the teacher left him out because the child may not have been able to shown any progress. Then the child himself requested that he wanted to do the activity. The teacher then facilitated an activity for him.
The teachers worked with the children on the activities with the assumption that all children understood the concepts at the level that she thought they understood them. But it was clear that their learning was very fragile because they required a lot of prompting and help by the teacher. In some cases, the teacher herself walked the child through each of the steps of the activity, in effect performing the whole activity for the child. This led to a situation where the child thought that he/she had accomplished the activity when in truth it was the teacher who had done the activity for him/her. This could lead to false confidence in them.

General observation: It is not that the children are not motivated to learn or don’t enjoy learning. For, when the teacher shifted from math to nursery rhymes, the children suddenly cheered up. Almost all the children including I and II graders sang the rhymes happily with full body actions. But again, the nursery rhyme activity was all rote learning based. It is important to remember that the children didn’t know how to speak english but they sang the nursery rhymes quite well. Many of the body actions didn’t match the words. Also many words were not pronounced correctly. But they did have fun!

These observations raised many questions within me:
Is it that rote learning has become a way of life for these children? Is it that they have begun to implicitly assume that they really don’t need to “understand” the concept but all they need to do is to appear to understand the concept? This is what a performance centered environment (as opposed to a learning centered environment) leads to. How do we change a teaching culture that has remained for decades, which doesn’t encourage the children to think on their own? How do we change a whole system of education that is based on a culture of rote learning and examinations?

Prema Clarke, a prominent researcher in the field of education offers many strategies to combat this culture in her book “Teaching and Learning: Culture of Pedagogy”. While nationally, several innovative policies and strategies are being put in place to improve the pedagogies of teachers, she notes that “None of the curriculum documents consider the educational ground reality. There is a huge disconnect between prescriptive accounts of good education and the system’s capacities to realize such goals.” From my observations in the government school classroom, I could make a lot of connections with what Clarke talks about. I could clearly see many of the implicit cultural models of the teachers that she talks about in her book. Following are some examples of these connections that I saw.
the teacher’s behavior as an authority figure in the classroom,
teachers’ excessive focus on rightness of the answer as opposed to a focus on exploring the misconceptions of the students (eg: she shouted at the children when they didn’t give the children when they didn’t give the correnct answer),
the teacher giving excessive freedom to the “boy who knew all the answers” to prompt the other children with the answers without any concern for whether other children learnt the concept or not.
the teacher’s focus on imparting knowledge (through rote learning) rather than skills, and the performance oriented atmosphere in the classroom which reflects the constant focus on the examinations in India

Following is what Prema Clarke recommends to improve the teaching in the classrooms:

Teacher training today is viewed as a way to impart technical skill only. It is not viewed from the behaviorist angle which should be incorporated into teacher training. Clarke argues that teacher training should take into account the teachers’ implicit cultural models and the broader cultural framework.
She talks about the need to focus on teacher thinking research and the importance of addressing the beliefs that underlie teachers’ world views. She feels that the training in technical skills is less effective if the underlying beliefs and world views that construct these skills are not understood and developed.
For what really matters is that “the children learn” and not “appear that they have learned”!!