Education Inclusive of Vocational Education is Holistic - 1
This study is inspired by and in response to the following stimuli:
1.
The children can be taught in school how to grow
their food. A pictorial message post on Facebook.
2.
In Japan, the school going children are taught
hygiene and values in the first few years of their school life, before they are
evaluated on their knowledge and learning. A pictorial message post on
Facebook.
3.
Marks oriented education system…
4.
Students committing suicide owing to poor
performance in exams and not being able to live up to the expectations of the
parents and the society at large.
5.
School and College degree holders, but not
braced with adequate employability skills.
6.
University students with political slogans
demanding freedom, equality- equal opportunity, justice…..
This
inspired me to seek some information about gurukul system of education in
ancient India. While studying about the Gurukul system of education in the
Vedic times, I found that the objectives of such system of education were:
1.
Personality Development through value based
learning (Similar to that followed in Japanese schools.)
2.
Intellectual Development
3.
Physical Education
4.
Spiritual Development
5.
Preparing learner with adequate skills for livelihood
and living.
In the gurukul, the students lived with their guru or teacher’s family and learnt through:
a.
The method of Sravana, to recite the lessons and
remember them with the ability to recall them. This method developed the
student’s listening skills. (This covers the first and second levels of learning
objectives of Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
b.
The method of Chintan, Manan, to deliberate the
topic taught and analyse it.
c.
Students learnt various disciplines viz. botany,
astronomy, military science, political science, economics, fine arts and
spirituality to name a few.
d.
The students were also assigned projects to
apply the concepts taught by the teacher.
e.
The students practised meditation for self
discipline, especially, to discipline and connect ones intellect and emotions
for positive self development.
Learning
or Education comprises of three learning domains:
Bloom’s
Taxonomy of learning behaviours are the learning goals to be achieved in the
three learning domains (KAS).
Bloom’s Taxonomy
According
to Bloom’s Taxonomy the Cognitive Domain
comprises of six levels of learning objectives: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (of concepts, process,
procedure and principle). Later, Anderson and Krathwohl revised it as:
Remembering > Understanding > Applying > Analysing > Evaluating > Creating.
Remembering > Understanding > Applying > Analysing > Evaluating > Creating.
These
domain specific learning objectives were effectively applied in the Gurukul
system of education through a holistic and collaborative approach. The students
learnt to remember ‘shravan’ the lessons or concepts taught to them. Through ‘chintan’
or ‘manan’, students comprehended the lessons taught and applied it in their
life at the Gurukul with scope to collaboratively analyse it, subsequently
innovate/create on the concept, procedure, process or principle in the
Cognitive or Knowledge Domain.
We
can refer to the diagram on Bloom’s Taxonomy of the three learning domains
and discuss how they were applied in the gurukul system of learning:
The Affective or Behavioural Learning
Domain’s objective is to attain emotional maturity through the five levels:
Receive a phenomena or stimulus, respond to the phenomena or stimulus, value
the phenomena or stimulus, organise the value achieved through the stimulus,
and internalise the value. For instance, the child sees his elders greet a
visitor to the house and he is asked to greet the visitor. The visitor
acknowledges and in return greets the child. The child is asked to repeat the
action every time there is a visitor visiting the house or when he is a
visitor. Then his next level of learning is to be sensitive to human cultural
differences and diversities through the different ways of greeting and
acknowledging people from different cultural background. He subsequently learns
and values freedom through responsible behaviour; displays the ability to work
independently and also in a team respecting each and every member of the team
in the form of family members, gurukul mates (class or schoolmates), etc. The
students learnt this in the Gurukul as an integral part of self development
process.
The Skill (Psychomotor) Domain
comprises of Perception, Set, Guided Response, Mechanism, Complex Overt
Response, Adaptation and Origination. It begins with perception or awareness of
sensory cues and respond to them through motor activities e.g. to be aware of
the food on the plate to pick it up and put it in the mouth to eat it. Set or
to be prepared mentally and emotionally to do the action viz. move the fork or
spoon towards the food on the plate, do the action through guided response, for
instance, the parent holding the hand of the child to guide it to pick up the
food from the plate. Mechanism or learned response is to repeat the action
without the guidance. Its practice under supervision leads to proficiency in
doing the action with least effort and energy, this eventually enables the
learner to gain the ability to adapt and act in response to unexpected
experience, for instance, the food is placed in bowl and not in a plate, This
results in the final level of developing psychomotor skill: origination or the
ability to create new movement patterns, such as, the ability to pick up food from
a vessel of any shape. These were the learning objectives of skill development
such as archery, medicine, agriculture or farming in gurukul education; as the students
(disciples) lived in the guru’s (teacher) home and tended his fields, farms and
worked in the household, where they were given the opportunity to apply their
learning.
It is evident the gurukul system of education integrated
the three learning domains to achieve its five main learning objectives.
The great
Chinese philosopher Confucius had said, “I hear and I forget, I see and I
remember. I do and I understand”. Therefore, it is a universal truth that application
based learning (learning by doing) is the most effective way of learning and
honing any skill. After studying about the gurukul system of education one can
say that application based learning was the hallmark of this system of
education. So, why not have this
approach of learning from the early stages of our lives, i.e. from our school
life? Through application based education to achieve the five learning
objectives of the gurukul system of education. How can we achieve this now?
The gurukul system of education is relevant even today. To synchronise the present
system of education with the gurukul system of education requires vocational
education to be made an integral part of the present education system. This can
address the negative effects of marks oriented system of education that only
focuses on cognitive domain of learning.
Considering
all the stimuli that inspired this write-up, we can address all the challenges
faced by the present system of education by including vocational education in
the present system of education and through multi-disciplinary-holistic and
collaborative approach to vocational education:
The
primary objective of education should be to make the student have overall physical,
mental and emotional development along with adequate skills for a vocation.
Based
on one of the stimuli listed in the beginning of this write-up: teaching the
children to grow their own food; let us discuss how this objective can be
achieved:
At
the nursery, kindergarten and primary level of school education the children
can be made aware of self, family, home, neighbourhood, and environment. How
they need to value all to value self. For instance, personal hygiene and how it
is relevant to maintain the cleanliness of the neighbourhood and the
environment as an integral part of personal hygiene. This will eventually help
to develop the civic sense among the children. The children learn by practising
these through well orchestrated activities not only in the formal learning
environment of the school but also outside, at home, in their neighbourhood by
jointly doing the activities with their friends, family members and neighbours.
The teachers can coordinate these activities with the cooperation of the
parents/guardians. The children should not be evaluated on these activities on
the basis of marks they score but, on the basis of the number of ‘smiles’ or ‘happy
response’ they earn from their teachers, family members, peers and elders who
are involved in these activities.
The
nursery and kindergarten students through songs and rhymes viz. the “Karadi
Path” method can learn civilities e.g. the nursery rhyme “Finger family – daddy
finger, mummy finger…baby finger” to teach the children family and human
values, civility and interaction with immediate family members and then the
extended family i.e. relations, friends and neighbours. Rhyme like “a visit to
the garden to meet red rose, yellow sunflower…” can be taught in the garden
where the children learn to identify plants- parts of a plant, flowers,
colours, smell-fragrance, living and non-living things, seasons, food.
Likewise, the children can learn to sing rather than recite the rhyme of “Old
Mac Donald had a farm…” while visiting a farm and learn about animals, colours,
living and non-living things, food, taking care of other beings like taking care
of one self. This approach to learning will effectively fulfil the learning
objectives of all the three domains. The children can sing and dance in the
garden the rhymes in the garden in the process of developing their cognitive
and psychomotor skills.
From
the very beginning, children can learn the vital affective or behavioural traits of tending and caring through activities like adopting a plant and an animal
and learning how to take care of them. This activity will achieve the learning
objectives of all the three domains of learning.
The
next step of learning is reinforcement of the learning through remembering,
understanding and applying the learning. This can be done through a unique
coaching method. The teacher or parents/guardians will not be the coach but, a
student from the middle school will coach and mentor a student from the
nursery, kindergarten or primary school in the following way:
The
teachers, through songs and rhymes can introduce the nursery, kindergarten
school students to concepts related to environment, living objects like the
plants, the students themselves as humans, animals and non-living objects like
soil, land, air, light, water, etc. and their characteristics and attributes like
texture, colour, smell, sound, site, space, time etc. The primary and middle
school students as coach and mentors of the nursery and kindergarten school
students can help them comprehend and remember the concepts learnt through various
activities like walking in the park or garden singing and reciting the songs
together and the student-coach encourages the coached/mentee to remember and
identify the concepts learnt like identifying the living and non-living
objects, naming the objects and their attributes; for example, identify
different plants or flowers and their attributes during a guided visit with the
coach to a garden that the coach is tending to. The coach student will guide
the coached student to take care of the adopted plant and animal. In this way,
the student-coach will help the mentee or the coached student to address the
gaps in knowing and comprehending the concepts. The twin benefits of such
coaching method to both the coach student and the coached student are:
The question you may ask is, how can we know that this method of learning or education effectively help the students achieve their learning objectives. The response to this query shall be the next topic of our discussion.
References:
Gurukul System of Education:
Bloom's Taxonomy:
Thanks for sharing this amazing article
ReplyDeletepes university admission
direct admission in ms ramaiah institute of technology
direct admission in bms college of engineering
rv college of engineering admission through management quota