Drab textbooks kill urge to learn
Author: Kumar Chellappan
The authors of books prescribed for schools and colleges are established academicians with impeccable credentials. But most of these writers have poor communication skills
Textbooks prescribed for schools and colleges in India are dull, drab and disheartening. The only time they get national attention is when the contents generate controversy like the NCERT social studies textbook recommended for ninth standard students in the CBSE stream. A chapter on culture and clothing authored by a Leftist historian from Jawaharlal Nehru University contained derogatory and flippant observations about the politically and economically influential Nadar community in Tamil Nadu. The chapter got publicity not for the wisdom of the author but for comments reportedly picked up from a book authored by a US journalist. Our eminent historians blindly follow anything anti-Indian, especially when that is authored by Western writers.
The author of the article described Nadars as descendants of Shanars, a group of people in Kerala, who migrated to southern Tamil Nadu to work as farm labourers in the agricultural lands of Nair landlords. The word ‘Shanar’ itself is inappropriate. They are Channars and the community was known for their wealth and social advancement. This is just to drive home the point about how insipid and tasteless our school and college books are. How many of us have gone through them? I am sure even grown-up people find it painful to read those books.
It is not because our students are lazy that they detest such textbooks. The authors of those books may be good academicians but they are poor communicators. One scientist who could simplify complex subjects for ordinary people was CV Raman, who is credited with the Raman Effect, and who walked away with the Nobel Prize for the same. While even modern day teachers struggle to explain what Raman Effect is, to their wards, there is a real life story about the great scientist. His illiterate aunt asked Raman what is this commotion about the Raman Effect and the Nobel Prize. When the great scientist explained to her the significance of his invention, the aunt reportedly asked him, “Are these Westerners mad to honour you with Nobel Prize for such a simple invention”, the aunt is reported to have asked him. It took Raman Effect to new heights.
I remember late M Sundareshan of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, telling me how science is taught in US schools. “There were two students staying in the same neighbourhood: A boy and a girl. The boy was black, the girl was white. Whenever they came face to face, they used to fight. The girl always taunted the boy calling him ‘Blackie’; the boy shouted back at the girl calling her ‘Whitie’. This went on for weeks and months. Once the boy got so irritated that he caught hold of her hand and pulled her towards him. There was a ‘blast’ and lots of ‘fire’. Onlookers watched it with shock. When the fire subsided and the smoke blew away, people had a hearty laugh. They had learnt yet another lesson. When potassium permanganate, which is black in colour, comes into contact with glyceriene, which is white, there would be fire— and one has to be cautious. This is how they teach chemistry in USA”, he told me.
Our schools and colleges may not have state-of-the-art laboratories or teaching instruments. But good teachers could make the learning process interesting by taking the students close to nature and teaching them about environment and ecology. Most of the students, in schools as well as in colleges, fear mathematics. The teachers never tell them why one should learn the complex equations in algebra, calculus and trigonometry. On their party, the students learn mathematics out of fear; fear of their teachers and fear of the examinations.
P Iyemperumal, executive director of the MP Birla Planetarium in Chennai, who moves around in all of Tamil Nadu schools like an evangelist preaching the significance of learning science and mathematics, says that the quality of teaching in schools as well as colleges has come down over the years. He feels a teacher should be trained for a minimum period of three years by a senior teacher before the trainee teacher is entrusted with a classroom.
P Shankar, a distinguished nuclear scientist-turned professor, says that the destruction of thinking power of our students begin in schools where they are asked to learn everything without understanding one bit of anything. If they do not reproduce what they read in the text books ad-verbatim, they stand to lose marks.
With its rich history and cultural traditions, India does not need billions of dollars of investment for making this possible. Tell the newly recruited teachers that theirs is not just yet another job, but that it is also a mission.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/52993-drab-textbooks-kill-urge-to-learn.html
