The way of teaching in our schools – Exact or Inexact?

Waseem Akram

“Teaching in the digital age has become technology-driven and learner-centred in form, yet paradoxically hollow in spirit. While methods have modernised, the essence of teaching—nurturing curiosity, sensitivity, and moral growth—has been quietly subverted.”

The modern and digital world with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics have revolutionized the world in many sectors especially the education sector. However, it has left many questions for us unanswered in terms of the way teaching, the exigency of teachers in future prospects and the ethical and cognitive development of children in this digital age. The teaching in the modern age is very different from the old “Chalk-and-Talk” model and is more dynamic, learner centred and   technology driven but at the same time the way of teaching has been subverted and obscured.

The role of teacher which was primarily considered as to teach students the moral, ethical and spiritual values, inculcate in them a sense of responsibility, nurture them and guide them in the different aspects of life and to inspire and motivate them for exploring the world but not equitably to dissipate knowledge and information. Nevertheless, teachers are in a race to use the modern methodology in teaching without actually understanding the impartiality of the digital teaching and concept-based learning for fostering curiosity, sensitivity, sensibility and exploration.

       I got an opportunity to taught the undergraduate and postgraduate Chemistry students of USA on an online platform, it was an entirety divergent and an unabridged experience for me from conventional as well as digital teaching, although I have taught Chemistry to many students in the past including teaching of different competitive exams like NEET & JEE nonetheless teaching the students of USA is entirely contrasting not just because of the language but the methodology, the way of teaching being different fostering critical thinking and analytical approach.

I got myself a unique experience of doubt solving, morale boosting and the proper way of teaching especially at higher levels, which is only delivering lectures in our system, while interacting with the students of the USA. I realised that this kind of teaching needs an ultimate understanding and critical analysis of the subject knowledge in addition to understanding the student’s demands for comprehending the concepts, developing curiosity and understanding the problems faced by students to address the learning gaps.

I still remember as a B. Ed student when we were taught that teaching is a tripolar process, involving actively the teacher, the student and the environment but it has become a unipolar process now involving only the teacher.

Nowadays teachers just know how to deliver classes by gaining much and more information from Chat GPT and Google, without realising the emotions of the child, the level of understanding and the output of teaching. The output is seen in the marks which students get at the end of session rather than the achievement at the end of a course or a degree.

The level of understanding and critical thinking cannot be just measured by the marks and grades. It has become very common in our society nowadays that marks are considered as an absolute measure of intelligence level and an ultimate achievement. A teacher should never judge a student only on the basis of marks scored in the previous exam in lower grades also as each and every student has unique ability.

The training which teachers receive from different institutions lack practical utility. The training is carried out for the sake of training and for the utilization of funds rather than any proper objective. The objective may be defined but the role of teachers giving those trainings is unprecedented and non-implementing as it is not just the sharing of knowledge with the teacher that can shape his teaching methodology but the actual understanding of classroom situation and child centered pedagogy which can uplift his teaching capability.

I had been a resource person in the past and I realized that during most trainings when any informative point is shared with the trainee’s they feel the resource person is highly reasonable and has in-depth knowledge but when any point related to ethics of teaching, the proper way of teaching or child centred strategy is discussed, they realise they knew such things already and do not necessarily give them primary importance while teaching. If a teacher knows fully how to teach, then there is no need for such training.

In foreign countries like USA, teacher is a not a person who delivers a class rather a facilitator, a motivator and a guide who helps the students to understand a particular concept by giving related examples and makes him to solve problems at his own while carefully examining the level of the students and lets him to explore things at his own.

This develops a sense of learning and curiosity among the children but in our system the teachers just share the information with the students and do not care about the level of understanding, the ability of a child to solve the problems and become independent to learn things on his own and that is the reason that most of our children after getting so many degrees are still incompatible and unrelated in different opportunities.

 When a student is left to understand and realise things on his own, he understands nature uniquely and exclusively and thus finds solutions to the problems which he may encounter at various stages.

Nowadays children have become so much dependent on spoon feeding that the rational and logical attitude has been restricted. A 10th pass or 12th pass cannot write any application on his own due to our strategic failure. It is high time to renovate the methodology and adopt the strategic teaching in order to get the best and desired output.

The author is an academician and writer and can be reached at waseemche11@gmail.com