Quick Calendar

Holidays : March 2024

Events : March 2024

Trainings : March 2024

Food Menu : Today

Friday - March 29, 2024
Articles
Director’s Annual Speech 2010

Thanks ……
Warm good evening…

Let me present a typical scenario in most classrooms 
The teacher stands before their   Math class. “OK, so, in calculating a slope, you have to remember that Y=mx + b”. 
“Why?” responds the student. “Why do we have to know how to calculate a slope?” 
Of course, the student immediately receives a disciplinary referral for disrupting the class.

The teacher knows they have to learn this. It’s important! 
This teacher spent years of her life learning and preparing to teach.  She loves math, she  understands the subtle thinking that learning math can open.  She has learned how to think logically, how to look at problems (not only math, but complex life problems) from different aspects. 
Why don’t these students understand that math must be learned precept upon precept?

The teacher knows that you have to know how to solve for “x” before you can solve for “x” and “y”. That’s how the teacher learned. That’s how everyone over 30 learned for a thousand years! The problem is, that’s NOT how these students have learned about life.

Let’s take “Johnny” as an example. Johnny is 14 years old and just about finishing his high school. Johnny’s grades are not the best. He is among the 50% of the students  in danger of failing his Algebra 1 class. He doesn’t remember his multiplication tables very well and just can’t seem to focus on multi-step problems with any great success. He forgets to do all the steps to solve quadratic equations, and will often not follow the order of operations in his linear equations. In other words, he’s a typical 9th grader in trouble.

Johnny was born in 1996. He has never seen a “record” turntable other than as a Disc-Jockey effects machine. He has never had access to less than 50 television channels, or had to look up a fact in an encyclopedia. He has always had internet access, microwaves, transportation, video games, and been able to instantly access the music he wants to hear. When Johnny wants an answer to a question, he Googles, texts, tweets, IMs, or watches a science or history channel. He does not read news papers (which may be extinct before this is pronounced), listen to lectures, or experience the frustration of not being able to find the information he seeks.

We think Johnny isn’t interested in learning. That he wants everything done for him. 
He doesn’t WANT everything done for him, it already is. This is the world he lives in. 
There is a tremendous gap between what he experiences out of school, and what he experiences in the classroom. 
So great is this difference that Johnny has become convinced that formal education may not be worth the effort. 
We, the establishment, are trying to convince him that It IS important without much success. 
The stark fact is that education is increasingly out of touch with what today’s student really needs to become a successful, productive, informed citizen.

Isn’t that the goal of education? 
To help a young person develop a sense of self, a well rounded, and well founded, view of the world in which we live? That’s classical educational philosophy.

It’s still a sound point of view.

The problem seems to be, that we’re trying to prepare a student for a world that no longer exists. This is not to say that the information we’d like a student to learn can’t be valuable. Indeed, knowing how to communicate, how to calculate using advanced math (Algebra and Geometry), being familiar with science and history, and learning about arts and other general knowledge is still important for every person. That’s why we have  education. We want our next generation to be prepared for assuming the responsibility of guiding our society.

“Guiding” is the key. Education has a unique paradox which is built into the present system. We want to prepare our students for the future, but we’re still using the techniques of the past. The real issue isn’t what is taught in   schools, but rather, how education is approached in order to truly prepare young people for the future. It’s not WHAT we’re doing; it’s the WAY in which we’re doing it. OMG!

So the real question is not “Is education broken?”, rather, “How can we fix it?” There are many, many seminars, in services, workshops, etc. which have ideas for fixes. Politicians and educators wrestle with, and many times, against one another seeking the answer.  
One of the television shows I truly enjoyed as a kid was “Star Trek”. Not the Next Generation, the original. I thought Kirk and Spock were cool! As I sit here, I remember one of the Star Trek movies in which the Kirk character had gone back in time to the 1980’s and was sitting at a table in a restaurant when his communicator beeped. He sheepishly responded trying to hide the advanced technology from those present. Today, this is a cell phone. What was once science fiction is now a part of the very fabric of our society.

The farmer, when harvesting the crop, sets aside a certain amount of that harvest for next year’s seed. The outlook of the farmer is not only to what he will profit this year, but also what he may profit next year. The educational system seems to have very little forward thinking (as a system).

The teacher worries about this years’ syllabus and test scores. The parent worries about this year’s test scores and the 10th grade test scores.  The Government worries about ( or rather not worries) this year’s  budget allocation for education.   In doing so, each year education falls further and further behind in technology, in social relevance, and in meeting the needs of the very population they are created to help. 
There must be a major shift in political educational thinking. Education should (along with emergency services) be the very last thing to be touched by budget cuts. These students are our seed for the next successful generation of Indians, and world citizens.

Five assumptions are a recipe for a kind of slow-motion social suicide.
The first is the assumption that students arrive at school ready to learn in the same way, on the same schedule, all in rhythm with each other.
The second is the notion that academic time can be shrunk so that the students can go to tuition classes for better coaching.

Next is the pretense that because yesterday's calendar was good enough for us, it should be good enough for our children-despite major changes in the larger society.

Fourth is the myth that schools can be transformed without giving teachers the time they need to retool themselves and reorganize their work.
Finally, we find a new fiction: it is reasonable to expect "world-class academic performance" from our students within the time-bound system that is already failing them.

The reality of today's world is that the global economy provides few decent jobs for the poorly educated. Today, a new standard for an educated citizenry is required, a standard suited to the 21st century, not the 19th or the 20th.  We must be as knowledgeable, competent, and inventive as any people in the world. All of our citizens, not just a few, must be able to think for a living.
My appeal:
My dear students, you are highly privileged generation. You should do more than meet the standard; you should set it. The stakes are very high.  You not only have to survive amidst today's changes,  you have to be able to create tomorrow's.

My dear parents,
Today the educational market is wide open – with variety of schools.  With brand names, curriculum and franchisee. Do make choices – the RIGHT SCHOOL for your child - based on your aspirations, dreams and expectations.  Go by your own standards and experiences. Your experience is your truth.

My dear teachers  
During this year’s Jr.KG concert, a child got so excited……
Do you recall that scene? Each parent has given us the only best child in the whole world – entrusted  their child to us with high emotions and big stakes. This is the back drop in which we must view our role. 
The transformation we seek requires a widespread conviction in our society that learning matters. Learning matters, not simply because it leads to better jobs or produces national wealth, but because it enriches the human spirit and advances social health.
In his classic work, Schools without Failure, psychiatrist William Glasser focuses on the components of successful schooling.  In his opinion, teachers must develop a positive involvement with students, re-think the relevance of their curriculum and consider the student evaluation process as a byproduct of a successful, quality learning experience. We need teachers who are knowledgeable and (simply put) like what they do.

My Dear team leaders, 
I believe that leadership is not a position but a privilege.  This privilege needs to be transformed to deep passion, commitment and competence to serve your team.

My dear Board members, 
The human ability to learn and grow is the cornerstone of a civil and humane society. Until we embrace the importance of quality education as an investment in our common future nothing will really change. I know you have made personal commitments and sacrifices for this dream. Stick to your vision and ideals . Don’t succumb to subtle and not so subtle for dilution. Mediocrity is boring and uncreative.

My dear HRD minister, 
As people, we are obsessed with international economic comparisons. We fail to acknowledge that a nation's economic power often depends on the strength of its education system. Parents, grandparents, employers-even children-understand and believe in the power of learning. 
Certainly nothing will change as long as education remains a convenient whipping boy camouflaging larger failures of national will and shortcomings in public and private leadership.

The strongest message is that education must become a new national obsession, as powerful as sports and entertainment, if we are to avoid a spiral of economic and social decline.