Modernising The Classroom
How to do it the right way
Nowadays, one need not go beyond their locality to discover a signboard of yet another newly established school advertising their use of some "new technology", specifically "digital blackboards" (apparently meant to act as a magical word). Their proclamations, along with the increasing roster of academics and educators who regularly endorse a change in the prevailing classroom dynamics of the country, begs the question: how do we effectively modernise the classroom in full view of their practical shortcomings?
What is often overlooked during talks of implementing new teaching methods is whether teachers can adjust to the use of new technologies. In Dhaka alone, there is great variance in the quality of teaching from one institute to another—not considering the situation across the rest of the country. This inconsistency greatly distorts the results of any method when applied to actual classrooms.
Further suggestions of putting teachers into "workshops" in a bid to inculcate them to new approaches could well sound like last minute measures drawn up to get the equation to just look right, for they take little notice of the challenges in implementing them. Another problem is the persistent, almost virus-like behaviour of the shortcomings, which readily adapt to newer methods. For example, when the creative system of education was initiated as a response to rote memorisation which had been prevalent and was seen as the norm of school life, many thought the pernicious cycle of having to get every word in order, no matter whether one understood the essence of the topic, would perhaps be a thing of the past.
That was not the case. Soon, the guidebooks pumped out scores of model question and answer sets of every subject taught, due to the demand of students and their parents, and rote learning slowly sneaked back in. A report published in The Daily Star last year showed that at least 40 percent of teachers in secondary schools did not know how to set questions according to the creative system and effectively copied question sets off of these guidebooks, making it all the more apparent that students would primarily opt to use them.
But perhaps the most pressing of these problems is the classroom itself. It would be disingenuous to use any one model to represent the entire spectrum. If one only zooms into Dhaka, they'd find an array of dissimilar formats in place. Dhaka's schools are not all the same. While the prominent ones, those that get the most attention, have a more or less constant appearance. The hundreds of small schools, starting from those that are stationed in literal residential apartment buildings to the ones that act as a side-business for organisations that are primarily known for other things, are all different than one another in terms of space, student population per class, teacher quantity and quality, and syllabus.
For instance, it is practically impossible in some cases to even bring in props to better explain a particular topic when the class has over a hundred students and very little resources. It is redundant to have unnecessary technology in place such as digital blackboards when most teachers barely know how to use them in a classroom where technical difficulties make it trying for everyone involved.
Change, however, is needed. Just because a uniform solution is often unsuccessful does not mean that there is no hope for improvement. It is only that we should take into account all the variables possible before formulating anything on a large scale. More often than not, our desperate, while well-intentioned suggestions and pleas only have a short life-span, acting as buzzwords and quickly falling apart during the process of implementation.
Thus, it is perhaps better to deal with the problem coming from a position of restraint. Perhaps it would be better for us to just concentrate more on how teachers write their lectures, if they do at all. Their performance should be straightforward and engaging, keeping the use of technology limited except when absolutely necessary and unless one is adept at using them so that there is very little chance of any disturbances.
It must be stressed that students aren't all just blank slates that can be moulded into some form of success. Forcing everyone to be "engaging" does not always bear good results. It may be imperative to let certain students overcome their fear of any kind of confrontation, but the classroom is not always a good place to aggressively test that for not every student processes their lessons at the same speed. This is something that teachers must take into account. They must understand the complexities of their students and vary their style accordingly in order to properly guide them.
There is also a need for home assignments to be of a conceptual nature. This may differ from subject to subject but developing students' ability to think critically and assisting them in understanding subject matters on their own accord is essential.
When it comes to educating the next generation, which is essentially an investment in the development and moral outlook of our country, we must tread lightly and take a conservative approach. Fashionable solutions come and go every other week, but once institutionalised, it is hard to break free of them long after they have proven to be ineffective.
Rafee Shaams is a student at Jahangirnagar University.