Friday, March 04, 2011

What is (more) 'Educationally Responsible'?

What is more educationally responsible from among the alternatives below. Anytime you feel it's all very clear, don't ignore the possibility that there may a trap somewhere...
  • Encouraging someone to ask questions or give answers to questions no one is asking?
  • Helping learners discover worlds of fascinating and worthwhile knowledge around them versus providing them information from books?
  • Setting challenging tasks versus 'telling' children, giving explanatory lectures ?
  • Encouraging reflection or ensuring memorization of the right answers?
  • Preventing errors or letting children discover for themselves when they've made a mistake?
  • Giving feedback versus giving marks (and remarks)?
  • Ensuring all children get the same opportunity versus ensuring different children get different opportunities?
  • Doing everything oneself (if you're a teacher) versus passing on some of your tasks to children (e.g. marking attendance, ensuring participation of peers)
  • Maintaining all provided materials in good shape or using them at the risk of their getting spoilt, torn, etc.?
  • Asking community to help with their knowledge heritage versus asking community to contribute to improvement in mid day meal?
  • Using a textbook as a resource versus using a textbook as a definitive material (i.e. assuming it is the curriculum)
  • Reading this blog or reading a useful book on education?!

So what is more educationally responsible? Let me have more such pairs / alternatives to choose from, and also your views on the above!

8 comments:

Falguni Marwadi said...

sirji!

i tried to make students feel responcible by giving charge of students bachat(saving)account and letting them marking their own attendence.every thing was ok as fer as both me and children were concerned but then i was told to stop allowing students to mark their own attendence coz it comes in the 'duties of teacher' and i myself only shud mark otherwise it may cause great harm to me and it can be proved irresponcible act.
many primary teachers like me feelin same such problems.what to do ? to be educationally responcible ? or to be educationally irresponcible?

Subir Shukla said...

You can certainly ask students to mark their own attendance, only don't let them do it in the official register! Put up a chart on which they can mark their presence every day, use it to update your attendance record, which officially remains your work. Give it a try and let me know if there are any new objections!

pm said...

ya sir, ye maine apne class me kiya to offical register me jyada galtiya hone lagi jaise ki bachhe kabhi sunday ko mark karte the,chhechhak dag dhabbe sabkuch hone laga.bad me maine naya notebook liya aur esme register draw karvake bachho ke liye open rakh diya...aur bachhe pencil se mark karte hai....holiday ka colum hi nahi rakha...

Subir Shukla said...

Thank you very much, Prakash! Flaguni, Prakash ke anubhav se kuchh seekne layak baat hai! Aur kin-kin tarah ke kaamom ki zimmedaari de sakte hain bachhon ko? (Saaf-safai ke alava - jaise, co-curricular activties ki planning karna, ya PTA meeting mein sab ko register karna, vagairah...?

Rajeshri said...

sirji in one of my school whole the activities are handle by students. i held summer camp at there in may 2010 and for it they had planned all the activities. sirji mera experience raha he ki agar bachchoko responsibility di jay to vo badose achha nibhate he ha par unko motivate & guide karte rehna padta he.

Subir Shukla said...

Good to know about this school, Rajeshri - I hope the other schools in the cluster will also pick this up! If we are able to see that children and the teacher are one team, the teacher's life is much easier, and children's learning is much greater

Rajendran Thamarapura said...

Does the teacher to talk or let children to talk; Does the teacher to prepare teaching materials or let the children involve in developing them; Allowing children try to read and comprehend a new material for themselves first and make teacher explanation last OR teacher explains first and ask children to read (What is need for the child to read after teacher's explanation? since the treasure is exposed and revealed); Does the teacher to give question answers Or ask children to find out enough question and answers themselves; Does the teacher to impart the process or let the child to invent her own learning process... (I think, this is very important)

vijay said...

Being 'educationally responsible' means fostering holistic learning, ethics, and critical thinking. It goes beyond academic achievements, focusing on character development, empathy, and preparing students for real-world challenges.
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