Are We Teaching Too Much?

In a recent article, Professor Dinesh Singh—a renowned academic—highlighted the art of teaching and how, often unconsciously, we suppress the creative potential of students. He wrote: “After all these years and much reflection, I have come to the firm conclusion that we teach too much in India. This leaves our students with no time to reflect, experiment, and absorb knowledge in a creative manner”. As a classroom teacher, I have experienced this firsthand while teaching at a state university. In a society that claims to be knowledge-based, this should be a subject of debate in higher education institutions to facilitate necessary course corrections.

While teaching is always important, as the old adage goes, “excess of everything is bad.” The NEP 2020 subtly emphasizes this and advocates for the holistic development of students. Unfortunately, the more things change, the more they remain the same. How can we bring about change and transform our institutional culture to enhance the core competencies of our students? This is my immediate concern. However, before addressing this, two issues deserve serious attention:

First, students everywhere are staying away from classes. Some say it is a global problem. Policy pundits blame teachers for being static and status-quoist. Lectures are boring, outdated, and textbook-centric. Teachers are not putting their heart and soul into teaching and are uninspiring. Teaching is a process of healing, and this is possible only if you have passion for it. Teachers blame students and the problem of unemployment among educated youth. Even after obtaining degrees from colleges and universities, youth remain jobless and hence are not attracted to the classroom. The fact of the matter is that even in the past, the blame game existed. Teachers once found fault with TV and movies for distracting students’ attention. Many experts attribute student absenteeism to digital addiction and smartphones with 24/7 internet access. At a workshop, I heard a mental health expert attributing student absenteeism to mental health issues and the growing social disconnect.

Turning to students, they hesitate to give direct answers and keep their responses largely vague. But at the end of the day, the question remains: Why do students enrol in higher education, and why do parents spend so much money on their education? While we expect teachers and experts to probe into the matter and find out whether the educational “software” needs to be changed, my own experiences suggest that we need new classroom management skills to curb absenteeism and, more importantly, enhance the 21st-century skills of our students. Excessive lecturing must end. Teachers need to cultivate productive academic habits whereby they listen to their students and give them more time to relax, rest, and reflect.

Second, the negativity around us and in the world should not be permitted to disempower the student and the teacher. Most people fail in life not because they aim too high, but because they aim too low. Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, and architect Michelangelo was once asked: “How do you produce statues that are so full of life?” He replied: “The rough marble already contains the statue; it is a matter of extracting it.” Having explained these two concerns, it is imperative we explore ways to reimagine the classroom so that students find it useful, refreshing, and productive. One way to do that is to reimagine the classroom.

Horizontal Classroom Management

Horizontal classroom management refers to the transition toward dialogic teaching, aiming to harness the power of conversation to stimulate and expand students’ thinking. It is bilateral, not unilateral; horizontal, not vertical. The teacher and student must balance their relationship to make it equitable and enlightened. This approach fosters a new classroom dynamic that promotes an academic balance of power between the teacher and the taught. The traditional model of one-way traffic in the highway of education is inconvenient, troublesome, and autocratic. Some of the best ideas lie with youth, and these need to be extracted and refined. We need not confuse the university with a monastery.

The university is a place where students have the right to be wrong. Eminent sociologist Avajit Pathak laments that education has become a battleground, devoid of joy and humour. The teacher has become a coaching centre guru and service provider”. Today teachers deliver ‘fast-food education’ in the classroom, which has taken a heavy toll on our human resources. The examination as the day of judgement is standing on their head in spite of the fact that future of work and world of jobs have gone tremendous change. Students and teachers come and go to the university like factory workers of course without a common uniform.

In the classroom, factual answers are not as important as creating an ecosystem in which students reveal their understanding. We need to pose questions like: narrate, explain, analyse, speculate, imagine, explore, evaluate, justify, and many others to ignite the minds of the young. According to theorist Neera Chandhok, the idea is not to speak down to young minds from a vantage point of superior knowledge. Instead, the goal is to spark a conversation among students. Unlike debate, conversation is unending. It has no winners; it cultivates the mind, teaches us to question our presumptions, and makes us more enlightened and socially conscious. Education philosopher Ruth Johnson aptly put it: “Higher education does not teach what to think but how to think.”

Horizontal classroom management allows students enough space to express their ideas. In a different way, the Kothari Commission of 1964 emphasized the importance of flattening the classroom. The commission stated: “A university’s business is not primarily to give society what it wants but what it needs.” Therefore, what is significant is the growth and development of critical skills in our students and sharpening their analytical power. We have to learn and unlearn many things. Failure is always part of the learning process. In the USA, children are encouraged to write stories and express ideas even if there are spelling mistakes. The teacher looks for thought, not spelling. The idea is that we are teaching, not preaching.

We are imparting knowledge, not theology. Remember, initially, Oxford and Cambridge were primarily serving the Catholic Church in England. The role of the clergy remained dominant. The preachers had control over scholars. The result was the slow death and decay of English society. It was only when they learned the value of independent thinking and curiosity that science and progress gained prominence, and society saw all-around development.

Hence, the centrality of the teacher is fundamental to classroom management. It is the teacher who makes the difference, not the so-called smart classroom.

The author is Kashmir based political Scientist and Honorary Senior fellow centre for Multilevel federalism New Delhi