The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Teacher has only to nudge The whole responsibility of learning in the classroom lies on the shoulders of the teacher while students are allowed to just sit passively, whereas it should be the other way round Jayanti Roy Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. — Ernest Dimnet THE tale of Eklavya has always been quoted for the unfair treatment meted out to him by his guru Dronacharya. However, one point that we have always missed out in this story is his ability to learn all by himself, and learn better than those students who were directly taught by the guru. We have this tradition of revering the guru or teacher. Our texts are full of quotes like ‘Gurur Devo Bhava’ and ‘Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Gurur Devo Maheshwara’, eulogising the teachers and raising them to the pedestal of gods. This heavy emphasis on teachers, down the ages, has skewed our pedagogical philosophy and we have lost our focus on the pupil, the student and the learner, who should in fact be the centre of all our teaching. We must acknowledge that this imbalance has led to a decline in quality of education in our schools, colleges and universities. Our teaching methods are too much teacher-centred. For all these years we have followed such teaching methods, where it is the teacher who prepares, plans, delivers, questions and responds. The whole responsibility of learning in the classroom lies on the shoulders of the teacher, while the students are allowed just to sit passively, a mute witness to the whole show put up by the teacher, whereas it should be the other way round. It is the student who should reflect, comprehend, question, synthesise, analyse, argue and debate in order to internalise the knowledge that is there and the teacher should be the facilitator, mentor, igniter, catalyst and stimulator. Students being thinking humans have an inherent capacity and skill to learn. All of us, whether literate or illiterate, go through our lives using this potential in different settings — in careers, at homes, in communities and relationships. We learn and maneuver our lives due to this power intrinsic in each person to know how to learn. In addition to that, we have our own knowledge resources, unique first-hand experiences and ways of information processing. All this guides us in acquiring and applying knowledge in our own individual ways. Each student can thus learn all by himself/herself through a little guidance, correction of course, motivation and the skill of how to learn. The teacher helps in the process and accelerates the learning. As one of the great teachers said, “I do not teach. I create environment for learning”. This simple fact implies that our pedagogical methods should be such that students’ intrinsic learning potential is exploited to the maximum. Their natural tendency to learn new things, new concepts and new approaches on their own to generate new ideas should be honed. It is to this quality of the learners that we have to appeal to in order to make teaching effective. Instead, we give them heavy content, classic techniques, grave approaches and fixed concepts. This argument does not mean that teachers are not needed, that they are redundant or superfluous. It also does not claim that if left alone, all students will acquire knowledge and learn all learnable things without teachers. It simply appeals to deglamourise the role of teacher and to put the focus of learning from the teacher to the learner. It is to remind that the ‘hero’ in the classroom is not the teacher but the student. The teacher is there to raise the wick, so that each lamp lights uniquely, brightly; not to manufacture Chinese light bulbs, molded in similar moulds, which blip simultaneously. The writer is Deputy Director, Academic Staff College, Panjab University, Chandigarh
	Walk to school or pay in health later, warns report Jonathan Owen TODAY’S generation of schoolchildren are being set on a path towards future illness by parents who insist on driving them to school, according to a new report being released today to mark Walk to School Week. The health time bomb from children who grow up not walking to school could cost the country billions, claims the Must Try Harder report by the charity Living Streets, UK. Fears of children being abducted or run over on the way to school, along with time pressures, have resulted in a major shift in attitudes towards walking to school. And it has gone from being the norm to the exception in the space of a generation, according to the report. Eight out of ten (81 per cent) parents of primary-school children walked to school themselves. Now, despite rising rates of obesity among children, more than a quarter (27 per cent) of parents automatically drive their children to school and more than one in five (21 per cent) have never considered making sure their children walk to school. Obesity-related health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and cancers will cost Britain £27 billion by 2015. The simple act of walking to school is not only good for children’s physical health, but helps embed a good attitude to exercise and keeping healthy. It needs to be a key element of the government strategy to encourage Britons to be more physically active, says Living Streets. Less than half (49 per cent) of primary-school children walk to school despite the majority (75 per cent) living within two miles of school. One in five primary-school children don’t walk to school because their parents state that they don’t have time to walk with them. The problem is even worse among secondary-school children — with just 38 per cent opting to walk to school. And although children start off wanting to get to school themselves, with 59 per cent of primary-school pupils willing to walk up to 20 minutes to school each day, the interest wanes as they get older with just 37 per cent of secondary-school pupils prepared to do this. The government’s performance in encouraging children to walk to school has been “mixed” and it “must try harder”, according to the report. “The previous government’s school travel strategy was quickly ditched with no replacement,” it says. The walk to school is not only beneficial for physical and mental health, but helps reduce traffic congestion – with fewer cars doing the ‘school run’ — improve air quality and reduce carbon emissions,” states the report. And campaigners are fighting to reverse the trend towards children being driven to school — aiming to make sure that more than half of primary school children will be walking to school again by 2017. Tony Armstrong, chief executive, Living Streets, said: “The overwhelming majority of our grans and granddads walked to school, but over generations we are seeing a steady decline to the point where it seems a fifth of parents wouldn’t even think about ensuring their child walks to school. Meanwhile obesity rates have more than doubled, even since I walked to school just 20-odd years ago.” He added: “Encouraging the walk to school not only helps to keep children healthy today, but makes for healthier adults in the future. We know that time-pressed parents often see jumping into the car as the easiest way to get children to school on time, but we do so at the risk of storing up health problems for them in the future.” — The Independent
	Campus Notes Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar Teachers threaten to go on hunger strike DEJECTED by not being paid the arrears accruing from the Sixth Pay Commission 2006, university teachers gave an ultimatum to the authorities to clear their dues by May 22, failing which they would go on hunger strike. Taking cognisance of the university authorities’ move to debar them from holding any protest within a radius of 100 meters from the Vice-Chancellor’s office, the teachers have decided to hold agitation at Putlighar Chowk near the university gate. Dr Davinder Singh, president, Guru Nanak Dev University Teachers Association, said, “It is a pitiable situation that the university teachers have not been paid the Sixth Pay Commission arrears. This has caused a widespread anger among them. Though the association has raised this issue with the authorities several times in the past two years, nothing has been done so far. The executive committee of the association has also met Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal for the release of arrears.” Endorsing his views, Dr Lakhwinder Singh, secretary, Guru Nanak Dev University Teachers Association, said, “Instead of listening to the genuine demands of the teachers, the authorities have filed a law suit in the court. It is an unprecedented action in the entire history of the university. All through our past agitations on the campus, the teachers have never resorted to violence.” Fellowship awarded Dr Satwinderjeet Kaur, Associate Professor from the Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences of the university, has been awarded the prestigious DBT-CREST Fellowship Award at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, for chemoprevention of pancreatic cancer. The award has been conferred by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. She has presented her research work at national and international forums, including Italy, Canada and the US. Earlier, she was awarded the BOYSCAST Fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, in 2004. She was also awarded the P.N. Mehra Memorial Award for Young Scientist in 2006. Refresher course A refresher course in “Punjabi Language, Literature and Culture” was held at the Academic Staff College (ASC) of the university. The course was organised by ASC in association with the School of Punjabi Studies. As many as 17 teachers from various parts of the country participated. Professor A.S. Brar, Vice-Chancellor, who inaugurated the course, apprised the participants of various steps undertaken by the university to promote and popularise the Punjabi language amongst students. He said the introduction of the new course “Basic Punjabi” had gone a long way in disseminating the popularity of the Punjabi language. — Contributed by G. S. Paul
	Studyscape US degree in supply chain management from Mumbai MUMBAI: With India opening up the retail trade sector to overseas investment, the University of Southern California is offering a Master of Science degree programme in global supply chain management through SP Jain Institute here. “The programme is aimed at facilitating the needs of working professionals in the Asia Pacific region (the US, China, India and South Korea) who wish to expand their knowledge of the rapidly-changing world of global supply chain management,” the institute said. Awarded by the Marshal School of Business, those pursuing this degree programme will have the choice of on-campus learning experience at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, as also online programme option. — IANS Brain stimulation may boost mental maths ability LONDON: Brain stimulation may improve your ability to manipulate numbers in your head, a new Oxford study has found. In the Cell Press journal Current Biology, scientists described a fast and painless way to do better at mental arithmetic. “With just five days of cognitive training and noninvasive, painless brain stimulation, we were able to bring about long-lasting improvements in cognitive and brain functions,” said Roi Cohen Kadosh of the University of Oxford. The improvements held for a period of six months after training. Researchers said this relatively new method of stimulation, called transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS), allows the brain to work more efficiently by making neurons fire more synchronously. TRNS has been shown to improve mental arithmetic — the ability to add, subtract, or multiply a string of numbers in your head, for example — not just new number learning, they said. — PTI