Many students spend a lot of their time reading and learning on their own. It is indeed a very good habit but I wonder why as students progress to a higher level a lot of these students fall by the wayside. It is indeed very demoralising for these students but all is not loss as what they gain is industriousness that will help them in the future if it does when their level of thought maturity moves to a higher level. Here I will try to elaborate and categorise as follows: -
A. Memorising
Most if not all students start learning by way of memorising. Here, the differentiation factor to separate students are their memory skills and how hardworking they are. However some country's syllabus has develop critical thinking skills in their math syllabus to primary six but most countries still teach the elementary level and so I will stick to MEMORISING.
However there may be some students that mature faster and try to put two and two together, or link their knowledge an therefore learn faster. These are the more gifted students and sadly the education system has not put in place teachers to spot and identify these students so as to accelerate their learning curve.
Memorising and good memory is different. Some just memorise and do not know what they are memorising and therefore forget just as easily. However, those with good memory is able to pick up knowledge faster as they can recall what they have learned after some time but these students need to be nurtured. A lot of these students also fall by the wayside as their good memory is not honed to maturity in thought. Here it is most important to identify these students and develop their thinking skills either critical thinking or creative thinking.
You will find a lot of students that rely purely on memory work can do well up to O level but find difficult to cope at advance level. You will find them demoralise especially the hardworking ones. Some will just stop to think that will bring me to the next part.
B. Thinking
For thinking students it does not matter if they do well or not in their studies. What is more important is the thought they put into their experience. If they think long over their problem whatever it is, I believe this is the prerequisite for action. They will start to act on their thoughts. Students who do not think are the ones that are easily influence because they let others think for them without even the thought of what they learn right or wrong. This brings me to the next part.
C. Learning
The dangers in learning is thinking that what you have learned is right but later finding out that what you thought is right is absolutely wrong. Knowing that you are wrong and not knowing why prompts you to seek knowledge. Some of these students just stress out and give up on learning. For these students they must learn to unlearn and then relearn then all will be fine This brings me to the next part.
D. Basic Knowledge vs Advance Knowledge
A lot of science and mathematics topics are thought to the level of understanding to a particular level. For example an astronaut at a space station is said to experience no gravity at the basic level...why because it is easier to understand but at an advance level that is not the case and a higher level of understanding has to be put in place....or elements in a chemical compound s are thought to bind following the octate rule but there must be a paradigm shift at a higher level. Students must be thought to UNLEARN AND RELEARN every step of their learning curve or else they will be very confuse. They must also learn to adopt paradigm shifts to move away from the norm.
Well I hope my thought today will help.
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I was teaching maths and science for about 3.5 years of my life, like a hundred years ago, and would like to share my thoughts on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI'm of the view that there are 3 main reasons why there is the lack of the THINKING HABIT among most people.
1) NO EMPHASIS ON THINKING
Most teachers pay too much attention on memory work for the sole purpose of scoring "A"s in exams. Students are judged based on the number of "A"s they get in the exams; and not so much on critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In other words, we are producing photocopy machines—a test of how much they can regurgitate from the text books. There is generally a lack of development of the thinking habit.
2) MENTALITY & CULTURE
The home environment is not conducive for the development of the thinking habit. A child, in most cases, is naturally curious of the things that he sees around him. He is curious as to why birds can fly, but not humans; he is curious to know where the sun is hiding at night. He seeks explanations from his parents. And parents are not always keen to spend the time to explain step by step. Either that or they don't know the answers too! In the end, the child's thinking habit is not developed. He just remembers that birds can fly, but not humans.
3) LAZY MIND
The child himself is born with a lazy mind to learn and think of finding the solutions to problems. It's so much easier to adopt the solutions thought by others. Whether those solutions are correct or not, or if they are the best solutions, that's not very important! The point is, just remember a specific solution for a specific problem for the sole purpose of scoring well in exams.
Unfortunately, when these people enter the job market, they will realise that many of the day-to-day problems in life are not found in the text books. And in many cases, they will need to be creative to solve those problems. Except that they have not developed the thinking habit, and they lack the problem-solving skills. They are essentially merely "sponges"—they are dipped into water, and then when squeezed shall reproduce water; they are dipped into coffee, and then when squeezed shall reproduce coffee. It's impossible for them to be dipped into water, and then reproduce coffee when squeezed.
So yes, a student with excellent results in school may not translate into excellent adult in the job market.