What do we understand by the word “Education”? Let me lead you into a series of micro-movies.
First visual: Close your eyes and think about “education”. A school, kids in ironed khaki skirts and shorts with checked shirts sit neatly in rows in their classroom. A Mathematics teacher at the head of the class, with chalk in hand, demands their attention. Silently, students stare blankly, either at the board or the teacher. The bell rings and the children resurface, a long way away.
Next visual: Imagine what a two-year-old child would do if you open 5 big pots of (non-toxic) poster paint of the most vibrant colours. First of all, with no holding back, both hands plunge into at least two pots of the paint. Then the child feels the texture, completely focused on the physicality of the paint on her hand. Heart singing with joy, she smears it on her dress, her mother says, “Oh No!” and the child’s attention returns to the mother from a long way away, from the complete drowning in the yellow paint to her mother’s strangled exclamation. And she smiles from the inside of her being.
Imagine—if we could learn mathematics the same way that the child learns how the paint feels in her hand!
How difficult would this lesson be to plan? As a lifelong teacher of Maths and Physics, I can tell you—it would be very, very hard. Who do we want in all our classrooms teaching like this, you ask? Only the Michelangelo-s and the M.S.Subbalakshmi-s of mathematics. But can we afford them? I will answer this question with another question: If you were having an open heart surgery that is a touch-and-go intervention, would you rather have a butcher do it? Or a fine surgeon who takes good decisions on point?
So, NOW let me ask the question back to you. Your learning is on the operating table, and it is another do-or-die situation. Can you afford a Michelangelo?
I think I know what your answer is going to be. The tougher question to ask is where are you going to get the Michelangelo-s of math from, and I will tell you—you get them from the same place that the Michelangelo of Art came from. We must grow them. We must teach them to be artists in mathematics. We must pay them to be worth their while. And only the Education Department of a country can afford this – not its ordinary citizens.
The government should be putting in a serious percentage of its GDP into the teaching of teachers. Today, Cuba spends the most on education at almost 13% of its GDP. Even Palestine spends more than 5% and the Maldives spends 4%. India spends 3%, almost 160 countries down from the top. (But China spends 2% - less than us!)
It is only a department in a country that can afford to grow the kinds of teachers who could be artists of History, Science or Math. It is the only way we can bring back our education, which is gasping for air on the operating table, to centre-stage of our society. Every single one of us will win if we are able to do this.
- By Jyothi Thyagarajan, Founder and Trustee,
Meghshala