When was the last time you saw a child in your classroom ecstatic about having ‘discovered’ something, or ‘made’ something or even ‘reached at’ something? The chances are the answer would be, “can’t remember”. Sadly, that’s what school education has been reduced to, by some of its practitioners, i.e teachers.

Why can’t our community ensure that learning is meaningful, activity-oriented, enjoyable and everlasting, so that children assimilate knowledge and skills applicable by them in their everyday experiences?

Fortunately, a small minority of school managements has become aware of the vital importance of child-centric, joyful 21st century pedagogies which prepare students to transform into constructers — rather than mere consumers — of knowledge, and are working towards implementing them in their classrooms. In these competitive and challenging times, no school can afford a laid-back attitude towards best practices in education, because the act of delivering education has become a live issue and the purpose of education has changed. Education systems worldwide have to provide physically-fit, mentally-alert and emotionally-rich individuals equipped with communicative and new technology skills to take on global competition.

When we speak of meaningful education, we mean education which develops the cognitive — rather than memorisation — skills of students. The teacher is no longer a mere teacher; she has evolved into a facilitator, a mentor who creates a conducive learning environment in her classroom. She should be trained to discern each child’s strengths and weaknesses with the expertise to build on the former and rectify the latter. The modern teacher should have learnt educational psychology and be equipped to apply it in her classroom. She should be able to use her own intelligence to map the intelligences of students to deliver effective learning to them.

Experiential learning or learning-by-doing has long been advocated as the best pedagogy for making children learn. As the Chinese proverb says: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember, but involve me and I’ll understand.” Despite the self-evident truism of this observation, most teachers limit students’ levels of activity to their desks, or items brought in from a lab and shown to children in a haphazard manner, mainly to fulfill the teacher’s diary requirement.

On the other hand, visualise the joyful learning of a child who actually gets down on her knees to study the discipline and purpose of ants marching in orderly lines with their loads, or of a child encouraged to immerse her hands in wet mud to make toys, or children collecting varied and differently-shaped leaves during their environment studies class. Unfortunately, experiential education classes have been whittled down to once-a-week mandatory activity periods which don’t bring any joy either to teacher or pupil. The objective is to merely qualify as an “activity-oriented school”.

Nevertheless there’s a multiplying number of teachers and schools who genuinely believe that activity-centred learning is more effective — a concept endorsed by the Union government’s National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005. NCF encourages teacher-led activities such as taking children out for nature walks or excursions relating to themes being taught in class, or even just squatting on a duree to have a heart-to-heart with students. These experiences undoubtedly add dimensions to children’s learning. They will quickly understand that they are allowed to learn differently; they will relearn and come away feeling confident, happy and equipped.

Experiential or learner-centric teaching is positive and impactful. It helps children to reach the stage of “I’ve done this” or “I know this”. When a child is able to acknowledge her own learning, acquired at her pace, of her own volition and with her teacher’s support, it becomes true knowledge of everlasting value. If this process of learning and applying knowledge is given direction and acceleration, it will surely infuse children with confidence and prepare them to become producers of new knowledge.

A welcome development in K-12 education is that school managements, principals and teachers are responding positively to new experiential pedagogies. A growing community of progressive parents themselves denied “inward ways of learning” in their formative years are also endorsing this method of teaching as superior to the established chalk-n-talk pedagogy.

Bill Gates, the visionary promoter-chairman of the US-based IT multinational Microsoft Inc, once remarked that the requirement of the future is people who are creative, open-minded, and confident about their abilities. To nurture our students into becoming broad-minded, flexible, and knowledgeable individuals who regard their studies as exciting journeys of discovery and transform into active producers — rather than passive consumers — of knowledge, experiential learning must be initiated by all school managements. And a good time to start is now.

(Manleen Ahluwalia is member, governing council, Indus World Schools and principal, Indus World School, Gurgaon)