Real learning doesn’t occur in a classroom

I’m here today to talk about an interesting topic. Do real learning occur in classrooms? Have u ever thought why we all are sent to classrooms for learning one thing or other? Definitely the answer will be to study, get a good job/career earn money etc etc.

Learning do occur in the classrooms but its just for academic purposes where to grab marks and boast among others. The real goal of education or learning is to prepare a child to reach his adulthood, means to become a person with good morals, behavior and good problem solving and decision making skills.

And what does this education meant to be? Is it just sitting in the classroom from say 9 to 4 most of the times yawning..with the same age mates and just mugging up the lessons before exams? Definitely no , The education of a child includes observing how mom & dad (& other adults) function in all the systems necessary to survive — food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, health, employment, finance, government, religion, family, friends, community, interpersonal relationships, and more …

Does a child/student learns to make decisions through the classrooms.? How many of todays children have a chance to learn the morals, ethics in the classrooms.or how many of our teachers find time to guide them on this? I believe most of the students/people may be brilliant at problem solving in mathematics but how many of them are good at solving their life problems and making good decisions at right time?

In my opinion ,the real learning/education for a person starts from his home at his childhood. We know that each and every child will imitate their parents or the elders at home in many things. so the first learning starts from home.For example we see our parents respecting their elders and learns to do the same.. These are the morals we learn from outside the classrooms. We are told to help our grandparents to walk or to fetch something for them etc. And also each person has his own value. Like some people will be adamant in keeping up their words.These values also forms from school not from classrooms even though the classrooms may influence these factors. Behavior of a person also is influenced by the parents or their peers( friends ,relatives ).

Problem solving is another factor as i mentioned needed for a person to survive. During our childhood parents will solve/guide us to solve our problems. To succeed in this we should know how to find the needed information as well as how to use it… And as an adult a person must be emotionally mature to face the problems. We see a lot of suicides which is the end result of escaping from the problem. A good morale and ethics will help in this.

Decision making is the sign of readiness of growing big. Its most evident that as we grow up we decide upon the clothes worn, and at after the study we do some times choose our careers etc… For a sound decision making we need other values for support. Sound decisions do help us to reach success. Definitely the parents/teachers can guide us in making decisions but the ability to make it comes from seeing the real world..

I believe all of u will agree upon the above qualities needed to be a man as most of u have most/all of the above qualities.

So if not in classroom then, where is the best place for real learning??? Yes home first… But all the life we will not be sheltered inside the home under the wings of our parents… We have a world around us, people around us.. . The real world is the best place to learn and also as the famous saying “experience is the best teacher”… Some of us have learned many things from our good/bad experience which we didn’t from a classroom.The real education will not happen in a place where the environment is actually controlled by age-mates and monitored by an adult(teacher). Not a place where the child is exposed only to preplanned issues. Not a fake place where the problems are made up, Not a place where the right answer is buried in the teacher’s manual.

And who should actually direct a child in his learning ??? “Matha Pitha Guru Daivam” itself depicts who is our first teacher… The Guru comes only third.. This confirms that home is our first school and parents are our first teachers in this world.. But the parents may have some restrictions in having expertise in certain things That is the reason the children are being sent to school. But the teachers can be only consultants to guide them in their area of expertise. Apart from the academics, please remember that the broader base for a child’s real education (preparing for adulthood) is to observe, model, and probe the activities of the parents in real life.

And only classroom need special timing (say 9 to 4) and time period (June to March) for teaching and learning. our communities have conditioned the children to shut learning off for months at a time by declaring, “School’s out!” “We’ve got the summer off!” “See you next year!” So the “teachable attitude” is shut off until they get back to school.The real learning does not ends till a person dies. Only class room trainings or the courses that we take will finish within a stipulated time period..

A best example of learning through observation is King Solomon who lost his battle 18 times and after that learned his lesson by seeing a spider weaving its net successfully after several times. The next battle he won. The another best example of a real learning is Abraham Lincon who became the American President among the blacks. Around us also are people who have had real education to face the life… Many of our great grandfathers may not have seen schools at all.. But still they lived successfully in their life. Living in the real world have enabled them for that.

So let me conclude that its high time we guide our children to learn things from the world outside also apart from the academics…Thank You..

–Aparna