Learning: young learners need space as individuals

The classroom is the place where students learn subject matters, skills and attitudes on their own in the presence of their peers. The teacher acts as a facilitator in an ideal classroom. H or she bestows support by guiding them morally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually. As no one can create or destroy energy, teachers can only channel the energies of young people into the right direction by  allocating them room for learning.

Learning is a gradual process towards the betterment of an individual. For that, one needs the space to learn, share ideas and experiences, discuss feelings and thoughts and to move ahead on the way of an individual’s holistic approach.

Physical, virtual and intellectual spaces such as furniture, classrooms, technology, and so on, should also be in a way so that students can interact properly and effectively, which leads towards an intellectual development of young learners. Who have multiple intelligences and mixed abilities in course of student-student interaction.

Young people are dignified and have right to act in any manner they like, but having in mind that no other individual will be harmed. According to Luke (1973) ‘every individual has right to have respect, human dignity, autonomy and privacy, which is the basis of human equality’.

In Pakistan, generally people are not aware of innovative, creative and critical thinking in education. In religious sequences, critical thinking and questioning are almost prohibited or seen as an act of deviation from religion. However, I think within the circle of religion, beliefs should be strong but not blind. There is always a room for research and knowing something additional about anything. Young people must have right to think, analyse and evaluate any concept or idea on the basis of their knowledge. Critical thinking and questioning towards anything or everything shows the educational background of an individual. How an individual receives education and in what manners sensitive issues have been discussed in classrooms, ultimately influences the conduct of an individual towards realities, beliefs, rights and duties, counting one’s own individuality.

Like other countries, Pakistan also has a system of religious education as well as a network of secular institutions. These two major streams are further subdivided into a variety of bodies. The distribution of religious schools is not by any means less diverse. They are not schools of one particular theology and doctrine as such but are distinctly divided with reference to their sectarian affiliations. The stamp of their respective schools of thoughts is so marked that they are identified as such and prefer to introduce themselves accordingly. On the other hand, there are number of English medium private, Convent and Urdu medium public schools in Pakistan where students are getting education of different subjects, along with religious education. In most of such schools, the ways of teaching, curriculum, educational atmosphere, classroom environment etc are not producing critical thinkers and independent learners for future.

It is a duty of educators, authorities and a responsibility of entire nation to provide space for thinking and learning to young individuals as youth is the phase where independent learning, critical thinking, arguments, questioning, creativity and constructivism are at their peak levels.

Every individual has right to find out the answers of her inner questions and reveal her knowledge about surroundings including society, religion, beliefs, practices, thoughts and feelings. The individual has a source of knowledge within herself: as Descartes says ‘cogito ergo sum’ (I think, therefore I am). If an individual receives a notion from somewhere, and other notion from somewhere else, and both are contradictory, then how one would know what is reality and which paradigm is right? In this situation, the only thing by which an individual gets satisfaction is her own understanding, which should be based on knowledge, logic, historic and real conditions. An individual only be able to think independently and critically when he or she is brought up in the same environment of freedom, trust and independence at homes as well as in schools.

It is a tradition of societies or communities to ask for authority and reference about any saying, writing or thought. Nobody will have an authority only on the basis of her own personal and inner thoughts, until and unless she must have any backup from literature. It means no new idea would arise or no new form will be seen, in spite of being right or wrong. But who will decide this, how, and on what basis? The answer is simple - that our education system should have the goal to get a pious soul, intellectual thoughts, peaceful mind and lovely heart at the individual level of young people. It should have the following three objectives:

• it has to groom young individuals who are outstanding in their character, morals and habits and, at the same time, should be rising stars in the field of sciences and arts  
• it has to lead young individuals to the stage where, as a nation and community, they should be shining forth as a lighthouse of piety and truth before the entire world
• it has to allow young individuals to think freely, broadly, critically, logically and spiritually, along with their own individuality and with strong, but not a blind, faith.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Farah Burney is a science teacher at Karachi Grammar School. Karachi, Pakistan. She has been associated with teaching profession for the past 14 years. She completed her Masters in Biochemistry at the University of Karachi, Pakistan and Masters in Education and International Development from Institute of Education, University of London, UK. Ms Burney is a Commonwealth scholar, as she was awarded a full scholarship from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK, in 2004.

 

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