How to evaluate learning-centric schools?

As we discussed in our earlier blog, we require two different set of schools: one for urban towns and one for rural villages. As school is part of its environment, there is no 'universally good' school. The school, to be good, has to be compatible with the environment around it.

In urban towns, as learning-centric schools are not enough for our children's development to compensate for our non-conducive social-environment, we need development-centric schools. In villages it is the reverse. In a village, we need learning-centric schools, because the development-environment is conducive for the child's growth. The challenge of education in school is different for urban and rural schools. ( I am implicitly assuming that the purpose of education is to prepare a child for life, not just for job)

Implicit purpose of learning

The purpose of learning different subjects is to enable the student to understand (analyse) the world and then be able to synthesise it in his own way.

To make it easier, we use different subjects to understand the world - physical world through science, the living world through biology, the social world through history, the ecological world through geography and environmental science, the cultural world through languages and art subjects, and the manipulation of world ( via formalism) through mathematics. Please note the purpose of mathematics.

Characteristics of good learning-centric schools

At a broad level, we learnt from the best school systems in the world, that the three criteria for evaluating a learning environment schools are 1> find if they have the best and passionate teachers for a subject, 2> find how they guarantee that the teachers remain the best in their pedagogic approach and 3> how do they step in when the student lag behind.

At a more detailed level, I can think of five minimum characteristics of the good learning-centric schools:

1. Good schools use different styles and tools to suit a subject.

Every subject, due to its unique linkage with the external world, require different approaches to convert the understanding into knowledge. A student gains 'knowledge' only when the student can use the understanding of a subject in a different context. For instance, the student may understand 'gravity' by solving all the questions of gravity perfectly, but he gains knowledge only when he understands how 'laws of gravity' are utilised in flying an airplane.

In the same way, each subject/topic requires different teaching style, tools and methods to convert understanding into knowledge. While knowledge of language can be easily gained by 'taking part in debates and elocutions', it requires additional tools and methods to 'synthesise' language with different 'arts such as drama and literature' to understand the 'culture' of our environment. While the understanding of 'ecology' through geography can be facilitated by use of 'computer' simulation, computers are not useful in understanding the 'social world' through history. While the 'quadratic equations' can be solved easily by rote, the formalism of quadratic equations can be understood fully only if the teacher's quality is excellent !

The mix of teacher's quality, tool set and methodology of teaching should be appropriate to the subject. What is suitable for one subject, say language, is unsuitable for another subject, say physics. One cannot use a cookie-cutter formula that is universally applicable to every subject.

2. Good schools balance long term and short term objectives of learning 

Because school performance directly impacts the admissions in graduate and other important courses, it is imperative that the school also enables the student to perform well in 'time-based' exams and tests, while simultaneously enabling the student to 'gain' knowledge.

Both objectives are important to achieve for a learning-centric school. In 70', the exam papers were not as objective. We could learn a subject in-depth and hope to score good marks. But in todays's system of evaluation, the performance in exams have to be given a special guidance.

3. Good schools initiate a topic of a subject only after 'creating' interest

Without interest, one cannot 'understand' anything. This is the basic principle of learning. There are various methods of achieving this. Which methods school approach?

In schools with multi-age batch, a student observes other student taking an advance course because of which his interest is tickled. In Montessori method, an overall perspective is initially given so that the student can 'tie' the small picture with the bigger perspective and therefore get interested. In a primary school i have read of in Japan, every day all the topics to be covered are written on the blackboard at the start of the day so that students can chose and determine their own pace of work .

4. Good schools initiate students to self-create their knowledge

It is presumed that the purpose of teaching is to ensure that 'the knowledge in the head of the teacher' is transferred to the 'student's head'. Nothing is farther from the truth.

Learning happens only when the student 'uses the teacher's content' to self-construct his own knowledge by engaging with the topic. It is the student who 'self-constructs' knowledge. The teacher can only 'transfer the content' and create the right conditions for the student to 'engage with the topic'. If the topic for instance is Indian history, the teacher enables the conditions due to which student  understand the views both of the 'vanquished' ( Indians) and the 'victors' ( English), not just Indians. Without this self-construction, the students fail to gather differing point of views intrinsic in social world, and therefore miss 'knowledge'.

5. Good schools constantly verify if the teaching is delivering the intended result 

Teachers normally assume that a subject is learnt when they have 'taught'. It is forgotten that the subject is learnt, only when the student 'understands' it.

A school therefore has to design tests to measure student's understanding of a topic so that appropriate corrective mechanism can be immediately instituted by the teacher if the student is lagging. As we saw in the best school systems in the world, 33% of the students do not 'understand' a topic in the first time. Topical tests therefore measure teacher's progress, not student's progress.

Year-end exams have different purpose than that of 'topical tests'; year-end exams measure student's progress.Both progress have to be tracked. Very often, teacher's progress is not even measured; it is just ignored. Good schools do not ignore it !

How is your child's school rated on these five measures?  

Lessons from the excellent school system of the world

Howard Gardner, the man who invented the concept of multiple intelligence( as against academic intelligence) was recently in India. In his lecture in Bangalore, which I happen to attend, he mentioned that India should follow Finnish or Singaporean Model of school system instead of US and UK. I went to the web to inquire about the Finnish Model and found some interesting information.

Here is a original paper of Mckinsey findings, who had done study of 25 of the top school systems in the world. ( Please remember that, in the last blog, we discussed education system, not the school systems) Governments spend about 2 trillion dollar in education, but despite this spending, the quality of education has barely improved.The study was meant to find the 'few' factors that significantly determine the quality of the education, despite the variation. Surprisingly, it was discovered, that money does not matter so much. Even though Singapore spends less on primary education ( it ranked 27 out of 30 school systems studied), it provided one of the best quality of education.


Even in the study of Finnish school system, the study discovered some surprising findings. For instance, it was found that although Finish school teachers were not paid as highly as German and Spain teachers, it did not matter. Neither the long duration of compulsory schooling period, or the extended daily school timing, or the small sizes of class improved the schooling system;  which were supposed to be primary determinants of school quality till then.  


The three factors that impacted the quality of education most were:get the best teachers; get the best out of teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind.


1. Get the best teachers


In Finland, the top 10% of the cream of the students join teaching. In Finland, it’s not the money but the status and prestige of teaching that attracts the best and brightest into the profession.


Even in India, you will find this to be true. If, for instance, you visit Kota, the town which sends about 4000 of the students to IIT ( out of 10000), you will realise the correlation of quality of teacher with the quality of education. Teachers in Kota are the best. Many of them come from IIT's. If you see the wait-list of the candidates wanting to join these coaching classes, you will find that best of the teachers queue up to the coaching classes to join them.


If you see the quality of teachers even in best of the private schools in India, it is barely above the mark. And more important than the high academic credentials of teacher, another quality matters more in teaching : Do the best want to teach? In schools, we need the best and the passionate teachers, not just best. In teaching, passion is more important than high academic excellence, I think.


2. Get the best out of the teachers


In Finland, groups of teachers visit each other’s classrooms and plan lessons together, in a system called “lesson studies” that include “rounds” just like the medical profession. Teachers learn from each other's strengths. Teachers also get an afternoon off per week for professional development (including for school substitutes).


Even if you see the best of the private schools in India, where best of the teachers are hired, hardly any time and effort is spend on 'improving and maintaining' the quality of the teachers. This is surprisingly the easiest 'location' to invest money and effort; but this is also the most neglected area in school education in India. It is my guess that this happens because the school administrators ( who run our schools in India) do not understand 'education' and therefore do not know 'how to improve the quality of teaching' by these coordinated efforts. 


3. Step in when pupils start to lag behind


Finland schools have an excellent diagnostic system ( called as formative testing) to find that a student has fallen behind, and then it has a special-needs teacher to ensure that the 'gaps' in the student are filled in quickly. Mckinsey report found that 33% of the students receive this early correction in Finland schools. This will give you an idea that even a best education system works well only when it has early feedback and correction incorporated in its design.


What comparable design do you see in Indian schooling system? If the teaching system is teacher-driven, there is hardly any effort by Indian schools to incorporate this corrective feedback into their teaching. If the teaching system is however student-driven, like that of Montessori, then the quality of education is obviously better ! Which teaching system is your school following?


If you want to know more about Singaporean model of schooling, please read this interesting comparison done by Yee Jenn Jong. 


Lessons from the above findings


If you are evaluating learning-centric schools ( visavis development centric schools which require different questions)  for admitting your child, you must ask these three questions to the school administration:

Question 1: Are your teachers best in their subjects? And if they are the best, are they also passionate about teaching?

Question 2: What mechanisms and tools have you adopted to develop your teachers on the continuous basis?

Question 3: What testing do you conduct to identify students who fall behind? And what do you do to fill the gaps in these students quickly?

Which education system is better for your child

There are many school education systems. If one were to try to evaluate them, one would get lost in mountain of data and still not make sense of it, because it would require expertise to understand the variables. There are too many education systems to choose from.

Some of the well known one's are Calvanist method ( also called as traditional schooling because it is the most popular), Progressive education ( originated by John Dewey) , Transcendental method (that originated in Europe ). There are more than 20 alternative methods of education that are less popular, but equally effective. Some of the well-known are Waldorf system (originated by John Steiner), Montessori system ( founded by Dr Maria Montessori), and Reggio Emilia system (named after a city in Italy where educators started these different kind of pre-schools after World War II).

But all these complexity can be reduced to manageable levels by evaluating these different systems on two axis: purpose of school education and teaching style used in school.

Purpose of education ( Development versus learning-centric approach )

The two distinct purposes of an educational system are either to assist development of a student's personality or encourage learning of language and other subjects. This does not mean that a system is only development-centric or learning-centric; it only means that the primary focus is on one of the purpose.  To understand more about the development-centric and learning-centric purposes, please read this.

Although all development-centric schools focus on the development of students, schools vary in their development approaches. Some schools, for instance, believe in using religious education to develop children. Examples are schools of Catholic, Jews, Muslim and other origins. Some schools believe in developing moral code without using religious orientation such as Carden ( founded by Mae Carden) and Core Knowledge schools ( founded by E.D Hirch). Some like Waldorf focus on developing student's artistic talents. Montessori schools focus on developing personality of students primarily through enabling 'concentration'. 

Learning centric schools, on the other hand, focus on the academic rigor, content-rich curricula and emphasis on basic skills of reading ( also sometimes called as total reading) writing and arithmetic. Traditional schools, which are seen in plenty, follow this approach.

Both type of schools have their pros and cons. Generally speaking, development-centric schools are difficult to 'manage', because of which they are less in number. Development-centric schools sometimes tend to 'overvalue' development at the expense of 'learning content/knowledge'. Parents should remember that 'Learning' and 'development' are not inversely proportional to each other; infact right kind of learning promotes development. Therefore, if developmental school ignores 'learning', that can be dysfunctional. Montessori school systems have an ideal mix of development and learning incorporated in it.

Learning-centric schools similarly by overvaluing learning, do not encourage students to develop qualities like patience, concentration and social skills, which are universally acknowledged as the ills of today's traditional school. Learning-centric schools try to patch up developmental qualities by adding extra courses like emotional intelligence or Sex education, but this practice does not produce desired result ! It only misleads parents in believing that their children are also 'developing'. To understand how important is design of 'teaching environment', see how Montessori designs its environment for developing one quality in a child; social skill.

Teaching style( Teacher-driven versus student-driven)

The two distinct styles of teaching are teacher-driven versus student-driven. Teacher-driven approach of teaching promotes teacher-paced learning done according to the strict time-table, curriculum, and prepared text books. Teaching is done to a group of similar-ability students. Assessments are done on the basis of tests. Obedience, conformity, and silence are actively promoted in the students to ensure learning happens at the pre-determined pace. Grades are used for facilitating competition.

Student-driven approach of teaching, on the other hand, promotes student-paced learning driven by his/her  needs. Teaching style is meant to facilitate every student to learn from his own actions, also called experiential-based learning. Teaching therefore is done either in a group of multi-age students, because it promotes inter-student learning ( also called as cooperative learning). Feedback is multi-dimensional instead of one dimension of 'marks'. Grades are meant to provide feedback to the student instead of promoting competition, so that the student learns his mistakes.

While development-centric schools are compelled to use student-driven approach of teaching, learning-centric schools are seen to use teacher-driven approach. Although this is a general rule, it is not universal. For instance, Waldorf school follows development-centric approach through teacher-driven approach of teaching.

Learning-centric schools, because of competition, follow a hybrid-mix of teacher and student-driven styles. For instance, I know of a school in Bangalore which teaches a subject in a very 'cooperative learning' mode where students are encouraged to talk on a subject before they are given a 'standard work paper'. Some learning-centric schools also follow a experiential-learning method, for instance, in science subjects.  Many schools are seen giving high importance in developing 'artistic talents' where courses in sculpture are also conducted. Some schools like International Baccalaureate (IB) schools, challenge gifted students to take advanced courses of a college level that are recognised around the world as a sign of high academic achievement. Grades, which are now banned by Government, may hopefully help these learning-centric schools to develop better multi-dimensional scale of assessment, which until now has been based on single-dimension.

Summary

Given the nature of education today, it is imperative that parents consciously chose the education system for their child, instead of blindly taking admission in a school that is closer to your house. I am aware that  the above first-cut evaluation is just a first step in understanding 'what is on offer' in education. A more detailed  evaluation of a system may be required to seek detailed answers of a specific method, ferret out wheat from chaff, and arrive at a more 'fit' for your child. More importantly, as each school is unique, one will have to ask more questions to find if the 'target school' is indeed delivering the results promised from the education system it is following.

If you are interested in knowing about a specific system of education, such as IB, Multiple Intelligence or Foxfire, please write your query in the blog comment. We shall attempt to provide you the details in reasonable time. Or else please keep coming back to this blog for more information. 

Challenge of parenting is in Unlearning

Vast overwhelming majority of parents want what's best for their kids. There is no question that every parent shares this intention. But how they go about getting that best differs enormously. Some parents choose to do it in a way that may seem harsh or uncaring. But who's to say that, for those children at that moment, that wasn't the right way forward?

For instance, if you have read the recent Amy Chua's book "Battle Hym of the Tiger Mother", you will be surprised to read that Chua, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who is a Yale Law School professor, drives her two daughters relentlessly. Chua’s rules for the girls include: no sleepovers, no playdates, no grade lower than an A on report cards, no choosing your own extracurricular activities, and no ranking lower than No. 1 in any subject. And her daughters are successful. And then you read about a suicide committed by a Bangalore girl because her parent insisted that she cannot get anything less than 92%? 

Which is a right method of parenting a child? Or is there a right method at all? The same question has been asked by countless management researchers, "Which is the best style of management'? As researchers found out, this is a wrong question to ask, because there is no 'one universal' method that is right for all situations.


Similarly, a parenting method is right when it is appropriate for a specific combination of culture (Chinese versus Indian versus American), talent of a child ( gifted, normal, artistic, intellectual), type of child (hyperactive, obedient, first child or second child), home environment ( parental background, nuclear family, joint family, working parents) and school environment (traditional, montessori, Waldorf or others). Based on this combination that your child is experiencing, you have to find an appropriate method. There is no one formula for all the possible combinations; you must find your 'unique' formula for the unique combination of your child. 

Finding the unique formula of parenting your child is not as daunting as it sounds. Working with a talented on-the-ground expert who can help you find the 'uniqueness of your child', over a period of 2-3 months, it is technically possible to find the right parenting method that suits your unique child. But there is one bottleneck that only a parent has to surmount himself! 

In my experience of coaching children, i have found that the biggest difficulty in finding the right method of parenting is not learning something 'new', but unlearning of your existing mindware. Our mindware consists of beliefs, heuristics ( thumb rules) and mental dispositions. For instance, we may believe that 'arts is a hobby, it cannot be a good profession', which may affect our child's parenting. We may adopt a heuristic to help us make sense of our child's behaviour. For instance, we may adapt a thumb rule that "if the child is not studying, he has less motivation" or 'if the child is not getting enough marks, he is not studying hard'. For some parents, it is this incompatible mindware which becomes a bottleneck in parenting their child.    

Because, while parenting your unique child, it becomes necessary to modify your heuristics, alter some beliefs and challenge some of your dispositions. This unlearning of mindware, if required, is tough for parents because it requires humility of accepting that you may be wrong, and then put in the necessary effort to learn something new. And both require time, which is in constant shortage. 

I have observed interesting cases of parents who could not unlearn their mindware and therefore could not 'parent' their children well even when they were keen. 

1. For instance, a Ph.D. technologist parent refused to believe that his 'child is more interested in English and arts than in technology'. Because he refused to acknowledge the uniqueness of his child, he could not help his child. 
2. A parent's heuristics (thumb rule)'that her child is bored only when the teacher is not good' stopped her from helping her child. She refused to accept that 'her child is bored with biology because he does not find it challenging'. 
3. One parent 'vehemently insisted' that his child should always study in the morning, because he said that 'morning is the right time to study'. 
4. Another parent could not help his child in performing well in exams, because he did not accept that he was increasing the anxiety of his child by constantly reminding him of marks.
5. One parent discouraged his child 'in studying Physics all the time'( despite his talent) because he thought that 'everyone should be multi-talented'.
6. One parent, believing freedom is good for child, gave 'too much freedom' and spoilt the child.   

Parenting is tough, because you have to 'change' your mindware to 'suit' the unique demands of your child. Unless the parent is willing to unlearn and change, the parent cannot 'parent' his child well. Good intentions of parent are not enough for good parenting.


In short, the real challenge of parenting a child is not learning 'the right method of parenting', but it is about 'unlearning' the mindware in time so that one can discover & practice the right method of parenting before it is too late. Timing is crucial in parenting; not giving 5 minutes of time to your child at the right time cannot be compensated by giving 60 minutes later to the child.

Why do parents compare and contrast with other children

Ragini, a primary teacher was telling me this story.

Ragini announced a drawing competition at the school. Some parents called her to ask who is going to evaluate the pictures. Some parents asked her the type of pictures the children can draw in the competition, some asked if they can use a 'premium colour pencils' for drawing or not. Some parents asked 'what are the prizes'. Ragini told me she was surprised with the parent's desire 'to outshine other children'. She complained 'why are parents constantly comparing their child with other child?'

Every parents knows that every child is unique and different from others. Infact they can narrate more than one ways by which their child is different. Despite this awareness, why are parents constantly comparing their child with other child all the time? There seems to be three valid reasons.

One, they use other children as a benchmark to judge their child's performance. In absence of any 'solid evaluation test' to evaluate their child in a specific activity such as drawing, they use comparisons to evaluate their child's ability in a specific area. Probably this is what some parents were doing at Ragini's school. Infact this is an ideal way of finding if your child is good in sports activities as well as 'artistic' activities like drawing or singing. Why is comparison 'good' for music and sports activities? They are good for two reasons.


Firstly, these activities develop at an early age, because they use senses and body coordination. Secondly, the output is visible to all and therefore comparable. For instance, one can easily listen to a child singing a song and compare if it is better than some other child of the same age. This comparison shows your child's 'advance' development of these abilities and can help you decide if the child can choose them as their talent zone. Infact because of these two characteristics of sports and music activities, comparisons and competitions are natural way of enabling children to grow their skill/talent in sports and music.

Two, some parents use comparison to motivate their child in action. In episodic routine activities where  child shows very little interest, parents use comparison to motivate their children. But these activities should be episodic in nature like cleaning the cupboard or washing the car. However, if you use 'comparison' too often, it loses its edge and shine sooner than later.

Three, some parents also use 'comparison' to motivate the initiation of child in a new activity; but this has to be done very 'sensitively' and 'expertly' like Ashna. 

Ashna had two children: one four year old son and another seven old daughter. Her daughter did not like swimming. However whenever she took her son for his swimming lessons, she took her daughter along. However she consciously avoided 'comparing' her daughter with her son in 'swimming' and let her daughter experience the 'contrast' herself. But her daughter's friends unknowingly praised her brother; even neighbours did the same. Ashna however avoided the comparison completely.  Slowly the daughter expressed her desire to learn swimming. 

Subtle and indirect comparison can be used to initiate a child in doing any new activity. Can it be used for continuing the activity? To continue to work with the  musical and sports activity, children themselves use 'comparison' as a benchmark in their talent acquisition, especially in the talent exploration phase of talent building 

But can you help your child to continue to work on intellectual activity by comparing his work with other children's work? Studying academic subjects like science, history or mathematics are intellectual activities of a child. It is difficult to use 'comparison' to motivate a child to work on intellectual activity because of two reasons. One, output of intellectual work is not visible ( and comparable) like work in music/sports. Two, 'test/exam marks' of intellectual activity cannot be used as used as a comparison benchmark because marks lead to wrong comparison.

Marks cannot measure child's progress in intellectual activity accurately, because they measure what the 'school' system wants to measure, not 'what the child is learning'. Because of the pedagogic method adopted by schools, marks measure the depth of intellectual work of the child only upto 10 feet. But, to acquire useful 'knowledge'(to build the vertical and logical chains of abstractions), the child has to learn upto the depth of 100 feet. Morever, as intellectual work matures much later than music/sports activity, the result of poor intellectual effort is shown at the later age.

More importantly, comparing marks of your child with other children is not helpful in determining the corrective effort required. As the intellectual effort is 'within the mind' of the child, one has to re-visit the child's steps to understand what mistake he is making. Only then one can guide the child in taking the right  'efforts' to 'correct' the mistake. Unlike music/sports activity, marks of intellectual activity are not enough for  the child into correcting himself.

Conclusion

1. Comparison (comparing your child's performance with other child) is a good tool to guide your child's performance in musical and sports activity, especially in the talent exploration phase of talent building.

2. Comparison tool could also be used to initiate a child in new activity.

3. Comparison is a wrong tool to guide your child in performing intellectual activity.Infact, because you are using a wrong tool, it produces unintended side effects like anxiousness and frustration in child because he is unable to do anything 'meaningful' with the comparison. In other words, avoid comparison if you want to help your child in excelling in intellectual activity.

How can you help your child to develop his talent

If you have understood the three steps of the unfolding of talent, you will realise that the process of 'growing the talent' starts only after your child starts working on a task. So what can you do now when he/she is in secondary school? And is it necessary to start the 'preparation' at such a young age? Let us delve on this.

In school your child is gaining knowledge. While gaining knowledge in school, he/she is acquiring 'abilities' which he can convert later into useful 'skills' that can be later transformed into 'talent'. Which useful abilities is he developing in school? Can we enhance his abilities better to help him? Can we plug the gaps in his abilities that he requires later to 'realise' his talent?

Child develops abilities through abstraction

Your child learns different subjects like science, history, geography or mathematics. While studying a subject, he mentally

• isolates 'parts' of a 'whole' , 
• understand 'parts' one at a time, and then 
• understand how each part 'depends' on other part ( or relate to each other) to help the functioning of 'whole'. 

This process is called abstraction.

For instance, while abstracting a topic of biology, such as human body, your child 1>isolates the 'parts' of 'whole' human body such as lungs and heart. He will then understand 2>what individual 'parts' do. For instance, she will learn that 'lungs purify blood' or 'stomachs digest food and extract nutrients from the body' and so on.  Then she will understand 3>how the different parts are 'dependent' on each other. For instance, although lungs purify blood they depend on heart to 'get' and 'pump' the blood to different parts of the whole body. Abstraction helps the child to develop the links in a chain that together help him understand a topic.

While the child is 'abstracting' different topics in a subject, he is developing abilities. For instance, while abstracting the subjects in biology he is developing his 'logical ability'. While abstracting topics in mathematics, geometry and algebra, she is developing her 'mathematical ability'. Some cognitive researchers like Howard Gardner** club the two abilities - logical and mathematical - in one ability. While learning the 'language' the child is developing 'linguistic' ability. Science subjects like physics and science refine the 'logical' ability further, by delving deeper in the 'parts', such as understanding the 'physical property' of materials such as 'material composition' and others.

However, due to the dynamics of knowledge development in school, not all children develop these abilities to the same degree. For instance, due to group-teaching of schools, all children are forced to learn every subject at the same pace and sequence. If a child fails to understand a topic/lesson for some reason, he falls behind the class, due to which he cannot understand the next lesson. As the child is unable to keep pace with the subsequent lessons in sequence, he slowly loses his interest in the topic. However as 'topics/subjects' are interrelated, it hampers his learning of another related topic. His overall growth of abilities gets hampered. As the child is unaware of this dynamics of knowledge development, he often misses opportunities to correct himself in time or to find different ways of building his ability in a different way.

Which abilities are nurtured by schools?

Schools do not promote all abilities equally. Today cognitive psychologists agree that school curriculum mainly focuses on developing three abilities - Logical, mathematical and linguistic - that can be developed later into a 'skill or talent'. Musical, spatial and body-coordination abilities do not get developed well in school, because they are poorly supported by schools. Therefore, if your child wants to develop these three abilities to a sufficient degree, they have to go for special coaching or special schools.

Some abilities like 'logical ability of extensive subjects' are either ignored or poorly taught in schools. For instance, subject such as accounting ( which is very useful in commercial jobs that are related to banking and accounts) are not introduced in a school, while subjects like Geography are taught 'poorly' in schools. Many students miss the opportunity of  developing this talent, because they are simply not introduced at the school-stage.

Some abilities, although crucial in life, are completely ignored by schools although they significantly influence the long term talent-development of a child. For instance, abilities like interpersonal,(enabling one to interact with others) and intrapersonal ( enabling one to manage one's self) are required by every professional, be it an engineer, lawyer or a doctor. These are complementary skills. Without them, even the basic core skill, say of logical skill of science, cannot produce desired result. Many researchers believe that these abilities are so crucial that professional today cannot convert his brilliant academic intelligence into a useful talent without them. For instance, Daniel Goleman insists that emotional intelligence ( which is part of intrapersonal ability) is even more important than academic intelligence!

Some school environments ( such as Montessori and Waldorf) are conducive enough to develop these two crucial abilities - interpersonal and intrapersonal - in your child. But traditional school environments are not ideal for developing these abilities. If your child is studying in one of the traditional school, he needs external assistance in developing these abilities.

Conclusion
In short, if you want to help your child ( who is in VIIIth to XIIth class) gain an extra step in fulfilling  his talent, you can take one or more of the following four actions:

1. Help him 'decode' the dynamics of knowledge development, so that he can develop the three core abilities - logical, mathematical and linguistic - to its maximum level! If he understands the linkage between 'abilities' and 'skills', he will know what 'tasks' he could possibly select in the future !

2. Introduce her to interpersonal ability: Being able to 'articulate' one's thoughts and communicate them to others is an important component of this ability. However, be aware that communication is often mistaken as 'talking', instead of 'listening'!

3. Sensitize him to his intrapersonal ability: Journey of managing one's self is a long journey; but it is better to start it early. Understanding one's emotions, stress buttons and choice triggers ( beliefs) are the three components of intrapersonal ability.

4. Give him a tool to 'synthesise' his multiple abilities into one 'whole'. He needs a tool so that he can 'catch his own fish', because only he alone knows what he 'wants'. Systems thinking is a well known tool that can serve this function.

** Howard Gardner calls these 'abilities' as 'intelligences'. Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence are two important intelligences in his list.

Encourage Imagination ( not fantasy ) in your child

Armaan, a father of 4  year old child, told me last week "I put my child in play school, because play school is helpful for child's imagination. Once he can read, I will give him comic books to fire his imagination. At the end, it is imagination that makes the child creative. Isn't it?''.

I think Armaan is confused between imagination and fantasy. Imagination makes the child creative, not fantasy. Let us ponder over this distinction and understand what is Armaan trying to do.

Children at the age of  3-5 are constantly asking us questions to explain things.  For instance, if we explain to the child that 'America is 12000 Kms away from Bangalore'', he cannot understand 12000 kms because he has not even understood the 'meaning' of number, although he can recite 1 to 100. Or if you tell the child that it takes America 'a full day and night to reach', he relates to his journey that he did last year to his grandmother which took a 'full day and night to reach' in the train. America remains 'unreal' to him.

But surprisingly, when the same child stands infront of a globe, where he can see "India' and 'America', he uses his imagination to 'sense' the distance, not 'understand' it.  Till then,  America is in the world of fantasy for a child, much like 'Alice's wonderland'. With the 'globe',  he uses his imagination to 'sense' the part of truth. With 'globe', he feels that 'America' is something 'real', although he has not 'seen' it as concretely as a 'car' or a 'bicycle'. Here globe extends the child's consciousness beyond the concrete, so to say. (As Dr Montessori says, parents and teachers require a special kind of 'training' to nurture a child's imagination.)

Imagination is bringing the object in the 'mind's eye', even though one has not seen it. When a parent tells the child about 'river' or 'mountain', the child can bring it in his mind's eye through the pictures and photos he has seen. It is not fantasy.

But when we tell the child the story of a phantom, he is engaging his mind in an unreal world. When he hears the fairy tale, where 'animals' for instance, speak to each other, he is in the unreal world. In a fantasy, anything is possible. Man can fly, animals can talk, fairies can bring chocolates from air. For a child below 6, whose mind is like a camera which takes on everything indiscriminately,  this creates confusion. He is unable to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal.  A child who cannot get the distinction between real and unreal world, for instance, understand why it is not possible to buy an ice cream at 1 o'clock at night.

Comics, fairy tales and cartoons create an unreal world for a child. This helps him 'fantasise' and makes  him 'imagine' impossible events and happenings. Imagination, on the other hand,  helps the child in seeing different possibilities while simultaneously anchoring him to 'reality'. A child sees "America" in his imagination', but he knows that he cannot 'fly' to America in a minute like a superman.

Imagination seems to serve three functions in the child's growth. One, Imagination helps the child to perceive 'what is not concretely seen' and go near  the truth, such as in the case of understanding "America'. Imagination helps the child to extend his mind's consciousness to learn faster, so to say. Here, imagination is the force to discover truth.

The second function of imagination ( and probably more powerful ) is to drive the curiosity and interest of child. When a child is told a story of  'How Land of India moved and created Himalayas thousands of years ago', his imagination is 'activated' to ask 'how could this happen' and learn Geography.  Or when the child is told that 'Caterpillar becomes a butterfly', it fires his imagination to know more about biology.

The third function of imagination is 'defensive' in nature. It helps the child escape the 'harsh' reality of the world for the time being and gives him 'hope' to go further. This function could be used for meeting different ends. For instance, it can act like a savior for a child who has to live in difficult conditions, either at home or in the society.

Going back to our original discussion, what helps creativity? Is it imagination or fantasy? Creativity is using imagination to see beyond 'what is possible' after understanding the 'current reality'. Scientific fiction writers, such as H G Wells,  are popular, because they help child see the 'realm of impossibility', while anchoring their story in the world of  'reality'. When the child's mind wanders in any direction without the anchor of reality, such child is called 'deviated' by psychologists, not 'creative'.

What would you advise Armaan now? Does a play school , beyond enabling coordination of movement, foster fantasy ( or imagination ) in a child below 6 years of age?

Do comics and cartoons help the child become creative after the age of 6 ? What do you think?