Prior to present information age, the main role of educational institutions and teachers was to impart information to students. Few were in possession of more information and consequently held more respect and power. Transparency was associated with loss of authority. Over the centuries human beings acquired knowledge by gathering information and developed skills to use the information at appropriate place and time to find solutions to complex problems both practical and some esoteric. That is how various disciplines of knowledge grew, including science. Often gifted teachers taught the students the difference between information and knowledge. It was very clear that knowledge is an assimilation of the existing information which allows the ability to deduce with certain predictive power. The teachers who had wisdom were considered at the highest echelon of human society. So the entire education system was built on gathering data, converting it into information, assimilating information to create knowledge and the ultimate was converting knowledge to wisdom. It was Albert Einstein who pointed out that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
During the last decade the world has undergone tremendous changes. With the advent of Wikipedia and Google Search Engine, today information is at everyone’s fingertips. As a teacher, what do we teach our students when Mr. Google provides them all the information? Thus present education systems, its evaluation methods and role of conventional teachers need to undergo a paradigm shift. Cramming of information and measuring the ability of students to memorize and reproduce this information has been the old classical model of education (may also see SKBlog-05). Today it is the “need to know” approach. Therefore I believe that today, teachers need to teach three things to students in the context of any given subject:
1) Ability to observe
2) Ability to analyze
3) Ability to deduce
Great teachers will be able to teach the students the power of imagination. Ability to think in vacuum is the ultimate quality that every young scientist must acquire and allow his/her imagination to fly. I was very fortunate to acquire this skill from an outstanding scientific mind- Prof. V. Sasisekharan at the Indian Institute of Science.
Tomorrow’s educational institutions will not be physical buildings but an interactive space on the cyber cloud, where the students and teachers can share their experience, knowledge and wisdom. Days of conventional class rooms, conventional teaching and conventional examination system will vanish the way inland letters and telegrams have been replaced by SMS e-mail and WhatsApp. Thus it is time for all educational institutions to change and all teachers to prepare themselves differently. It is time that all students demand a new way of learning to be prepared to take advantage of the information age and become future-ready
Learning's from life’s experience
Learning to think in vacuum helps to be a leader in science with vision.
SKBlog-07
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