I have been watching Young Sheldon- the spin-off of the Big Bang Theory. This one features Sheldon and his family as he grows in Texas absolutely confident that he would win the Nobel Prize one day. The series begins with the school recognizing that Sheldon is a genius and promoting him to the middle school. Today episode was as usual hilarious. A NASA scientist visits Sheldon's school and manages to put him down. Sheldon sets out to prove that he is right and the NASA scientist is wrong. The episode ends with a visit to the NASA center where the scientist admits that the idea (or rather the Math) is fantastic but they do not have the technical capability to put it into action. Then a shot is shown of space program conducted by Elon Musk, essentially showing that Sheldon's idea has fructified.
But as the episode ended I wondered whether it would ever happen in India. If a child was bright, would he/she be promoted or put through a special program for such children? Would a child be encouraged to think out of the box? Would such ideas be welcomed by our scientists?
I asked this especially as I got the feedback forms from my students yesterday. Till this year one of the senior professor was the coordinator of the course and he never took the feedback forms. But he retired and I became the coordinator of the course and of course, initiated feedback forms. I took feedback both on the course and teaching methodology. As I read the feedback, I was elated and sad. One of the students had written that this was first time he/she had been encouraged to do problem-solving and he/she was now getting the hang of it. This reminded me of a student few years back. After she got into IISc that it was because of my teaching that she was able to answer analytical questions at the time of the interview. Over the years there has been many such episodes. After one exam a student told me that it was so different from any exam she had taken for this was the first time she had been asked to think and analyze a piece of data.
"I enjoyed it so much, Ma'am," she said and I can never forget the joy on her face.
It is so sad. This is something they should have been encouraged to do right from school. It should not take a Master's level course to learn how to think or how to work around a problem or to analyze data.
As we dream of Nobel Prizes, we might want to get our basics right first. Unless our children are allowed to dream and unleash their creativity, we are not going to get anywhere in the near future.
But as the episode ended I wondered whether it would ever happen in India. If a child was bright, would he/she be promoted or put through a special program for such children? Would a child be encouraged to think out of the box? Would such ideas be welcomed by our scientists?
I asked this especially as I got the feedback forms from my students yesterday. Till this year one of the senior professor was the coordinator of the course and he never took the feedback forms. But he retired and I became the coordinator of the course and of course, initiated feedback forms. I took feedback both on the course and teaching methodology. As I read the feedback, I was elated and sad. One of the students had written that this was first time he/she had been encouraged to do problem-solving and he/she was now getting the hang of it. This reminded me of a student few years back. After she got into IISc that it was because of my teaching that she was able to answer analytical questions at the time of the interview. Over the years there has been many such episodes. After one exam a student told me that it was so different from any exam she had taken for this was the first time she had been asked to think and analyze a piece of data.
"I enjoyed it so much, Ma'am," she said and I can never forget the joy on her face.
It is so sad. This is something they should have been encouraged to do right from school. It should not take a Master's level course to learn how to think or how to work around a problem or to analyze data.
As we dream of Nobel Prizes, we might want to get our basics right first. Unless our children are allowed to dream and unleash their creativity, we are not going to get anywhere in the near future.
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