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Childhood Education
Birth to 15 years is most crucial and important. Let our children learn in natural way like a butter fly - at every stage of their life. Childhood education plays a major role throughout the life of an individual a fact! Or fiction?
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ãAll rights reserved. No part of this document be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise, or translated to other languages without prior permissions of M.C.S. Rao - founder of the concept "Right Education".
However after acknowledging and getting confirmation from authors you can use this document for personal use or to benefit your friends. You can circulate the whole article in toto including copyright statement. You can practice the principles enunciated for personal benefit.
You can't and should not use this document for any commercial benefit or financial gain with out paying royalty to the authors. - Visit web site Right Education for satisfying jobs, peace and prosperity.- let us Learn. www.righteducation.org .
Remember that Happiness is the outcome of Sharing, Caring and recognition.
The author of these articles Mr. M.C.S. Rao is an Ex-defence scientist. His article series facts are fiction are the life experiences and experimental out come of his life long project to find prosperous, peaceful happy life to all since 1969. He strongly believes that a peaceful world is within reach of our children if like-minded people act now.
Human behavior and his happiness depends on the way brain works - Assumption - Perception - Verification - Dreaming - a state between dream and reality- and reality- Learning is the tool for Happiness and prosperity. Happiness is the out come of sharing caring and recognition.
4'Learning about how to live with, dignity, peace, and harmony, with self & nature. Understanding human behavior (understanding self), life and nature is all about
Right Education -
Happiness is a lock with multiple keys- the more of them you possess the nearer you are to the processes of Ð unlocking the door to happiness - Learn
Childhood education plays a major role throughout the life of an individual a fact! Or fiction?
Remember that Happiness is the outcome of Sharing, Caring and recognition.
"We will reap what we sow. We are responsible for what we are to a large extent."
Most difficult thing in life is doing simple (small) things.
All big things are nothing but some total of all small things put together.
Learn to split the task at hand into small consistent workable units.
Methods are applicable to all aspects of life, even to understand written text or spoken language as well, properly.
Take care of simple (small) things, and the end results are surprisingly admirable.
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Childhood education plays a major role, throughout, the life span of the individual. There is, no difference, in the methods, adopted by the child and a scientist, as far as, learning process is concerned. Both the child and the scientist are trying to find answers, to basic questions, of learning process. More about basic questions will come up later in this article.
Child's experiences during formative age (from birth to 15 years is most crucial and important.) Do you know that we need 250 years to acquire same amount of knowledge what a child can learn with in 15 years from its birth. That is approximately 20 - 25%, of life span. Most probably it is true, for all living beings in nature.
Dictionary meaning of education is " Training". Yes, education system should address itself, to train the child, to mange its life, through, childhood, adulthood and old age, with dignity in peace.
When I look at nature, I find, two diametrical opposite methods, nature has perfected, to enable younger generation, to learn from their parents, societies, and nature. They learn, how to mange their lives, with out ambiguity. See how, mosquitoes are out witting, all our efforts to control them.
Let us learn about natural ways to learn.
1) Let us see how a baby monkey learns. Look at the monkey and its baby. It is the responsibility, of the baby, to learn, and protect it self, form the vagaries of nature, and enemies. It is the duty of the baby, to hug to mother, not the duty of the mother, to carry the baby to safety. Most probably, that is why, they give birth to, one offspring at a time.
2) Let us see how a kitten learns. Look at the cat and its babies. Here the responsibility is on the mother, to protect and teach, babies upto certain age, and then on wards, the babies learn. Most probably, that is why, they give birth to, more babies at a time, and their habits continue to be wild through out their life span.
3) Let us see how a puppy learns. Look at dog and its babies. They adopt a path, which lies between the extreme paths stated in 1 & 2.
Now let us analyze their (monkeys, cats and dogs) living styles and habits.
Monkeys, are sociable animals, who can organize themselves,
Independent, innovative, can learn by imitating, and as such can be easily trained, to perform many acts, like human beings.
The Cats are wild, independent, selfish, and are not sociable animals, and can't be trained easily.
Dogs fall in between, the categories, of monkeys and cats. Their early childhood methods of learning, are in between, the learning methods of monkeys and cats.
Nature has bestowed, on all living beings, the gift of memorizing and using those methods, or improved methods, for rest of the life, for self-preservation.
We have seen that, the behavior of any living being depends, mainly on its early childhood, learning methods adopted. All that is learned through out later life , is greatly influenced by, the habits of learning, at early stages of childhood. That is why the saying, catch them young. All circus animals are taught from, as early an age as possible.
From above observations, it appears to my mind, that the behavior, of any, human being is mainly influenced, by early childhood methods adopted, and experiences gained during formative age of the child. This explains, fairly well, why children born in different, societies, states, and nations, behave differently, even though they belong to same, religious faith, and react, differently under similar situations.
I hope the groundwork I did, will be sufficient, to put forward, my ideas of Right Education. If they are not sufficient, I am sure, those of you, who are interested in creating a peaceful, prosperous, happy lives for your children, yourselves, and others, will definitely help me, with some of your, ideas. No doubt we are all looking for a peaceful, prosperous, happy life for all, are we not ???!!!.
À Reasons for present unrest and unhappy situation in our society due to present education system is discussed in the chapter Evolution & Education.
Let us learn what Right Education should mean to us.
I strongly believe that a peaceful world can be build by imparting Right Education to All. YES definitely by taking care of early child hood education.
In our opinion (me and the people who had patience to listen to my arguments, boring or, other wise), Right Education should have the following features.
Allow the children or guide them, to learn in natural way.
Allow sufficient time to learn, at it's own pace. Reduce the present lesson workload by 50% of childhood school education, and achieve better results - salable skills and purposeful living conditions for all.
The nature has bestowed, on every living being with the capabilities stated below, listed under Right Education. - all we have to do is, let children learn in natural way - guide them properly. Teachers should be trained to be guides, parents should allow children to learn from them.
4Right Education.
 It Should make child's learning easy - purposeful - meaningful and enjoyable, and should be as natural as possible.
 It should help one in learning, realize that there is no substitute to self help, give confidence to depend oneself, ability to take decisions or capability to decide, decide correctness of personal actions while performing a job . Let every one realize, that even god cannot help those, who cannot help them selves.
 It should help one to, have a Purpose, and pursue it in life, deciding his, course of life, and perseverance and ability to pursue it.
 It should help one to learn, and make learning a life long habit.
 It should help and train - one who is seeking it - to earn a decent livelihood or make his living pleasant.
 It should help one to find a satisfying job - or at least find means of job satisfaction.
 It should help one to learn to respect, all professions - dignity of labour.
 It should make every one understand, that human beign is creature of habits, and habits acquired during childhood, play a major role throughout the life span. Easy to acquire a habit and very difficult to get rid of it.
 It should help one in learning, right values of life - peace, prosperity, equality, for all, and how to live, harmoniously with nature.
 It should help one to learn, true meaning of Freedom. Freedom, has both rights and responsibilities associated with it.
 It should make parents realize their duties in training children to lead a peaceful and purposeful life.
 It should make a citizen realize his duties and help him, in maintaining his assets, and help maintain common assets.
 It should teach that happiness increases by sharing, caring, keeping, others happy. Our parents derived, part of their happiness from us, due to above reasons.
 It should guide one with scientific methods, of keeping oneself happy.
 It should make one realize, that he can learn only those things what he thinks he do not know, or interested in. Best way to become a learned person, is to think that you do not know, any thing about, what the other person, is talking about. You think, you know what he is talking, and you loose an opportunity, to learn even important, messages from his talk. Constant thought, that I have some thing to learn from, the person to whom I talk can contribute, to my learning - The key used by all wise men to open the doors of knowledge.
 It should help you realize, by lying, you are cheating, your self first, and then, hoping to cheat, to whom you are lying. You don't like to be cheated by others, then why cheat yourself. Try to avoid self-cheating to the extent possible. There is no powerful weapon or tool than TRUTH, use it wisely .
 It should help one with ability to handle difficult periods of his life.
It should help one with ability to respect others, as much as you respect yourself . More the people you can respect more you learn in your life.
 It should help you realize, the harm you are planning to inflict on others, may harm you equally. - you may fall in the ditch you have dug for others.
 Finally it should help you realize, Life is all give and take. One-sided gain is unnatural. Gain and loss are always equal in magnitude, and only their mathematical symbols are different. If you are loosing some where, find out where you are gaining. People who exploited nature, thought, they are gainers, now we know where the loss is. As the loss is occurring after laps of some time, we have to compensate it with interest. Giver will decide, about interest (penalty), and nature will decide what it should be, and we have to pay it, in the interest of our own survival. In short Right education should help us in learning the language, of mathematics, and give us the ability, to apply it to every aspect of life. If we can not learn the language of mathematics and language needed for communicating with out ambiguity, and apply it, to all aspects of life, can we, call our selves, rational animals???!!!.
Long list of wishes. No! Not at all, they are natural capabilities, carefully observe the behavior, of all animals and birds, excepting the so-called rational animal, human being, you will realize it. Human being lost these capabilities, when evolution shifted to brain
They are all basic requirements of survival and every one wish that he had, above capabilities, at one time or other, in his/her lifetime. Religious leaders ?& reinvented, some qualities stated in right education, at various times of history. Mankind has learned, some of them as religious faiths, or over looked as religious fads, with passage of time, when they failed to understand them. In spite of all disbelief, and criticism, religions survived. Religions are serving, the need of religion, reminding us about, existence of natural laws, at various times of individual's life span. Some others qualities, stated in 4right education, our present —& education system, tries to impart to students, all at a time if possible, on time bound program, by following organized, teaching methods.
&—?All present education system, could achieve is, follow the path of least resistance, and impart, to the students, the habit of assuming things, and made it a life long habit, or shall we say addiction, for many.
A In ability to verify, and understand in mathematical language (shall we say inability to find a balance between what is necessary and what is not necessary, need and greed, essential and superficial, assumptions and verified facts etc.), is the cause of majority of our tensions and unhappiness!!! ???. What a psychotherapist does, is make you understand your problem, and balance the equation of gains and losses.
No one ever tried to know, how much of present day —& ?, school and collage teaching, is going down the drain, with out any utility, and what amount of knowledge, is really put to use @ABFä. Unfortunately lot of the knowledge is assumed - no one knows, for sure, what the —statement made by other Dmean. Have you ever heard corrupt people, interpreting the statement of leaders, " We will not tolerate corrupt people and they will be punished" as "we are help less and the corrupt are there, to tell us, what to do, and what not to do". Are you surprised to see an interpretation, which is contradicting the statement? Do not be surprised.
4 ?A small project:
Give a paragraph of any text, to ten people, and ask them to interpret the meaning, in their own words. Compare them, you will know your self, what I mean.
One more example: see how an examiner gives marks, form 0 - 100% for answers given by individual student for the same question, depending on the answers given. AWhat it means???!!!.
All about learning —O?]4Å.
All I am trying to do is, make you aware of, your capabilities to learn form nature. - The 4right way.
Observe wild life, you will understand what I mean. Every animal learns about its duties and responsibilities, and hence they know how to share common resources, like water, land, forest land, food resources, like grass, leaves, animals (killed for food) etc. No killing takes place, near water holes.
Freedom, live and let live, are natural laws, and every living being is capable of learning them and respecting them, if they are allowed to learn them, naturally, at their own pace, in their own way. Animals can organize them selves in the wild, frame their own rules, as per their requirements - in the wild, and can live in harmony with one another. How strange, that we, human beings, rational animals, are not capable of doing it. Accepting that we can not learn in natural way is against to natural laws.
Then something has gone Mwrong some where. Shift of evolution to brain and associated problems.
In my opinion evolution shifted to human brains, when human being learned to use the finger I (thumb), which can face all other fingers. Human species invented symbols JKLand —sounds that can be associated, and started using them for communications. Ability to ?write down the âóvetc., symbols, and understand them in the absence of the writer, has slowly given the path of least resistance to brain, i.e., need not verify, and just assume.
Now and then, ƒ confusion created by assumptions has attained their peak levels, in the society. Teaching practices, based on assumption, created unrest, in the societies. Religious leaders, who understood the paradox of, teaching methods, and natural ways of learning, established various 4?religious thoughts, suitable for that time. Brought peace, and harmony to human society. E” People, who are willing to learn (to come out of, the ƒ confusions, created by teaching methods, which slowly shifted, from, verification, to perception to assumptions), followed the religious leaders to establish new order of thought.
Assumptions are easy to make, and brain need not exert itself (Dr. Gobble of Germany, experimented on this - tell a lie 100 times and people will start believing it). People not effected by social conditions, continued to propagate the methods of assumption, and main reason, for the confusion in understanding the religions in their true sense, after laps of time.
A How true, the human being, is that rational animal, which creates its own problems, and spends rest of its life, in solving them, and forces its offspring, to follow up.
ö A small parable O: One sadhu wanted to show his students, through experiment, that drinking alcohol is bad. He took a glass of wine, caught hold of an insect, which can swim in water, and placed it, in the glass with wine. The insect swam for some time, got drunk and died. He thought that, the students understood the implications. To his surprise, when he asked the students, to explain the purpose, of the experiment, he got answers from, drinking is bad, to good, in various proportions of, bad to good. Some students, even concluded, that drinking is a very good for health. The surprised, Sadhu, wanted to know, why they think, alcohol is good for health. The answer, he got was simple, and straight forward, "We do not die when we drink, the death of insect proves, that insects die, when they get drunk, so when we get drunk, all the germs in our stomach, also get drunk, and they die. We will be healthy as we have a germ free body. How do you like the interpretation???!!!.
Compare, our education system with the Sadhu, and guess what might've happened, if he has not bothered to know the outcome of his experiment.
&—DOur education system is the Sadhu who conducts experiments with good intentions and leaves it to students to draw their own conclusions based on assumptions. Do not forget brain takes path of least resistance, only as long as it is, under the impression that the path of least resistance is to its benefit. Let the brain realize that the path of least resistance is not to its benefit, it is prepared † to bear any workload to achieve the ˆresults.
Ç I repeat, Our education system is stopping, at the end of the experiment. Expecting every student, to understand the purpose of the experiment, that is giving a degree, with different grading. No one is bothering, to verify the outcome of possessing a degree. As per my analysis, please let me know if I am wrong, the out come is every student assumes of what he has been taught, as per his perceptions, and assumptions (to my surprise I found very few students who call tell what their degree means to them.
4? If you like you can take it a project and out what any degree means from 100 students).
With such assumed knowledge, when many try to communicate with one another, it is all utter confusion. The person (may be the boss, leader, student, worker etc., there are some exceptions always), who is expressing himself, may have an entirely different idea, to convey, and the listener, may interpret in a Ddifferent way, altogether. Our Industries, with huge financial resources are attempting to solve this, acquired habit of assuming things due to education, by appointing HRD specialists, who will hopefully, find some ?—common words with their unambiguous meanings, for people working in the AF industry to communicate. How about host of others???!!!., Is it necessary for me to tell what is obvious. Our newspapers are using this inability of verification by many, in their sensational journalism to increase their circulation and advertisers, make people buy what is not really necessary. Small business houses and industries can not afford to have HRD divisions, the end result is confused ” society living in assumed fears and needs. The days are filled with lot of tensions. Small business houses shy away in appointing people and some how mange things. They even leave growth opportunities. Pull shutters down when they face communication problems. Net result, unemployment, unrest, and unhappy societies. Some politicians and trade union leaders are using this acquired quality of assumption, to their benefit by manipulating people. One solution to counter the ill effects of assumption is, to develop the ability of verification, and salable skills.
K Change methods of training, from teaching to learning, train the teachers to be guides, and we can achieve the object, of peaceful and prosperous world with employment to all. Give an opportunity to every one to acquire saleable skills.
À Would you like to know What are salable skills? and find gainful employment, read saleable skills @ABFäJ?— etc .
A Are we interested in helping our selves, if not, even god can 't help us.
Let us consider the reasons, for unrest, and unhappiness in our lives.
I strongly feel that, our present, —&?education system of teaching books and writing exams is the culprit, following, the methods that are not, natural to our ancestors - monkeys.
Present education system, want every one to learn like õdogs, and be faithful like them. Yes that is what is happening to our society, we are loyal and faithful to some, whom we think, are helpful to us (shall we call masters) and bark at others, even if they are friends to the masters, till the master stops us from doing so, like õ dogs. With such limitations imposed by, education system, on learning capabilities, how can it educate, students, to live in peace and harmony with himself, others, society and nature.
Now we will discuss how to go about and impart 4Right Education to children (and parents if possible and attempt can be made - through children).
Some real life examples:
From early childhood I am very inquisitive about things around me. I never left this childish inquisitiveness through out my life. All I have learned is to organize my thoughts, and data I have collected.
I have become a scientist - wise man!!! You and your child too can become one.
I thank my father, due to his insight to my curiosity, found friends to answer, my sensible and senseless questions (to many). Most probably, though not a highly educated person, I think he did discontinue his secondary education or stopped, immediately after his primary education, I am not very sure, is a successful businessman. Being a successful businessman, he should have realized, that there are no stupid questions, it is only stupid people, who think some questions are stupid. All my brothers are successful persons in their endures.
I realized this, when I learned, how Newton found gravitational laws, by asking so called, stupid question of why an apple should fall, than fly, to himself, and found answers to it. When I learned How Archemedes became famous by finding answer, to a so called stupid question, Why should a body float?. Etc. You and I can give a lot of examples.
We think, some question/s is/are stupid, Under the impression, that the answer/s is/are obvious, and many know it, and the person, who is posing it is ignorant of the answer.
What you think about people, who thought that tomato, a vegetable used by many now a days, once thought to be a poisonous fruit, and used it for killing a knight, and became a common vegetable, when it failed to kill the knight. Soybeans, were thought to be poisonous. Water should not be used, to give relief to burns. You and I can give an endless list of, answers to, a lot of such stupid questions, as a results of scientific investigation by wise men who are brave enough to find answer to them. You too, can become one, if you are having courage to find answers, to stupid questions which, you are afraid of asking others.
When I realized this aspect of human curiosity and our concepts of stupidity. I experimented on my children (two daughters and one son), and ensured to find answers, to all their questions, may be some of them are not full, but sufficient to satisfy their curiosity. The result is my daughters, are gold medallists, both wanted to become engineers and they did, One a master degree holder, in food technology, and other a research scholar, in Biotech. My son became, Youngest, Managing Director, of an electronic company, at the age of 22 years, (mind you with highly limited resources of mine, I made it a principle to live with in my finical means, and made my children, understand my limitations with out any ambiguity). Now my son, not only managing the company but also pursuing his M B A degree. I have a secret to share, he failed in his seventh standard, due to his over curiosity in computers - no problem, and he has learned from his failures, to become a successful man very fast. Are not failures, stepping stones for success?!. The success of my children gave me courage to try the methods - shift teaching to learning, with a purpose of their own, of achieving what they want to become, on other children - the magic -, failures have become first class students with in 3 to 4 years.
Let them have a purpose, let them decide what they want to become, and they can achieve, what they want, by learning in natural way - Right Education- and under proper guidance. Train teachers to be guides. Let student know what he can do with the education he is pursuing. Make both student and teacher guide accountable for the results.
À Read secrets of successful personalities and accountability.
AÿLet us realize that, no one, can be taught - only they learn -
We can only guide them, in the process of their learning. Who can do the job, better than parents. Of course we have to train teachers to be guides and resource persons, they should help the student, in methods, to get guidance from parents and others as per the needs of the child.
Conduct this experiment your self - I am guiding you to expected results:
Make an attempt, to understand what was told, in a language, which you do not understand properly. Note it down, the way you understand, by your own efforts, and find out what it means. You will understand the mess, you made out of it. This is what is happening, to our mathematics knowledge - a language - no one ever made an attempt to LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF MATHEMATICS in right sense. And surprisingly, the same is the case, with our mother tongue, or any other, regional-language we were taught- we do not know, the meaning of the words we use - and still use them, with assumed meanings. No wonder many times we can't, make others understand what we want to convey. Simple, we do not our selves understand, the actual meaning of the words we use (how many of us, really bothered to know, the actual meaning, of the words we use by referring to a dictionary?, try to define the meaning of reading and find out its meaning).The reason, for more than half of our tensions and unsatisfactory, living styles is, lack of ability to communicate properly and associated misunderstandings.
Pay attention to languages, and let child learn the purpose of the language, and meaning of the words used in language both in spoken and mathematical.
A Do not forget early childhood education plays a major role in achieving what it wants and influences rest of its lifestyle, and happiness is the out come of sharing caring and recognition.
What is to be achieved by early child hood education (age group from birth to 15 years). - Let us learn from nature.
Stage 1. Birth to the stage the baby learn to recognize the faces.
Have you ever observed, the behavior birds, and animals, to wards their siblings. They allow the siblings to experience, the warmth of home, and the world around them for majority of time. Siblings, experience the love, care and warmth of mother around feeding time only, and through out the night. By this the siblings, learn that it is safe, to wander around, during daytime, and it has to confine, it self to safety, during nights. Mother is always there, some where around, to feed and take care of them, By this the mother, is giving an opportunity, to the siblings, to experience dangers around, and alert the world around, if necessary, to come to its help. After all, siblings have to learn, how to survive independently, as quickly as possible.
To take care of baby, just follow natural methods - leave the child in cradle or sleeping bed, as long as possible. Hug and love only around feeding time, please. This is the way, to allow the baby, to learn how to plan and spend some hours independently, by itself. Do not under estimate the capability of the child to learn - it can identify friends and foes from day one. Observe how it calms down, in mother's lap, when the feel of a stranger scares it.
Easy way to undermine, the capability to learn self-dependency - and adult hood happiness of, the child is to care excessively.
Many are contributing for it, in the mistaken notion of intense love. Excess of any thing is no good. Just keep the baby in your lap, or carry around in your arms, let it have the feel of your body warmth, through out the day, you have destroyed the ability of the child, to be independent. The child learns to depend on you, more and more, and uses its natural ability, to cry and draw your attention, as and when it comes out of, its sleep. You are depriving it, of its natural gifts to experience and learn about the world. Nothing is good, when it is done in excess. The child is deprived of the experience, of love and care, and pleasure of protection in case of danger. It losses the ability, to identify dangers, and alert the world around, for protection. It looses respect for its mother, and learns how to manipulate, mother by its crying. This is how many mothers, bring up their children, and repent for the child's dependence on her when it grows.
4?A small project for you to learn:
Just observe the eldest child's behavior, and the youngest child's behavior, where there are more than 3 children in a house, and mother, is busy in house hold chores. Eldest child learns to be independent, due to mother's lack of time, to attend to it, due to household chores. 2nd and 3rd child is left to the care of first child. Naturally, they spent their time in the lap of the 1st child. They learned, to depend on first child, spent majority of their time by hugging to the elder child. They have gained expertise, in manipulating, and blackmailing the elder child. This early, childhood habits stay, throughout their life. They make their life, and the life, of people around them, unpleasant by constantly demanding attention, in my opinion, the cause for many, adulthood displeasure. No one likes to be manipulated, more so when you are an adult, and may be one of the major causes for broken marriages, more so when they are love marriages. Decide your self - are you harming or helping the child, by your excessive care and love.
I have dealt, in detail about the likely damage, which may result, by not allowing the child to learn, in natural way. From now on wards I will concentrate, on the, benefits of allowing the child, to learn in natural way, and leave it to you to figure out the disadvantages, by taking up small projects, your self.
Positive results can be obtained by sustained efforts to correct childhood deficiencies in many cases if the child is willing.
My experiments show, the incapability of a child can be corrected, by correcting, this deficiency of early childhood experiences, if the child is parent less, or parents are determined to improve the lot of the child and the child is made to understand. I strongly believe that, may of the adulthood problems are due to early childhood parental care (notice I used the word parental care not lack of it). My belief is based on the behavioral patterns, of the children who are having parents to depend, and none to depend. The children who had none to depend, did extremely well in improving their lot, when they choose a purpose for their life, and got guidance, even when they faced failures in life already. It is next to impossible to convince, the child more so the parents, when parents think they love their children intensely.
A Excessive parental care is the cause of their childrens' failures, Strange but true. 46You decide.
Stage 2. When the baby starts shaking its limbs and recognizes forms.
Leave the baby in cradle or bed, hang some toys, and bells with in the reach, of the limb moment, and let it experience the joy of handling objects. Let it learn to smile it needs only nine muscles, of the face. Easy exercise to learn by imitation. Let it experience, the pleasure of love and parental care around the time of feeding and bathing - do not interfere with its freedom of the baby, to learn in natural way. Your excessive love, and carrying it in lap or hands deprive it of learning in natural way - Excessive love, please, do not resort to, it if you want your baby to have a healthy, child and adulthood.
The pleasure of sharing and caring will be lost if you depend on others. AD You decide.
Stage 3. When baby is capable of moving on its tummy.
Encourage it to reach objects, and take control of them, by keeping them, just in reach of the hand. - Baby learns how to depend on itself. Do not make the mistake of giving the object your self, if baby fails to take control of the object, and starts crying. I f you do this mistake, baby learns, how to manipulate you and get things done. You can not match their speed of learning of a child. If you allowed it to manipulate you, you have unintentionally, sowed the seeds of adulthood unhappiness, these seeds germinate and ™grow through out the life. The worst part of it is, they grow so fast other children get effected, group behaviors. Any way I am sure, it is not your intention to so the seeds of unhappiness and be a cause for your child's unhappiness.
K A small suggestion Exercising control over, your feelings, is the key to allow your child to learn.
Stage 4. When the child learns to identify —Osounds.
Let it learn to associate sounds with objects, E ” parents and people around, are also objects to the child, you see. Do not try, to teach child, sounds, which, you can not associate with objects. If do so, You are sowing the seeds of assumption and confusion.
K Nature wanted babies to learn by verification.
A small project: Give a toy, a key, a pen etc. Notice, Babies, keep every thing in their mouth, before accepting them as harmless entities. Foods, being basic need, babies learn first to use mouth as a testing (verification) tool. As parents,
4Let your child learn by verification, Don't interfere in this natural process if it is not dangerous to its health.
Stage 5. When it tries to crawl.
Do all in your power, to encourage the child to crawl, to its life's content. Keep the toys, what it likes at a distance, and encourage it, to take possessions of them (parents can be better incentive than toys, if you can find time to spare). Let it learn how to achieve things, and experience, the pleasure of achievement. Do not make the mistake, of developing soft heart, and give the toy, or taking it to arms, if it starts crying. Your soft heart will undermine the learning capability of self-dependence, of the child. It may not be capable of doing any thing on its own, may depend heavily on others to do its homework, and personal works at a later stage.
People who can depend on them selves are future leaders. 46 you decide.
Stage 6. When child, tries to standup and walk.
Do all in your power, to encourage the child to stand up walk and run, to its life's content. Now parents can be the objects of its achievement.
Stages 2 to 6 play a major role in development of brain, as they are processes, through which the child learns to control its limbs, locomotion, associate sounds with objects, ability to remember, achieve things personally or by manipulation. During this stage, use all your innovative, capabilities, toys and other objects, to enhance child's learning capabilities. Do not allow the child to learn the art of manipulating you.
Help child learn how to achieve things by personal efforts. Both of you experience the pleasure of achievement.
A group of three can make a million - see at three basic colors in TV (R,B.G), Mother father and child. If you want children learn a lot always make it a point to make a group of three.
Stage 7. When the child is trying to imitate parents to learn.
A stage at which the child wants to learn, as fast as possible, by imitating people around, and like to do things itself. As E parents, you are afraid of accidents. Remember neither you or any one of us, has, ever stopped doing things, just because parents or elders wanted us not to do it. The child will definitely experiment, and wants to learn, by verification, irrespective of your willingness. Now the child is trying to find out answers, for basic questions of curiosity, natural learning process, 1) How it is done, 2) why it is done, 3) where it is done, 4) when it is done, 5) what will happen if I do it, 6) can I do it, 7) have I to remember it. Is it beneficial to me. Curiosity, is a natural instinct, like hunger, and just you can not stop the child from experiencing it. So let it learn how to cut vegetable, how to cook, or light a matches or gas / kerosene stove or jump from a stool, climb a table etc., let it Learn under your watchful eyes. Keep a first aid kit handy, in case an accident takes place, do not get scared or scare the child, remember you are there to take care off it,. The child learns to be careful, next time. Gets self-confidence. An accident in your absence may cause an unrecoverable damage, remind your self, with universal truth, that you can't prevent the child forever, what it wants to do by seeing others. You are only deceiving your self, if you thought you succeeded in preventing the child - it is a temporary achievement only. I want to remind you that an average, adult brain, is no match to the speed, at which the child is learning. The mismatch is the cause for all our worries. Let it learn how to use hands and eat, dress itself, comb its hair, or what ever it likes to learn. If you think you can stop the child, you are inviting a situation of unpleasantness for your self and the child as any way it will try to do it in your absence. No good, for you, or the child, the impressions gained are long lasting. Do not forget this fact. Be brave enough, and handle the training needs of the child and let it learn all that, it wants to learn. There is no one who can teach, better than parents can, at this stage. You gain or loose the confidence of the child, it is difficult to gain lost ground. Handle this phase of child's life carefully. You are having a genius at your hand. At times it wants to learn more than what you can handle. Promise and keep your promise to teach it after some time, or a day or two. Do not resort to self-cheating by telling lies, or by postponing the event indefinitely. You loose the respect, and child learns, from you, how to manipulate, before you could realize it, the child learns the art of manipulation, and you will be the first victim. No point in repenting later. Give chalks, crayons etc., and encourage drawing forms and interpreting them.
A small project: for you to understand what all I told you now.
Take a book with pictures, turn the pages around, draw the attention, of the child. If it likes to see, the book you are reading, let it do it, help it, in fulfilling its curiosity, of find answers to basic questions, help the child in natural learning process and share its joy and happiness.
Prevent the child from seeing your book, keep it with in its reach, go out for a while, come back and be prepared to break your heat on a torn book. Do snatch the book and scare the child, it is bad for both of you, the end result is both of you are left with an unpleasant feeling. Many times damage caused to book and the feelings may be unrecoverable.
Learning through imitation is what child is attempting. Encourage the child to learn games from other children. Learn to participate in the games and let child learn the pleasure of sharing. I leave the rest to the imagination of the parents, till the child comes to school going age.
Be brave enough to help the child to learn all it wants to learn through imitating others. Your timidity may cause an irreparable damage.
A group of three can make a million - see at three basic colors in TV (R,B.G), Mother father and child. If you want children learn a lot always make it a point to make a group of three.
Stage 8. When child starts going to school:
Divide the whole job into small accomplishable tasks of 5 - 10 minutes
to start with. Slowly increase the duration to accomplish the task (not more than 30 minutes). Writing down exercises (alphabets) should start, only after six months of child's joining the school. Let child enjoy using crayons, chalks, or even charcoal, and molding objects with clay for six months. Let it gain the confidence of using its hands, before using thumb. Nature took millions of years to evolve thumb, there is nothing wrong, in allowing the child, to gain confidence in using hands, before it learns, how to put Cthumb to use. To my mind it appears to be a natural process.
Teacher, guides Let child learn, symbols (alphabets of language and numerals), sounds associated with them, by examples. Teacher guides can use slips of papers, better card boards, on which animals, flowers, fruits, vegetables, etc., what ever is available around, the purpose is the child should be able to verify what has been shown on 4paper öõôóphysically (the purpose of language is to communicate with out confusion). The child should be able to experience them, and associate them, and should find personal benefit. If above objectives are achieved the child has become a self-learner. It is time to follow up the exercise with letters, and associate them with first letters of names and numerals (should be associated with physical individual units). E.g. one apple, two cows, three bats etc. Don't attempt to teach the child numerals beyond nine at this stage. Child knows the advantage of using hand to write down ? symbols and A fingers to count. We will not face any problem in carrying the child through, its early school going stage. The process should be natural, associative, and capable of answering the basic questions of learning process.
Let child learns, at it's own pace. , There is no point, in trying to achieve the object, of teaching sounds, symbols and associating, them with objects, on 6time bound scale, as we are doing now, and to proceed to next Þstage, when we know pretty well, the child has not gained the capabilities, expected from present stage . It is all about the child understanding or not understanding. There is no meaning in percentage ( %) of understanding.
This is the stage at which, the child learns to complete a work or leaves it as a task not accomplishable.
Our present —&?education system, working on 6time scale, has not realized the fact that every child, is having different living environments, and may need, different lengths of time, to learn and understand, various aspects of life. Even a regular activity like taking food can not be accomplished by all children uniformly in a specified time limit.
ÇI repeat there is no point in making education at this stage time bound (or for that matter at any stage if one can help).
K This is the stage, at which the child learns to complete a work, or leaves it as a task not accomplishable.
Help the child in accomplishing the job by guiding it to complete the job on hand. Completing one job in full helps the child in learning and understanding the methods completely. Please note that accomplishing three jobs 30% each is not same as accomplishing one job in full, learning partially leaves the child in a confused state and child looses the capability of coordinated logical thinking.
U Let child, take its own time to accomplish the job of learning through verification.
Try to visualize what should have happened to all inventions, related to electricity and subsequently, electronics, if Alva Thomas Edison has gone through, time bound education system. His teacher thought, he had a defective brain as Edison had a large head. Edison became a great inventor due to his mother. I gave this example, to illustrate the fact, that every one, will have his own pace of learning, and if allowed, they will become persistent, and achieve things and some of them may become as great as Edison.
When some one asked Edison, the secret recipe to become a genius. Edison's answer was " it is 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration". Do you know that Edison accepted lot of odd jobs, to earn money and carry on with his experiments. He has lost many jobs, as people never liked, his experiments. We can not think of even a day with out his inventions now.
Let us not hurry a child's, learning process, and deprive it of this natural gift, of perseverance.
Human brain remembers, what it has learned for life. Brain lacks the ability to use coherently, what has been taught under pressure. As on date, we are not in a position, to under stand how the brain, stores and retrieves the information, it needs, from the huge database, it has. Brain tries to avoid altogether, the experience it has learned under pressure, if it can help. We use this ability of brain, to screen out, when we advise some one, to forget all that happened, as a bad dream. No point in feeling bad, about school dropouts and parental tensions, in sending children to schools, bad performance at school etc., as long as we forget the fact that every child is having its own pace of learning.
U? The pace depends on the needs of the child and not on the pressure of examinations.
Real life examples:
My father had friends, who failed many times in various classes, and could not go beyond 5th standard, and yet became successful men. The most suppressing aspect is, that they never hesitated to discuss their failures, whenever they met. They were not school dropouts.
All I want to stress is, do not make school going an unpleasant experience, let the child take more time if necessary to accomplish the job. School going should be a pleasant experience, both to parents and child. Tell them lot of stories of life and animals, Panchatantra, by Paravastu Chinnaya suri, translated to simple language, may be a good starting. Modify them, if necessary to suit the situation. Take stories from children magazines, newspapers, which are related to life, or any other stories, which you think, the child can relate, to reality (real life situation, and let it imagine it self as the leading character of the story). All that is necessary is to encourage the children, to learn by observing parents, working people around them, draw (like father at work, mother cooking, goat eating leaves, dog with puppies etc., this exercise help the child to express it self through symbols), what they see around including the environment. Let children play the games by playing characters of the story.
Give the child, some thing exciting to tell its parents, by end of the day, and convince the child, it can handle some of the tasks carried out by parents, with confidence.
%Parents should think that child's education is all about preparing it for leading happy and peaceful life.
Schools should be places of learning. There is no better way, than achieving it, through games, stories, and helping parents at home in their day to day chores. After all education is all about managing ones, job and life. Let the child learn, to use language with out ambiguity, both spoken and language of mathematics. Teachers should, watch the progress and guide the children, to express themselves with out any ambiguity.
A small project for you:
Make an attempt to understand what was told in a language, which you do not understand fully. Note it down, and find out what it means. You will understand the mess you made, out of it. This is what is happening by making child do many things partially (present way of % marking system).
This is what is happening to our mathematics knowledge - a language - no one ever made an attempt to LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF MATHEMATICS - and still use it. The reason, for more than half of our unsatisfactory, living styles.
ÇYes THE WAY WE WERE TAUGHT, MATHEMATICS is NOT COMPLETE, IN ALL ITS ASPECTS. The meanings given and applications, are confusing, and at times not logical. Hence Many AVOID application of mathematics in actual life situations, and thus miss an opportunity to find a solution.
In my opinion, mathematics is only language developed, on robust logic. Universal languages, that can make every one, understand, what has been told exactly (no scope for ambiguity). You can easily verify, (the result of), your statement TO avoid any AMBIGUITY. No two individuals can interpret meaning of mathematical language differently.
Let child learn the language of mathematics - teacher guides should be trained for this.
Educational materials:
The abilities, to verify to avoid ambiguity, can be achieved only, when the child, can see the objects around, feel and experience, what has been told. The purpose can be served, best, if the books are based, on local needs, or schools should have, working models or at least miniature models, child can touch and feel.
What you can do at school level:
We can achieve this easily, by allowing the children, make models out of clay, to look like, what has been given in books. A potter will be a best guide for this purpose.
In my opinion stage 8 should be for duration of 3 to 4 Years. Some may take 3 years and some 4 years. Time taken is not important, what is most important at this sage, is both parents and children should understand, that the child education is having a purpose, that is imparting, survival and self-dependence, to empress one self with out ambiguity etc., and basic abilities to understand. During this period, the child should be encouraged, to be curious about every thing around, and express her feeling, and experiences with out ambiguity. Teacher- guide can, or better its schoolmate, do the job, and let the child imitate. Ensure the child has understood and accomplished the task, before giving it new task.
A proposal to implement: Divide the education into blocks of 3 years each with a grace period of one year for three blocks. Each three yearly block should be subdivided into 12 blocks of three months each. Decide the work to be accomplished by the child in three months and divide it into 300 small tasks that can be accomplished with in an hour by an average child. Allow the child to repeat the task and understand it fully in next hour. If the child fails to accomplish the task, note down and give it as homework, to enable the child to have and opportunity to accomplish the task. Let parents know the tasks accomplished by the child so that they can give similar tasks to child to strength its knowledge about the task. Let child present the tasks given by the parents along with the tasks given as homework. Make it a point to see that the child presents its work done at home with out fail. If any task could not be accomplished even at home, note down and leave it for next quarter. If a child fails to accomplish at least 70% of tasks retain the child at the level of the quarter in which it could not accomplish, and let it accomplish unfinished tasks in next quarter.
A real Life experiment:
The method of overlapping education was experimented by me with a years overlapping period, that is allowing a child to go back by a year and strengthen it's knowledge at lower class once again. Failures have become school first students with in 4 years. Overlapping quarters should give a better opportunity to correct the situation much faster. And yielded better results. Of course our teachers should learn how to guide, may be parents also.
† Why not take it as a project and verify yourself.
Teachers should learn how to train children to understand the meaning of FREEDOM - Unambiguous communications, PURPOSE OF EDUCATION- LEADING PEACEFUL HAPPY LIFE - LOVING AND CARING ALL, AND NATURE. Yes all this is possible if they can learn and understand the language of mathematics and communicating with out ambiguity.
A No ambiguity, respecting and following rules properly is a necessity for orderly existence of all-living beings and universe. The more we learn to respect others including nature, more knowledgeable we become. I learned a lot from children than from college education.
A group of three can make a million - see at three basic colors in TV (R,B.G), Mother father and child. If you want children learn a lot always make it a point to make a group of three.
Stage 9. Child should be introduced to subjects, like, history (of course with a purpose, how to react or avoid, similar historical situations, in real life conditions, understanding human behavior, under various conditions, and situations) - let students put forward, their opinion about the event, encourage them to debate for and against. Application of mathematics for personal benefit (device business games - let them follow their parents to market places - and share their experience with other children next day). Caring for nature through gardening,. Wild life, through stories.. Stories about achievements of science and early childhood stories of scientist etc. The purpose is a) to develop, confidence in the child, that it can become like some of them, if it likes and works for it. b) To allow child to learn how to put the languages that it has learned to personal use c) to create interest in subjects by exposing it to achievements, learning actual subjects can be left to higher classes. By the time the child complete 9th stage it should gain, self confidence in itself, confidence of the parents by convincing them, that the time, it is going to spend, in further education is with a purpose, and it will benefit family also. Even If the child has to discontinue education, for personal reasons, like becoming an orphan, or all of a sudden to become supporting member of the family due to death of only earning member etc. will continue, or at least make serious effort to continue, education. Through part time educational institutions (like Jawaharlal Nehru open schools applicable in India), as education is having a purpose to serve - give an opportunity for better life, which child can build for itself. The purpose of education 9th stage, is to teach, child how to use spoken and mathematical languages, with out ambiguity, for survival.
Stage 9 will take about 4 to 5 years.
A group of three can make a million - see at three basic colors in TV (R,B.G), Mother father and child. If you want children learn a lot always make it a point to make a group of three.
Stage 10 - From this stage on wards, we can follow conventional methods of teaching, of course - make both teachers and students accountable for their actions. The process of verification should be the guiding principle.
The purpose of this stage is to identify, develop, and make preparatory ground for student to decide, want he wants to become, find out about its aspirations and guide it properly.
The schools should be provided with, information of likely job potential, for a particular salable skill, by the time the student completes his graduation, if he pursues education upto that level. Care should be taken to strengthen the ideas about - dignity of labour - FREEDOM - PURPOSE - LEADING PEACEFUL HAPPY LIFE - LOVING AND CARING ALL AND NATURE - responsibilities of parents, TEACHER GUIDE and childern etc., of course at no time teacher - guide should become careless, and allow the student to assume things.
Stage Ten will take about 3 to 4 years, and the student will be capable of handling, real life situations on his own. I will not be surprised if some of the opt. For self employed occupations like, vegetable venders, home delivery boys, hawkers of food items, and a host of other occupations for personal reasons, and still pursue their higher studies through Indira Gandhi Open University. In fact I can give names and addresses of the students who pursued education with a purpose. I understand that lot of students, from other countries and even from America, do odd jobs while pursing, higher studies. Higher education becomes more meaningful as they can, correlate what they are learning to real life when they study while working, and acquire better salable skills.
ÇThrough stage 1 to nine the guiding principles should be:
a) Impart 4right education - training people to lead a purposeful life - let every one learn by finding answers to basic questions, how, why, where, when, what etc.
Let children learn as much as possible from nature. Most probably every single scientific invention, as on date has been already, perfected by nature. Our scientific inventions, are no way nearer, what nature has achieved as on Date. I do not know how many more years, decades, or centuries we need to achieve the perfection of nature.
Some examples of natures achievements:
See the bees how they communicate by figure of 8 dance. We have yet to master this art for safe landing of airplanes by including as much information as bees can do.
We have yet to reach the perfection, of a bat, in using ultrasonic waves. We use them for locating sub marines, schools of fish, medical diagnostic use etc.
We have yet to learn how to produce light, with the efficiency of a glow warm.
We have yet to learn how to produce and handle electricity, with the efficiency of an eel.
We have yet to learn, how to identify nutritious food, and preserve it for future use, like ants and bees.
We have yet to invent, a computer, which is as capable as a human brain, and work with such low power consumption.
We have yet to invent a machine, which is a functional and efficient, as natures living beings, like human beings, cheats, dogs, you name any living organism - none of our machines, are anywhere nearer to, the efficiency, what nature has achieved.
You name any item, we are using, which is an out come of modern science, and technology, most probably you can find, at least, one living organism in nature, using same principles with better efficiency.
We have yet to invent a self-maintaining, machine like living beings.
I have used the word machine, for a living being, because it uses all the means, we use for running a machine, like energy, heat, water, oils, minerals, metals etc.
To my mind it is only wheel - as I have not found any organism, which uses this form - is the invention of men in true sense. May be nature has tried and dispensed with, as locomotion means, as a limb, which can not be lubricated, and maintained by providing, a well protected outer sheath. Any way wheel, can not be as flexible, a locomotion tool, as limbs.
A group of three can make a million - see at three basic colors in TV (R,B.G), Mother father and child. If you want children learn a lot always make it a point to make a group of three.
Medium of teaching during stage 1 to 10.
Mother tongue, language of signs - drawing and acting, English and Mathematics. No I am not against Hindi (In fact I have suggested methods to make Hindi as a national link language) , I have dealt with medium of language, and language of mathematics in a different articles.
The articles are based on my experiments, and results achieved. Many of them we have achieved and the rest, no doubt we will achieve with your participation.
You are welcome to criticize, and give your comments.
Remember that Happiness is the outcome of Sharing, Caring and recognition.
You are welcome, to contribute your ideas, ask for help, or sharing your experiences with others, help mange their life and or to participate in this noble cause?
You too can participate help build a peaceful world by promoting total personality development of individuals.!!! Why not participate in this noble cause?
The ¥-author of these articles Mr. M.C.S. Rao is an Ex-defence scientist. His article series facts are fiction are the life experiences and experimental out come of his life long project to find prosperous, peaceful happy life to all since 1969. He strongly believes that a peaceful world is within reach of our children if like-minded people act now.
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