Schooling the Kid (1 to 5)

Learning Steps     - A Learning community                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Volume 2

Schooling the Kid                                                         Step-1

Driving through the memory lane, when I scratch the surface of the neurons embedded in the cerebrum, I revisit a scene – (Pardon me, for being a little personal) – The city called Madurai –a reasonably large house – a large number of family members had gathered – the house had a festive look – the musicians who play on the pipe were parading their auditory skills – I was nearly six years old – taken to a nearby barber to have the head half shaven – given a celestial bath – new dresses given – a set of rituals performed - the procession starts towards a nearby school – a municipal school – sitting on the lap of a headmaster in early forties I was asked to write the first alphabets on a plate filled with rice – wow! It was a great function to admit a child in the school – a celebration for vidhyaramba – the beginning of education! It matters not, to which religion you belonged to, which community you were born, the beginning of learning was a great occasion in yester years. Parents, everywhere, looked for the day with a sense of religiosity, as an auspicious occasion.

Contrast that to this day – A staffer comes to meet me in my chamber seeking leave for a day.  He explains that he has to go and sleep outside the school that night so that he can be one of the first few to get the application for seeking admission of the child in a school. The long queues, the police men regulating  - parents from all walks of life, engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, professors, corporate executives sharing a night on the platform – competing with each other for just an application for admission of their wards in the school. (I understand that there are touts available in a few places who can give a proxy appearance for a fixed charge to get you the application forms!) – A nightmarish experience.

In a world where the education of children is being considered increasingly as an investment – not only for the future of the child, but for the future of the parents too, in a world where the success of learning is considered as the ability to jump over the fence of cutting edge standards, one starts wondering – whether it is an apt time to redefine what education means.

-          Does schooling lead to education?

-          What is the objective of schooling?

-          What are the processes involved in effective schooling?

-          When the child is fit enough for schooling?

-          Does schooling alone lead to education?

-          What is the changing scenario in schooling?

Add to this certain other issues: Which is the first school? Who is the first teacher? What is the role of parents and home in empowering the learning process? How does awareness lead to cognition and emotional experiences? How does informal learning affect formal learning? How learning occurs? How are attitudes and aptitudes developed? What are the challenges to the established theories of learning? What is the emerging role of parents and teachers in info-flooded society?

There are several questions to which we need answers. For some, we have answers but pretend not knowing them. For some we really don’t know the answers and we don’t intend to seek answers. For some it is possible to find answers, but we are pre-occupied with other priorities and hence we can afford to marginalize the questions. For some, we are waiting for someone else to find the answers and implement them, so that we can tune ourselves based on the success rate of implementation.

In the background of all these questions, I see an innocent child sitting and pondering – what is going to happen to me? Am I part of the routine consisting of – a biological birth, existence and death? What is that I am expected to learn and for what purpose? Why people are interested in educating me and what are their expectations? Which is the right place for me to learn what I want to and what others want from me?

Friends, Schooling the kid series will try to find some answers based on various research work done both at the national and the international level – some school experiences gathered from classrooms worldwide - contextualizing them to the present and future needs of the community, human kind and the universe. It will be indeed a great opportunity for all of us – me and you – to put across our views, share our experiences, debate our concerns – which will sensitize us to take actions towards the ends where we want things to go or possibly where all of us want to go – a journey to unravel the unfathomed oceans of knowledge!

In order to have effective discussions – I suggest that you post your views (whenever you feel the need) to my email id: bala1947@gmail.com and give me the privilege of editing and moderating the communications so that the discussion is crisp and focused – a platform where everyone will have opportunity to be present and benefited.

Have a great Learning experience!

G.Balasubramanian 

Learning Steps     - A Learning community                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Volume 2

Schooling the Kid                                                         Step-2

Is womb the first school?

We are not unfamiliar with certain stories which spoke of the foetus in the womb learning from the environment.  One of the greatest Indian classics Mahabharat has the following anecdote:

Krishna was explaining to Arjuna about certain strategies adopted in the Warfield. Arjuna’s wife Subhadra who was pregnant was sitting nearby and listening carefully to the description of Krishna. Krishna was describing the formation of chakravyuha, an important method of fighting with the enemies. However during the process of description she slept over. The foetus who was listening carefully to the words of Krishna could not listen fully. Later in life, when Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna was in the battlefield, he remembered the words of Krishna on how to form Chakravyuha and could make it easily. But he did not remember how to come out of it and got killed.

Then we have the anecdote of Prahalada.

Prahalada was the son of Hiranyakashpu, the demon King who became arrogant with the powers that was vested on him by the Lords of the Heaven. When Prahalada was in the womb of his mother, he had the continuous opportunity of listening to the songs of Narada, singing the laurels of Narayana, the Lord. Later when the child was delivered by Hiranyakashpu’s wife, the child was so devoted to the name and fame of Lord Narayana that he could challenge his father and become the source of his death.

William J.Larsen writes in his book “Essentials of Human Embrology” (1998) :

"The extreme speed with which both our under- standing of human biology and our clinical practices are advancing affects a new category of patient: the unborn fetus."

The following is the excerpt of Jan G.Nijhuis in the journal Foetal behaviour:Developmental and perinatal Aspects (1992):

It has often been asserted that human foetuses are exposed to environmental stimuli that have a lasting effect. The effects thereof are often negative: medication, viral infections or a malnourished mother might have a harmful effect on the foetus. But environmental stimuli might also have positive influences, as anecdotes tell. For example, during her pregnancy, King Heinrich IV of Germany’s mother had a musician come every morning to play in close proximity to her. At that time, people believed that the foetus could hear the music and that music would have an influence on the person’s later character by preventing him or her from becoming bad humoured. According to historians, this worked for Heinrich IV: he was good humoured all his life.

He continues to substantiate the idea of learning at the foetal stage through the following words:

Some mothers say that they listened to Mozart or Beethoven during their pregnancies in order to give their child a good start in this world. But what should one think of these stories? Does an unborn child store environmental stimuli? In other words, do humans learn while they are still in the womb? Lately the anecdotal stories on these issues have been supplemented with scientific data. It has, for example, been scientifically proven that a foetus starts to hear sounds in the 20th week of pregnancy and is able to react to sounds by the 28th week at the latest. In addition, habituation studies have found that the foetus is not only able to hear tones, but can also memorise them.

The above revelations should make all educationists to reconsider some of the established views on learning and should revisit the concepts in the light of newer understandings of the human biology.

Let us hear more from the researchers in the following issues.

Keep reading!

G.Balasubramanian

  

Learning Steps     - A Learning community                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Volume 2

Schooling the Kid                                                         Step-3

Remembering the Smell

Does the foetus respond to the stimuli provided externally? Does it have any long term effect on the foetus? Do they register the stimuli in their brain and recognize it at a later stage? What are the different types of stimuli to which the foetus responds? Extensive research has been carried out worldwide to understand the foetal behaviour.

Here is the extract of certain experiments conducted by schaal et al.

Schaal et al.wanted to know whether similar prenatal processes might operate in the formation of the first selective responses to odours in human infants. In order to test this, they recruited 24 pregnant women from Alsace, a region whose local cuisine makes extensive use of anise. Thanks to behavioural observations, it has been known since the 1930s that anise is readily perceived by newborns. The pregnant women were asked about their habitual consumption of anise-flavoured food or drinks and thereby separated into a group of 12 anise-consuming (AC) and 12 non-anise-consuming (nAC) mothers. In the last two gestational weeks (i.e. 15 days before the expected term), women of the anise-consuming group were offered anise-flavoured sweets, cookies and syrup. They could eat as much of these as they wanted, but without any additional change to their regular eating habits. During this time, the women were asked to fill out a detailed record of their daily eating habits and the kind and amount of the consumed anise-flavoured foodstuffs. By decoding these records and using the quantitative information provided by the fabricants on the flavour content of the different foodstuffs, the researchers could precisely evaluate the amount of anise flavour consumed by each mother. Due to the fact that most women delivered before the expected term of gestation, the women of the anise-consuming group consumed anise flavour on an average of 5.6 ± 3.5 days preceding delivery. Postnatally, the women did not ingest any anise-flavoured food. In the control group, no anise was consumed before and after birth.

  The newborns were tested within the first eight hours after birth (before they had had any ingestive experience) and on day 4 (about 3.5 hours after they had last been fed). Cotton swabs were impregnated with anise flavour diluted in paraffin oil, or with only the solvent, paraffin oil, and held under the infants’ noses for 10 seconds each in a systematically balanced order. The babies’ behavioural reactions were videotaped. During the second test (on day 4), a two-choice paradigm was carried out, i.e. both stimuli were presented at the same time and the researchers examined the different reactions to the two stimuli. 

The video tapes were analysed by an independent researcher according to three variables (a) negative facial reactions (brow lowering, nose wrinkling, upper lip raising, lip corner depressing, etc.), (b) ‘mouthing’ (sucking, licking, munching, chewing) and (c) head turning. In this way the 10 seconds of stimulus presentation and the 10 seconds that followed were analysed (Fig.1).

 On the day of birth, a significant effect could be observed in all three variables: the babies who had already smelled anise in the womb showed more positive reactions in mouthing (Fig. 2b) and more negative reactions towards the control stimulus (Fig. 2a). As regards head turning, babies in the control group showed no difference in their reaction to the anise and the control stimuli, while babies of the anise-consuming group turned their head significantly more often towards the anise stimulus (Fig. 2c). Taken together, these results show that infants born to anise-consuming mothers evinced a stable preference for the anise odour, whereas those born to non anise-consuming mothers displayed aversion or neutral responses.

Some of the research findings on the stimuli-response behaviours both at the prenatal and post natal stages have a significant impact on our understanding of learning and consequent behavioural patterns.

Let us try to look into more evidences in the future issues.

G.Balasubramanian

                                

Learning Steps     - A Learning community                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Volume 2

Schooling the Kid                                                         Step-4

Foetus and responses to smell

Several experiments conducted on pregnant women world over have brought out some significant revelations about how the foetus respond to odour and are able to recognize them for short intervals and on long-term basis. This raises certain important questions about the memory formation, retention of memory and factors that enrich and stabilize the memory. Let us look into the experiments:

Babies are able to learn and remember while still in the womb, according to a study.

Doctors in the Netherlands used sound to determine if an unborn baby could react, respond to and recognise a specific noise. They found that while a foetus moved when they first heard the sound, they later became used to it and did not react.

According to the doctors, this showed the foetuses were able to remember the sound and "learn" it was harmless.

The doctors carried out a study on 25 unborn babies between 37 and 40 weeks old. They applied an acoustic sound to the womb and directed it above the unborn babies leg. Each of the foetuses reacted.

They determined whether the unborn baby had "learnt" not to react to the sound if their body no longer moved, after four consecutive sounds. They applied consecutive sounds at three different intervals; initially, 10 minutes later and 24 hours later.

'Became used to sound'

Six of the foetuses were excluded from the study because of irregular movements in response to the sound.

The remaining babies all "became used to" or habituated to the sound and did not react soon after it was initially applied.

They stopped reacting to the sound more quickly when it was reapplied after 10 minutes and similarly 24 hours later.

Dr Cathelijne van Heteren from University Hospital Maastricht said the study showed foetuses had both short and long-term memories.

"Compared with the initial habituation test, foetuses not only habituated more rapidly 10 minutes later but also after 24 hours.

"We therefore conclude that foetuses have a short term memory of at least 10 minutes and a long-term memory of at least 24 hours."

Says David Chamberlain, an expert on foetal studies in his book “ Foetal learning: Ground Zero for parenting and society.”:

The true foundations of civilization and chaos, health and illness of both individuals and societies are laid during the days we spend in the wombs of our mothers. What happens there eventually determines what happens in the world. Womb ecology becomes world ecology.

During the 266 days of human gestation we receive our operating equipment for life: we become embodied, take form. This includes the physical structures of body and brain, our emotional settings, and our mental patterns, habits, and momentum. These become the "default settings" or "templates" for living. They are difficult—in some ways impossible—to change after birth. We do not have the luxury of going back to do this construction over again.

“Womb ecology becomes world ecology” – Don’t you think it is quite a sensitive statement over which, we educators need to contemplate?

G.Balasubramanian

Learning Steps     - A Learning community                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Volume 2

Schooling the Kid                                                         Step-5 

Does the foetus recognize the voices?

It is amazing to note that the prenates are not only able to listen but are able to recognize the difference in the voices. Several of the research studies have shown that the foetus in the mother’s womb being sensitive to the changes in the voices. Further they are able to recognize the voice of the mother even during her pregnancy. Specialists in the field do believe that this has a strong impact on the language learning competency of the new born. Possibly the need for learning through the mother tongue at the formative years of life assumes a great significance in this context. Let us now see what the research studies indicate.

Dr. Barbara Kisilevsky, a Queen's University professor of nursing along with a team of psychologists at Queen's and obstetricians in Hangzhou, China, found that foetuses are capable of learning in the womb and can remember and recognize their mother's voice before they are even born. Their research findings are published in the international journal Psychological Science.

While previous research on infant development has demonstrated that newborns prefer to listen to their own mother's voice to that of a female stranger and will even change their behaviour to elicit their mother's voice, Dr. Kisilevsky's research proves that this `preference/recognition' begins before birth.

"This is an extremely exciting finding that provides evidence of sustained attention, memory and learning by the foetus," says Dr Kisilevsky. "The foetuses learn about their mother's voice in the womb and then prefer it after birth.

Our findings provide evidence that in-utero experience has an impact on newborn/infant behaviour and development and that voice recognition may play a role in mother-infant attachment."

The findings also suggest that the foundation for speech perception and language acquisition are laid before birth, says Dr. Kisilevsky. Therefore, the precocious language processing abilities observed in newborns and young infants may not be due to a hardwired speech-processing module in the brain as has been assumed, but instead stems from the interaction of the foetus with its environment.

Along with researchers at Zhejiang University, China, Dr. Kisilevsky tested 60 foetuses at term. Thirty foetuses were played a two-minute audiotape of their own mother reading a poem and 30 foetuses were played the voice of a female stranger reading the poem. The researchers found that the foetuses responded to their own mother's voice with heart-rate acceleration and to the stranger's voice with a heart-rate deceleration. The responses lasted during the two-minute tape as well as for at least two minutes after the offset of the voices.

"These results tell us that the foetuses heard and responded to both voices and that there was sustained attention to both voices," notes Dr. Kisilevsky.

Some of these research findings have a serious impact on our present understanding of how learning occurs and what are the inputs that facilitate learning. Two issues which seem to be bothering my mind in this context.

1. A few decades before the children stayed with the family and the parents upto a period of 5 or 6 years where the emotional bondage between the child and the family/parents was built up. Today we are in a world where the child is being looked after by a governess or a crèche just a few days after the birth. In the light of above observations about early learning paradigms, I strongly feel the importance of the family in shaping the mind and attitudes of the child. But have we gone too far presently that we would not be able to restore the earlier scenario or will it be possible to reverse the process?
2. There is an increasing feeling amongst the parents that the children could be outsourced to an external agency for intellectual and emotional development. Spending a sizable amount for such outsourcing seems to make them happy. Is it necessary for the schools presently to educate the parents on their vital role for bringing up the children? If so what should be done and how should it be done?

Think it over!

G.Balasubramanian