Celebrations apart, Memories are not celebrities

The recent news that the students from India have done exceeding well in the International Memoraid competitions is indeed a matter of gratification and the entire team who have demonstrated excellence both individually and collectively need to be congratulated. The laurels they brought home is an assurance of the faith and hope the country has in its younger generation. As such, students from India have always distinguished themselves in the field of mathematics and in all faculties, that call for active engagement with memory. Many a times this has raised the eyebrows of other participating nations about the excellent training the students receive in nurturing and developing the faculties of the mind. Of course, this is a subject of celebration.

Nevertheless, celebrations apart, this also reflects on a major concern that we have been discussing for the last few decades on the excessive thrust that is given to memory in the Indian learning systems, thereby focusing on ‘rote learning’ – oftentimes without basic understanding of the content and applications of the content. The entire design of the K-12 system demands the skills of memory – ability to retain, ability to recall and ability to reproduce both at short term and long term intervals. Though brain scientists and cognitive psychologists do argue on the impact of memory on long term retention of the information which is useful for further learning constructs and timely use of knowledge without external scaffolding, it appears to be at the cost of several other faculties of the mind – understanding, application, skills, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, imagination and intuition.   This leaves the learner at the risk of mediocrity and a level of incompetency to meet the challenges of newer constructs of knowledge and skills. Rather the very entrepreneurial approach to knowledge domains is negated with celebrations ending with the recall and reproduction of knowledge. This needs to be addressed.

Where does the problem lie and whither are the solutions? One possible factor that seems to force the disengagement of the faculties of the brain is the focus on the examination system. The entire exercise of learning is oriented towards passing an examination and with a strong memory to obtain higher credits. Thus, the quality of performance in examinations on most occasions is the celebration of memory and not necessarily the creative and analytical faculties of the human mind. Rather, those who celebrate these faculties are discredited as ‘outlaws’ of the system and fail to score for the expected mediocrity. The unfortunate part of the entire exercise is that the design of questions right from the formative stage appears to justify the needs of a performance at the terminal of the school stage, thus ensuring a linear progression of a process which is essentially interactive, dynamic, multi-disciplinary and subject to critical evaluation. The mindset to prepare a child for a future has been restrictively designed to prepare a child for a future qualifying examination and a competitive examination. The system needs correction.

Interventions made to initiate a change, so that the holistic development of the learner and the learning profile on the learning curve is tested, is defeated successfully and periodically by stakeholders for their own reasons – fear of failure, fear of unknown, resistance to change and the challenges for continuous and purposeful engagement that puts pressure on the existing quality and magnitude of the work. For political systems, continuity is matter of convenience and safe transit.

The researches in cognitive sciences have clearly indicated that the brain is not designed for routine and is plastic in nature. “Learnability” and “scalability” of learning have been tested and proved beyond doubt. The “use it or lose it” principle of the brain enables and empowers it with a great scope for continuous purposeful and creative learning. It permits celebration of knowledge by dissecting it into innumerable perspectives. Hence the entire exercise of learning, especially at the formative levels leading to K-12 education calls for a vibrant pedagogy (whether with the existing or the reviewed curricula), an engaging classroom and a teacher who is a ‘co-learner’ in an evolving knowledge dynamics.

Encouraging the ability to question, to discover and make mistakes, thus learning from mistakes, application of formal knowledge to informal systems, engaging with newer constructs of knowledge at the cost of potential criticism, re-engineering current knowledge into knowledge modules in the context of newer domains of technology and culture – are but a few exercises the learners would need beyond becoming masters of memory.

As said, celebrations apart, memories are not celebrities of the brain!