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The Impacts of Rote Learning (byheart) towards Children_Some suggestions

- The education for children in a dynamic society is solely based on the aims of education that make meaningful interpretation for the purpose of education. The aims of education which are the foundation in terms of the subject to mean education for human being and the society is to be envisioned by all educational experts and policymakers. With this core aspect and the need for a certain period, educational aims were focused only on skill development in the 19th century without realizing human development. Because, this era was about industrialization where many skills in the different sector were demanded, hence, the factory model of the education system was envisioned by most of the country that influenced huge rote learning.

Image source: HackEducation

However, a distinct education system has been realized in the 21st century because of the advent of rationalization and liberalization. The education for life has been stressed more in this era with the aims of developing critical thinking and rational autonomy that came to be core aims of education which have been mandated to be fit for the society of 21st century. This inclusive and rationalized system of education has made realize a new vision of educational approaches that would influence critical thinking and rational autonomy. The rote learning influenced by early factory model of the education system is another forgotten and abandoned agenda for the current era. Because rote learning enhanced by chalk and talk lecturing and rapid memorization without learning actual essence has made outdated and unfit for the survival in the present context. However, there might be enormous issues and challenges which exist related to policy and competency in terms of activation of meaningful learning.

Let us go a little deeper into understanding the scenario better:

Impacts of rote learning

Rote learning is something rigid way of knowing things without having justified reasons for solving things which are influenced by random lecturing mode of teaching approach and memorization of the written text in the book. In fact, rote learning is about deceiving a child intellectually as they are not capable of solving or reasoning things even if they know the things. Knowing things remains vague mere in the heart which is exposed by exam grades but not realistic or mentally.

·        Lack of critical thinking skills: Rote learning hijacks the children from mentally grown-up- resulting in unable to think critically over the matter and issues. Because the rote learning approach never deploy sensory (body, heart and mind) implications in the learning environment.

·        Lack of in-depth knowledge about subject matter: There is not even a single knowledge without evidence and facts as knowledge is collectives of information and the information is connected to reality. Rote learning does not allow children to have space in terms of connecting the bookish information into reality. Hence, children are not able to validate the information as they just memorize things.

·        Lack of application skills of knowledge in an appropriate way: Knowledge which is just mouth and heart without experiment and connections to the reality is vague. This happens when children are isolated from realistic experiments in action.

Some recommendations and suggestions to sort out rote learning

The core vital aspects have been categorized into three so as to come up with a certain conclusion in terms of sorting out rote learning and activation of active and meaningful learning.

Context based policy

·        Contextual curriculum to be mandated: The context-based policy to be mandated by respective policymakers especially in the curriculum. The curriculum is a set of subject matters and subject matters are a set of information over somebody or something. Hence, these set of information has to be mandated to be contextual as children are more accessible, and familiarity with the information surrounding them than information about in far-off places. 

For example, if a child of Northeast India is studying with CBSE or ICSE curriculum, they would definitely find difficulty in order to have meaningful learning as subject matters might be of different far-off places. They might not be able to connect with the things they see and hear most commonly. However, it would be difficult in case of humanity subject.

Conceptual understanding

·        Understanding the aims of education: In-depth understanding of purpose and aims of education are about understanding the actual meaning of education, it is one of the foundational and core skills of every teacher. This knowledge would help a teacher to formulate appropriate teaching approaches as it is a master key of every educational initiative including, designing and implementation.

·        Teacher professional development in a reflective manner: The teachers training must be very reflective so that teacher can practically understand about reflectivity in reality. Unless teachers have gone through a reflective mode of teaching while training, it is, in fact, a difficult task for them to deal with students in a reflective manner. However, in today’s in-service teacher training seems to be a cascade model where most of the teachers do not receive direct training.  

Technical competencies

·        Meaningful and active learning approaches: The sound technical competencies are also another core part of the activation of meaningful and active learning. The meaningful and active learning approaches are newly imagined teaching strategy, where children enjoy lots of fun in learning with the full attention of body, heart and mind.

 In this approach, teachers would remain merely as facilitators and maximum of time would be given to the children followed by questioning, discussing and reflecting. This approach is basically incorporated with activity-based teaching with specific tools required for the specific subject matters.

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Reflection is contributed by:
Satyasing Mushahary, an alumnus of Azim Premji University (2014-16)
Senior Consultant @ CLF India.1

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