‘We’re open to picking up from other education systems provided it works.’
Md. Misbahuddin represents young blood in school education. He talks about change and how it must not be too drastic – but just needs to be relevant.
How are successful are digital education methods?
They are a boon to the classroom. Although we are relatively new to the digitally-aided teaching in class, I must say that the teachers and students have adapted to it very well. We have trained the teachers on newer methods of teaching and on using digital boards. It is working out for the teachers because
Today, most schools have recognized that every student has a different kind of intelligences. Harvard Garner is famous today for his theory of multiple-intelligences.
What do you think of CCE methods of CBSE?
We don’t yet follow CBSE till class VI. We follow an assortment of contents from different boards. So, it’s an integrated board. English of ICSE is strong, according to me, and the Hindi syllabus of CBSE is strong. So, a board of members sit together and decide on what blend can work for each subject. Then, we brief the teachers on the content and we also take their opinions.
We are applying CCE also in our own way till class VI. We teach students the concepts practically with experiments in class. The other day, in the assembly, I saw a student collecting sand from the playground because his teacher asked the class to collect soil and sand samples for study. When you make studies relevant to daily life and applicable they get more cued in to studies.
By next year, we will adopt CBSE full-fledged.
What do you think of alternative systems of education like Waldorf and Montessori?
They may have their own relevance. We can’t change the culture of our school drastically because we are set up in a conservative locality. We are attended by families and students who tend to think conservatively.
Besides, there is always a tendency to adopt from the West thinking the West is better off. So, some schools today don’t even have uniform and exams but we think these need to be there. However, regarding other aspects, our philosophy has always been to adapt and evolve slowly without drastic changes. We don’t want to stick to any fixed system; we are ready to pick up whatever works. But having said that I also want to say that if a great technology or a teaching method doesn’t work for our school then we can’t pick it up just because it sounds good.
What are the merits of the Indian system?
I think Indian system ingrains discipline in people. We produce intelligent capable human resource, we are known for that.
