The semester is coming to a close. The deadlines are fast approaching, and you’re wondering where all the days went. (Or maybe you know only too well where — and how — they went.) No matter; after all, assignments in some subjects can be quickly cooked up, a bunch of words thrown onto paper, a quick web search to pad up your ideas, and you have something ready to submit. If you are in a field that requires “project reports”, those too can be had for the asking (buying?), saving one the bother of actually going through the long arduous process of collecting information, making sense of it, and writing the report.
Maybe this is too cynical a view and yes, there are many who go through the pains of producing those papers and reports from scratch. But assignments are too often seen as tasks to be completed for the teacher; as formal requirements that have to be done to get the grade. The task then becomes mechanical, with a focus on the product rather than the process. It’s about doing what needs to be done so that the teacher’s demands are met, instead of thinking about doing it in order to understand a particular concept or acquire a specific skill.
Faulty system
Part of this attitude also comes from our general disenchantment with our education system, where the organic process of learning loses out to the focus on marks and grades as measures of success. It’s compounded by the mechanical way in which much teaching happens, a set-in-stone syllabus, with little or no transparency about what a particular piece of homework is supposed to teach you or how it is related to the course objectives. So, it’s not surprising that for most of us, doing the work for a course is all about “what marks did I get in this assignment” rather than “what did I learn by doing this assignment”. There’s not much we can do about the way education is organised, and for the most part, we have little choice about who teaches us and how. But we do have a choice about how we engage with the course material and what we take away from the tasks that we are expected to do to fulfil the course. Irrespective of the marks one receives for an assignment, or the expectations (or lack thereof) of the instructor, there is potential for learning embedded in the process of doing it. Learning is an internal process; it happens when your mind is actively engaged with an idea or activity, when you are grappling with making sense of something or trying to understand how use tools (mental or physical) for a particular purpose.
When the project report reflects a fictional project, or when the assignment is hastily put together as a formality, a grade may be received, and a requirement fulfilled, but it hasn’t gained you any intellectual advantage, except for making you more skilled at getting through the system.
So, when one doesn’t engage in the process, instead “outsourcing” it to a search engine or to another person, one has effectively given up this opportunity to learn.
The author teaches at the University of Hyderabad and edits Teacher Plus. usha.bpgll@gmail.com
