A digital revolution has transformed the way we lead our lives. With a number of schools and institutions adopting digital tools and platforms, the Internet and all its immense possibilities are in our classrooms now. Clearly, one of the biggest trends emerging in the education sector is digitisation.
Central question
Are we using this colossal technology in the best possible way for our children? According to a KPMG study, the Indian online education market will be nearly $2 billion by 2021, with well over 1.5 million users. An overwhelming majority of this ‘smart digital education’ is manifesting in two ways.
The first, is the smart classroom, where the blackboard has made way for a pristine white one that doubles up as a screen on which educators can project content.
The second comes in the form of a multitude of online courses that spans a dizzying variety of subjects and skills-learning, for almost every age bracket.
Companies, schools, teachers and parents thus far are limiting the use of digital technology to direct skills-development and supplemental academic and scholastic endeavours. While that is a valid, important, and great use of technology in education, there is a lot more that ought to be done.
Honest truth
Neither our education system, nor our familial structure asks our young children for their opinion, on anything. They are, instead, brought up on a diet of mugging-based knowledge acquisition that provides little or no room for questioning. Questioning, in fact, is perceived, as insubordinate behaviour. The result is evident; we are turning out generations of followers, rather than free thinkers.
Number of kids are also largely unaware and apathetic to many of life’s simple, yet humane truths. Perhaps, a result of pursuing more banal dreams or a consequence of too much academic pressure, kids today, often, seem to be insensitive to, and unaware of the world’s problems. That all species should be treated with dignity and respect, that there must be equal rights for all genders, free of bias and stereotypes — these are not the concerns of young India.
Do we not, at the end of the day, more than just preparing our children to solicit degrees and high-paying jobs, want them to be aware, opinionated, passionate, sensitive and fully actualised global citizens?
Solution
Children are easily bored nowadays. They seem to be suffering from terribly short attention spans. Add to this mix, the free and ready availability of online entertainment options by way of YouTube and the like; parents and educators are now competing with a funny video online, for entertainment value to the student.
Rather than fight this digitised world and view it as a menace, why not embrace it? In my classes, I make liberal use of YouTube videos, short films and documentaries, commencement speeches, TED talks, even funny stand-up comedy at times. This allows me to garner students’ attention, sustain it, and through the viewing experience, which in most cases is immersive for students, slip in some great lessons. If digital is what the youth understands, connects with, and wants to engage with, let us use it to their advantage.
A video or short film that sustains a student’s interest, isn’t too long (so, one is not exposing the student to hours of screen time), and presents obvious lessons in terms of sensitisation, awareness, and evoking empathy, the perfect way of using the digital revolution in order to ‘educate’ children.
If one asks questions based on the film, rather than provide a summary to be mugged up, one is also starting to ignite a certain way of thinking in the child — an ethos of questioning that will lead to unique, individual, well thought out opinion formation.
To take the ongoing reality of the digitisation of education, broaden its scope from pure skills/scholastic development and incorporate digital content into a holistic education will liberate entire generations from the shackles of being self-serving followers and help us create a young India that is concerned, sensitive, questioning the status quo, and has the realistic potential to lead the world into a safe and happy future.
The author is a writer, educator and moderator.
