Institutions and teachers have a great role to play in grooming children and turning them into good human beings with values. Institutions are not for manufacturing machines that score marks and obtain a placement, said Dr. Jayanthasri Balakrishnan, Associate Professor of English, PSG College of Arts and Science on Friday.
She was speaking at the Principals’ Conclave 2015 of The HinduIn School presented by SRM on Friday. Heads of educational institutions and teachers are not here to blindly endorse the mad frenzy of admissions, marks and placements, she said and added that life went well beyond a question paper.
Many schools claim they are different in their teaching methodologies, but the lessons are very similar.
Dr. Jayanthasri said that the children should be taught to race against themselves and not against one another. Teachers should teach in a way that would bring out the best in children and not the beast.
Children emulate what we do much better than they listen to what we say, she said.
Teachers are capable of bringing about change in the future generations.
Teachers should de-silt the brains and hearts of the children and inculcate values of humanism and patriotism.
Dr. Jayanthasri expressed concerned about the blind adoption of Americanised syllabi that ignored the socially relevant values of the Indian Guru – Sishya Parambariyam.
“Whether all intellectual thoughts can be implemented is a question. If implemented, it will be a long term process and one should not look for immediate outcome. It will be a slow process,” said Ashok, Senior Assistant Professor of Bio-Medical Engineering, SRM Group of Institutions, commenting about this initiative.
Education has been added to the existing list (Food, Clothing & Shelter) of fundamental necessities. This is evident from the 38% rise of students between the year 2001 and 2011. “Self-realisation”- being the goal of human life is possible only by education, said Ravi Pachamoothoo, Chairman - SRM Group.
D. Rajkumar, Head – School Vertical (South and East), explained the initiative of The Hindu In School in reaching out to the student community through institutions with the help of SRM.
He said that The Hindu was holding the conclave in every city to reach out to the principals to receive their suggestions and feedback and make The Hindu In School more useful to the student community. “The conclave is envisaged as an opportunity to promote and celebrate the spirit of education. It will be a platform to explore topics, collaborate and share knowledge on education as the conclave will witness experts shedding light on education in the New Age. The conclave is being organised in 17 cities and Coimbatore was the fifth city.”
