Acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gavande finds a remedy to tackle immensely complex problems with the humblest of techniques: the checklist, says the synopsis of The Checklist Manifesto, 2010.
In his journey to discover the value of checklists, Dr. Gavande makes the point that everywhere he looked, the evidence seemed to point to the same conclusion — there seemed to be no field or profession where checklists might not help.
We all know the sorry state of education in India. We know the cause — a system that is based on the student cramming information without demanding understanding and a subjective system of evaluation of the student comprising in the main of examinations principally testing memory recall.
Is there a practical alternative to this unsatisfactory system?
There is. And at its core is the humble checklist advocated by Dr. Gavande.
But first, what is a checklist?
Very simply, a checklist is a list of items required, things to be done or points to be considered, used as a reminder. This is clear. Is the consequential implication equally clear? Perhaps not.
A checklist is purely objective, no subjectivity is involved. That means, if the checklist is framed as a set of questions, the answer to every question can only be a binary “Yes” or “No” and nothing in between; no shades of grey.
Such objectivity is the very antithesis of the education system today — both in the way teaching happens and in the evaluation of the student.
How, then, can an alternative system based upon the checklist work?
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to first examine the implications of learning. Learning, after all, is the fundamental objective of education.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw many savants in India — Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo and others who did not come into the glare of the media. While all of them addressed the liberation of man from sorrow, J. Krishnamurti brought unique insights into education that were revolutionary, especially to the western education system of which we all are products.
Krishnamurti pointed out that acquisition and accumulation of information was not the primary objective of education. Rather, it is necessary to explore what is implied in the movement of learning because learning is a far more important component of education. Learning includes discovery, insight, understanding as well as accumulation of information.
Discovery, insight and understanding can only happen in the context of the act of experience. And every discovery, insight and understanding must result in accumulation of information as well as its association to other information in ways that are unique to the individual.
No two individuals will arrive at the same conclusions and associations. The same individual too, going through the same experience multiple times, will arrive at different conclusions and associations every time because even if the experience is the same, he, the experiencer, is dynamic and never the same.
That is the beauty and magic of learning!
The role of a teacher, then, is not to lecture or impart information. Rather, it is the teacher’s responsibility to organise experiences for the student, one after the other, and allow discovery, insight, understanding and the consequent conclusion and its association to happen in every experience. For this, the experience has to be broken down into steps that the student observes objectively. This means designing questions that have only binary answers — “Yes” or “No”.
Obviously, such an approach must be individual student-centred, even when the student is part of a class or group. Learning is always self-learning and individual. Competition, stress, anxiety and all the negative emotions that are part of the process of education today are eliminated naturally and without effort.
When there is a goal or a syllabus to be mastered, these experiences need to be adequate, appropriate and properly sequenced so that the student is guided in the desired direction. If the steps and direction are correct, reaching the goal must follow. Therefore, the student’s attention has only to be on the immediate experience and never on the goal itself.
The student has only to answer “Yes” or “No” at every step. The student cannot move to the next step unless the current step is completed.
Is this not the function of the humble checklist?
gopalan@thevalleyschool.info
(The author, who qualified as a chartered accountant, has been teaching in different schools of Krishnamurti Foundation India since 1983)
