IN a recent undergraduate level class I taught, quite a few students did not know what rationing was. I asked them what they thought load-shedding was, or the closure of CNG pumps two to three days a week, or even the limit on each car getting Rs1,000 worth of petrol only during the oil supply crisis. They were flummoxed. So was I. Most of the students were, of course, aware of load-shedding and the petrol crisis, but they had not connected the word ‘rationing’ to load-shedding.
In another class, with graduate students of a social science and at a different university, I found that students, though working on political economy issues, were not at all comfortable with using notions like ‘externality’, ‘public good’, and ‘rent-seeking’ while analysing the political economy issues they were studying. In some cases students pursuing graduate-level theses on these issues had similar problems.
In another university and another class, students could not give me examples, from their world, of bundling (putting things together that could have been sold separately eg cars with fitted air-conditioners or stereos), price discrimination (charging different prices for the same good eg different tuition fees paid by students in universities, student discounts) or self-selection-based price discrimination (eg the various mobile phone connection packages on offer).
They were not able to think through what the consequences of inflation were on savers and borrowers. Most could provide nice definitions of economic concepts, but when they were asked to explain the concepts in their own words, the problems multiplied.
There seems to be a strong and significant break, in general, in the mind of students, between what they do in class and read in the books they are studying, and what they face ‘out there’ in the world. The teaching is bookish, definition-based, and focused on solving problems that come from the book, while the world presents, in their minds, very different issues and challenges. But, and I speak only about social sciences as I teach economics, this is clearly a false distinction. If, for the students, social sciences cannot make sense of the world they live in, clearly they are not doing their job, the teachers are not doing a good job of teaching social sciences, and the students are not doing a good job of learning the subject.
The problem is clearly not just at the university level. I have not taught in schools in recent years, but have interacted with a significant number of high-school students through informal meetings and guest lectures and have found the same thing at the school level as well. Students are brilliant at learning and reproducing definitions and solving certain types of problems, but they are not able to connect their ‘learning’ with the world they live in. They are not able to manipulate or ‘play’ with what they are learning.
They have become very good at taking examinations and have ‘cracked’ examination systems from the higher secondary level and Matriculation to ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, and they have the grades to show for it. But the basic problem of turning what they learn into knowledge that is fully internalised and that is able to shape or mould them is not addressed.
In fact, the focus on examinations and grades works in the other direction. It encourages rote learning and regurgitation. For example, even the elite schools have monthly tests, mocks for major examinations, mocks for mock examinations, midterms and end-of-term tests. They over-examine their students and teach to examinations. It helps in cracking the exam. But it works against giving time to the students to internalise their learning.
In some cases I have even found that students are not even assigned textbooks (in the social sciences) or are not encouraged to read original (literature) texts and are asked to just work through lecture notes and guides.
This method of schooling is having other effects on the habits of children too. They do not get time to read anything beyond their course material. Most of them do not read the newspapers, fiction or any other areas they might have developed a liking for. Most of them do not even get time to play. They come home with lots of homework and have to prepare for all the tests that are regularly taken, and then many of them have tutors to coach them in specific subjects. These trends cannot be healthy for our children: for their physical or mental health or for their overall development. It creates narrow and shallow minds. It creates minds that are not able to understand issues, contextualise them, argue a position, and entertain counter-arguments with equanimity. But our children are the citizens, parents and decision-makers of tomorrow. If we do not equip them with the skills mentioned above, what kind of future are we hoping for?
A question in one of the examinations I had set for an undergraduate class a couple of years back asked students to work out the consequences for the local hamburger market of a major fast-food restaurant opening up in that locality. A number of students in the class did not know what a ‘hamburger’ was. And one of them wanted to know why we should be thinking of ‘ham’-based burgers in a country that did not allow trade in pork. Clearly, we are failing to teach.
It is hard to see how change can happen. The students, their teachers, and the parents are all embedded in a system that encourages teaching to examination, with the focus on results. Even if awareness is there, individual deviation from the above equilibrium would be hard. But collective action is even harder to organise and so we seem committed or condemned to continuing down this path.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2015
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