Group Discussion
24/09/22
Team: UNVolunteers - India
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Courtesy: Mrs. Sangeetha, Dr. Raavee, Dr. Sekar srinivasan, Mr S C Vohra, Dr. Balasubramanian, Pastor. Dr. Pablo Puja and Azeez
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Topic: The Classroom is a Factory, But What’s the Product?
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• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: If the classroom is a factory and we all are workers, then we should produce
Ideal future citizens for the world who are:
- Trustworthy
- Knowledgeable
- Society conscious
- Morally responsible
- have high ethical standards
- take responsibilities seriously
- give back to the nation
and finally, have the betterment of society and humanity as their goals along with personal goals.
• AZEEZ: Are we sure that our products are such a characters?
Ideal aim of education is such a products to produce. Worldwide appreciated education system does produce such a product?
• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: Sir, This is as a follow-up of your assumption that a classroom is a factory.
A factory can decide what it wants to produce and its contraints, so ( assuming ) we can decide our products, I listed out the desired characteristics our products!!
• AZEEZ: If so, products are based on classroom factories or the factory workers - teachers?
• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: Don't both go hand-in-hand? One cannot exist without the other.
• AZEEZ: As it is not going in the direction desired. What could be done?
• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: Educate parents and cooperate school administrators about the importance of value-based education.
Numbers, grades, pass percentage, high fees, fancy amenities and great infrastructures DOES NOT MAKE A NATION.
It needs citizens worthy of carrying the nations name forward.
Corporate schools are digging their own graves by creating more profit/money minded individuals who'll inturn bringing business into every walk of life.
Don't be surprised if the next generation hire wives, parents and children
• AZEEZ: Parents too once students in our classrooms. As they knew the value of education, they allow their wards to get education. Are they not not good products produced from earlier day classrooms.
• Mrs. Sangeetha Thyagarajan: Yes, so true!
That's why they behave badly and don't cooperate with schools when they are forced to shell out money and don't see the value in their wards.
• Dr Sekar Seenivasan: My humble doubt is education aims at sublime behavioral change and final destination being self realisation.
The modern educational business entrepreneurship had commercialised the whole system and we are discussing as factory model and products. Really i can't fix it.
Bahuvitham roopam bahuvitham annam. Regards drssekar
• Mr. S. C. Vohra: I wonder whether classroom should be compared to a factory where the products are mass produced on a conveyor belt. No heterogeneity at all like a classroom , completely mechanistic. A classroom at the same time is a lively place where each individual grows at his/ her own pace without any mechanical intervention. Calling students products seems derogatory and demeaning to me. However, crass commercialisation has really reduced them to the level of factories, unwittingly and unfortunately snatching innocent children of their lovely childhood innocence.
• Dr. Raavee: Calling School as factory is not very appropriate.
It's a grooming centre, where students are groomed and prepared to lead a confident life. A confident youth can only make a confident country.
• AZEEZ: Schools mask the child labor with noble mission statements that claim they are producing "life-long learners." But that's just a cover. If it were true, you would expect to see schools where students explored their interests and reflected on their progress as learners.
The actual product of schools is data, and its production is pursued with relentless focus. Distracting subjects that aren't tested, are cut. No time is wasted on "creative" student projects – they don't produce data. And when there's no test to take, students can always get ready with more "test-prep."
Of course, a test data factory is a not pleasant place to work, absenteeism runs high and every year many students quit. But there's a steady supply of new students to take their place. It should be noted that teachers work at the same factories. Conditions are better for them. So they work.
Schools as data factory, produces data as percentage of pass and fail, percentage of reading and writing, percentage of new admission, percentage of hike in fees, tax paid......
Rulers wanted this to issue showcause notice, and adjust or moderate percentage of their failures in hiking national average in everything.
Is there board exam results below 90%, or less than national average in any state or central board of education?
Many of the current reforms in education aim to turn the schoolhouse into that plastic-products factory. .. The machinery heats and molds our children, then stamps, bags, and packages them to a professional uniformity."
Many of the current reforms in education aim to turn the schoolhouse into that paper printing factory. ..false progress report, false mark statements, false in everything.
Only the practising teachers in classroom know well how the egg is. Will it hatch or not?. Still the school has to give testimony that the egg with a crack is good.
Often we hear, students/parents saying this: I never ever thought of passing or scoring this much marks in this board exams. True or not.
Teachers involving in evaluation process know well, how many papers evaluated by them and how many students get truly passed? Still national pass average in examination is above unexpected percentage.
It is the same in all professional high order creative thinking exams.
Everything is data, based on data in education system. What is Mark statement? It is a data. How admission is made? Again data. Which school is good in the city? Again data. How is recruited? Based on data. All these datas are given by schools. Then what does a school mean? Is not a data factory?
So What's the Real Product?
I agree with rulers/stakeholders/parents that schools have been turned into factories. But they don't produce students, they just work there.
The demands of testing have turned schools into factories that harness the labor of students to toil at a "bubble-test" assembly line producing "achievement" data.
Whos suffered because of this change?
Students........do you believe this.
Of course the ones who suffered most were the students. They were forced to spend long hours engaged in an extended exercise in remembering what they were told, then practice it at their desk (or as homework) in preparation for the opportunity to give it back on the test (generally in the same form they had received it). Instead of exploring their interests, students served largely to produce performance statistics that educators could slice into measurable demographic sub groups.
• Dr. Pablo Puja: It's the same story, here in Chile, since many years ago...And the fault comes from standard tests to get national, regional or local rankings...Higher rankings mean more money. It doesn't matter the real product.
The point: Families are not preparing their children for the real life. Schools are not preparing students for real life.
• Dr. Bala Subramanian: Yes sir, very true the suffered were students and parents. As per statistics everything if cannot quantify cannot be analysed. And sadly th data analysts or the top level decision makers or the chairs like to fool the users by making numbers and percentage. If a person don't have a logical reasoning cannot figure out and additionally they keep on give tasks to the conventional workers be busy in activity, don't give time to refresh or to think new dimensions.
Statistics can fool the users/listeners very easily and same time conventional population don't have an alternate.
They keep on repeats even a wrong information in all types of media, make users guilty if not they stick with false news.
Teachers cannot do any/much things against the law makers, perhaps the maximum damage happens for the family
