Table Manners Matter

"I have never let my schooling interefere with my education." - Mark Twain

 

 

My five year old came home the other day to announce that he had learnt a new thing in school today. "It is called the tables," he said and proceeded to flip through his notebook to produce the page that read -
2 x 1 = 2
2x 2 = 4
2x 2 = 6 .........

I asked him, " Do you know what it means?" and he simply replied, "It is 2 1s 2, 2 2s 4, 2 3s 6. This is not the dinner table. This is number table," he added showing off his newly aquired skill of knowing the difference.

As quickly as he had opened the notebook, he shut it down and moved on to the next important subject - that of a new classmate.

I reciprocated to his enthusiatic banter with my usual 'aahs' and smiles, but what really kept hounding my mind was the matter of the tables. It was not a subject I could forget.

In those few seconds, I could visualise a very filmy government school with the teacher or masterji is scratching his ear and asking the class to repeat with him the aforementioned tables. I could see my son sitting among the students and repeating 2 ones a 2, 2 twos a 4..... First it would be the tables, then equations, chemical reactions, scientific discoveries and definitions, theorems, sums, and formulas until one day my son would be out of school having learned everything but understood nothing.

Tell me why?

The thing is my son is just 5. He is in UKG. He has just learnt to count till 100 and 200. He has understood reverse counting. He can also now very proudly and energitaclly add and substract single digit numbers. The natural progression in my mind is for him to learn a little more of this addtion and substraction on bigger numbers and may be just may be get used to the idea that when we repeatedly need to add numbers we can simply multiply (isn't that what multiplication really does?)

So, in the end of this schooling year, I do want him to know that instead of writing 2 + 2 +2 + 2 each time we can simply write 2 x 1 and 2 x 2 and say 2 time 2 is 4, 2 times 3 is 6. I am fine if he doesn't understand this + and X things the first time or the second and third time, but I am absolutely not fine shutting down his curious mind with a readymade table.

Why not

I opened my son's school syllabus to find that they were supposed to be learning tables of 2 and 3 and 4 in October orally, and then learn to write these tables by November! Not once was it mentioned if the idea of multiplication was first being taught in class.

The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got with our education system. Do we really want our children to turn out into subject experts or just expert crammers? Was it okay to teach children who had just entered the world of mathematics the complications of multiplications? Was it not like sowing a seed and expecting it to bear flowers and fruts immediately. If the children were just cramming the tables even without realising what they were mouthing, was the school then setting the foundation in Pre-school for a life long tryst with 'ratofication' as we used to say in school and college?

My husband agreed and decided to meet the Principal or Pre school incharge of the reputed CBSE school the next day.This was when we were in for a second surprise.

The incharge met my husband and seemed to be shocked to know that the tables were part of the UKG syllabus. She said she would speak to the class teacher and get back to us. (In hindsight we do realise that the pre-school incharge is responsible for the syllabus set before the school year and surely would have known what is going on in a class. What she said was just to appease an angry parent without intending to take any serious action) I say so because of the events that followed.

Parent meets Teacher

It was a day before the autumn break and a parents teacher meeting (PTM) was sheduled. I had prepared myself to deal with the teacher who might feel offended that we had met the incharge without speaking with her first about a class matter. There was a long queue of parents and thus I waited patiently for my turn to arrive. It was during this moment of silence when I sat listening to other parents' conversation with the teacher and I realised how different our outlook to education was from the majority.

One parent complained that while her neighbour's daughter could proficiently recite till the table of 10, her son only knew the table of 2. The teach complained to one of the parents that her daughter never gave the correct answers to general awareness questions.

"I asked her where does you mumma cook food and she just replied 'kitchen'," the teacher said to the girl's mother. "She should be saying the enitre sentence 'mumma cooks food in the kitchen'."

I realised that even when the child had answered the question correctly she was retributed for not being able to cram the 'entire' correct answer!

My turn came finally and after the teacher congratulated me for my son's excellent grasping skills and performance in class activites, I asked her why UKG students were being taught the tables.
It was not an expected question and the teacher's face showed the surprise. She replied that it was part of the course and they were preparing the kids for class 1 where they will have to learn so many more tables.

An elaborate discussion ensued where I even had to give an example to the teacher and curious parents of how I was teaching tables to my son ( I draw him 1 box with two apples then 2 boxes with 2 apples each and so on. He then counts the apples and thus learns 2x1=2, 2x2=4 etc.)
With the discussion going nowhere the teacher asked if had spoken to anyone about it. When I said that we had discussed the matter with the incharge, she was relieved, "Then ma'm will take care of the matter," she said and began her conversation with another parent.

In retrospect

I come from a family of teachers and scholars. And one thing I have learnt all through my life, first from my parent's teachings and later through some sweet and sour experiences is that you can win medals, earn distinctions by cramming all the right answers, but to be successful in life, to be the real problem solving genius, you can achieve nothing if the concepts and fundamentals are not clear.

I know it is merely the table of 2 we are talking about here and it will do no harm if my son learns it by heart just for the fun of it. But what I am really scared about is that the tables might be the beginning of the 'easy way out' kind of learning system. A whole generation of young, curious, ignited minds might grow old knowing facts and figures but will they ever be able to become the next Einstien and Madam Currie and C V Raman...I doubt it.

(Image via http://www.ocpathink.org/articles/1611)