Anoop Lather's PUCP Concept of Training-Educating-Teaching can prove to be a panacea in the current scenario of bewilderment among students. They need to learn; they certainly need to mend their fences against procrastination and confusion.
They need a defence mechanism against the habit of premature evaluation and the deep-rooted bias against learning. They need courtesy as well as empathy. They need discipline as well as determination.
How can they get these lost virtues back? How can we inculcate and preserve these fundamental human hallmarks?
The challenge before the office of organised education is not jobs or grades. It is the optimum and optimal utilisation of the immense amount of potential the 'clients' carry.
This article happened to me in the evening when I concluded the day of teaching and could not forget the faces of the Neo-Lost Generation.
The learners that we have with us are like volcanos of receptivity. Once we are able to Kindle or Rekindle their zeal to engage in learning, we can win over their lost interest in life. This has happened to my decade-long journey in the teaching of a not-so-important subject. Teaching Communication Skills, per se English for this part of the world, has always been a struggle to establish Competence over the curriculum. It is to develop curiosity. Teachers are working on plans and tools to rejuvenate the intrinsic urge of curiosity.
But to what end? No End Actually!
The suggested and proven medicine is PUCP- Positive Utilisation of Creative Potential. This is like taking a risk of giving them the liberty to question not just our contents but the whole pedagogy. We can stand our ground by raising our competence of imparting learning, in and outside the classroom. The need of the hour is to diagnose the problem with a subjective approach. We need to stop working on the effect and must come together to neutralise the cause.
Teachers face clashes each day. These are of denials and dejection. The classrooms have been failing to keep the children attentive and dedicated to the instructions. The participation in co-curricular and extra-curricular has declined across the institutions. There was a time when we saw, not just huge numbers but, an immense amount of enthusiasm for cultural and literary events. Now. people who are at the helm of affairs are getting passive; they have actually got trapped in a vicious circle of academic duties.
Students know the worth of participation as it gets them certificates and points for jobs. There was a time when participation was selfless and the belonging was quite visible. Teachers and Students were mad about doing their best and the outcome was a healthy competition. As event management team volunteers, anchors, and announcers, we Learned to Learn. And the by-products of that learning have come automatically in the form of careers and recognised versatility at the workplace.
When we joined the Team of Anoop Lather, we got to know how teams are formed. We learned how to walk the extra miles. We are empowered and enabled to lead from the front. He was always there to shield us and get us the best of learning from each situation. But once this man completed his tenure, the history of the university got divided into two parts - One with and one After Anoop!
Unfortunately, the aftermath of his absence is disappointing because the whole edifice has fallen flat. It is not to say that things have failed. But the legacy and the Added Advantage Mission of PUCP has been abandoned. This is not deliberate though. When the visionary departs, vision also dies.
Anoop Sir trained us in a distinct manner that we could find ourselves. We could get on the path of discovering our potential. When we, the Anoop Brotherhood, meet each other we carry a special-divine charm of confidence. We have been taught by this gentleman that the confidence in each other brings confidence in all things we do together as a team. Our potentials were bonded together and we could see that there was some magic. He made us all like Eklavya, learning each moment, be it silence or celebration.
From the PUCP training, I can derive some takeaways for Teachers. The skills and strengths we need to establish the Learning tracks are:
- Knowledge
- Competence
- Preservence
- Empathy
- Reading
- Critical Thinking
- Creativity
- Innovation
- Rhetoric
- Spiritual Understanding
The last one seems obvious in this age of self-help. When we put so much onus of positive results on the educators, the bright side of the world has to be made a part. Teachers must be enabled spiritually as well. They need to see life as it unfolds itself.
While we try to substantiate the fact that we need teachers and facilitators to be wise and worthy of respect, we must not deny the responsibility of acknowledgement and reception by the young generation. The listener and the reader are equally important in this chain of capacity building.
PUCP isn't needed as a guideline or instruction to the pedagogy rubrics. Rather we need the Positive Utilisation of the Creative Potential as an undercurrent of all activities. Why cage creativity and performing arts to extra-curricular? We should introduce comprehensive and holistic education in real, not just on papers.
These activities should be integrated, irrespective of the stream, into the very curriculum. Allow them to express but give them sensible channels to express. The charter of activities should be comprehensive that they learn the ways of betterment in life.
In our chase of careers and jobs, we are missing the earning that we can derive from the journey. As they say, Happiness isn't a destination, it's the journey which is worth the effort to be Happy. Same ways, the grades, and jobs aren't the actual purposes of the classroom conspiracy. The actual toiling and sweating are done to make them live the moment.
Being human, the disciple is should be taught that education means preparation for a successful and sustainable future. Such a Future can be accomplished when we teachers encash the storehouse of learning. We need to have a dialogue with them. It is not possible to deliver success to them unless we walk the extra miles. Teachers are not just under threat, there also face a tough question of being under-performers and failed counterparts of the bandwagon of education. It would be considered a panacea if each educator turns a cadet of PUCP and integrates it to the subject teaching. Then, education will bring out the best of the learner.
It isn’t Education; it is the life that is communicated in the classroom.
Happy Learning!
ImageSrc PEXELS
