Indian and American Education System: a comparison - I

I have always wondered what would I have been if I had received better educational choices offered in countries such as US. Would I have stuck to just plain Physics, or ventured in Applied Physics, Economics of Education, Medieval Poetry, or even Sports Mechanics and Injury.Instead of listening to insipid lecturers, who did not know difference between Fermions and electrons, I could have spoken to Prof. Levine (MIT) and seen his demonstrations live. Instead of doing my first experiments with telescopes at the age of 22, would I have done some cool supernova observations, derived age of an unknown galaxy or studied planet around a distant star at the age of 17? Possibilities are endless, and I would like to know what exactly did I miss in the class: the attitude of teachers, students, facilities, and of course, aims of learning.

So, I asked a few students from Goa, whom I had incidentally taught Physics and a few other things. These students are now in the US universities, doing some exciting things on their own. I asked them to compare our teaching environment and what they encountered so far in their American colleges.

My questions to them went like this:

1. Did you take any courses that were similar to those in [our_college] ? if so, can you compare what changed for better (and worse, of course)?
   
2. Were there any other courses (Logic or Astronomy) which you wish you had encountered before? perhaps, then you would remove some other courses from [our_college] curriculum, which ones?
3. Did you find any course very much enjoyable in your stay? which ones, and why? of course you will like some topics more than others, but it is the "learning experience" from a course that counts for me.
4. How was faculty and support staff? can you compare [our_college] Physics group (i know this bunch the best) with one you saw there? we were a good group, i believe. we can improve hugely in terms of our approach, and i would like to know if you can point out the fault lines... again, i would ask you to stress less on equipment (automated robots or moving screens) than approach, but do write about the over all thing.
5. How was the syllabus and student activities (exercises, labs, seminars, research)? how did it make a difference, what exactly mattered to you the most?
6. What was expected from students ? learning is a 2-way street, i believe, did you find something similar?
7. If you had to remodel [our_college], what would you do? detail 2 things of your own (more if you have time).

They contradicted themselves and repeated themselves, but their answers were surprisingly similar, although words were different and order was jumbled. In my coming posts I will discuss answers to various questions, and my reposte on those answers. After 7 such posts, I will put in my summary posts on this.

If you had to do so, how would you phrased your questions?


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Siddhartha : 2010

I am reading Siddhartha, iconic novel by Herman Hesse. You can find a copy at Project Gutenberg. I believe 2010 will be the year of awakening for me, I have to discover myself, reinvent my cause and start moving forward.

Awakening

When Siddhartha left the grove, where the Buddha, the perfected one, stayed behind, where Govinda stayed behind, then he felt that in this grove his past life also stayed behind and parted from him. He pondered about this sensation, which filled him completely, as he was slowly walking along. He pondered deeply, like diving into a deep water he let himself sink down to the ground of the sensation, down to the place where the causes lie, because to identify the causes, so it seemed to him, is the very essence of thinking, and by this alone sensations turn into realizations and are not lost, but become entities and start to emit like rays of light what is inside of them.

Slowly walking along, Siddhartha pondered. He realized that he was no youth any more, but had turned into a man. He realized that one thing had left him, as a snake is left by its old skin, that one thing no longer existed in him, which had accompanied him throughout his youth and used to be a part of him: the wish to have teachers and to listen to teachings. He had also left the last teacher who had appeared on his path, even him, the highest and wisest teacher, the most holy one, Buddha, he had left him, had to part with him, was not able to accept his teachings.

Slower, he walked along in his thoughts and asked himself: "But what is this, what you have sought to learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?" And he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"

Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: "That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process."

Siddhartha opened his eyes and looked around, a smile filled his face and a feeling of awakening from long dreams flowed through him from his head down to his toes. And it was not long before he walked again, walked quickly like a man who knows what he has got to do.

"Oh," he thought, taking a deep breath, "now I would not let Siddhartha escape from me again! No longer, I want to begin my thoughts and my life with Atman and with the suffering of the world. I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to find a secret behind the ruins. Neither Yoga-Veda shall teach me any more, nor Atharva-Veda, nor the ascetics, nor any kind of teachings. I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."

He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.

"How deaf and stupid have I been!" he thought, walking swiftly along. "When someone reads a text, wants to discover its meaning, he will not scorn the symbols and letters and call them deceptions, coincidence, and worthless hull, but he will read them, he will study and love them, letter by letter. But I, who wanted to read the book of the world and the book of my own being, I have, for the sake of a meaning I had anticipated before I read, scorned the symbols and letters, I called the visible world a deception, called my eyes and my tongue coincidental and worthless forms without substance. No, this is over, I have awakened, I have indeed awakened and have not been born before this very day."

In thinking this thoughts, Siddhartha stopped once again, suddenly, as if there was a snake lying in front of him on the path.

Because suddenly, he had also become aware of this: He, who was indeed like someone who had just woken up or like a new-born baby, he had to start his life anew and start again at the very beginning. When he had left in this very morning from the grove Jetavana, the grove of that exalted one, already awakening, already on the path towards himself, he he had every intention, regarded as natural and took for granted, that he, after years as an ascetic, would return to his home and his father. But now, only in this moment, when he stopped as if a snake was lying on his path, he also awoke to this realization: "But I am no longer the one I was, I am no ascetic any more, I am not a priest any more, I am no Brahman any more. Whatever should I do at home and at my father's place? Study? Make offerings? Practise meditation? But all this is over, all of this is no longer alongside my path."

Summerhill: Lessons and Exams-- 2

This is what Neill says about the exams:

...
All the same there is a lot of learning in Summerhill. Perhaps a group of our twelveyear-
olds could not compete-with a class of equal age in handwriting or spelling or fractions. But in an examination requiring originality, our lot would beat the others hollow.

We have no class examinations in the school, but sometimes I set an exam for fun. The following questions appeared in one such paper:

Where are the following:- Madrid, Thursday Island, yesterday, love, democracy, hate, my pocket-screw driver (alas, there was no helpful answer to that one).


Give meanings for the following:- 9 the number shows how many are expected of each)- Hand (3)…. Only two, got the third right – the standard of measure for a horse. Brass (4)…. Metal, cheek, top army officers, department of an orchestra. Translate Hamlets, To-be-or-not-to-be speech into Summerhillese.


These questions are obviously not intended to be serious, and the children enjoy them thoroughly. Newcomers, on the whole, do not rise to the answering standard of pupils who have become accustomed to the school. Not that they have less brainpower, but rather because they have become so accustomed to work in a serious groove that any light touch puzzles them.

This is the play side of our teaching. In all classes much work is done. If, for some reason a teacher cannot take his class on the appointed day, there is usually much disappointment for the pupils.

David, aged nine, had to be isolated for whooping cough. He cried bitterly. “I’ll miss Roger’s lesson in geography,” he protested. David had been in the school practically from birth, and he had definite and final ideas about the necessity of having his lessons given to him. David is now a lecturer in mathematics at London University.

A few years ago someone at a General School Meeting (at which all school rules are voted by the entire school, each pupil and each staff member having one vote) proposed that a certain culprit should be punished by being banished from lessons for a week. The other children protested on the ground that the punishment was too severe.

My staff and I have a hearty hatred of all examinations. To us the university exams are anathema. But we cannot refuse to teach children the required subjects. Obviously, as long as the exams are in existence, they are our masters. Hence, the Summerhill staff is always qualified to teach to the set standard.

Not that many children want to take these exams; only those going to the university do so. And such children do not seem to find it especially hard to tackle these exams. They generally begin to work for them seriously at the age of fourteen, and they do the work in about three years. Of course they don’t always pass at the first try. The more important fact is that they try again.
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Summerhill : Lessons and Exams -- 1

Here is what Neill has to say about examinations and lessons in his introduction to his school.

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What is Summerhill like? Well, for one thing, lessons are optional. Children can go to them or stay away from them--- for years if they want to. There is timetable--- but only for the teachers.

The children have classes usually according to their age, bue sometimes according to their interests. We have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters much. Whether a school has or has not a special method for teching long division is of no significance, for long division is of no importance except for those who want to learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will learn it no matter how it is taught.

Strangers to this idea of freedom will be wondering what sort of madhouse it is where children play all day if they want to...
...
[story of a student]

This story shows that learning itself is not as important as personality and character. Jack failed in his university exams because he hated book learning. But his lack of knowledge about Lamb's essays or French language did not handicap him in life. He is now a successful engineer.

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Summerhill -- A S Neill

Summerhill is not just an idea, but an ideal. For a times on this blog, I will now copy and paste paragraphs about this wonderful Summerhill School from A.S. Neill's old book copy. I intend to buy multiple books about this school and related topics. If you have not seen this book, or read the link, I will strongly urge you to give a brief read once, at least. So, here goes the first update.

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When my first wife and I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child--- instead of making the child fit the school.
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I have taught in ordinary schools for many years. I knew the other way well. I knew it was all wrong. It was wrong because it was based on an adult conception of what a child should be and of how a child should learn. The other way dated from the days when psychology was still an unknown science.
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Well, we set out to make a school in which we should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this, we had to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all my training, all religious instruction. We have been called brave, but it did not require courage. All it required was what we had, a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being. For almost forty years, this belief in the goodness of the child never wavered; it rather has become final faith.
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My view is that a child is innately wise and realistic. If left to himself without adult suggestions of any kind, he will develope as far as he is capable of developing. Logically, Summerhill is a place in which people who have some innate ability and wish to be scholars will be scholars; while those who are only fit to sweep the streets will sweep the streets. But we have not produced a street cleaner so far. Nor do I write this snobbishly, for I would rather see a school produce a happy street cleaner rather than a neurotic scholar.

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Lessons for my child: logic and rationality

Let us start with a story of a girl, who went to school regularly, studied on time and had her fun on playground. She was obedient, respected her parents and believed deeply in God. When going for an exam she would bow to her Gods, and then touch her mother's feet. She always received highest scores in exams.

Over a few years this became a pattern. However, owing to a relative's illness, her mother had to leave their home for a few weeks. The girl was without supervision, and over those weeks, she did not study well, and wasted her time in front of television. When it came to exams, she realised that she could not touch her mother's feet, since her mother was not at home. She was terribly anxious and nervous. She did poorly in exams, and to believe that her exam scores had something to do with touching her mother's feet. It required her mother all her (mother's) wit and patience to point out the obvious flaw in this logic.

Touching feet was a sign of respect, not the cause of respect. Touching feet followed from loving her mother, and acting according to mother's advice. If the girl failed to respect motther's advice about timely studies in mother's absence, touching feet would not bring in results. This is rational thinking, it connects one thought with another, and makes one 'logical' chain.

So, here is what I would emhpasise on:

1. An enquiry into natural world has to be rational, and not based on only faith. Thus, the enquiry is not based on some book, some (God-) man's words, or Nobel Laureate's recommendation. Logical connections remove individual subjectivity, and bring in an element of unbiased understanding of nature's work.
2. Simple explanations of phenomena are most profound, think of Einstein's equation (energy is equivalent of mass times light-velocity squared) or Newton's law of gravity.
   
3. There is no role for any dogma, religion or faith based. This is not to say that science opposes any religion. Quite the opposite, as Einstein said, "Subtle is the Lord, but malicious (S)He is not". In order to understand God's (substitute with karma, nature, whatever) creations, we have to believe that He obeys his own rules, laws. Those rules have no bias or arbitrariness. To illustrate the above, think of the following: "It rains because it is God's will". This statement is very agreeable, however does not give us any predictive power. Therefore, this statement alone is not very useful. We always knew God does everything. However, a statement like "Clouds cause rains" is very useful. Again, one can discount "Clouds are because it is God's will" as per above logic, and continue to resort to natural explanations to understand the phenomena of rains.
4. Question everything (including this statement) rationally, everything! Why, why not, what, what not, how, and how not... Convince yourself of your chain of logic entirely. It should allow you to have confidence about predicting something using your logic. Only then it will make any sense.

After all, we started with why think. It was to make our lives better, more meaningful, whatever that means. This may take you Buddha's way, or along with the Western civilization. Keep working , and keep thinking.

When you do that, remain open to enquiry from others, learn to respect opinions and debate honestly. That is going to be next in this series.