Daily Times

These days I teach at the Department of Political Science in the University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore, in the capacity of visiting faculty. It’s my second semester of teaching, and I must say that the experience has been an enriching one. My first semester was not an easy ride. Adjusting with all the nuances of teaching at university level, making sure that the content was fully covered, creating a space during time-bound classes so that students’ participation could be maximised, and their analytical and communication skills could be honed, seemed quite overwhelming initially. However, through an approach of over-preparation and then going with a natural flow in classes, I made things turn around.

Here I must also confess that my first interaction with teaching at university level did not only click because of my efforts; I had some wonderful teaching colleagues whose tips helped me a lot. More importantly, it was my students with whom I developed a good chemistry for learning in classes. My first semester’s students were from the department of architecture, and I used to teach them Pakistan Studies. Overall, the first semester of teaching at the UMT for me was a kind of mutual learning experience in which I was learning how to teach effectively, and my students were learning to adapt with the university life and the courses they were being taught after they had made their way from college life to university life.

Currently, I teach the same subject to students of psychology and food sciences. Since this time I have more grip on the subject I teach, so stepping into the second semester I made a resolution that I would dispense the content of the course in an innovative way. My inspiration for the innovative approach in my teaching came from a book I read recently. It’s entitled 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and is written by an Israeli historian, Yuval Noah Harari. The book talks about the challenges we can face shortly because of the digitisation of the world. For example, the book says that the majority of the data gathering jobs in the current world would become outdated soon as they would be replaced by machines invented in the wake of technological developments.

The book also makes a prophecy that children of the current generation would have such types of jobs in the future that are currently not in the market. Overall, the writer makes a point about technological development, how it is going to change the world, and why we should catch up with all these technological developments to save ourselves against the challenges of an info-tech driven world.

Apart from many other things, Harari sheds light on the current education system and how it can be adapted as per the challenges of modern times. As per Harari, an education system based solely on information sharing with students is not workable. Today, according to Harari, we have huge data of information just a click away, thanks to the internet. The need of the time, according to him, is that we change the focus of our education system from being an information sharing based to the one that imparts four essential skills: communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. These skills would help students not only adjust to the changes coming in the wake of info-tech developments but would also make them able enough to make the best out of a technology-driven world.

Having this inspiration in mind, I started teaching during the second semester, and planned that I would teach course content with a focus on these four skills through class activities, presentations and students’ participation. Currently, it’s about to be the mid of the second semester. I have been nudging my students through different ways that they need to work on these skills. However, the response on their part has not been great, unfortunately. Except for a few students, the majority isstill showing no intent to hone these skills, and that can be verified from their lack of interest in class’ presentations and other activities.

To understand their uneasiness with these activities, I tried to understand their perspective many a time through candid discussions. Every time, they come up with answers such as that they either lack confidence or feel shy. However, I see something different behind their inability to express themselves.

Unfortunately, most of these students have been churned out by an education system prevalent in schools and colleges where everything goes mechanically. Students perceive themselves as ideal when they are good at collecting notes in classes and reproducing those points in exam papers. Teachers do the same. They simply spoon-feed the students with all the course content and find themselves doing an excellent job when they see the students noting their every point and reproducing it in papers.

The downside of this mechanical way of education is that students can hardly think. They become addicted to spoon-feeding. This is something I find in my classes as well. Sometimes, I ask their comments on something trivial in life, and though they know that thing, but because they have never been trained about how to express that in their way, they look at me with strange faces and are clueless. The current education system has been churning out data gathering machines instead of students who can critically evaluate the world.

These students will, in the next few years, become a part of the job market. In the market, employers look for people with skills and confidence. What happens is that when graduates are asked to perform as per their minds, they can hardly catch up to the assigned tasks, and that is why employers can hardly employ them. Unfortunately, these students get an understanding of the skills ruquired for the market not within academic institutes; rather they know about it when they try to bocome a part of the job market. I have emphasised this printt many a time in front of my students and have tried my best to help them understand the importance of these skills but very few are moved. The predominant factor behind this is, I think, their previous academic background in which they have been spoon-fed with everything by teachers in the form of information sharing and have never been pushed to speak from their minds.

I still have not given up on my students and am still experimenting with different ways so that they can come out of their already trained minds and start looking at the world from their perspective. I am hopeful they will one day catch up to that. But the overall message I would like to give is that we need to inculcate the importance of these four skills-communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking-amongour students at school and college level, and help them equip for the challenges coming in the wake of info-tech developments.

The writer teaches at the Department of Political Science in University of Management and Technology, Lahore. and works as an editor at KENZ. He can be reached at uinam39@gmail.com