Humble message to Parents, societies and teachers.

Honorable Teachers and Parents,

Our successive legendary kings of Smen Ljong Drukyul has always said that the future of nation belongs to the Children of today. whether to further nation peacefully in future or disorganize it down is fully dependent upon the youth of today.

By taking into account the present situation of the world and our nation, all the learning places were under lockdown and world is more or less stagnant and under restrain by the Corona virus.

Despite it, our nation is wonderfully doing well under the kind direction of his Majesty and the best effort of the present government to tackle and challenge the modern pandemic per se. And importantly students of our nation were going on continuous process of learning virtually with his majesty’s noble Ideas. Moreover teachers were sending resources and assignments through Emails and other possible social Medias.

Due to the noble visions and arduous strive from the part of successive governments; our education system is upgraded till now from the monastic system to modern education till this stage which is up to the requirement of the world standard.

However, the message imparted to the many children via our system and attitude towards education remain dim and temporary purpose.

Why I am saying that? Because students are naturally inclining towards educating for the short term goals or to avoid punishment or to get good grading to get tangible prize when very educators emphasizes such punishment and focuses too much on exam grades, rewards and punishment.

I have read in news recently that some of the parents have approached authority beseeching permission to skip schooling this year to be continued next year. They mentioned that reason is too much of assignments and children not being able to keep pace with it. I wish the assignments were offered with purpose and by letting pupils to know the purpose of the work they are doing in their life and by looking to the future of the nation.

When I share this message am not boasting of, I am just sharing with good faith or it’s a kind reminder to benefit for those acceptors and readers at large.

Mr. Daniel H. Pink wrote in his book, ‘Drive’ under the sub topic, Nine Ideas for helping our kids.

Before offering any assignments, one should test these following questions.

"Are this assignment offers certain autonomy on students how they going to do it or when?

Is this work promoting mastery which let them engage more rather than normal rote reformulation that already learned in the classes?

Do my students understand the purpose of the particular assignment’s offering? Or can they see doing that particular work contributes to the larger enterprise in which the class is engaged?

If the Answer is no, he said that one should redesign the assignments to make children’s time meaningful. And the autonomy as per Mr. Daniel is very essential as it breeds creativity and interest in the subjects. For example, students can be assigned to write or research in topics or issues which is of their choice without any restriction of rules and control over how they do but confining to which is useful for the Nation as large and for oneself in future.

Mr. Daniel says that parents should give their children some allowances sometime to teach them how to manage finance, but it shouldn’t be the rewards for the certain work done by them or for getting good grades in exams. If he or she was offered rewards for certain work, he would demand and expect next time when he does that and steadily it will lose interest in doing that certain job and or he or she would solely do for rewards".

If the children were rewarded for good grades in exams, their purpose will shift to short term from long term. And the sacrifice is very big as in long run students will lose larger purpose of learning.

American Psychologist Carol Dweck has found that to make children productive, praise is important but one should know how to give it and when. She found praises should be given one to one in private specifically confining to his or her but strategies and efforts but not its intelligence. If one praises child’s intelligence and generalize its overall attitudes via praise, particular children or students would view the intelligence as not upgradable and improvable.

  

And furthermore, His Majesty king Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck had said during his Royal address to the nation on December 17, 2019, that world is changing so rapidly, and expressed his noble worries that whether our Kingdom of Bhutan would keep up the pace as per the requirement of the time and in-discriminatory globalization in the present scenario. He further said that world is transiting to the ripening age of information and computer technology such as AI, Machine learning, crypto-currencies, block-chain,VR,Big data, deep learning and internet of things.

At last, but not the least knowing the worries and visions of our King and chiefly the rapid alteration of the world, we the citizen of the nation should change how we impart message of education to children of today to shift their behavior and attitude broadly towards education and learning.

Our children nowadays should be taught practically applicable subjects in life for the larger and broader purpose of nation, by giving bit of autonomy for them during learning process. Importance of continuous learning for fulfilling visions and to make better life and better nation (which is greater rewards). Children should be taught that knowledge and intelligence is not born but made and should be taught to learn importance of particular subjects’ broader meaning of their learning, and schooling rather than educators emphasizing on exams, tests, grades, rewards and punishments.

 And most importantly children those who performed well in exams and those who does not should be viewed as same in classes or publicly without discrimination as praising and rewarding those good graders and punishing and blaming those non scorer publicly, damages or affects the mental attitude and behavior of the majority pupil negatively in further taking interest in continuity of learning with greater purpose.

And by doing so it not only consist to the noble visions and objectives of his majesty but also, system is caring our children with broader perspective to let them breed creativeness and keep our nation’s pace at global requirement in future. As I believe that children uncared and not managed with affection properly today were the future criminals or children in conflict with the laws which would become complete burden to the Nation, People and the king.

THANK YOU

LT.KT

2020