Essa came to me one day and said, Shams is doing something new and I might like the idea. He was right. I was so irritated by our education system that I was tired of complaining about it. I really didn't get the point why I have to study so many subjects in my high school and public certification exam where I wasn't interested in them? Why waste so much time studying books I was eager to forget about them as soon as I was done with my exams? I could have learned more about a topic I loved.
What Shams told me that day is that, it is not only in Bangladesh even countries like USA couldn't fix a curriculum that is actually helpful. Scholars all around the world have time and again provided their opinion on how a curriculum can accelerate the learning process.
Think about it a moment, technology is at the peak now. Almost everyone has a cell phone and a TV in their home. Middle class families have access to the internet. Knowledge is more readily available than ever before. Take EEE for example. Now you don't need to graduate as a EEE to make something amazing. All you need to do is go on the internet and find out examples of electronic circuit and try it at home. So why haven't we got any new Einstein in the new century? Why there are so little people are successful in research and development. There should be more bright minds around?
I admit there are several factors why less number of people are actually bothered about pursuing knowledge. Without any doubt quality education is one of them. Think for a moment, when a kid is introduced to all the amazing things he could possibly be, he has his motivation level at the highest possible position. As the kid grows older, he is forced the study subjects he doesn't care about. As a result his GPA is low. As his GPA is low, he can't choose the subject of his choice, he is at the mercy of luck. Again, when you are growing up, responsibilities increase. You are forced to think about having good job and earn a good amount of money. As result, those dreams they used to have in their childhood diminishes and fades away. If there is no dream, there is no hope.
As Shams tells me, scholars have repeatedly suggested that we change our study system from "bottom -> top" to "top -> bottom" strategy. For example, if a kid wants to be an mechanical engineer, let him play and learn with amazing mechanical systems. As he grow more ambitious, then introduce him to calculus and higher mathematics. Teacher wouldn't need to put extra effort to make this kid understand calculus (which is very difficult math) rather the teacher would have problem keeping pace with the student.
I really would like to see this "top -> bottom" system being implied in our country. Of course, as any other system it needs to be thoroughly tested and improved in field level before deploying such revolutionary concept nationwide. That's what Shams is trying to do. He is trying to test all those theories in the practical world and figure out how practical all these papers/researches are. He is not going to start a rebel by trying to overthrow the existing curriculum but his work will indeed move the scholars or the leaders who actually care about proper education. That's why I support WNES, Shams effort of testing this new kind of curriculum.
However, there is one big problem to it. To test the effectiveness we need students. In our country, there are 3 kinds of students. The rich kids, the average kids and the slum kids. Rich kids won't really bother about joining our experiments, average kids don't have any free time between their coaching classes, art classes, music classes, karate classes and so on. So we are only left with slum kids.
This is why we are teaching street kids at the moment. Many people don't really understand the full concept of WNES. They just assume it is just another initiative to educate the uneducated. We are working on how to clear the confusion among people.
With this comes another problem. It is not that easy to teach street kids. As many of you know, there are multiple difficulties to teach these kids. their parents want them to earn money or do something profitable. They don't want their kids to waste time on something which doesn't bring immediate change. Plus not all the kids are passionate about education. It takes a little time to get the flavor. Anyway we are working on this problems one by one.
What Shams told me that day is that, it is not only in Bangladesh even countries like USA couldn't fix a curriculum that is actually helpful. Scholars all around the world have time and again provided their opinion on how a curriculum can accelerate the learning process.
Think about it a moment, technology is at the peak now. Almost everyone has a cell phone and a TV in their home. Middle class families have access to the internet. Knowledge is more readily available than ever before. Take EEE for example. Now you don't need to graduate as a EEE to make something amazing. All you need to do is go on the internet and find out examples of electronic circuit and try it at home. So why haven't we got any new Einstein in the new century? Why there are so little people are successful in research and development. There should be more bright minds around?
I admit there are several factors why less number of people are actually bothered about pursuing knowledge. Without any doubt quality education is one of them. Think for a moment, when a kid is introduced to all the amazing things he could possibly be, he has his motivation level at the highest possible position. As the kid grows older, he is forced the study subjects he doesn't care about. As a result his GPA is low. As his GPA is low, he can't choose the subject of his choice, he is at the mercy of luck. Again, when you are growing up, responsibilities increase. You are forced to think about having good job and earn a good amount of money. As result, those dreams they used to have in their childhood diminishes and fades away. If there is no dream, there is no hope.
As Shams tells me, scholars have repeatedly suggested that we change our study system from "bottom -> top" to "top -> bottom" strategy. For example, if a kid wants to be an mechanical engineer, let him play and learn with amazing mechanical systems. As he grow more ambitious, then introduce him to calculus and higher mathematics. Teacher wouldn't need to put extra effort to make this kid understand calculus (which is very difficult math) rather the teacher would have problem keeping pace with the student.
I really would like to see this "top -> bottom" system being implied in our country. Of course, as any other system it needs to be thoroughly tested and improved in field level before deploying such revolutionary concept nationwide. That's what Shams is trying to do. He is trying to test all those theories in the practical world and figure out how practical all these papers/researches are. He is not going to start a rebel by trying to overthrow the existing curriculum but his work will indeed move the scholars or the leaders who actually care about proper education. That's why I support WNES, Shams effort of testing this new kind of curriculum.
However, there is one big problem to it. To test the effectiveness we need students. In our country, there are 3 kinds of students. The rich kids, the average kids and the slum kids. Rich kids won't really bother about joining our experiments, average kids don't have any free time between their coaching classes, art classes, music classes, karate classes and so on. So we are only left with slum kids.
This is why we are teaching street kids at the moment. Many people don't really understand the full concept of WNES. They just assume it is just another initiative to educate the uneducated. We are working on how to clear the confusion among people.
With this comes another problem. It is not that easy to teach street kids. As many of you know, there are multiple difficulties to teach these kids. their parents want them to earn money or do something profitable. They don't want their kids to waste time on something which doesn't bring immediate change. Plus not all the kids are passionate about education. It takes a little time to get the flavor. Anyway we are working on this problems one by one.
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