QQC DAVID AND GOLIATH

BY: MOHAMMED KHIMANI CF: SHRIDHAR JAGTAP

The book is an eye opener. The story of David and Goliath is very interesting. Every part, story of the book is inspiring and gives the strong message that we are carrying a wrong notion about advantages, disadvantages, giants and underdogs. How nicely the connection is made between Advantages and Big Pond and Disadvantages and Little Pond. We underestimate the advantage of disadvantage. Little pond, disadvantage, maximizes your chances to do whatever you want to do. What a powerful and surprising thought and fact it is! As I was reading the book, I could connect it with my personal and professional experiences. I must admit here that it is a must read book for an educator.
Stouffers point is that we form our impressions not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locallyby comparing ourselves to people in the same boat as ourselves. Our sense of how deprived we are is relative.

I agree to Stouffers point and I have observed this. I am associated with one of the prestigious coaching institute of Rajkot which prepares students for engineering entrance exams. The average class strength is around 45. A girl, an average student in academics, was very good at raising logical questions sometimes. But she had neither asked such questions nor answered any of the questions in regular classes. The same student joined the crash course as well. In crash, she was the first one not only in responding but also in asking questions. I was surprised by change in her but could not find the reason. Now, after reading this book I can connect it with Stouffers point. In her crash batch almost all students were from nearby villages or small cities where they had not the exposer of such coaching so they were struggling with their fundamentals concepts and were taking little longer to understand the questions and reply to. Whereas the girl was clear with fundamental concepts and soon after 2-3 lectures she must have compared herself with the students around. Her confidence was boosted which was evident from her face and her enthusiasm. The second such experience is related to master lecture concept. Last year, academic year 201314, we had introduced the concept of master lecture for grade 10 where a master teacher delivers the concept to around 100-120 students at a time. Then there were follow-up classes in individual classes. The advantage was that it was possible for a master lecturer to reach out to all students at one go. Each student could get the best teaching. But it was equally disadvantageous for slow learners. It was difficult for them to go with lecturers pace. Many of them faced difficulty in asking the questions in front of such huge number.

But one of the things we find is that this sort of thing is more often an engagement problem than a behavioural problem. If the teacher is actually doing something interesting, these kids are quite capable of being engaged. Instead of responding in a let me control your behaviour way, the teacher needs to think, how can I do something interesting that will prevent you from misbehaving in the first place?

We all face behavioural problems in the classroom. I have been trying to figure the reason behind such problems. For a group with which I am associated, teenagers, I think there are two reasons. First is that they are teenagers and the second is that we are still following the conventional, chalk and talk, method most of the times. As it is rightly stated in the above quote, we should do some interesting things in the classroom. Recently, when I taught concept of resonance in grade 10 and basics of electric circuits in grade 9 through demonstration, the behaviour of class was totally different. Students were more focused, attentive and curious than they are usually in normal physics classes. Reason is there was something different, exciting and interesting happening. Another example which supports the above quote is the summer spice activities (science fair, business fair, Shakespeares trophy, POL, and year book) organised for grade 9 and 10 students. The purpose was to provide the platform to the students to showcase their talents. Each student was excited and worked sincerely because it was something of their interest. They worked in groups and gave their best. Isnt his a type of project based learning a 21st century learning? Yes, it is! PBL can be the best methodology to prepare our students for 21st century and to reduce difficulties faced by educators in classroom such as behavioural issues.