Backspace

In India or perhaps in whole world, teaching and learning has always been a revered and divine thing. The learners have respected their teachers as deities and called them Guru. The Gurus were supposed to and had considered their disciples as their children. No doubt, the teachers have been successful to perpetuate their wisdom. The technological and economical advancements of mankind are proof of this. From time to time teachers have evolved different strategies to accomplish their task and these strategies kept changing.

The modern times are times of scientific knowledge and wisdom. Present day teaching and learning is driven by economical considerations. If we go a decade ago, the persona of a teacher was of great soul packaged in hard shell. No doubt the teachers used to possess golden hearts and completely dedicated to their profession, but the means adopted to perpetuate their wisdom were dreadful. That small bamboo stick used to be an integral part of teaching system.

A teacher could forget lunch box or specks at home but could not forget to bring stick to the classroom. On learner’s part, not understanding what was being taught or making mistakes was a criminal offence and there was no appeal system. The timid souls, who were defaulters of the day, were at the mercy of no one. They had to bend their bodies to the shape of popular animals and had some interaction with that bamboo stick also. Coming back home with non red earlobes and without the lashes of stick were used to be a big victory.

So either you learn or you pay the price of not learning, no other option was there on this planet. Most of the present day teachers are product of this system, me too. Now a days, the means have changed again as physical punishment is discouraged, but the mindsets have not changed.

Still there is no place of mistakes in learning process. Doing mistakes is bad and makes one liable to punishment. It may be a fairly large cross in red ink or deduction in marks or more. Getting these crosses and persecution for doing mistakes is the single most reason for student’s disenchantment towards studies. To them studies are not as interesting as other chores of life. The apps and games on electronic gadgets are succor to them, to unwind from blues of study system.

Why? That revolutionary button called,

This backspace button on electronic gadgets has turned the fault finding system, upside down. You made a mistake? No problem! Just a few strokes on this magic button and your mistakes disappear. No red marks, no deductions and even no proof. Now learners on these systems are not offenders of making mistakes, mistakes are totally reversible. That’s why young learners follow these apps and games with so much enthusiasm. They learn about these to the minutest details with great interest as there is no fault finding system.

But physical teachers of our education system still lack this button. For them, the learning process consists of finding, highlighting and penalizing the mistakes. There is no backspace for mistakes, because they themselves have studied in this mindset. If we educators install this backspace button in our mindset, stop hating mistakes and just delete them, we may also become interesting to our students. After all, we the physical teachers are privileged to get so much respect from these young souls and even they bring food on our dining tables, they are entitled to get service from us on the lines of present day system. Let’s become service providers and not dictators. Let’s install backspace and stop hating mistakes. Peace.

By: Mr. Ranjit Singh