‘One-way teaching has become passé’

This is the age of collaboration on education, said psychiatrist Dr Kannan Gireesh at Thursday’s Times NIE Webinar in association with Bharath University, which threw the spotlight on coping with new normal teaching methods. “A one-way method of teaching will not work,” he added.
The lockdown has posed several challenges for school education. But while the pandemic has delayed the physical return to school, it has also thrown open a menu of alternative learning methods, which was what was discussed at the webinar.The chief guest was minister of school education KA Sengottaiyan who highlighted the measures being taken by the government like telecasting classes on channels at a scheduled time for free.
Dr Mohamed Rela, chancellor, Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research, who has been in the medical profession for more than three decades, spoke about looking beyond academics. “What kind of doctors and engineers are we going to create if we only look at their academic scores? Look beyond that into what human beings we are molding,” said the liver surgeon.
K Srinivasan, regional officer Central Board of Secondary Education, Chennai region, said the board had created online open resources available to teachers. “There are more than 15,000 audio and video files for teachers to use.”
Gireesh explained that it was important for parents to have open conversations with children. “You cannot probe and advise, just learn to sit and talk to the child,” he said. “Watch out for warning signs of physical, mental and emotional fatigue.” He also said the teacher needs to create a platform where a child can vent their emotions privately.
Motivational speaker Bharathi Baskar spoke about how it was critical that teachers be trained. “Teachers are still grappling with technology. They have to adapt to being collaborative. Invest in training the teacher,” she said.