I am an enthusiastic mom who loves to involve myself in my child’s learning process. Before my daughter could start her schooling, there used to be relevant questions and dilemma in my mind such as, ‘ What makes a classroom more active- a smart board or a smart mentor? How should a Gen Z classroom look like’, where I understand that the modern schools are expected to use digital tools in active ways.’ I reflected on the thought that is the new generation pattern of learning digressing from the ‘gurukul learning environment’ which I experienced.
Today, I am happy to share with this generation parents, that I am no more confused. I cherish the way my daughter is learning in her school, which is a true international and child-centric place with respect to its learning environment with the same Midas touch of the gurukul system.
I’ve seen that the lingo ‘digital classroom’, many a times, is wrongly perceived as ‘a student can learn better with a tablet in hand than pen-paper’. What it actually should signify is how proactively technology can be integrated in the learning process so as to complement the hands-on tools. No technological device has brains to comprehend and analyse my child’s specific needs. The device needs a master to program it so well that it can be rightly used at the right point of time to give the apt exposure to children, according to their subjective needs. And..the master is none but the mentor. Coming to a very common scenario now-a- days… children are reluctant to learn spellings, write on paper to express their thoughts but rather type in word pad where there is a spell check option. Students should introspect that the automated script for this option is also programmed by the human brains.
I believe that it is the smart mentor whose enthusiastic presence, involvement and attachment with the class adds life to the lessons and help students have a long lasting knowledge. Smart use of smart boards facilitate the process just like a tool as peer group learning, experiential hands on and so on. Each student is unique and magical in his/her own way. It is the expertise of the mentor to move the wand in the right direction to get the magic out of the child!
Ms. Sukanya Pal