In education, the death of curiosity

KM Sheshagiri 

TWO incidents serve as a backdrop to this piece. The first one dates to the 1980s. Astronomy was a childhood hobby, and I was a member of the Association of Bangalore Amateur Astronomers. One evening, after a lecture on star formation, I glimpsed through a telescope the ‘Crab Nebula’ at the centre of a rapidly rotating ‘pulsar’ — what remains of a large star when it has run out of fuel to burn brightly. The squeeze of gravity compresses matter into a very dense state, so much so that even a teaspoon of this matter can weigh tonnes! When I asked my teacher about it the next day, he looked blank. 

Twenty-seven years later, in J&K, I was supporting the Autonomous Hill Development Council of Kargil district to improve the quality of schools. We did a baseline survey which showed that on an average, children asked only one and a half ‘factual’ questions per class. Teachers asked two questions per class, and not the ones which would generate discussion or enquiry — an indicator of what happens inside our classrooms. 

Teachers can’t know everything, but shouldn’t they be curious if they are to fire up young minds? Schools are meant to nurture various kinds of human abilities.  Curiosity needs to be carefully nurture in this increasingly uncertain and rapidly transforming world in which humanity’s survival is at stake. It will enable children to ask, why are things the way they are? What do they mean for us? What can we do? For this, teaching needs an overhaul, going beyond exams. If we can understand motivation, it will help us better prepare teachers for 21st century challenges. 

Frequent testing and assessment kill teaching practices that nurture curiosity. We are trapped in a quantitative paradigm where learning outcomes have become more important than what these can actually do. Questions about the purpose of education are sidestepped because everyone wants results. Critical aspects are glossed over because they cannot be easily measured.   

These days, bureaucrats showcase digital systems designed to monitor the learning outcomes. In this Orwellian approach, imagine a District Collector calling up hundreds of teachers to warn them to improve the scores as he is able to see them on his dashboard, far away from their schools — the danger of employing technology in education mindlessly! 

Ranking leads to manipulation of results. This obsession translates to ‘teaching to the test’; children are exposed to the same or similar test items that they will be asked later under the garb of a learning survey. 

The second thing we need to do is reduce exam anxiety. Passing an exam is the end-all of school education. Can schools then be seen as nurturers of curiosity? 

The agenda of making school truly a place for the curious child has been hijacked. Sadly, we are doing everything else in the name of education.