|
Education
Thinking in zeroes & ones
`A DIGITAL divide exists between India and the developed world' remarked a visiting Japanese delegate. I told him passionately of the strides we had made over the last decades towards greater computerisation and the peculiar problems of our country. He clarified that he was not referring to the computers. "In India you do not think digitally!" I have been mulling over the statement and the undeniable truth in the observation that we are non-binary in our responses, hits me from all sides. Take for instance a typical Indian-road scenario. A particular road is marked one way. Which means quite simply that it is 'Yes', for traffic in one direction and 'No', for traffic in the other. However, it is accepted that during the non-peak hours of early morning and late night, traffic may and does flow both ways. Yet again, the rule-book says that the driver of the two-wheeler shall carry no more than one pillion rider. However, in practice, the space in front is the accepted kid's standing-seat. Apart from that, the number persons that the rider may carry, depends on how many manage to stay atop and that varies from two to four!
That is to say that for a given situation, we have a `Yes' option, a `No' option and a third `It's Ok' option! This tendency is manifest in almost every aspect of our lives. How often do we hear/say, `I will be there by 4-4.30', which if you observe, is either four or four-thirty or any time in between (hopefully!). Be it a tailor or a tile layer, our workmen work exclusively within the third option. The attempt is never to make the perfect fit or a 100 per cent right job. And no job, however messed up, is ever declared a `reject'. The target itself is downsized to achieve a `workable' product! Thanks to this attitude, we have a proliferation of phrases in our regional languages for which there is no equivalent English language word. How does one translate, `chalega, `parava illai' and `sumaar", and convey the idea that the words imply? Yet another offshoot of this non-binary thinking can be seen in the way we compromise on just about everything, holding nothing as sacred. Our stand on the right and the wrong is so wobbly that at the first encounter, it shifts position.
I am now convinced that if we are to truly catch up with the West, more than introducing computers in the KG class, we must train our children to think digitally from very young. In all matters of the school, only two options must be made available to the children, the Right and the Wrong. It is commonly observed that schools generally patronised by the middle class and the disadvantaged (which form the majority) are also the ones that are `not so strict' about many aspects of school life. For instance, as a rule, the uniforms in these schools are anything but uniform. Even the newly tailored ones, one finds, is of yet another shade of the prescribed colour. Sometimes the sweater and socks patterns differ in detail. The argument that it would be wrong to burden the parents by over insistence on the exact does not hold water. Getting the exact shade does not require more money. It only requires more attention.
Likewise, the books of these children reflect the casual attitude towards maintenance. Neatness is never insisted upon as a necessary condition. Even in the teaching of the basic skills, no rules are adhered to. Primary class teachers do not insist on the young children following the rules of writing the alphabet with the result that the children develop styles in an arbitrary manner. Silence as a golden rule during assembly/prayer is never insisted upon. In almost all situations, the `good enough' option is also the first. With the result, these children, who shall form the majority adult group in future, get accustomed to perpetually functioning in the gray area and doing a `paravaillai' or `chalega' work.
In practice, the digital training that I am talking of could begin with a dose of the old fashioned military discipline. Nothing but lack of will has caused the dilution of discipline and permitted mediocrity to take firm roots. Unfortunately, regimentation has a bad name as it is accused of killing creativity. True. But isn't the need of the hour a reliable, wider base?
Let scientists be engaged in creating computers as intelligent as the human brain. At the day-to-day level, let the rest of us put in efforts to teach our children to `think' with the clarity and objectivity of a computer!
KAMALA BALACHANDRAN
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Education
|
