Why school is becoming disruptive? A wake-up call

Childhood was for me a very special and compelling period in my life. It was an emblem of complete freedom. At that time, I had feelings replete with purity, with no sense of any kind of responsibility.

Most of my actions were performed without caring about the consequences, because simply, I was not under the spell of any disruptive rule, which had considerable impact on my life, paving the way for my imagination to get wider.

It’s the first time to reveal my ambition over that time, being an astronaut was more than a dream, as I was obsessed with the stars in the sky and didn’t miss any opportunity to watch programmes treating astronomical topics. I even, indeed, wondered whether we shared the universe with other dwellers, other creatures with fearsome power. Such obsession drove me to create a simple model of a spatial vessel, and playing the rule of the captain.

The unspeakable happened when I reached school, of course like any other child, in the normal course of life. Then, the dream was gradually vanishing until it came to its end. The reason behind, I was deprived from freedom, freedom of thinking and imagining things on my own. This new stage of life means to be surrounded by disruptive rules made by others and like my counterparts, I was forced to follow, otherwise we would face the music and the outcome was to be subject to punishment.

Moreover, another burden on my shoulders, a monkey on my back. It was question of dealing with a mass of daily homework, most of time not only hard and exhausting, but also made me get other people  involved in my activities by asking for  their help to solve the questions.

 School should be a room whose aim is to refine our kids’ skill, instead of being a creepy dark hole, where mistakes are never allowed, counter to human being’s nature, and caning the students is widely welcome and promoted, with no ambition to provide a space for tempting rewards. Unfortunately, this is what I was going through.

Through these lines, I’m not trying to spread a pessimistic image about school, but I would like to convey a message to those who are responsible for this failure.

If we focus on school and we try to revamp the educational system, then It will be utterly an impressive move, and not only bringing a shift to school, but we will also shape both, the future of our kids and of our countries.

Here I suggest some typical tips to take in consideration while we deal with this issue:

• A reform should take place and target the relationship between the teachers and their students. Chasm between them must be slashed. It’s question of how to come up with new workable solutions to overcome generation gap inside school. This not a very formal relationship, where we must abide by ranks, and teachers should be trained to develop the sense of friendship to grow able to understand their students’ mindset.

• According to experts, the zenith of smartness and innovation during lifetime occurs in childhood. Thus, I urge that the four or five first year of primary school must be dedicated to the process of enhancing and refining skills.

The first thing children need to learn is how to conceive life and deal with its hindrances. Before to make them bear any kind of responsibility, and we have first to prepare the ground by developing their personality so that they be able to handle the missions.

• Reward instead of canning: no wonder that the fact of committing a mistake is part of our life that teaches people how to react in the upcoming challenge. It’s time to adopt a new strategy based on rewarding students, and make them learn how to overcome the previous fall by introducing mistakes as experience likely to teach us how to face the upcoming.

• No more homework: in the first earlier years of school, the notion of homework, in my book, must be eradicated; because I consider it the main reason that let children hate school. Spending about eight hours a day at school is quite enough for a child, besides, home should be place of relaxation in order to give enough time to the children and parents to meet and strengthen their relationship.

School is a place for teaching not for canning. Let our kids love school by providing all kinds of care and love. Frowning, beating and much homework are the tools that destroy the future of both, our beloved ones and our countries, most of time unintentionally.

                              

By Ismail KAMAL