• October 30, 2020
  • Pedagogy

So what age does the process of forming a successful young person starts? Many experts say that a child’s neural systems start to get wired for either mediocrity or excellence at around the age of 5 to 7.  

For better nation, building young children play a vital role because their success directly and indirectly impact GDP and other course of events. So besides the focus on development of infrastructure, the government’s effort must also be placed in the education of the young ones: not only for the buildings and teacher's salary but also in the research and development for the best pedagogy to produce the type of manpower we need.  

In this article we are going to cover some concepts related to pedagogy and their impact on the child upon reaching maturity at the workplace.  

Traditional pedagogy

The teacher comes in the classroom. Students stand up and greet him. He starts teaching based on a curriculum provided to him by the authorities. Students listen or at least act as if they are listening. The teacher tries his best to finish this days’ lesson plan before the bell rings. It does and the students eagerly jump out of their chairs to wherever their heart is set to: the canteen or the playground. At the end of the year, there is an exam. Students study and take the exam. Some pass, some cannot. Then the cycle repeats itself.  

What this pedagogy has produced in the workplace is the following positive and negative behaviors by employees:

Positive ones are that 
They are obedient and do not question authority.
They abide by the rules of the organization.
They have enough aptitude to follow instructions.

Negative effects are that
They are not proactive
They cannot think creatively or out of the box
They cannot or do not ask enough questions to fully understand and thus effectively execute instructions.  

Current New Pedagogy: Montessori style to ECA packed day

Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos openly credit their success in innovative thinking and entrepreneurial acumen to the early Montessori education. Many of course have succeeded despite of such an education or without any too but this is more likely to be an exception than rule. 

Anyways so in this format, the student’s day is filled with a mixture of formal education, and extracurricular activities (ECA) ranging from drawing to karate. This type of pedagogy will instill in the student skills of collaboration, group work, communication, commitment, exploration, leadership, multi-talent, left brain and right brain coordination and so on.  

Positive effects upon maturity
They will be naturally proactive with all the above skills so required in today’s competitive world of business and development
They can reach the position of leadership must faster
They can help their organization to succeed

Negative effects upon maturity
Since they got everything so easily, they would have taken ECA as granted just a like a student passively listening in class. As a result they will be over proud but with no ability to use the qualities jam packed in their heads.
Because of the high self-esteem and early exposure to American literature, they will think that working in Nepal demeaning and so will opt to go to America, Australia or any developed country anyhow.
Those who stay back will be too shy and risk averse to become real entrepreneurs and make rags to riches story. 

Conclusion
The role of education in nation building is obvious as we found from the above explanations. In an ideal world, the government would decide what type of manpower they need after 25 years and design a pedagogy that would deliver accordingly. However, we live in a less than perfect world. We know from common sense what type of people need: entrepreneurial, leader, collaborative, very knowledgeable, ethical, patriotic, having a long horizon for success, indomitable, skilled, creative, problem solver. 

What type of education system can produce this en mass in 25 years? 

Authors: Mohan Ojha & Manohar Man Shrestha