An Academic Exercise of Learning by Teaching

Teaching is not a unilateral affair at all. We, the teachers know the essence of the issue emerges when the stakeholders from the other side of table also make their presence felt. This blog records here about those teacher-student learning and teaching moments which enrich the whole process with more meaningful way.

Come and Cheer the learning by teaching and sharing.

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Wednesday, 5 April 2017

#4# University of Student's Perspective: Grace Sam


Universities are not here to be mediums for the coercion of other people, they are here to be mediums for the free exchange of idea.
(A. Bartlett Glarnatti)

Grace Sam
A teacher owes to be the second parent to a child starting his/her initial schooling, so is the university/college a second step towards progression of life of a student making it worth to have pride upon.

Passing out from the school opens us to a wide area to be witnessed from where there is no turning back. Initially the selection of courses to pursue, the college or university to take admission in, the accommodation etc., are the existing confusions. Thereafter after getting the admission, it’s the thought of attending classes with new faces around you and also a practice session of how to carry oneself throughout the first day. Thinking that now I should behave and talk like a mature person, we start our going least knowing that the journey towards our maturity has just started. 

Gradually one gets comfortable and adjust oneself to the surroundings and the people around. It is our interaction with the people from various strands in our university which helps us to understand and build our own perspective about the things which were undefined before us.

The existing concept of how a university should be, is like having big infrastructure in a very big campus, standard facilities for a student to feel comfortable around, precise time-tables, constrained syllabus, upgraded technologies etc. But the original purpose of all these is only to assist a person in the process of learning instead of making it criteria pursuing knowledge.

An institution named University should be a place which is open to all those who are eager to learn. It should be a place where students are helped to grow instead of picking out students based on their merits, their percentile marks or grades. The marks gathered from a single examination doesn’t display the student’s capability of understanding and applying a particular thing in their daily life, as education without its implementation in life is worthless. Though it helps to know where a student stands but it is totally unfair to make a conclusion on its basis.

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A university should admit students on the basis of their eagerness towards the pool of knowledge, though the value of eagerness being abstract it is almost out of question to measure the eagerness in a student. But instead of only putting the marks as criteria, an alternative should be established which is free from creating any barrier to a person who indeed is in deep thirst for knowledge. 

The time spent inside a classroom be it during the lectures or for other co-curricular activities, it shapes-up students to open up from a comb of shyness, lack of interaction, and to change an already existing wrong perception and even creating new avenues. A classroom should be a place of listening lectures from teachers and interacting with him/her as well as with the fellow classmates gaining and also departing information unknown or least-known by others. It helps in balancing a cordial relation in terms of knowing the degree of perceptiveness by a student. 

The limited or constrained syllabus pose a serious barrier in the process of learning, that’s because a particular discipline cannot be taught in isolation with each other and in no account, that without talking about other related things a particular discipline can be taught. The framing of syllabus to be completed in a particular duration of time wholly limit the avenues where the link or the connection between two different topics or discipline can be taught. It eventually leads to high knowledge about a particular topic but when it comes to practical implementation the knowledge proves to be worthless.

In order for a system to run efficiently, an orderly and systematic method is required which asks for the setting up of a standard syllabus for teaching the students. In such case, though topics or subjects should be decided but it is best to keep it away from limiting the knowledge to that particular topic.

Today’s education system witness various races in which all the determined to be on top-- race among universities to be awarded the number-one university, race among faculties to prove their own discipline to be the most important one, race among students to secure the highest scores in examination, forgetting the basic purpose of their education.

Extra-curricular activities are also of much important part in the running of a university. In today’s world where the achievement of advanced technology is appreciated much more handicrafts, it is important for a student to be taught the value of involving in the activities of the society by being there in person. Though the help by the advanced technology is much appreciated but the emergence of e-books, e-games etc., have in some way influenced minds to think like robots. Hence the appreciation towards extra-curricular activities is as much important as appreciation towards education.

If you feel you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.
(Robert F. Goheen)

As a graduating student, in all ways I can say that my graduation studies and teachers have helped in developing my personality, my educational standards, build up my perspectives, opened me to observe the world and form anopinion of my own. I see the change in myself from the first day I started this phase of my life to the final day of this phase as well as the coming days.

B.A(H) Political Science
Galgotias University

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