- Blog By
Dr. Shivkumar Chinnusamy
Managing Director
The Indian Public School
May 2, 2020 | In Blog 
Many believe that it is the duty of the school to provide EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION in terms of offering excellent content delivered in an effective manner that will lead to high scoring in examinations, which in turn will pave the way for a successful career and future. As an educator, I defer from this view. There is no doubt that good content and delivery will help students score high and place them in top universities but extraordinary education is beyond content and delivery. What is equally important is EXTRAORDINARY EXPOSURE and EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE that would not only create successful careers but also lifelong happy learners.
Extraordinary Education
EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION definitely requires quality content and effective conceptual delivery through subject matter experts, but what it requires more is being able to relate those learnings to real life, leading to meaningful action. Any learning is incomplete if it is disconnected to real life or does not provide avenues for meaningful action. In order to achieve extraordinary education, we must have deeper planning. The planning should be vertical, meaning a continuum across grades and also horizontal, meaning intra-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary. Intra-disciplinary is making connections within the same subject area and trans-disciplinary is making connections between different subjects, some of which extend beyond the traditional such as arts, sports, media, etc. All planned learning engagements should focus on developing skills like thinking, research, communication, social and self-management apart from developing specific sub-skills. This will lead to more meaningful learning that will create SUCCESSFUL CAREERS and LIFELONG HAPPY LEARNERS.
Extraordinary Exposure
Exposure is nothing but creating ample platforms for children to explore, learn and grow. As schools, we have to make sure that we create such opportunities for our children. When we focus on supplementing EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION with EXTRAORDINARY EXPOSURE, then we will be able to create confident and knowledgeable lifelong learners who can thrive successfully in any given environment. Exposure includes providing opportunities to identify their strengths, encouraging them to take up new challenges, access to basic and advanced digital technology and platforms, creating a hands-on learning environment, providing them an opportunity to visit, stay at and explore new places, academic field trips, providing varied choice of subjects or courses from which children can choose and learn, providing opportunities for children to learn and exhibit working models in different learning areas, exploring different forms of arts and sports, and much more.
Extraordinary Experience
The experiences a child goes through during their school life play a phenomenal role in shaping their character and life, for that matter. EXTRAORDINARY EDUCATION and EXTRAORDINARY EXPOSURE without EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE will fail to create happy souls. Extraordinary experience is possible by providing students the freedom to make choices, take decisions, make mistakes and also supporting them to realize and learn from it. Extraordinary experience is possible by creating an open environment where children feel confident about expressing their views and also suggesting appropriate actions. It is more about the relationship between teacher-student and student-student. Extraordinary experience is based on the kind of environment that we set for them. A transparent, safe and a truly democratic environment will surely give students extraordinary experience. Finally, we have to understand that school is a community of relationships.
As education evangelists, it is our duty to create these 3 E’s for a meaningful school life and beyond.
