Creativity in scholastic endeavours

M Sadagopan *

A teacher in a primary class in a government school in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu, had to take a break from the session to attend to some urgent work in the Headmaster's room. To avoid children creating nuisance – empty mind being devil's workshop – he gave them an assignment just to keep them busy. He instructed them to individually write down the numbers from 1 to 100, add them, and put down the result in their class work notebook, and went out on his errand.

The children, too small as they were, were finding it too difficult even to write down the numbers, in order, from 1 to 100, and were tearing their hair apart, deeply involved in the exercise! One boy simply wrote down the number 5050 as the total, and was keeping quiet.

The teacher returned and shouted at the boy sitting pretty while the other kids were 'engrossed' in their assignment. The boy quipped, 'the total that you called upon us to make, sir, is 5050'. The teacher, distrusting, began totalling the figures himself, and could not arrive at the total in the time available during the rest of the period, when the bell rang. He looked questioningly at the boy, who explained as follows:

"There are 49 pairs of 100 from 1 to 100, like 1+99, 2+98, and so on up to 49+51. That makes 49×100, which is 4900. Add to it the numbers left out, namely, 50 and 100, and the total is 5050". He then went on to derive the formula for the sum of n natural numbers from 1 to n, which is etched in our memory today, as n(n+1)/2.

The student was none other than the celebrated mathematics wizard, Srinivas Ramanujam, We have come a long way since, in our scholastic endeavours, and when the system is ripe enough, why do we not produce a single Ramanujam in each class?

Substantially because we degenuisise our children and prepare them to answer questions and never to question the answers! The present education system expects the children, young and grown-up alike, to mug in the class and puke in the exams, and evaluates them by this norm, without giving them space for innovation. The competition getting intense under this system, sets as high a cut-off as 99.75 for direct entry in medical colleges in many states.

The students, teachers and parents, all are under immense pressure in this self-defeating system which is crumbling by its own weight. When everybody is competing on the same variables, the competition gets over-heated, but nobody gets ahead in the long run, when values get the better of principles, while actually, it should be otherwise! Most of the 'successful' professionals are not able to effectively address the challenges of real life situation.

Chetan Bhagat brings it out succinctly in his "FIVE-POINT SOMEONE" (later filmed as "THREE IDIOTS") when he laments that the IIT, Delhi, of which he is an alumnus, has not produced a single innovation for more than a decade.

Now, consider a situation where, for 3000 odd seats in a state's medical colleges, there are 4000 candidates coming out with 200/200 in each of the subjects counted for direct entry. For a tie-breaker, 'other considerations' apply. And some really brilliant candidates with 199/200 in any qualifying subject would be denied entry!

Where does the solution lie to wriggle out of this sorry state of affairs? The system can consider some 10 marks beyond the 200 allotted, for answers to questions far beyond the syllabus, like 'latest trend in open heart surgery', 'artificial blood innovation', etc., which would really detect students' aptitude to walk the extra mile, and decide using this as a tie-breaker, rewarding the genuinely interested, while the cut-off can otherwise remain unaffected. Other such possibilities can be explored.

Mark Twain rightly quipped, 'I never allowed schooling to interfere with my education'! Here is a scholastic system that interferes with real education. Only by individual initiative unaided by the system, and even discouraged by it, Ramanujams surface, few and far between. This results in the operation of the Pareto rule, by which, 80% production comes out of 20%. The ratio would gradually get down to 90:10, and eventually, to 100:0 resulting in the "Tragedy of the commons" enunciated in Game Theory, when the entire system would totally collapse.

How much of the time available is effectively used in classrooms at schools? Allot five minutes or so, to encourage children to work on something on the following lines, and carry it as homework.

Set them thinking that 1×1=1, 2×2=4 i.e.,1+3 ( the next odd number after 1), 3×3=9,i.e.,1+3+5, 5 being the next odd number after 3, 4×4=16, i.e.,1+3+5+7,and so on. Ask them to study the pattern and find out a short-cut solution for the square of any given number , following this pattern. The teacher does not need to know the answer, and the students need not be compelled to come up with the answer either. A child is a lamp to be ignited, not a vase to be filled. Just stimulate their thinking and wait!

Your columnist is sure that along the way, some Ramanujams will emerge out of this class exercise along with mass education. This is precisely the role of a teacher, if children are to be prepared for a morphing future which we cannot even imagine. Are parents listening?

Let us create curiosity, if not excitement, in children. If the teacher is a thought leader, students will emerge as action heroes! Alexander was great because, his teacher, Aristotle, was great! Aristotle was a thought leader, and the most powerful conqueror, Alexander, is imprinted in history as action hero. Why give our children banana, when they can have the Big Apple?