It is the
irrationality in us, which makes us human beings. A completely rational human
being is analogous to a computer.
There is more
to human irrationality, as so brightly and rationally espoused by an
Israeli-American professor Dan Ariely, the author of the three New York Times
best sellers ‘Predictably Irrational’, ‘The Upside of Irrationality’, and ‘The
Honest Truth about Dishonesty’.
Wisdom is the
rationality of anticipating, comprehending and dealing with irrationality.
Telling and teaching Wisdom, Intelligence and Acumen is not possible.
Educators, coaches, psychotherapists and mentors can play a significant role,
by assisting with the dissemination of knowledge and helping those searching
for wisdom and acumen through challenging experiences and encouraging them to
work on emotional awareness, emotional self-regulation, relational skills and
mindfulness. Becoming wise is a very personal quest. It is only through our own
experiences, learning how to cope with the major tragedies and dilemmas
embedded within life’s journey, that we would discover our own capacities and
learn how to create wisdom.
Literacy is
about information and knowledge, both of which can be delivered and acquired
thorough formal and informal mechanisms of delivery. The mechanism of teaching
in the process of educations is limited to delivery of information and
knowledge.
Data is the
simplest and the fundamental smallest unit that builds information. Data is
natural truth. Data is like fundamental sub-atomic particles, electrons,
protons and neutrons, which can build different information-elements. Forces of
nature or the hand of divine builds elements out of electrons, protons and
neutrons. On the other hand, living beings gather data, and build Information
using such data. Obviously, information is coloured by the ability and the
intent of the living being, leading to questions of objectivity.
Human beings
aggregate information and encapsulate it into knowledge. They attempt to create
capsules of uniform acceptance and applications, going up the ladder of
conjectures, hypothesis, testing & validation, theory building and enunciation
of principle. Each step up the ladder generates new information.
There are
instances where the conjectures could be so powerful that one directly jumps to
theory building and enunciation of principle stages and leaves it for others,
to go down the ladder, at some later stage and verify the theory and the
principle. Such a later day exercise, may validate, discard, or modify the
existing theory and/or principle. Each step down the ladder also generates new
information.
How is it that
some people are able to skip the steps of climbing up the ladder and
straightway reach the ‘theory building’ and ‘enunciation of principle’ steps?
This is a human capability called Intelligence. It is the ability to perceive
the missing information through a cocktail of intuition, anticipation,
foresight, hindsight and wisdom to complete the larger picture. As if there
were some missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, intelligence allows the solution
of the puzzle without waiting to gather the missing pieces. Others, who wish to
validate, discard, or modify such a solution to the puzzle, go searching for
the missing pieces. If the pieces so found fit the gaps, and the emerging
picture is the same as the solution that was previously advanced, the theory or
the principle is validated. If they do not fit the gaps, either the solution is
discarded or new search for the missing pieces commences. If the pieces found
fit the gaps, and the emerging picture turns out to be different, the solution is
accordingly modified. All such steps and processes generate further
information.
While delivery
of literacy and knowledge is an ingredient of teaching process, even upon
successful delivery, we may have unsatisfactory results. Keenness and quickness
in understanding and dealing with a situation in a manner that is likely to
lead to a good outcome refers to acumen. Acumen shows up as the ability to make
good judgments and quick decisions. Not every literate has the acumen and the
wisdom, two critical essentials for success. To that extent, the education
remains incomplete.
The Indian government approved a National
Education Policy or NEP 2020 in July 2020, making way for large-scale
transformational reforms including restructuring the higher education system.
NEP 2020, a blueprint for the development of education over the next 10 years,
proposes a departure from the current top-down system to allow considerable
autonomy to institutions.
This is the latest, and seemingly, one of the most
elaborate, of an endless series of official reports and programmes aimed at
improving higher education in the post-independence period. These documents,
the first of which was the Radhakrishnan Commission of 1949, continuing with
the national education policies of 1968 and 1986, the Yashpal Committee of
2009, the National Knowledge Commission in 2007, and most recently the draft
NEP of 2019, have all said the same thing. They have all pointed towards
inadequacy of funding, drawn focus to expansion in access and enrolments and
the need for structural reforms. The needs have always been clear and have been
articulated by earlier commissions and committees.
The fixation on success of delivery of education in
terms of increase in enrolments and increase in degree completion rates is as
loud as the lack of focus on the success of a learner in his life, as a citizen
and as a member of the society.
In all spheres
of life, education is an indicator of the potential for success; its opposite,
ignorance; or worse, indoctrination in falsehoods, is an indicator of potential
failure. Education has to ensure acquisition of acumen and wisdom, teaching of
which is not possible. Clearly therefore, Education is more than teaching, it
is teaching for learning. Education, which only teaches but does not facilitate
and ensure learning is an enormous waste of time, effort and resources.
Education has
to deliver ‘literacy and knowledge’ and enable the acquisition of ‘acumen and
‘wisdom.’ An ideal tool would be to put learners into an ambiguous situation
and guide them find the underlying cause of it. Repeatedly dealing with
dissimilarities of ambiguity and diversity of situations would facilitate the
purpose of education.
In our policy, are we focusing on more people that
are qualified rather than more people who are successful, success measured in
terms of their standards of living and the quality of life they get to lead?
Lack of
attention to Pedagogics for Wisdom, Acumen and Literacy in all the Education
Policy documents including NEP 2020 unfortunately is not even a matter of
concern or debate in any public discourse.
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First
published 04 January 2020.
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Labels: Education, General, HigherEd, HigherEducation, Public Discourse, Social
