[Assam] Harvard & Holt - challenge your teacher - to innovate?

[umesh sharma]

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/03.09/05-summers.html
   
  Summers praised Harvard's "authority of ideas," saying there are few places in the world where a freshman in a seminar class can challenge the findings and conclusions of his or her instructor - even the president of an august institution - as one did in Summers' freshman seminar two years ago. 
  "And nobody thinks that it's a big deal, and the only thing they think worth discussing is whether he is right or not," Summers said, describing the class's reaction. "That is a beautiful and remarkable thing. And if it happened in more places, it would be a much better world. And so I believe what is most important about a place like this is that it is one of the very few institutions in the world that is about the authority of ideas rather than the idea of authority. 
  "And if there is anything that I want for your students coming out ... of a Harvard education, it is a sense that there is no issue that cannot be debated or challenged, that we may never approach personal truth, that we will never find ultimate wisdom, but that the search is a thing of profound importance and is something that everyone can be a part of through their whole lives." 
   
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  Umesh
   
  PS: 
  I had read John Holt's book "Why children fail?" - while in India - translated in Hindi. Perhaps the only book on school education before coming to Harvard's Ed. school. I think it shapes my quest of knowledge still. He also was given problem children of elementary grade (like I am handling nowadays) and he correctly said that such children only teach you how to improve teaching (see http://www.holtgws.com/edofjhp.2.html ) . teaching already excelling students can teach you little about schooling . Students need to be able to challenge the teacher's concepts -and be allowed to learn in their own way.
   
   My students -who make more noise than other classes - challenge me all the time. About the way I teach, the way I sit (yesterday I crossed by legs - a girl exclaimed! that I was sitting like a girl!! -legs crossed tightly together. Others offered to show me how to sit like a man - legs crossed but widely spaced. I have also learned to say "Excuse me Kiara!!!, shall we continue our class" -- and not interrupt their talking bluntly. If I show good behavior then only they would show good behavior. Many more details - but now I reading another classic by Holt - How children learn." 
   
  Holt was a former navy submarine driver and bachelor (like me -atleast till date) and taught primary school students. I think he also must have faced lots of questions about his ability - when it is generally felt that married men and most woman are most capabale of handling small kids. At day care centers where I work as a temp -like I did today - i am often asked -about my interest in small children and how to handle them. Now that I am in 30s - then correctly reason that most of my firends must have children and I must have learnt to play with their kids. Ofocurse, I never mention that my father has been running aschool since I was a kid.  


Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
		
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