Stop Teaching, Start Learning | Mariappan Jawaharial | TEDxEchoPark

all right I did my grade school in Sri Lanka in South Asia a little island I completed my middle school in high school in India for those who do not know Asian parents are very particular about their children's education they are very concerned they will do anything and everything to give a good education for their children in fact your success in those countries at least in those days when I was young was decided by the profession that you are going to get fortunately my mother was not a tiger mom my father was not a tiger that they allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do but there was a social pressure an invisible pressure that holds you down you got to decide who you want to be when you grow up and this decision is made very early in your life when you are in 5th standard or 610 where really you are 10 years old and you got to make a decision who you want to be and there were three choices given to me by the society at large not my parents and the first choice is you be a doctor no wonder 20% of the doctors in this country are Asians although they constitute less than 5% of the population the second choice was become an engineer 50% of the engineers in Silicon Valley are from Asia and the third choice is it the failure so today we trust dr. engineered failure what do I do and I was ten years old now I always thought doctors deal with blood and I wasn't sure that's something I can handle in fact I fainted at the sight of blood so that's not for me and that's the most lucrative and preferred desirable profession so I lost that one right away and nobody wants to be a failure by choice so I said okay I got to be an engineer so I decided to become an engineer because that was the only choice I had now don't get me wrong I had a lot of fun in my school I had great teachers but my path was said you got to be an engineer that means I was like a horse with blinkers on with limited vision this is the direction you go from your grade school to be an engineer now that was a journey I started looking back you know I didn't what do you know pretty good I enjoyed what I did but if I look back and think about learning how was that experience it was more like preparing for an exam all your life every single day you go to school prepare for something that is unknown that you got to pass it is like teaching to the test now that kind of a feeling was very difficult but we all handle very well it was like you know the correct word would be I put in my time you know it's like a very criminal going to prison coming back and saying I did my I paid my dues it was like I paid my dues in high school and I went on to become an engineer and in fact after being an engineer for a few years I wanted to be a professor because I thought that more fun and teaching so I went to graduate school meaning I put it I paid more dues now the point is more and more we did this what is the difference between teaching and learning what did they learn at the end of the day that was the question I had so here I am an engineer and an educator now as an engineer I am very practical you all know engineers are very result oriented people they focus on results they don't care about emotions they base their ideas on facts in fact we developed precise definitions and and rules and that's one reason I never argue with my wife because there are no rules you can't win all right so for me to talk about education is very difficult because I have never seen a precise definition for education everybody seems to have a definition for education but good thing about education is everybody wants education I do not know if anyone who says I don't want education in fact parents wants education for their children for parents want education for their children rich parents want education for their children all parents once as a kid middle-class parents want education for their children and the best thing is children also want to have education for themselves so everybody wants education but what is it what is education do we love education for students as far as students are concerned education is all about study go to school study go to school study studying is education very recently someone told me studying really means students dying studying so so if you are not enjoying education if education is not an enjoyable activity why do everybody want education well I thought about it and the only thing I could come up with this education gives you hope hope to get a better job hope to change your social status hope to acquire some new skills hope to meet new people hope to make your parents proud and happy hope to learn some something new something that will make you happy but all our students really learning something new something happy something that will make them content that doesn't sound right in fact last week I saw data our student college graduates obtain a degree and come out of college with a debt of $30,000 on an average now think about a 21 year old or 22 year old young man or woman coming out of college with $30,000 debt for me education is all about learning and learning in my opinion is an inherently satisfying activity think about last time you learned something anytime something a lightbulb goes into you oh my god that was not awesome or it could be a little thing that you made you cook the nice dish whatever that is you learn something you did something nice you feel good about it you are satisfied so learning is inherently as satisfying activity is that what we get in schools doesn't sound like that now I always go back to childhood look at children when they start walking they don't start walk when you want to walk they walk when they are ready and they take their time it is not one day they get up and start walking it takes time for them to get up they fall thousands of times before they stand and then they fall thousands of times before they make their first step and then they fall still thousands of them before they can walk it's a process and we adults enjoy that process we do not go tell them hey let me give you some lessons on how to walk we don't now I give this example because I feel this is a real example where kids actually learn without you teaching them learning occurs in the absence of teaching but then some of my colleagues would tell me no you know what walking is not a good example because you know it's there in the animal world it's it's it's in your intuition all right let's now talk about walking let's look at another skill language learning a language is a very difficult process okay I challenge you you decide you pick up a language that you want to learn today and start learning maybe go to the Community College enroll in a class or if go to some tutoring or sign up for an online class and see where you are three months from now or six months from now renew your language skills now think about a child they learn language by listening by observing siblings parents and others sometimes these days they watch a little bit more TV - that's new but they learn language on their own a five-year-old master's language on his or her own way I do not know of a parent who goes to a child and says okay let me give you some grammar lessons today because language is very important skill in fact most parents probably cannot teach grammar so so parents are not teaching and kids learn learn and master language in two or three years and when they make mistakes it's fun think about you know you have in your own family little kids and then they make pronounce the word incorrectly you don't score them you actually laugh at them and you enjoy you say it's so cute my daughter used to say the word libraries to take her to the library for storytime couple of times a week she would say library and that's such a laugh you know I don't know when she changed from library to library I can't remember but she used that word library for a long time and we had a lot of fun we laughed together but when I used the word incorrectly or mispronounced the word knife I was punished in grade school I still don't know why there's a K in knife I still don't know but I was punished nobody said it was cute okay but the point here is kids learn master language on their own very quickly by interacting with their environment nobody gave them lessons coaching foreign language classes alright but what happens to them a little bit later after five they go to school now they learn the language every day in school by a qualified teacher and they do that every single day five times a week 300 maybe 336 weeks a year 180 days of learning and they do that every year now let's see what happened to the same kids in SAT and a CT and maybe in GRE our students do poorly even in language compared to kids from Asia I'm not talking about math that's a whole different story that we'll need another TED talk I'm just talking about English the language that they mastered on their own till they are 5 and then they start losing that what's going on here well I know what's going on they were learning earlier that's what was going on and then teaching started and things went downhill from then onwards so what did he got to do stop teaching start learning because what is happening with teaching is sacrificing learning teaching is all about teachers learning is about students so the moment you bring the concept of teaching the teachers become the players here how I want to procore my PowerPoint slides how am I going to present it to the students it's all about you not about students all right so you detach yourself from the students and that's what happened with teaching in fact I have seen one day a colleague of mine running through the slides of the slides of the slides and the class is over and the students are not listening and he still going through the slide let me finish this let me finish this is that how you taught how to walk is that how we taught how to learn a language now all of a sudden you go through this complex math in a matter of few minutes through PowerPoint presentations what do you expect so teaching is not learning if teaching is learning all what you are learning or teaching should be transferred to your head if that happened there will not be any failures every student will be an A student if teaching is equal into learning everybody would be great there is no there are no failures but that's not the case so there's a disconnect in fact we try to front-load students with lots of information and that doesn't help and information overload is not transferring knowledge it is going to actually shut down the system that's what happens to our students they start texting they start doing stuff in fact I found this particular slide take a look at this this is from 14th century 600 years ago Henry of Germany King is on the podium and in front of him there are three or four rows of students there are about 25 students like a regular class these days okay watch the row on the first row they have some books some people are listening or looking at the book look at the third row the guy on there he's totally asleep and look at on the second row that is someone is still falling asleep and there are some people chatting on the back is it I mean slightly you know it slightly change this room it's not different from today's classroom there's a professor or a teacher at the podium reading out a PowerPoint presentation or something like that and there are students some listening some looking at the book doing something replace these books with maybe some laptops and iPads and cell phones and those chatting people probably would be facebooking or something like that this classroom is no different from what was there 600 years ago this is exactly what we are doing today with modern technology that's about it ok students are not there they are not engaged and the teacher is doing what he our thing's supposed to do that's teaching that's why we have this time teach so if we have to stop teaching how do we go back and bring that involvement of students how do we bring back the joy of learning the magic of learning well all I know is you have to engage them the only way we can help students learn is not by lecturing but by engaging them now that's kind of a loaded word what do you mean by engaging well there are some symptoms or indications for engagement something that captures your attention like you are driving there is an accident you want to know what it is your attention is right there that's a moment that you are ready to engage or you are self-motivated think about hobbies it's amazing to see how many people who spent tremendous amount of time on their hobbies which doesn't create you an income you actually spend money on your hobbies probably your spouse is yelling at you for your hobby because you're putting so much time and money into your hobbies because it gives you certain level of satisfaction you are motivated to do something right or you are doing some hands-on activity you are learning to drive while riding a bike you are engaged so there are ways how you can attract students attention that's one way but how exactly you have to relate attention and engage them now one way that works for me trust me I'm an engineering professor it works for me so it should work for most of you is stories a lot of people think stories are meant for maybe history classes or maybe English classes but stories make powerful impact on our life give you one example when I was a kid I always like to listen to stories I would tell my mom tell me stories tell me so sometimes the same stories again and again I don't think I was no different from any of others then I have my own case my wife would tell stories and I would tell them occasionally stories but I didn't have my stories so I ran out of story so I'll make up stories but then I ran out of them too and when you make up story they're not that good okay you make it up on this part they are not funny but but anyhow so one day I was sitting and reading a book in the afternoon the book some of you might have read called swimming across the author of the book is Andy Grove who was the legendary chairman of Intel he was one of the cofounders of Intel by an Intel for a long time and interesting he passed away a couple of months ago Andy Grove everybody knows in Silicon value throughout the tech world so it's his book I was reading lot of tech books and Andy Gross book I was reading swimming across so my daughter comes to me she was five or six years old she comes to me dad what are you doing I said I'm reading a book and she didn't ask me she just sat on my lap and say what is this book about I said it's swimming across huh across what I said I'm reading the book it probably across a river hate a minute story I said okay I'll tell you tonight and then I said this is a big book it's going to take some time we will do part one part we will keep going so that night I start telling the story of Andy Grove who was born in Budapest and in 1956 when the Soviet Union supported a coup in that country he escaped Budapest by swimming a crime Daniel the river time he came to America the rest is history I told that story over a beer a few days all my daughters listen to the story years later much later fifteen years later my daughter was a hero and she calls me from Budapest dad do you know where I am I got 15 years later she's telling me she was where and ego was returned to our kids I didn't frame them I didn't teach about Intel but there is a story about intellect and I could teach microprocessor programming with that story you can build stories around anything a lot of people tell me in engineering or you deal with equations in math you deal with equations you can't tell stories every equation has a story behind it story is the whole thing well if you tell that's okay anyhow where was I okay so the equations every equation has a story behind it not just a story it could be an it's not an engineering story most of the time there's an emotional story there is jealousy there is struggle there is perseverance if you talk about calculus is one of the most hated subject I have no idea why that's in my opinion one of the easiest subject to teach but you are shaking your head why because that's not how it was presented calculus was invented by Newton to help people to solve real problems but if you don't do that now right and there is a war between Lebanese and Newton I could tell you that you will say I want to know that story that could be a bedtime story okay so the point is you can develop stories around it that's one way to engage the kids and you don't have to teach them you have to show them put a little fire fuel for inspiration show them to get started that's all you need for the kids and they will do the rest one last thing I will add is make things easier and simpler when you teach your kids or when you work with your young kids you don't go and lecture them you don't give them complex things same thing it doesn't matter what you teach or what you do in your class to make it explain it to a level of a fifth grader many of you would have heard about the name Richard Feynman the renowned physicist American physicist he was in Manhattan Project and many other projects if you go and ask him a question he would say okay I have to present it in a way that everybody understands so someone asked him a question can you fine to us he said I'll come back and explain you know two or three days because I had to make it simpler a few days later he came back and said you know what I don't think I understood the concept very well because I'm unable to explain it in a simple time Richard Feynman renowned physicist telling that I don't think I understood the concept because I'm unable to explain in simple terms what are we doing we are hiding behind equations if you don't understand you are not small enough to understand so here is what I tell when I work with my colleagues if you cannot explain a concept that you are going to teach to your students to a fifth grader you don't understand the concept that's it so I practice that if I have to teach Newton's law to a second year engineering student I practice it with the fifth or sixth grader if I can't explain it to them in a simple broad term then I don't understand that myself so if you have if you are any students here here's what I tell you next time when you are in a class if your professor tells you something you don't understand ask them again could you please explain I don't get it if they cannot explain you in a different way in a better way that makes sense to you trust me they have no clue what you are talking about that's a simple testing test for their knowledge not your ignorance all right so there are ways to engage students and I believe as educators if we stop teaching the way we have been doing and turn around and start helping students to learn we'll be better off and and it's not that hard we just have to figure out a way to engage students and bring back the magic of learning thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 90,258

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Education

Id: AaCMfIUH2PA

Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2016