The “last bell” regular ceremony was held yesterday. The graduates, as expected, were expressing their gratitude to the teachers. I would not say that their words are untrue, but from my personal experience, I can argue that during the years of teenage and youth, we do not understand to the end about which teacher taught us what at school or at university. At that age, it seems to us that we are very clever while the elders and particularly, the teachers bother us with their backwardness, prejudices, and unsubstantiated claims. I, at least, thought so, and only when I turned 40 years old I realized that my teachers and professors did everything within their capabilities for me to obtain knowledge.
It’s another matter that if it were depending on me I would radically change the whole education system, today’s the way of educating is outdated not only in Armenia but in the whole world. In my understanding, it does not meet the requirements of the post-industrial period. What is an industry? A production line, which should give a large number of standard products, and it requires people who would stand at various workstations of the production line and would do all necessary actions. This is not true about the economy of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. It develops by selling not the product of the production line, but the creativity though and the knowledge of the specialists.
By teaching “in the way of a production line,” we squander human resources, which, indeed, is unacceptable for a small country like us. We fit in the outdated molds – a “strong, hard-working and promising students – weak, lazy, hopeless students”, “necessary part – unnecessary part.” Promising what by our extreme subjective standards is unnecessary we lose a very important potential. Education now looks like a plant, an industrial facility, whereas many foreign specialists believe that it should look like an agricultural, a farmer’s practice watching the plant growing from the seed, which later would give fruits.
Education, in short, should not give the list of knowledge but how to awaken a passion of lifetime studying and improving. It exists in any human being, and the teacher’s task is to understand how and what the student wants to learn. This “ecological” approach requires skill and patience. But applying the “industrial” method today, it seems to me, is just wasting time.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
