In the century of information, first the knowledge is sold than the products
“Poghosik, come to the blackboard. What was the assignment for today?” “”What happened when two lumps of sugar disappeared from the sugar-bowl” story by Nar-Dos. “Well, answer your lesson.” “The main character, Anan, first the mother-in-law, crazy Horomsim, was clawing for the fact that sugar is missing from the sugar bowl and then her husband, Yagor, kills her.” “Very good, Poghosik, you have read the story. And now, tell me please, what is it about?” “The slavery of a woman.” “Well done, sit down, excellent.”
This how the literature and many other subjects were taught in our schools for decades. The one who can remember the information and reproduce it, he/she is a good student and who cannot – is a bad student. What is this story’s “practical application”, it is hard to say: that the girls should not be treated badly, that sugar should be treated sparingly, or before the marriage, you should check whether your mother-in-law has a certificate of insane or not. If children were taught this story for these purposes, then we can state that this knowledge, nevertheless, did not have a decisive impact on the Armenian reality.
But why only on the Armenian reality. In the 20th century, in the whole world, education is carried out by this method. The gun is put on the forehead of the child or the student in the form of an academic mark and is was required to reproduce the information in the textbook, sometimes appeared by obscure standards. In the industrial century, the model of which was the factory, where it was necessary to have educated workers and engineers, this approach was completely justified. But in the era of technologies when not so much products are sold but the knowledge, this approach is outdated. I will allow myself to even assume that the negative trends in the global economy, starting from China and India and ended with the United States, are partially explained by the fact that the education system prepared staff, figuratively speaking, are “engineering”, in other words, are aimed not at creating new knowledge but “to do the assignment” based on the available knowledge.
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It is no coincidence that thesets up interest groups attached to the schools in various regions of Armenia but not in the frame of the school subject curriculum. The reason is not only the fact that in the latter case, the school principals will just “write down hours” for their guards or daughter-in-laws, who will not teach these subjects, but also giving the “global” concern into account, even in the event of conscientious approach of the school principals, as a school “subject”, planning and adjacent skills will be taught as they were taught “Our Neighborhood” by Nar-Dos.”
I have always thought and even wrote that it is the time to give up the notion of a “subject”. And recently, I read that in the most advanced country for education, in Finland, they are also thinking about it. Until 2020, Finns are going to quit the traditional scheme of teaching by subjects and organize the lessons by topics. There will be no academic hour for literature, history or, let’s say, mathematics but there will be an hour or chain of hours for this-or-that subject. Suppose, the children study the topic about “restaurant”. This will contain in it mathematics, languages and communication skills. For the class of “EU”, it will be necessary to pass the subject like history, economics, geography and again languages. Incidentally, the children will be divided into small groups and the team work will be encouraged.
It is clear that Armenia is not ready for such radical changes. But some steps in this direction are mandatory. The imagination of our education responsible persons and school principals, as I understand, is not developed in this direction. Perhaps, it is necessary to teach “Our Neighborhood” too (although we have a lot more talented writers). But, for example, as a performance dedicated to Tbilisi of the 19th century.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN,
Aravot Daily
